the musical style of Final Fantasy IV, which had emulated fingerstyle playing, instead emulating slapping with help from sound designer Minoru Akao. Compared to the "smooth" sound of Final Fantasy, Ito described the score of Romancing SaGa as "rough", using different instruments to Uematsu's work. Ito was left completely burnt out after his work on the game. Two soundtrack albums were released in by NTT Publishing; the original soundtrack, and an arrange album. A remaster of the original album was reissued in 2019. Ito returned as composer and arranger for the PS2 remake. Ito found returning to Romancing SaGa both enjoyable and painful due to the fan expectations and love surrounding the title. A part he enjoyed was allowing tracks to sound as they were intended outside the hardware limitations of the Super Famicom. Ito worked on the revised score for two years, joined in his work by Tsuyoshi Sekito and Kenichiro Fukui. The battle theme "Passionate Rhythm" featured vocal contributions from Kyoko Kishikawa, who had previously worked with Ito and other composers including Yasunori Mitsuda and Yoshitaka Hirota. Square Enix hired singer-songwriter Masayoshi Yamazaki to perform the remake's theme song "Minuet". Reception Original Upon release, the game topped the Famitsu sales charts from February 1992 to March 1992. By 2002, Romancing SaGa had sold 970,000 copies in Japan, ranking as the fifth best-selling SaGa title at the time. As of 2004, the Super Famicom original has sold over 1.3 million copies worldwide; over 1.1 million were sold in Japan, with further overseas sales adding 150,000. Famitsu magazine's panel of four reviewers faulted the game's graphics as inferior to those of Final Fantasy, but lauded the freedom of choice given to players through its narrative and gameplay progression. Super Famicom Magazine praised the game's Free Scenario System, which allowed players to repeatedly enjoy the game however they wished. In March 2006, readers of Famitsu voted it the 53rd best video game of all time as part of the magazine's "All Time Top 100" poll. Writing in a 2017 retrospective on the original game, Tristan Ettleman of Vice praised the game's ambitious open-ended structure compared to other titles of the time, but faulted its execution and confusing battle mechanics. Remake Minstrel Song was the top-selling game in that country between the weeks of May 2 and May 26, 2005. During the first week, it sold around 217,000, coming in ahead of