I find the word ‘perspective’ to be an ever fascinating one, a noun with two meanings that conjure up such strong imagery, imagination and long thought processes.
On the more clinical side, perspective is simply art representing three-dimensions in two-dimensional ways so that you can see how things relate… which is interesting.
Interesting because the deeper version of the word encompasses feelings, people’s attitudes and point of views on anything and everything, life if we want to boil it down to a single word.
Small Saga has a lot of interesting perspectives.
Visually it shows a world that we as humans live in but from the view of a few inches tall, that of rodents - mice, rats, moles and more.
This perspective is not just visual but asks the question how would these animals view the rest of the world, if they had the cognition of a human - including not only other animals and their surroundings but also humans themselves.
This is the simple and smart appeal of Small Saga. A JRPG-lite with classic fantasy archetypes, kings, warriors, knights, mages, bards and more but with mice, rats and other small creatures.
Much like some of the best JRPGs of the past, our protagonist Verm’s goal is to, in search of revenge, kill a god!
The Yellow God, here however, is a human in yellow coveralls and a mask. This yellow god filled a land, seemingly heaven, full of all the seeds and grain a mouse could want full of a terrible fog and nasty traps - as a human being playing this game however, you realise that heaven is a supermarket aisle and this Yellow God and his fog are simply - pest control.
The different perspectives Small Saga uses though are not all world building, they don’t just pose questions about “what does a mouse think a cat is?” but brings in conversations about a whole host of much more serious matters, minorities, diversities, class, gender, sexuality and how these things are perceived and looked at by different views.
It is strange, because in 2023 it is not rare for a game to “be woke” as morons may say, by including queer relationships, characters with disabilities and to make anti-fascist statements but something about how it is written and how it is woven into this world made it stick with me more personally than many of these more outright queer etc. games do.
Perhaps it’s because the game isn’t trying to be about these things, these things just are.
Perhaps because Small Saga’s world feels closer to home, the world (and it’s map) are actually London and because of that the cast has a great diverse range of character voices written with quality dialogue that includes, English, Welsh and Scottish slang, amongst more, that makes it all feel that much more real for me - an English lad, with Scottish family and friends, Welsh pals and a diverse range of people I call friends from all of the pre-mentioned groups.
Although as an aside, do Scottish people actually say “Bampot”? It’s a term I know of and heard, but only really as a joke, usually of a Scot doing an exaggerated impression of a specific kind of Scot.
Before I move to more granular and mechanical impressions, I need to stop and state that Small Saga’s world, characters and ideas within that setting are excellent and the true selling point of this game. Games are not always about what you are doing, but I appreciate that simply enjoying a story isn’t always enough for some when taking part in this medium.
Small Saga’s tale is great, it is somewhat of a simple hero's journey but it makes great points and has inventive ideas along the way. Any time the word “simple” comes to mind in terms of story, it is maybe better read as “nice and digestible” - the game never becomes bloated, it respects you but also has a few optional moments if you would like more from the world and your runtime.
JRPG is the short-hand for how I’ve explained what genre this game is. @SketchyJeremy the games developer is evidently not Japanese so turn-based, is a more accurate description but clear inspiration has been taken from the JRPG genre, Mario RPG and Final Fantasy: The Four Heroes of Light and more.
The Turn-based combat system is one that is simple to grasp, heroes have hit points and action points, moves take action points to use and hit points are as always your life.
Turns start from your team, starting right and moving left until your actions are made and the enemies respond. Within this your heroes can aid each other with buffs, more AP, more HP and even extra turns and you quickly find yourself following a formula to efficiently defeat the opposing side.
The characters you gain access to include, a warrior, a pyromancer, a bard and more. These work exactly how you’d expect if you’ve ever played a game like this which is comforting but a little too frictionless.
Small Saga forgoes any potential “grinding” as there are no random encounters and levelling up happens at specific points and after particular battles.
When you do get to level you have access to a grid that does branch into different areas allowing you a choice of not just do you want attack strength or more HP but also which abilities you would like your characters to learn. The other nice thing about this grid is you can respec at any time so there is no stress if you wish you went down a different path.
Lastly on the character customisation front, each hero has a weapon, armour (just one set) and two accessories which are consumable which refill after each fight.
Overall this combat is clean and simple, which is good, the fights look great - some brilliant use of visual perspective, fonts, and even some fun additions later so not all fights are exactly the same but within this combat is one of Small Saga’s biggest issues and that is lack of challenge.
To be so frictionless makes any encounters outside of bosses quite boring, and even within some they are over so quickly you don’t get a chance to appreciate them.
Over my entire playthrough I saw the game over screen twice. Once was due to a mis click in a timed event and the second was a poor attempt at an optional boss that really was down to me running even this impressive looking encounter on auto-pilot and not engaging with it fully.
I hope in the future there is a patch for some difficulty sliders because whilst having a sub-8 hour game feel quite frictionless is nice the complete lack of challenge almost makes you question what is the point.
Outside of combat, mechanically there are a few side-objectives. Most of which are sadly just fetch quests, there is some good storytelling within but the variety is somewhat lacking, a maze and a couple of rhythm game bits and that is your lot.
It’s a shame because I don’t think Small Saga “needs” anything more, but it is hard to praise the game from this side of things when really there is nothing new or interesting to prop it up in discussion.
Really, Small Saga is about the experience in art, music and writing. The combat and any “gameplay” functions are more a way to keep you engaged outside of just walking about and reading and this is fine.
I thoroughly enjoyed Small Saga and would heartily recommend it, but I cannot rate it so high especially when even this year other small studios (maybe not as small) have released more full and interesting games in the JRPG space. It is all remarkably close and for the asking price this game should still be on your Steam Wishlist after reading this.
Just don’t expect a GOTY, mind-blowing, world altering time - expect a very nice, very enjoyable little tale about a mouse with a penknife and go from there.
On the more clinical side, perspective is simply art representing three-dimensions in two-dimensional ways so that you can see how things relate… which is interesting.
Interesting because the deeper version of the word encompasses feelings, people’s attitudes and point of views on anything and everything, life if we want to boil it down to a single word.
Small Saga has a lot of interesting perspectives.
Visually it shows a world that we as humans live in but from the view of a few inches tall, that of rodents - mice, rats, moles and more.
This perspective is not just visual but asks the question how would these animals view the rest of the world, if they had the cognition of a human - including not only other animals and their surroundings but also humans themselves.
This is the simple and smart appeal of Small Saga. A JRPG-lite with classic fantasy archetypes, kings, warriors, knights, mages, bards and more but with mice, rats and other small creatures.
Much like some of the best JRPGs of the past, our protagonist Verm’s goal is to, in search of revenge, kill a god!
The Yellow God, here however, is a human in yellow coveralls and a mask. This yellow god filled a land, seemingly heaven, full of all the seeds and grain a mouse could want full of a terrible fog and nasty traps - as a human being playing this game however, you realise that heaven is a supermarket aisle and this Yellow God and his fog are simply - pest control.
The different perspectives Small Saga uses though are not all world building, they don’t just pose questions about “what does a mouse think a cat is?” but brings in conversations about a whole host of much more serious matters, minorities, diversities, class, gender, sexuality and how these things are perceived and looked at by different views.
It is strange, because in 2023 it is not rare for a game to “be woke” as morons may say, by including queer relationships, characters with disabilities and to make anti-fascist statements but something about how it is written and how it is woven into this world made it stick with me more personally than many of these more outright queer etc. games do.
Perhaps it’s because the game isn’t trying to be about these things, these things just are.
Perhaps because Small Saga’s world feels closer to home, the world (and it’s map) are actually London and because of that the cast has a great diverse range of character voices written with quality dialogue that includes, English, Welsh and Scottish slang, amongst more, that makes it all feel that much more real for me - an English lad, with Scottish family and friends, Welsh pals and a diverse range of people I call friends from all of the pre-mentioned groups.
Although as an aside, do Scottish people actually say “Bampot”? It’s a term I know of and heard, but only really as a joke, usually of a Scot doing an exaggerated impression of a specific kind of Scot.
Before I move to more granular and mechanical impressions, I need to stop and state that Small Saga’s world, characters and ideas within that setting are excellent and the true selling point of this game. Games are not always about what you are doing, but I appreciate that simply enjoying a story isn’t always enough for some when taking part in this medium.
Small Saga’s tale is great, it is somewhat of a simple hero's journey but it makes great points and has inventive ideas along the way. Any time the word “simple” comes to mind in terms of story, it is maybe better read as “nice and digestible” - the game never becomes bloated, it respects you but also has a few optional moments if you would like more from the world and your runtime.
JRPG is the short-hand for how I’ve explained what genre this game is. @SketchyJeremy the games developer is evidently not Japanese so turn-based, is a more accurate description but clear inspiration has been taken from the JRPG genre, Mario RPG and Final Fantasy: The Four Heroes of Light and more.
The Turn-based combat system is one that is simple to grasp, heroes have hit points and action points, moves take action points to use and hit points are as always your life.
Turns start from your team, starting right and moving left until your actions are made and the enemies respond. Within this your heroes can aid each other with buffs, more AP, more HP and even extra turns and you quickly find yourself following a formula to efficiently defeat the opposing side.
The characters you gain access to include, a warrior, a pyromancer, a bard and more. These work exactly how you’d expect if you’ve ever played a game like this which is comforting but a little too frictionless.
Small Saga forgoes any potential “grinding” as there are no random encounters and levelling up happens at specific points and after particular battles.
When you do get to level you have access to a grid that does branch into different areas allowing you a choice of not just do you want attack strength or more HP but also which abilities you would like your characters to learn. The other nice thing about this grid is you can respec at any time so there is no stress if you wish you went down a different path.
Lastly on the character customisation front, each hero has a weapon, armour (just one set) and two accessories which are consumable which refill after each fight.
Overall this combat is clean and simple, which is good, the fights look great - some brilliant use of visual perspective, fonts, and even some fun additions later so not all fights are exactly the same but within this combat is one of Small Saga’s biggest issues and that is lack of challenge.
To be so frictionless makes any encounters outside of bosses quite boring, and even within some they are over so quickly you don’t get a chance to appreciate them.
Over my entire playthrough I saw the game over screen twice. Once was due to a mis click in a timed event and the second was a poor attempt at an optional boss that really was down to me running even this impressive looking encounter on auto-pilot and not engaging with it fully.
I hope in the future there is a patch for some difficulty sliders because whilst having a sub-8 hour game feel quite frictionless is nice the complete lack of challenge almost makes you question what is the point.
Outside of combat, mechanically there are a few side-objectives. Most of which are sadly just fetch quests, there is some good storytelling within but the variety is somewhat lacking, a maze and a couple of rhythm game bits and that is your lot.
It’s a shame because I don’t think Small Saga “needs” anything more, but it is hard to praise the game from this side of things when really there is nothing new or interesting to prop it up in discussion.
Really, Small Saga is about the experience in art, music and writing. The combat and any “gameplay” functions are more a way to keep you engaged outside of just walking about and reading and this is fine.
I thoroughly enjoyed Small Saga and would heartily recommend it, but I cannot rate it so high especially when even this year other small studios (maybe not as small) have released more full and interesting games in the JRPG space. It is all remarkably close and for the asking price this game should still be on your Steam Wishlist after reading this.
Just don’t expect a GOTY, mind-blowing, world altering time - expect a very nice, very enjoyable little tale about a mouse with a penknife and go from there.
Snigglegros
5 months ago