Saturday Morning RPG (PC)

Today I'm having a quick look at Saturday Morning RPG released on iPhone, Ouya, Linux, Mac and also Windows! I don't know much about it, but I'm 90% sure from the title that it's likely to be an RPG.

I should probably mention upfront that I'm friends with one of the people who worked the game, so my opinion of it is in fact worthless and should be disregarded.

(Click the screenshots to expand them into more reasonable resolutions.)

Uh? I guess we're not going to bother with an option screen then. Fuck graphic settings, we're jumping straight into the action with the wrong resolution and the side of the TV disappearing off the side of the frame.

Oh, there are borders now. I can live with borders.

I was expecting this to look like an classic SNES RPG, a bit like Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, perhaps, but no this is all 3D and polygonal. Well except for our paper-thin hero, who has apparently deflated during the night. Man what sort of egotistical video game character has a poster for his own video game inside his own video game?


MEANWHILE, INSIDE HIS HEAD:

Oh no, Marty fell asleep with the television on, and now a cartoon supervillain has entered his subconscious, invaded his dreams and kidnapped his girlfriend! Good job he didn't fall asleep watching Saw, Hostel or the Human Centipede really.

Though he does still have to fight off a squad of well armed villains with only his fists, cheesy dialogue, and a unshakeable conviction that bad guys NEVER triumph!

Hey the art style changed when the battle started! Where's all the black outlines gone?

Actually never mind that, I've finally managed to get the option screen up so I'm quickly going to fix the resolution.

Huh, I can set the enemy level scaling? I always appreciate having options (and it sure would've been nice if I could flick that to 'off' in Final Fantasy VIII and Oblivion), but at the same time I feel like the player shouldn't have to make this particular choice themselves.

Oh now I see the problem I've been having: the resolution is set to "New Year's".

Damn, I should've made this my January 1st game! If only I'd known.

I have a feeling that the 'tri-buffer 74-bit sprites' option does about as much as the 3D acceleration option in the notably two dimensional Curse of Monkey Island... but I'll click the checkbox just in case.

While I'm in my menu room I might as well check out some of these other options. This is my notebook, which seems to work a little like equipment slots, as they've given me stickers to put on the front to boost my attributes.

I can also stick a unicorn on the cover to give myself an additional bonus! Or other pictures I guess.

Ah, so there are notes in this notebook after all. Man, these look just like the pages of notes I scribble down while playing a game, ryno jets and all. Only I don't tend to tape photos of myself to them.

Nice to see the good ol' floppy disk showing up as the save icon. I hope those things are immortalised over the years as a glyph representing the concept of saving data, even when the actual blocks of plastic are long forgotten.

Oh crap I forgot I was I was in the middle of a fight!

Huh, did I miss the fight? Seriously, I came back out of the menu room and he'd already lost. Well they haven't killed him yet, so it could've been worse.

Oh hey there, mysterious floating stranger. This guy has invaded my dream to give me my magic notebook that I was looking through just a second ago, because with it I'll have the power to actually win a fight for once. Potentially.

Hang on, 'The Wizard'... why does that sound familiar? Oh hang on, I recognise the Power Glove now. Yes, I get references to 80s movies and it's all very amusing I'm sure (though to be honest I only knew about the film because it was featured in an Angry Video Game Nerd video).

Alright then, Marty vs Goons take two. Let's see how well they do against me now that I'm actually taking part in the fight.

Wait what? I... what cursor? I'm thinking I may have made a mistake when I decided to play this with a controller.

It seems that the stickers on my notebook have to be activated before each fight by quickly scratching over them before I get the stat bonuses. Probably makes more sense in the iPhone version.

Okay, so this has a turn-based JRPG style battle system, with the turn order displayed at the top of the screen. I've got three options to pick from: 'battery', 'item' and, uh 'fist', and according to Fred Savage floating in the background there, I should be using up my limited stock of items to kill this first enemy.

Right then, I guess I'll choose... the rhinestone glove.

Oh, it's a Michael Jackson moonwalk attack! That's... definitely a reference to a thing that happened in the 80s.

After a few more glittering backhands to the face, the enemy was defeated and I was presented with this detailed performance graph! Damn now I'm trying to figure out what arcade racing game this reminds me of.

I'm also trying to figure out what this actually means, as if the bars really do refer to my damage, defence and speed, then there should only be three points of data on this chart. I thought that it might just be showing my damage chart at the moment, but no amount of clicking seems to change the graph.

Alright, my next lesson from The Wizard is how to use the charge move (represented by a battery icon) to increase my damage multiplier. There's three types of charge methods here: rapid click, non-interactive and gauge, and next time I think I'm going to go with the one that doesn't wear out my poor mouse button. I appreciate having the option though, that's some canny game design for sure.

Charging up my attack takes a turn and costs mana, but I get some back with every successful hit and it recharges between battles, so I'm not bothered. As long as I get that thing past 2.0x I consider it a good use of a turn.

I mentioned 20 seconds ago about how I can charge up the multiplier using a gauge... well this isn't it. But it's a bit like it. This is actually my laserdisc discus attack gauge: the bar flies from left to right and if I click in the blue zone I get a good hit. Getting it in dark blue is an even better hit.

My limited use items turned out to be only limited per battle, so I get them all back again at the start of each fight! It's definitely not the kind of RPG where you have to ration your potions to last for a whole dungeon.

Anyway, a couple of charged laserdiscs blasted the guy into little cubes, Lawnmower Man-style... I think. Whatever, the dude died in a way that makes a reference to an 80s movie and then the fight was over.

Me too man, for sure! With this dream notebook I can take on dream Commander Hood and rescue my dream girlfriend!

Oh wait, you're talking about the bloody glove aren't you?

Yes yes, that's awesome how you're still dragging that joke out. We're all very impressed.

Alright, I've finished my tutorial battles and The Wizard's finally gone and pissed off, so now I've earned the freedom to walk around this place freely. You know I shouldn't be so harsh to The Wizard, as he gave me a pretty good tutorial without overstaying his welcome or overloading me with info.

Well there's no point checking out the vending machine as I don't have any money. Hey didn't Barkley have vending machines too? Wow such a total rip off.

Oh oh, I've got something new in my Notebook! Gonna check that out.

I always appreciate a good journal in RPGs. Doesn't have to be anything crazy, I just need to know where I'm meant to be going and why.

Not so sure about the coloured quest arrows on the level though. For one thing I don't know what colour points to what objective! But also it's turned 'find the secret magic cave' into 'follow your GPS to the secret magic cave'. Don't get me wrong, if I was in a town right now and they'd asked me to visit the bloody village elder then I'd have nothing but praise for them, but in these narrow corridors it doesn't seem possible to even miss the place. Maybe they'll make more sense when the game opens up a bit.

I can see enemies wandering on the level, so there's no invisible random encounters. Guess I should get this over with then, seeing as there's nowhere else for me to go. But what special attack item should I use this time? Oh oh, I know...

3.6X charged zebra assault! I'm going to pretend that the extra .6 is what gave one of them a skateboard.

Wait, it's flashing up Xbox buttons at me! Fuck I thought I switched that over to mouse control when it kept asking me to click stuff earlier. Well that was a total waste of a 3.6X multiplier, I ain't getting an A rank for this one. Plus I'm never using that attack again.


MERE SECONDS AFTER MY INEVITABLE VICTORY.

Hey I found a new sticker in a box of RcAstleys. Get it? You see they've written 'RcAstleys' instead of 'McDonalds', and used an R logo in place of the golden arches! It's funny because when you open it, you get Rickrolled!

Actually no you don't, you just get a sticker. So, uh... I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume there's a joke here that flew right over my head.

Oooh is that a Sword of Omens up there behind those impassable rocks? I've never even seen ThunderCats and I still want that shit. It may just be a background object to add a bit of life to the scenery and torment me, but as long as there's a chance I can find a way around to it I'm gotten stay hopeful.

What sticker did I get anyway?

Oh forget stickers, check this shit out! I've got a Care Bear in my bag that projects waves of joy and friendship that can kill a man dead in just a few hits. They've managed to weaponize love and... you know I think Marty might have actually started the game off with this already in his inventory for some reason.

I bet you could figure out what was playing on his TV tonight from the things he's found in this dream so far: Care Bears, a McDonalds advert, a Rick Astley song, a trailer for The Wizard etc. I'm just going to pretend that's what they were going for.

I'd yell something witty like 'Taste the Rainbow', but it's not really a rainbow is it? Still, it did a respectable amount of damage to this mid-boss. Enough to make her get all Shang Tsung on me and use her shapeshifting powers to transform into... Marty. 

Fortunately Fred Savage taught me well in the ways of blocking, so I'm able to survive my own skills used against me.

This is a bit like Super Mario RPG, in that pressing the button during an enemy attack negates some of the damage. Clicking at the exact right moment blocks even more of the damage and unlike Mario RPG, the game's nice enough to indicate when it's worked. Plus I even get MP back for it. So yeah I basically just said this game does something better than Super Mario RPG just then.

I threw a few laserdiscs right back at her and that was enough to force her to transform back again. A few more charged hits and she was dead.

Hey, I got a level up! I love these things. This screen is little bit like Super Mario RPG as well, letting me choose a... actually I don't have to explain this, the screenshot's pretty self explanatory.

Hey, it's one of those 'figure out the right order of notes through trial and error' games! I tried to play a little tune with it and accidentally keyed in the right code, so now the rocks don't do anything any more. I guess all I can do now is go through the door they opened up and go check out this Magic Cave then.

Hey, it's a computah and it wants me to stop all the downloadin'. That's from a redubbed G.I. Joe youtube vid right? That means it actually has something to do with Saturday morning cartoons (almost)! But seriously it really does want me to go and stop all the downloadin', that's my sidequest here.

Oh check out my awesome hoverboard by the way; that's from a Saturday morning cartoon called Back to the Future 2. I've actually had it from the start, I just didn't realise it until I accidentally clicked on Marty and it appeared.

Vending machines are so much better when I have cash. Shame it doesn't tell me what any of this stuff actually does (or if I own it already). I think I'll grab Optimus Prime and the joystick, seeing as I haven't seen them in action yet.

Oh great, I have to play Breakout to pull off this attack? How do I control the paddle... the mouse doesn't seem to... and the ball has just bounced off screen. Well that worked about as well as the zebras did. I would've done more damage by throwing the joystick at them.

There we go! If in doubt, hit 'em with a truck.

Stopping all the dowloadin' got me a floppy disk with 'OS' written on, so I should probably swap out the joystick and give that a try.

Whoa... total existence failure! That guy's not coming back without a full reboot. Is that a MS-DOS blue screen of death? If not then they totally should've gone with a good old 80s error instead:

See, this one's far funnier, because it's a reference to something I remember from my childhood!

Damn, I feel like I should instantly recognise this from something. I'm running through my mental list of episodes, trying to remember one where a super villain tried to marry a high school student, but I got nothing.

There's no dialogue options, so approaching the wedding triggered a scene where Marty ran up just as the P.R.I.E.S.T. got to the "if there are any objections to the marriage of these two individuals..." line and automatically objected.

I think Commander Hood took it pretty well.

Though I do have to fight him again, and this time he's wearing armour. Now I've got to waste a few turns getting rid of it before I can attack him directly. It's fine though, I've got laserdiscs, floppy disks, Transformers, Care bears and a full packet of health cookies, so I can last a while.

By the way, is everyone else seeing this when they look at those command icons, or is it just me?


A FEW TURNS LATER.

Oh awesome, he's able to summon his armour back and he can bring in reinforcements! Now I have to decide which enemy I should hit. Where's my reinforcements, huh? I've been playing this for almost an hour and I still only have the one party member.

I'm getting a bit worried here to be honest, as I'm running low on items. Plus my magic's very nearly gone and I use that to charge my items' attacks up and make them worth something.


A FEW MORE TURNS LATER.

Getting a bit more worried now. I'm almost out of health and I've only got one cookie left in my items box. I've thrown absolutely everything else I've got at him and he's still standing. I'm sure that fist icon is the 'regular attack' button, but seeing how The Wizard drilled into me at the start that I'm useless without magic items, I've been avoiding using it.

Well I've eaten the cookie now so I really have no other options here but to charge my multiplier and then punch him.

Defeated him with a critical punch! Turns out that the basic attack does crap damage, but it can be charged up using the same power gauge minigame as the laserdisc attack. A click at the right time as the bar is filling up makes my punches righteous.

But anyway, that was all a dream and never actually happened.

Though Marty finds that his rad magic notebook is waiting for him in the real world! Spooky!

Also Marty's got to get up for school now, so I guess that couldn't have been a Saturday morning cartoon he had on TV after all! Actually now that I think about it, it could've been live action for all I know.

Goonies! There's another movie I haven't seen. No wonder I'm struggling to get into this game, I've barely seen anything its referencing.

I honestly wasn't expecting to get anything close to an A rank with how badly I've been doing in combat, but it seems that simply turning up to all the fights counted for something. I missed out on one of the quests because it asked me to feed little Smurf creatures to a crocodile. Marty was all for it, but I'm not going to sacrifice semi-innocent beings just to get experience points! Not in a game with level scaling anyway, I mean what would be the point?

They're rolling the credits already? I've only completed one episode! It didn't even take me an hour!

One thing that the game definitely gets right is the music and that's not a massive surprise considering who provides the soundtrack. I mean Vince DiCola wrote the score for Transformers: The Movie (the animated one) and Rocky IV, two classic 80s movies... that I haven't actually seen so I can't talk about them. Though I did like that track from Transformers that was totally ripped off for the C64 version of Turrican (youtube links).

Kenny Meriedeth on the other hand has been "involved in the musical scores for over 200 popular cartoons and shows like Duck Tales, X-Men, Power Rangers, Full House, etc." according to the game's kickstarter page, which makes him sound like he's exactly the person you'd want for this game.

There's a special Christmas episode? Damn, I should've made this my December 25th game! If only I'd known. Though, uh, wasn't Commander Hood a fictional cartoon character a second ago?

It seems that I've got three other episodes here to play right now in any order and the developers are still working on ep five. How many more the game will end up with is a mystery, though there's an achievement for completing 20 of them.

In addition to the main game there's also an 'Endless mode', putting me against wave after wave of enemies until I eventually run out of cookies and collapse, and Arena mode, which lets me choose a single enemy to appear and utterly kick my ass.

I think I've seen enough of this now, but I can't be done with it until I figure out what this computer is. I'm sure I've seen that keyboard with the orange Enter key somewhere before, but I just can't remember what it was.

A TRS-80 Model III is my best guess, though it's not an exact match. Anyway, what was I doing? Oh right, I'm supposed to be writing up some kind of conclusion.

SATURDAY MORNING RPG:
THE CONCLUSION.
The game seems alright actually.

Well I wasn't really that amused by the story or dialogue to be honest, as the humour seems to be based around reminding me of things I potentially liked in the past rather than being something I'm liking in the present. Plus the first episode felt like a small tutorial dungeon to me, without much scope for exploration, and the design wasn't all that interesting. It's also missing that 'gotta kill two more enemies and then I can finally afford those awesome adamantium socks!' factor, which has been all that's kept me going through a fair few tedious RPGs.

The combat system on the other hand seemed like it was going to be fairly shallow and easy at first, but I soon found myself in fights I couldn't finish by spamming charged rainbows alone (and the bonus modes wipe the floor with me entirely). The game uses bits and pieces from other RPGs to keep the player awake during fights, like Super Mario RPG's timed block and the 'hit the button at the right moment on the gauge for a stronger attack' feature from games such as Shadow Hearts, Lost Odyssey and PGA Tour Golf, and personally I found that it took the edge off the monotony.

Man, I'm really sounding very down on this game, more than I'm meaning to. I think that one of the problems I have with it, is that when I think of Saturday morning cartoons I come up with names like Transformers, G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Hero Ninja Turtles, Biker Mice From Mars, The Real Ghostbusters... uh Samurai Pizza Cats; series about teams. In this however it seems like there's a good chance that Marty is going to be all alone throughout the entire game, which means that the enemies always get a whole lot more turns than he does each fight. Maybe they should've called it 80s Movie Reference RPG or Webcomic RPG. Or better still, maybe they should've got the Venture Bros. license and made an RPG out of that. Maybe they still can!

But the big question is, do I want to keep playing it? Do I? Do I really want to keep playing this? Do I really want to see Marty's adventures at school in episode 2? Honestly I have to admit that I kinda do... but just because I like to click the button when the bar has reached the right place on the gauge. So fine, it can have a bloody star.

But I remind you that my opinion is in fact worthless and should be disregarded.

You can grab Saturday Morning RPG yourself for money at Mighty Rabbit Studio's very own website: mightyrabbitstudios.com, or on Steam. Plus people with iPads and iPhones and other expensive objects beginning with a lower case 'i' can download the first episode entirely for free!

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Next time on Super Adventures, I finally finish playing through the Fallout games! Probably. Anyway, you can leave me a comment if you feel so inclined, your feedback is much appreciated.