It seems like it's been nothing but drab sci-fi games forever around here. My previous post was dystopian misery in Crusader: No Remorse, and my next post is going to be a gloomy survival horror derelict spaceship thing. What I need is some wonderful, colourful, adorable game to lift everyone's spirits!
| Developer: | Jeremy Noghani | | | Release Date: | March 2022 (Demo) | | | Systems: | Windows |
It's time to play the brand new demo of Small Saga! Well, it's brand new to me. The Kickstarter ended three years ago, but this latest standalone demo was released this year. I was told there was a cat in it, and that's all I need to know.
Except of course it's not old at all. That curved building on the middle left is 30 St. Mary Axe, also known as the Gherkin, and the dangerous looking pointy one on the right is the Shard, completed in 2012. (Wikipedia links.)
This means we're going to have a fab ratty adventure in present-day London! Or rather, underneath present-day London...
THE UNDERRIVER
What manner of vermin lurks beneath our feet?
Our hero Verm is on a daring adventure with his older brother Lance to pass through the Underriver and raid the 'god's food hoard'. We're to follow those arrows on the wall.
Of course you can't go exploring in a dangerous, unfamiliar place without a teeny tiny blue squeaky mouse toy to cuddle.
There's going to be lots of forehead slapping for players who go through the game trying to fill up this page and end up one Trinket shy of an achievement because they didn't go backwards one screen during the prologue. Oh well.
We're apparently prepared to defend ourselves against any rats we do find if it comes to it. Lance asks if I'm scared and I can have Verm answer yes or no, which is cute. I've decided I like these little fellows already.
We used their lolly bridge, and now Bree and Stilton here want us to pay a toll. Which is, you know, fair. We did do that. And have you ever seen a rat make a bridge out of sticks? Couldn't have been easy.
It's the player's choice whether Verm pays or not. Offering to pay gives you a polite, agreeable Verm, and refusing gives you a belligerent, abrasive Verm. It's moot since we don't have enough money to satisfy them, so you know what that means!
The world vanishes into a blurry, diamond-shaped BATTLE WHOOSH!
The game looks even better in motion since the camera constantly shifts from side to side over the parallaxed ground as actions take place in the battle, but not in a grotty, Sega Saturn-ish Grandia way with misshapen, badly scaled sprites and awful backdrops.
And then the game starts blasting wonderful medieval rock-poppy flutes and fiddles right into my awe-struck ears and I let the sprites idle for a minute or two while I soak up the mood.
If you want to know how to make an exceptionally good first impression in your game, this is how you do it.
Wait, this is an RPG? And it takes place in the present day? Yeeesssss! *triumphantly stamps the tag on the game*
Every turn, each hero gains one action pip 🔷 (shown in the corner), and the different attacks they have cost different numbers of pips to select. Verm can Attack with a Swipe 🔷, and he can Defend. Lance has Quick Shot 🔷 which does some damage, and Mega Shot 🔷🔷 which does some more.
There's no options to change my characters' formation, and the two Bad Rats seem to be on the same row, so either the game hasn't introduced its 'long lange' battle mechanic yet or Lance's arrows are just for show. There's no timing challenge for extra damage on any of the moves I have so it really is 'attack them until they fall down'.
First Stilton fades away into the realm of defeated RPG battle antagonists, then Bree. We win!
We receive... nothing. But we're alive!
Who is that? Lance tells us the legend of a water vole who fell into the river and was worshipped by the rats as he grew gigantic - big enough even to use 'god weapons'. Lance sure knows a lot!
Though I think perhaps he's cheating and is interpreting the chalk mural that we interrupted Stilton drawing.
Ratkind even has the Cool S. Clearly they're not to be underestimated.
Despite the prospect of a near-certain encounter with Sava, our heroes are unfazed and decide to head on.
And even enemy rats need to save their game sometimes, I expect.
This nifty board comes up when you pick 'Skills' from the menu. For each level a character achieves, they can light up a diamond on the board and get either a stat increase or a special improvement to a battle command. You can see what you're getting before you select a diamond, and you can take them back if you don't like the result. Can't say fairer than that. There's only 17 more nodes to activate on Lance's chart so the numbers in this game probably aren't going to get huge and crazy. What I can't see is anything that gives me more choices in battle, which is slightly lame. Verm only has one command right now, but his chart does have some mysterious '???' bonuses whose purpose is yet to be revealed.
This screen is where I'm supposed to have equipped that nutritious peanut I recovered from a conspicuous and inexplicable tiny chest that I saw beside the lolly stick bridge before I fought the rats.
Each mousie has a left and a right hand slot so you can take two items into battle, but do they put their weapon in their mouth then? Or they could... no wait, we don't have pockets. This is too confusing!
The Chief brags about the things he's killed with the 'Titan Reaper' and Lance blankly stands there and asks Verm 'but can he swing it?'. Yes I imagine he can. Alright, the blade is suspiciously pristine for something that's supposedly been through half a dozen animals, but do you really want a demonstration that badly, Lance?
BATTLE WHOOSH.
Whooshes are essential. Though I think bosses need their own whoosh to distinguish them from random encounter whooshes. It's how you know things are about to get Serious.
Oh, it's only him? The other two aren't showing up today. That makes things about 2% less dicey.
Okay - time for some advanced tactics. Verm can Attack and he can Defend, so... 'attack them until they fall down' is still the strategy, I guess.
Sava's boss music is hyperactive and piratey. It doesn't suit us all politely standing here taking turns. It sounds like it's more about leaping about frantically and smashing one another through crude furniture. This bit needs its own unique battle background too I think. The rat skull-and-crossbones chalk mural was right there.
You know I have to take the bait just to see what happens.
SPLAT. We're both hit for mediocre damage.
He didn't interrupt our turn or take another turn out of order or deflect our attacks with the blade or anything. If you weren't looking closely you wouldn't notice the slightly different animation or that he hit both heroes. It looked mostly like this, except it said 'Retribution' at the bottom.
I can save up Lance's action pips using Defend to be able to use Mega Shot instead of Quick Shot and reduce my incoming damage, but then I'll be doing less total damage and it seems to me it's safest to end the battle as quickly as possible. I might as well keep doing normal cheap attacks with both mice.
Eventually the Chief silently vanishes into nothingness and the battle is ours.
The Chief's final words are to warn us not to head into the god's food hoard, which he calls 'Heaven', telling us that all that awaits us there is death at the hands of the Yellow God, and then he slumps into his beloved sewer.
Like the mouse on the box art and the banner art and every advertisement for Small Saga that looks like Verm carrying a pen-knife. But maybe they'll pull a clever switcheroo and that guy isn't really Verm...?
Verm and Lance aren't the only rodents looking for Heaven. Perhaps the god's food hoard was where the Lemmings were heading towards all those years ago!
Luckily for our heroes, 'HEAVEN' in Lemmings usually led towards the exit archway. Usually.
This level in Lemmings is called 'Don't do anything too hasty'. But, of course, our heroes have only one thing on their mind...
Tread softly.
Lance is thoughtful and calm as usual, but Verm is overwhelmed by the sight of it all. He can't wait to tuck into some delicious... uh... HANS PEAS. There's so many lovely things here, but Lance has a plan, and that plan involves grabbing the farthest, most inconvenient bag of seeds in the hoard. It'll be fine.
So this is the part where we run across the ground in the side-on 3D perspective, darting behind objects and stopping in time with the music when the dastardly cat appears.
Wait! Wrong game entirely, sorry.
There's no cats in Heaven, only 'thundersnares' (or as we'd call them: 'mousetraps') left out by the gods as a warning. The mice have kind of got it right. I made sure to very carefully inch around them. The game won't let you accidentally walk into one and hurt yourself, but I just really, really didn't want to make a mistake. I'd have leapt out of my chair and screamed and cried if I'd have gotten poor Verm suddenly snapped into pieces.
BUT THEN DEADLY GAS!
I thought it was going to be a big golden retriever or a ginger cat or something. Do something! You guys are going to get absolutely squished if you stand around next to the conspicuously misplaced bag of food.
Do you fumigate for rodents? I checked and fumigation can be used for rodents as a last resort, but it's more often used in extreme cases for cockroaches and things, so that's freakin' gross. Also all this sealed food should probably be washed afterwards.
Luckily for our heroes, the Yellow God stomps off to the right instead of investigating the seeds, so it's time for us to get the heck out of here. Lance darts off but Verm stands around asking whether we should be taking the seeds. Come on, kid! RUN!
Verm can run outside of battles but it only makes his happy little plodding walk animation shuffle faster like a little guy in baggy pants. You'd think these mice fellows would be able to scurry when they had to.
The Yellow God's shadow hovers over Verm, who turns around to look... but as he's backing away he trips over a thundersnare which snags his tail! Nooo!
Unable to free Verm, Lance says he'll figure out a way to stall the Yellow God while Verm finds a way to get himself free.
He'll what??
I thought he was going to run around and knock stuff over! This is a terrible idea!
What can we do? Verm tries breaking the thundersnare with his teeny sword but it shatters into pieces. The Defend and Item commands don't do anything. And now the player has to make the only choice left. Oh no... :(
After hacking his own tail off with a broken sword blade, Verm escapes back into the Underriver.
How scary was that...? Yikes. Click one of the following fine buttons to continue reading.
Did you try picking up the mousetrap and putting it in your pocket? It worked in Monkey Island.
ReplyDeleteYou can't spell 'thundersnares' without 'fun'! (At least phonetically.)
Deleten.b. to all mice reading, do not follow Kelvin's suggestion.