Small Saga (Demo) (PC) - Part 2 - Guest Post

Previously on the demo of Small Saga, tragedy struck when mouse brothers Lance and Verm undertook a daring mission to steal from the gods. Who dares wield the Titan Reaper now?

---

SUMMER

And so we meet a new hero. He invites himself into a house through the letterbox and drops to the floor (it does say 'Welcome' after all) and strikes a pose.

And then the game ruins the mystique by flashing 'Level Up!' over his face and announcing that 'Verm learned Rage.' So we're still Verm then. And he's got the Titan Reaper! And the changing of the seasons has solidified his fury into a new battle command for me to try out (I assume).

Or perhaps he's undefinably angry at the sight of this bizarre, lifeless house that consists of a single empty perfectly rectangular room with only one exit which leads to a kitchen.

Let's check Verm's new stuff.

Verm returns. He is no longer ready for adventure. His eager leap has been replaced by a moody scowl, he's exchanged his 'Novice Hero' class for 'Berserker' and he's found himself a suitable "Night Cloak" ('Fit for ne'er-do-wells.'). He also still has the peanut I found in the sewer. I could have sworn I'd used it, but maybe I hadn't. Maybe he's kept hold of it (in places unknown) for sentimental reasons.

Verm hasn't said anything since he arrived so I'm not sure what his plan is. Without Lance he's got no-one to talk to. I think the game is building anticipation.

Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!

That's one freaky creaky cat. He's got no pupils, only irises, and he can talk, albeit in crooked inverted-colour runes. And Verm can understand him! I didn't expect that.

"I'm passing through to Cranbaile. Let me be, and I will make no trouble."

He might carry a tree trunk of a knife, but he's not here to cut the cat. He's also a lot more confident than he used to be. Whatever Cranbaile is, Verm must really want to get there if the easiest route was to hoist himself and the knife up to the height of a letterbox to get inside this house.

"Oh, you've found trouble, friend. I am the predator and you are the prey. You run and I chase. That is the way of nature."

BATTLE WHOOSH.

Kickstarter promotional image Click to enlarge
That was fast! The fight against the cat is Small Saga's signature fight! We're fighting the cat!

Steam banner art
This cat! With a pen-knife! The one from all the pictures!

You know, on reflection, being this excited about watching someone attack a cat with a pen-knife is not right. I disapprove absolutely. And you should definitely not attempt this in real life, ever. Not even if you're a cartoon mouse with a death wish.

To say that the developer was really keen on this mouse-with-knife versus cat thing would be an understatement:

"Who said anything about running?"

They even hired an artist to make a short cartoon version of the encounter for Small Saga's trailer. If you'd like to see Animated Verm mousing it up versus Tiger and you do, click here!

But now it's back to the game. The animation above isn't even in the game, but I couldn't not include it.

"What's this? A mouse wielding a god weapon? Now I've seen it all. Very well. Show me your strength. Amuse me."

Let's do it!

So I hit him, and then he hits me, and then I hit him, and then he hits me. I use my Peanut, then he hits me, then I hit him. It goes on like this for a while. The new music is cool though. Too bad the happy music from the first fight didn't last, but Verm is X-Treme now.

Berserk status doesn't have any visible effect in the scene but my mental maths says it makes Verm's strikes 50% more powerful for a few turns. But it takes up a turn to activate it... so... hmm.

"Impressive. But it takes more than that to hurt a tiger!"

Ah! Watch out, Verm! He's finally decided to do something other than those four frames of animation. Brace yourself!

MEANWHILE, A MOLE

I was worried we were going to follow a different character for a while and not see the outcome of Verm Vs. Cat for ages, but this is just a friendly mole in a dressing gown that's shown up to see what all the commotion in the house is about.

Verm flies out of the catflap and splats on the stones outside. Oof.

He's alive!

I didn't expect Verm to lose the fight against the cat at all. Following up the 'in this world, the mouse takes the fight to the cat - with a knife!' movie trailer scenario with 'and loses, because mice are small and cats are big' is an unexpected turn.

But Verm did get through the house which is what he wanted in the first place so 'nyah' to you, Tiger.

This is Siobhan, a mole with a name I simply cannot pronounce. She's smitten with Verm, thinking him to be a mighty mouse knight, which Verm denies. She might be a wizard or a princess herself or both. She dragged him into this little Oxo cube room to hide him from the cat, but it just so happens it is also the secret entrance to the underground mole town of....

CRANBAILE
Their burrows are deep. Their convictions, deeper.
Mission accomplished. Cranbaile achieved.

Verm came here seeking information about the Yellow God. The Cranbaile library is supposed to be one of the finest in the rodent realm...

But the real first order of business when entering any RPG town is to raid everyone's bedrooms for stuff. One of three things will happen. Either they'll not care, which is very old-fashioned; they'll care and stop you doing it, which is modern; or they'll care but then they'll let you do it anyway with a snide remark, which is post-modern.

Small Saga is old-fashioned, so the bandages are now mine. If anyone complains, I'll tell them I'm a ne'er-do-well now. If there's something to be done well, I'll ne'er do it.

We have found Tullia's boxy shop for boxy shop moles. I'm given a choice to ask about 'Weapons' or 'Armour'...

"I need a sword capable of killing titans and gods."
"I see. Double-edged, solid steel, is it?"
"Sure. But I'll settle for iron."

X-Treme Verm is a master of discretion and subtlety. Without the player's prompting, he decides to straight up say he's trying to kill a god.

"Fella. Look around yerself. This shop sells bits an' bobs for the humble people of Cranbaille. Cooking wear. Mining equipment. Linens and such."

Did Verm think she was hiding some super secret sword somewhere? But I guess if you don't ask, you don't get.

She does have some hardy boots for sale for five seeds, which sounds good? I guess? I don't know if that's a lot of money; I don't know how much I have. I don't know how good the boots are or if they'll even fit Verm's mousey bandaged feet.

This is why shop interfaces exist in RPGs. They tell you important stuff and let you work things out sensibly. But I guess Small Saga just isn't that kind of game, with its magic reappearing equippable single peanut and no random encounters.

I bought the boots and they take the Ne'er-Do-Well Cloak's place in the 'Outfits' equip slot. I suppose I have to start doing well now. Verm's sprite didn't change, alas.

We have arrived at the court of Lady Gilda of the moles. Siobhan gives the introductions and relates Verm's magnificent challenge to the terrible mog that has been menacing their town. Why, Verm might just be the saviour they're looking for...!

"Such arrogance! To fight a god's pet with a god's weapon... This is sacrilege. Sacrilege of the worst kind."

Well we're off to a great start. When the town caption mentioned Cranbaile's deep 'convictions', it turns out those convictions are specifically 'don't attack the gods' cat' and 'don't attack the gods' cat with the gods' knife'. Verm's very popular today.

Lady Gilda speaks:

"This mouse is a visitor. He is not bound by our local customs. We won't punish you, mouse, but we won't help you, either. Do whatever it is you came to do and then take your leave."

And there concludes the most amicable, yet directly-opposed conflict of intent in roleplaying game town-ruling monarch history. The court doesn't even react with concern when Verm asks for information about the Yellow God. Maybe they think he's going to offer to return the pen-knife, like a good egg. A good egg covered in grass, mud and cat blood.

They don't know anything but suggest that Verm leave for Murida. Immediately. And he does, since that's the rodent capital where all the smartyrats live and he was planning to go there anyway.

Before we go, Siobhan insists Verm see just one last thing. She leads him through the library of Cranbaile, where the player can learn some rodent history if they choose to search every single book to find it.

I guess it's nice that the full extent of the Old Way is spelled out here in the book instead of being recited to us robotically by the advisers in the court but you could easily miss this. Just like you could miss the one room with the retired soldier who tells you about RPG weaknesses and resistances, and then miss the one book in the bookshelf in his room that tells you what the various status effects do. I think this game needs an encyclopedia that fills up as you go.

Verm is breaking one of the three laws by carrying the Titan Reaper on his back (how does he carry that thing like that?), and he just told the shopkeeper he's planning on breaking the other two. Will no one stop this wild mouse??

There's a sweet story in another book further on:

They even wrote out all the 's'es. Otherwise how would you know it was a snake talking?

Behind the bookcase in the library, Siobhan has a secret room...

A secret room full of god stuff! God stuff that either doesn't work or she doesn't understand, but god stuff nonetheless.

How the hell did she get all of this through all those tiny doors and through the library and her secret tunnel? Alone? Siobhan must be ripped by mole standards.

She wants to show Verm all of this stuff because she has a plan. Or at least a goal. The nasty cat has been terrorising the moles for many seasons, so she wants to take up a god weapon of her own and, together with Verm, kill the cat once and for all before it's too late.

Verm says no.

He's not a mercenary, a knight or anything else. He's just a crazy mouse with a mission. He doesn't even hold a grudge against the cat. He wanted to get to this town and now he's here and he's asked his question and he wants to leave. It was a surprise to me that the Queen immediately told Verm what he wanted to know without asking him for service or tribute first. She just wanted him gone, and he's more than fine with that.

So Verm is going to leave Siobhan to do whatever she wants, while he keeps searching for the Yellow God elsewhere.

But the loss of his brother has given him a debilitating fear of running away! Verm can't let himself not fight!

Siobhan has joined the party.

Meet Siobhan the Pyromancer, ready to explode a cat with her devastating Fire Wand.

If Verm and Siobhan both have god weapons, I have to wonder if there's a point to there being an equipment slot for weapons at all. I can see Siobhan getting more gizmos with various effects, but the only direction Verm's weapons can go is even more into the ridiculous, which I'll agree is probably going to be really cool. Unequipping either of the characters' weapons doesn't change their sprites or actions, boo. It does however make the characters completely useless in battle, so don't do that.

So off we go then. Mouse and mole, pen-knife and lighter. We're going to march back into the house and kill the cat.

One last thing before we meet our likely death... a moment's reflection in the presence of the moles' benevolent god Cormac.

"What... what is this... thing? It's creepy looking, even by statue standards."
"It's Cormac, the village's watchful protector."
"Oh. Not doing a very good job, is he?"
"No. I guess he's not."

We go back in the house and the cat jumps down again like before.

"The warrior mouse returns. And with a mole this time?"
"Don't tell me the little kitty is scared of being outnumbered?"
"Scared? All I see before me are an entrée and a main course. Go ahead, mouse and mole. Use your god weapons. They won't save you."

BATTLE WHOOSH.

If there's one thing I've noticed the writer of Small Saga likes, it's events leading into battles. I bet they've played Final Fantasy XIII, and if I asked them about 'the bit where Hope and Lightning and Fang are in the party together' they'd know exactly which bit I meant.

"Hold your nerve, mole." says Verm, recalling his brother's words before they slew Sava together. (Yes, I'm paying attention!) Verm's the big mouse now, he has to be in charge.

I have to time Dangerous Verm's Rage 🔷🔷 to match when the cat becomes vulnerable and Swipe 🔷 him while I'm powered up. Rage also has the secondary (or more likely primary) purpose of giving Verm an excuse to bellow a piece of gutsy battle-specific dialogue to fire up the squad. And dang if this isn't the dangest most heroic music I've ever heard.

Siobhan has Smack 🔷 for bashing damage and...

Wyrmfire 🔷🔷 to release a satisfying, smooth, plasmatic burst of fiery cat annihilation damage.

"Light 'em up, Siobhan!"

Siobhan starts with more pips than Verm so she can fire off two of these before she has to recover. Using items doesn't take an action pip, giving Siobhan something useful to do while she recharges at the same time, until both the bandages and peanut are used up at least. (You did remember to equip them, right?)

I've got to say it. This is one weird looking cat. Is he a robot? Is the Yellow God a robot? Is the obviously robotic robot dog from the Kickstarter page a robot? Did I just ruin the entire game's secret twist?? (No.)

The cat's Pounce has Bleeding-ed Siobhan, so she's going to be losing HP every turn unless I use those bandages I found in the box. Lucky I did, really. The shop mentioned them but didn't sell them, and there's no other way to get any. Bandages cancel Bleeding at the start of the character's next turn which feels weird, but it means the enemies can't re-inflict the status before you've taken a turn free of it. There's nothing to stop you getting got again on the turn after that though. Which I did. Blast! I only get one use of Bandages during a battle, so it's definitely full speed ahead damage dealing time before Siobhan melts.

A few turns later and the cat has had enough and slowly evaporates from sight. Victory!

And... apparently we obliterated it in the real world too? It's just plain gone. The kitchen is pristine: no blood, no mayhem, and no cat. Verm says we didn't land a killing blow, but Siobhan is satisfied that he's not going to be hunting the moles any more. Dead or not, that poor cat is going to be absolutely ruined. Knife wounds and scorched fur all over it.

Except now that I think about it, it's very obvious and out of place that we didn't visibly hurt the cat in the battle. The sprite stayed the same and there was no health bar, so there was no way to tell how far through the fight we'd gotten - no change in the music or the mood and he never entered an obviously weakened state for Verm to exploit with a use of Rage. And strangely no dialogue from Tiger during or after the fight either, he just grew weary of us and eventually dematerialised.

Well, it's off to the mole village I guess. Let's walk back to Cranbaile... manually... out through the kitchen... over the garden... down the lift... through the corridors...

Siobhan happily reports that she's taken a lighter to the family cat until it ran away screaming, and for some reason the Queen is not pleased. It turns out that getting the gods' attention in this way might not be a good thing for the prosperity of the mole kingdom in the long run.

So we're exiled. Forever. Forever and ever.

Which is fine, Cranbaile was a lousy place, Verm doesn't want to stay, and there was nothing to do there anyway. The place didn't make a whole lot of sense... where does Siobhan sleep? Where do any of them sleep? In the corridors I guess? There wasn't an inn for Verm to rest in. And if the Cranbaile library is a shadow of what it used to be, why are all the bookcases full instead of half-empty or damaged?

After Verm leaves, we get a scene showing Gilda isn't heartless; she wants to punish her daughter but not hurt her so she accepts her Loremaster's proposal of asking the King of Murida to provide some discreet protection when Siobhan arrives.

Siobhan wants to follow Verm to Murida, so we get a heartwarming but predictable scene of Verm allowing Siobhan to join us on our adventure. She'll be sure to soften the heart of that international mouse of misery in time. And because she's a recruitable NPC in a JRPG, she's the only one who can move the obvious potted plant blocking the exit to the next part of the game, so we need her.

I've just realised that although the dialogue isn't voiced, the characters don't 'bip-bip-bip' out their lines and they definitely don't Banjo-Kazooie baby talk at me either. Good. Excellent. Silence truly is golden.

It's off to Murida!

We have emerged into the outside world at last. And we're just... walking around outside. Don't know where to go and there's no gods out here to bother us for some reason.

I'll put together a bigger view of the scene for you.

Click to enlarge
You can't get more English than that knobbly pavement on the street corner. No wait, you can't get more English than that London-style road sign with the postcode on it. No wait, you REALLY can't get more English than that green wheelie bin with the 'Recycle' logo on the top.

Basically, I think we really might be in London.

Or stuck in a small street corner of London. The world stops when I hit the edges and I don't know where I should be going. Except perhaps up the wall, since we get an interaction icon when we approach the cans and Verm says we should be able to jump up there, except for some reason he doesn't want to actually do it, so I dunno. We came out of the archway-shaped hole in the fence on the right and we could see the inexplicable conspicuous treasure chest from there, but until Verm wants to climb up the cans there's nothing I can do about it.

Let's check out that schoolbag!

"Godly junk. Let's move on."

Well thanks Verm. Not even gonna have a snoop? If there's a pencil sharpener in there, Siobhan could unscrew the blade and you've got yourself a ready-made poleaxe, just add shaft. It wouldn't hurt to have a backup weapon.

Anyway.

There's a picture of a grey happy cat on the cat food beside the bin. I always wondered what the deal is with him; I'm sure you've seen him everywhere. I looked him up. He's just a picture of a happy cat that most people know as... 'Happy Cat'. So that was worth it. He's an image macro that predates YouTube, which I thought was pretty interesting.

We've been sentenced to a very ladylike form of exile from Cranbaile: we can come back whenever we like. Good thing too, since I'm sure Siobhan would miss her god gadgets if she never saw them again.

Verm can pick a fight with Nemain the 'hedge knight' (ha ha!) but she's not interested in brawling, only in providing the most uplifting advice.

Back on the street, inspecting the tiny lonely basket on the pavement made some adventure game random-thing-makes-random-thing-happen logic happen, and we hear a voice call out from the wheelie bin asking for help. Siobhan figures out that the basket must belong to a mighty carrier raven, who will be sure to reward our heroes if they can free it from its binprisonment. Verm leaps up to the wall to try to open the lid, while Siobhan is left to wander around below.

It's Siobhan time! She doesn't want to jump up and join Verm until she has some way to help him. She doesn't want to go back to Cranbaile alone either so her god gadget stash can't help, so the solution to this conundrum is the only thing left - check the backpack on the ground for something she can use. In this case, a dandy twelve-inch wooden ruler, which Siobhan wrangles up to Verm through unknown shenanigans.

I really don't like this solution because despite it making total sense for Siobhan to be interested in the backpack and use its contents to save the day, if you inspect the backpack before this point as Verm and get the dialogue that directly states it's not useful, you might not think to check it a second time.

When inspecting the bag, Siobhan should've said something like "But Verm that X might be useful!" and Verm should've said "For what?" or "Not now, we need to focus on getting to Murida." and Siobhan should have reluctantly said "A-alright." giving the hint that if she was in charge she'd have looked through the bag more thoroughly.

And I also don't like that she was stuck down there instead of being able to ask Verm for a hint when she was perfectly capable of jumping up to the wall when the game called for it. Dang it.

The duo jump on the end to fling the lid open and the majestic carrier raven... pigeon comes out. I was sure that Verm and Siobhan would land in the blackness behind the ruler if they jumped on the end, and why is there blackness anyway? We're not underground. That should be the garden where Siobhan and Tiger live.

We've saved the day and rescued Dizi, a happy funky pigeon with happy funky funk music. Hello, Dizi! You're cool. How can you dislike a friendly, boppin' pigeon? Especially one who offers to fly you anywhere you want in return for rescuing him.

---

What an adventure! Well, kind of. We had two fights and bought some shoes. What misadventures await our unlikely partnership on their journey to Murida? Click one of the following lovely buttons to continue reading.

Small Saga (Demo) (PC) - Guest PostPart 1 - Part 2 - Part 3