Small Saga Review

It’s been a long time coming since my preview back in 2019, but with a game largely made by a lone developer, you have to expect a bit of a wait. As the old industry adage goes: “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad”. In this review, we’ll be taking a look to see if it was worth waiting four years for this dinky little adventure from the creator of Aviary Attorney.

The idea of seeing mice wielding human objects tugged at my heartstrings right from the first trailer of Small Saga. It very much reminded me of the musical Cats, where all the stage props are human objects scaled up for their relative size to cats. Seeing main character Verm wielding his Swiss Army knife, looking like a claymore in the paws of a tiny mouse, was captivating and adorable. I knew that I had to back this game, and this final version has just as many moments like that. There’s a squirrel who plays a flute made out of a pencil, a pyromancer mole with a lighter, and the entire king’s guard in the main city of the game wear thimbles for helmets. 

Clearly a lot of thought has been put into the world, and this is reflected in some of the small touches throughout, like physical changes to your character also applying to their representation in the loading screen. The main mouse city is located below the houses of parliament in London, so every time you visit the location you go past Elizabeth Tower, and the clock shows the correct time when you do! There are some areas that didn’t have the same attention put into them though, such as a character who tells you about the location of a creature that he’s been tracking and asks you to let him know if you see it; then doesn’t actually have any new dialogue after you have seen it. Nothing game-breaking, but worth noting that some parts have had more detail put into them than others. 

I mentioned in my preview of Small Saga that the visuals seemed like what you might expect to see in a ‘90s JRPG on the PC if such a thing existed. It’s chunky and colourful pixel art, and I really thought it fitted in nicely with the theme behind the game. There are a few areas where the camera zooms in quite close, and that makes the low-resolution nature of the art quite noticeable, but these are few and far between and don’t really detract from what is an overall beautiful aesthetic.

One thing that I did find lacking a little bit was challenge. It’s an incredibly forgiving game, and I only found one boss battle that took me more than a single attempt throughout a complete playthrough. That did make things easier for me as a reviewer, as I could make my way to the credits relatively quickly, but I think a stronger challenge, perhaps some difficulty settings or a new game+ mode might have been a good idea. This is definitely a game that suits people who just want to experience the story, rather than those who want difficulty.

Speaking of the story, this was something of a mixed bag for me. The typical 'lone knight saves the day' affair is mixed in with a smattering of 'making friends and learning about ourselves along the way'. Underneath it all, there’s a subtext of humanity’s arrogance about our control over nature. It’s all covered relatively quickly and in passing though, with little time spent mulling over things. It feels a little bit like character development is a touch rushed, which is likely due to the fact that it’s a relatively short game. It’s not bad overall, but I think there could have been more focus. By trying to shoehorn in quite a few contemporary and classical philosophical issues into a sub-10-hour game, creator Darya Noghani has made some of them a touch superficial. Nonetheless, Noghani has still developed charming characters who you will likely empathise with throughout the game. 

Special mention should go to the music in the game, which has a really varied set of sounds. Much of it evokes the feel of Squaresoft or Enix games of the 16-bit era, but there’s also a few acoustic folk tracks from Kofi Young which I was really quite fond of. You can find Kofi’s character in the bar of the main city, and it’s easy to miss the fact that the performer on stage takes requests. If you decide to get this game, I urge you to make some requests; the songs are quite lovely. 

It might have been a bit on the short side and not a great challenge, but I definitely believe Small Saga was worth waiting for. What Darya Noghani has created is a charming tale which might not be challenging Baldur’s Gate 3 in scope, but it definitely made me smile. It’s evident that this was a game made with heart, and it’s well worth a few hours of anyone’s time.