Review: Saturday Morning RPG

Saturday Morning RPG is an episodic role-playing game set in a world inspired by 1980s Saturday morning cartoons.

 

Cons:

• Pixel graphics in a true 80s way. Characters are detailed and unique.
• Game supports and has profiles for many peripherals such as the 360 pad, PS3 pad and the keyboard and mouse.
• Typical RPG affair with gameplay revolving around free roaming with random battles. Battles are turn based and evolve around picking moves to perform and when to defend. Defend is done free hand. Pressing defend at a certain time protects you more or less depending on timing. A neat little function that does just enough to break the monotony of battles.
•  Earn exp to level up and increase your health,mana and get new stickers. Exp is earnt by fighting, exploring the world and through random pick ups.
• Stickers are a new thing and one that brings fun(?) to the game. Basically each sticker grants a buff for the duration of the fight. The idea being, Before the fight you have limited time to scratch the sticker to enable its buff. The better the power, The more scratching needed. Otherwise known as scratch and sniff, This is a great way to get you hyped for the fight and adds a lot to your arsenal…If your quick enough.
• Carry a notebook around with you which serves as your goto menu. Here you can save whenever you want, Arrange and choose your stickers. Check out your mission details and check out your stats.
• Shops in the game are represented by vending machines.
• Music is very good and you can tell what they are suppose to be, Obvious copyright avoidement versions in game.
• Has its own in game achievements with a huge 80s influence as you would expect. No real purpose really but still fun to unlock.
• References to many,many,many 80s TV shows/films/music as you would expect from a game with this title. The fun in guessing who is who and from where is a rare treat in an RPG outside of Final Fantasy. Its almost a game within its self trying to figure it all out.
• Simple control scheme using only a few buttons.
• The main story is splitting up into 4 separate episodes, Each one giving you a new story, Ability to carry on with your character and of course ramping up the difficulty.
• Gameshow style logos and UI await you and at the end of fights you get a graph showing you a rank and exp score. The graph shows power used and damage sustained.
• You can replay stories and missions in case you missed any of the in game pick ups or side quests.
• Using magic is easy but execution is hard. For every time you do a magic attack, the majority of them have there own mini game. Whether it be mashing a button to fill a bar or aiming shots with the stick and firing. Here is where you see more of the references mentioned. Missile Command, My little Pony, Transformers, Pong and Thundercats. Just a few of the magic powers you can buy/earn and use in your quest.

 

Cons:

• Not much in the way of a tutorial. It is easy to pick up the controls after a few plays, But most people like a separate section.
• First hour of play is slow and boring as it sets the story and game play elements up.
• Video settings are minimal with the basic screen resolution and full screen being the highlights.
• Shops don’t have a description for the items you can buy, Meaning you are buying them blind. If there is indeed a way to view a description then I cannot see one.
• Lets you buy multiple items even though you have no need for doing so.
• Can feel like you are fighting the same generic monsters battle after battle so not enough variation.
• Few difficulty spikes in the most unlikely of battles. So not just boss battles but on mid level or even normal low level fights, You can find yourself whooped!
• You can buy cheats with real money. This is here as gamers do not like micro transactions on the whole.
• If using a game pad, You will land up killing your left stick as that is the stick used for scratching stickers.

In Summary, The game is a breath of fresh air for the RPG genre. Any game that can have you smiling and laughing at all the references all the way through, Must be doing something right.As a game it is very basic with a few little additions. If you have an appreciation for the 80s and all the TV shows, Then you will have a blast. The story whilst split into 4 episodes, Are short overall. But man will you have fun on the way. I enjoyed guessing all the characters and would easily play through it again. Job well done.

Steam Greenlight link, Please vote if you would like to see this game on Steam.