Small Saga : My tired ass hot take on the story (just beat the game)

[Carlos]

Literally brought this game because I loved the small saga berserk memes. And I feel mislead. I wanted a Redwall rpg.

I liked some of the politics but got annoyed more so since it felt preachy. For example I did really enjoy the societies of rodent kingdoms having to live in a world where gods (man) dominated everything, I really wish they leaned onto that more so. The build up of the yellow god was rushed and he went from "whos this guy" to instantly became a threat with no explanation why, or maybe i missed it? Also to everyone saying "its dumb the rodents didn't have tech and were stuck in the medieval era" I think its not that far fetch. The Plague master explained rodents lives were short and pathetic, their goals short sighted as well and it took several generations of rodents to figure out how human technology worked, even then the other rodents were too busy infighting, dealing with gods and getting enough seeds to feed themselves to evolve culturally. That didn't bug me that much. Some non in-game explanation could also be that rodents do have tech somewhere else in the world or having technology will draw unwanted human attention, which seems accurate.

Verm is obviously inspired by guts from Berserk but ironically the fascist Adien is thee most Berserk-esque character in the game and is closer to griffith then the needle knight who was suppose to represent him. Verm seemed to be doing his own thing while all these critters drag him into things against his will. He kinda felt like guts being dragged into a left vs right protest. Verm was good and I liked his character and really like that he didn't really get political or preachy, oh yeah I liked the mole girl too. The red squirrel was mid, nothing really interesting about him except "muh boyfriend" and oh I did like the rat too, she was a bit edgy yet I was ok with it. The god hunting mission Verm had was cool and I only continued because I wanted to see where it went, the societies the critters build were kinda cool but I expected a little more dept to them. Just a little. I was totally expecting a redwall RPG and I "kind of" got it, just kind of.

I see people complain about the modern slang in the writing (like lol, cringe) but I don't mind it since it was a modern setting. That said the real life politics almost ruined the game for me. Read an AMA from the dev and someone asked why is this game so political, and apparently his/her opinion is "all games are political" and I was thinking "i didn't know pac man, halo, dead space, fortnight were political." Still im fine with games being political, its just that the only political game iv found the politics to be satisfying was games like Disco Elysium, New Vegas or even GTA 4 imo. If you're going to make a game based on your politics please try to tone down your bias a little more otherwise it sounds preachy, the demo was misleading since I'm trying to get into this human slaying mouse story.

Now for spoilers. The conversation with Adien in the dungeon was good and well done imo, people seemed to not like it but this is one of the times I feel the game nailed it and I was happy I could agree with some of Adien's point. I also liked the Plague master who gave me New Vegas Father Elijah vibes and i wish I could've sided with him and the old laws / pack rodents made to deal with humans for their survival was legit good lore. But I really didn't care for the red squirrels "missions". Idk why he was considered our friend by the mole girl when he screwed us over twice and was dragging us into some ♥♥♥♥. He wants the tree garden because it was his ancestors whom he never really known? ♥♥♥♥ reason imo (im mexican, the aztecs were cool and liked eating people but im not about to eat anyone or retake Mexico for my ancestors lol) but no hate on the writing for that part, I enjoy faulty characters like Khelgar Ironfist from neverwinter nights 2 who wanted to be a monk just because he got his ass kicked by one but eventually it ends up not being his thing.

What also annoyed me was how cheesy the nazi-american squirrels were. Don't get me wrong I liked their ascetic but why do they hate gay people again? That part felt shoehorned and without reason. The dialog they had with "I was simply trying to have a debate" after defeating one of the squirrel generals gave me a ♥♥♥♥ eating grin irl. Also I don't get the positive reputation the treetops had when the nazis were apparently so oppressive and imprisoned people to keep their pet ferret fed.

LGBT stuff was annoying and I didn't care for it. No hate on the community its just that this game gives me a "why are you talking about politics with a mcdonalds cashier" feelings when it comes to LGBT stuff. I just feel people should take notes from New Vegas on LGBT representation in video games since they did it the best. If you're going to make LGBT a main or major theme in your game (which seems boring imo but i'll give it 5 minutes to impress me) it needs to be handled with more or less care and there needs to be reason for it. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tho in this game it was SOOO distracting that half of everyone you met was bi or gay. Also 2 of the main characters had disabilities but lets be real, those were more like benefits. I see a missed opportunity to be exclusive with having the mole spell caster missing her feet and being forced into a wheel chair with a lighter canon

I wish all the energy put into left politics stuff went into the drama with the gods and factions within the empire.

That said I did enjoy the gods lore and the game overall, but it could've been better. The game also could've been longer imo but im ok with what I got. The bomb reveal was cool, the towns being created from human trash was neat, the titan and things like the ferret tribute lore was good. I wished they explored stories of rodents methods of survival in a human dominated world rather then irl lgbt and fascism stuff however, and if you are going to do irl politics with "make the sky garden great again" (actual line in game) do it right and maybe try to give the otherside something like you did with Adien who had some solid points
"At least you can behead a Tyrant, you can't behead a faceless Tyrant/cult".
"You say you are leaderless and all equal but you still need to make decisions and people among you will still shine above others, and they will lead whether they admit it or not."
"Power and violence is all that matters, its how you defeated me and claimed the Tree Garden is it not?"
I actually liked Adien's character

I also I did like the lore book that rebuttles the "Good times create weak men, weak men create hard times, hard times makes strong men" with "Ok, then what makes strong men? Does a strong man not need more food an education? How are these strong men getting these resources during hard times and why not give resources to make all men strong? The weak will remain weak without these resources."
Which is an interesting take I personally haven't heard before, tidbits like that (i think there's 3 in the entire game) I really enjoyed.

I can't see anyone conservatives supporting the grey squirrel clan. Also after beating the game I find out the rat bros duo who tagged along with you from the start were gay lovers just like most of the main characters in the game, like come on man did you have to do that? Sorry if i'm being offensive but its just that I was like "well at least these guys aren't a political message" and boom, they are.. Also something minor that annoyed me was that after beating the game, a mouse npc tells you the royal palace art gallery was going to basically be turned into the slum like the rest of the city which i found funny. I think it was suppose to be a good message that the housing crisis in the kingdom was going to be fixed, but really the palace was one of the nicest things in the entire game, and its going to be ruined. Why don't those rodents expand or build taller or deeper? Do you really have to ruin one of the only nice things in the kingdom? ALSO the plague storyline went nowhere. Yeah this game scratched my itch for a Redwall rpg, but it was like scratching it with a bowling ball or being hungry and finding stale fries in your car, YEAH it it did the job but I know it could've been better, especially since the writers did have some good ideas. Again tho, i did like the game and think the world has potential still. But I only played to for Verm, the Plague Master and to see more god and titan lore.

Edit: How you could've added the LGBT angel in a meaningful way would be embedding large number populations as being essential to rodent survival from humans constantly killing them and culturally same sex marriages were frowned upon, added that liege wise a same sex couple could not have a true royal bloodline and this would've worked with the plot more so since the protagonist want to topple hierarchies anyways.

Last note; The trash fishing minigame was fire. I don't know WHY but it gave me that same feeling of popping bubble wrap or opening a can of soda.

[leo_gear]

I also played this game for Verm. One of my favorite characters. I was fine with him being only -inspired by- Guts. He's a mouse, after all...him having a shift in perspective was fine and all...I just wish he was the one with the prosthetic and not both him and Gwen (or heck, the reverse and not bother giving Verm a prosthetic and just having him overcome his disability through training and keep Gwen the physically disabled character who struggled to overcome her limitations). It would have carried some weight that he was gaining a benefit later, while Gwen is just another tally for disabled people along with the other tallies she checks off for female and LGBTQ+...

...if it's not apparent, Gwen is one of the characters I didn't like. Not only because of the checkmarks she covers (I can ignore that, mostly) but also just her attitude. She's egotistical and hostile but never sees consequences for it, unlike Verm. But it is what it is.

After beating, complaining, separating, mulling over my experience and thinking about coming back for another play thru, I've soften my criticism of the game. It IS an indie dev making the game and it has its high marks (the animations were quite nice, the music was great and the setting was intriguing). I do agree with you, OP, that the politics are grating overall. I'm not against LGBTQ+ stuff, but it stops being special when half the cast is gay and it makes less sense that people discriminate against LGBTQ+ when half the characters are or don't care about it. You can have these kinds of characters, but treat it like a fantasy/idealistic circumstance for them rather than a distopia that targets them...and if you are going to go the distopia route, at least try explaining why people frown upon them rather than using the lens of human society as the default.

If they have the option to reuse a lot of the assets they used in this game to make a sequel/prequel or new small saga, I just hope they take some of the criticism to the new game and setting. More god(human) lore/interactions, more complex combat and tone down the politics.

[bugfragged]

Each territory in the game is meant to show off a different aspect of hierarchy, with Vinium representing capitalist democracy, Murida representing generic monarchy, the White Hall and Cranbaile representing religion/tradition, and Sky Garden representing mask-off far-right Twitter. Though I feel having separate factions for all these aspects of hierarchy keeps the game from exploring how some of these hierarchies might be connected or lead into each other. Personally, I'm not as big a purist as some people about representing queerphobic factions in video games, though I do think Sky Garden would have been better as the endgame area than Murida, since it feels more like a later evolution of hierarchy than a generic monarchy. Though Murida is probably the final location for the sake of making Leo the final political opponent.

Also worth noting is that Aiden (far-right) claims a hierarchy allows a tyrant to be identified and held accountable, yet he followed Duke Josh without question. Meanwhile, Leo (moderate conservative/monarchist) is also pro-hierarchy, but actually holds his leader accountable at the end of his sword, making him come off as a more morally consistent version of Aiden.

[Inner Sight]

I was pretty impressed by Aiden's end conversation too. Even though his "Cheap words to a squirrel in chains." line got an eye roll from me since he was literally only in the cell because he chose to be. He could reform or exile like every other gray squirrel did. No one wanted him in there. And I'm fairly sure he could still leave anytime he wanted to.

It's probably hard to make a story-driven game where your politics don't shine through. But it takes a lot of personal restraint to have characters that follow your opposing view and not turn them into a straw man. Aiden is probably the only character like that out of the entire game, but still. He left me feeling satisfied and impressed. Surprising considering how he was almost invisible to me as a character before that.

That said though I would have enjoyed less identity/orientation politics. It wasn't enough to chase me off but at this point I think any excessive focus on a character being gay or trans in a game gives me a gradually growing sense of impeding political force-feeding. Like "Well they're gay so they're probably going to have another major arc or backstory where everyone hates them because they're gay." Even though in this game anytime at all someone's sexual orientation was mentioned at all they were gay. There were possibly more gay mice than not. Never once saw a husband and wife (not that I really needed to).
It's just never a casual aspect. A character can almost never just be gay and it not be turned into the usual story of hatred and/or oppression. I guess the narrowness of direction it ever goes hurts my immediate impression when gay characters are introduced.

The concept of a rodent world-view with titans and god-humans carried my interest from the beginning to the end of this game. That rocked everything and I wish there was a lot more of it. I'm still hungry for a lot more of that. It's brilliant.

[leo_gear]

Originally posted by Inner Sight:

It's probably hard to make a story-driven game where your politics don't shine through. But it takes a lot of personal restraint to have characters that follow your opposing view and not turn them into a straw man.

I'm sure, to a writer, that is just an interesting challenge. Like if you use ad-libs to create a randomized prompt and write a story around it. One just has to accept your personal bias and then try to write from the opposite perspective to make them empathetic/enjoyable to read without making it pretentious. If a writer can make a compelling story from the perspective of a serial killer or an oppressive dictator, it shouldn't be hard to write some stories from a different political view.