Saturday Morning RPG Review

As seen on TV!

Remember being an 80’s kid, waking up at around 8am and watching some of the coolest cartoons ever made about a kid in highschool who doubled as a superhero? Well, I don’t – I was born in the 90’s so I never got to wake up to such amazing shows like Captain Planet which had those exact themes. Thankfully, Mighty Rabbit Studios have brought Saturday Morning RPG to Switch so we can have a nostalgic throwback to those times, whether we were around for them or not.

The story centres around a character by the name of Marty (no, it’s never confirmed if his surname is McFly), who’s high school sweetheart has been kidnapped by Commander Hood, who plans to marry her and take over the world. You’re tasked with taking out his Lizard army and rescuing your girl from his evil clutches.

The game is split into 5 different chapters, each of them set in different environments. For example, the first chapter is set on a Volcano, whilst the second episode feels like a completely different story altogether and is set in a school where the teachers have become minions of Commander Hood.

There are a lot of systems in play in Saturday Morning RPG including a battle system that you would have seen in other games such as Paper Mario. The turn-based battle system allows you to select between physical attacks and magical attacks – each of these attack’s effectiveness is based on how well you do in a very quick mini game, which normally comes down to pressing the A button at the correct time. If you fail the mini game you’ll still do damage but it will be significantly reduced.

At first the battle system felt like a breath of fresh air from the basic ‘select an attack and it just happens’ – the additional involvement of user interaction was definitely enjoyable at first, but with a lot of enemy encounters to run into I soon grew rather tired of them, trying to avoid them wherever possible so I could advance the plot.

Another feature the battle system uses is the sticker system – you’ll find stickers by buying them in vending machines scattered throughout the game, or by completing side quests. You can scratch the stickers at the start of every battle and these will give you buffs such as additional damage or extra health. These are very useful and I often found it fun when I found a new sticker to see if I could better my experience in battles, which often worked out exactly as intended.

My main issue with Saturday Morning RPG was that a lot of it seemed too short – the chapters in the game were over rather quickly, taking around an hour each to complete, so I never really got an opportunity to absorb myself in the game’s story. I feel that if the chapters were elaborated on a little more it would’ve made for a more fulfilling experience.

Saturday Morning RPG feels like a good template for what could be a great series, and with Mighty Rabbit Studios saying a sequel could happen based on the sales of the Switch version and a physical release on the way thanks to Limited Run Games, I’d say Saturday Morning RPG is definitely worth a look if you’re looking for a fun RPG with a unique setting and somewhat enjoyable battle system.