The Secret of Varonis

I grew up playing Final Fantasy Legend 2 (FFL2) on the Game Boy and that game is still up there in my top 10 favorite games. The Secret of Varonis (SoV) is basically that game with a lot of quality of life improvements added plus with some extra settings to adjust to your liking early on. Being able to switch from random encounters to enemies being visible on the map is an incredible feature that makes playing these sorts of games a lot more palatable in 2024. Compared to FFL2, there is a lot more balance and polish in SoV. There are many similarities to the races between each game, but SoV makes the 4 very distinct. A lot of information is given to you instead of being obtuse and requiring some wiki or old forums to understand what is happening. I especially love how all items have "Info" options to explain how they work. I also appreciate how Esper "leveling" works when you get a choice of what to upgrade. The monster evolution system is leagues better than FFL2 too, and makes monsters less stressful to use and more useful overall. You can commonly pick old forms through a few ways or try some RNG to evolve to the next tier. Good stuff. In other aspects, the story is alright. Nothing too profound, but I also wasn't expecting too much here. It works. The soundtrack has a decent variety and is pretty solid overall, but nothing quite as memorable as Nobuo (but that isn't a fair comparison haha). The visuals are wonderful in their design and feel, but there were times where I would have liked a few more sprites for monsters (both on the map and in battle). Overall, a great game that I will always have installed on my Steam Deck for when I get the itch to play an old school RPG. I am pretty sure I'll stick to SoV going forward instead of going back to FFL2.

If you enjoyed Final Fantasy Legend 2, you'll enjoy this one.

If you ever read about Final Fantasy Legends in the past, and thought "Man that game looks fun..." Then here you go. The game we always imagined FFL was going to be. Amazing Quality of Life additions, great combat, tons of monsters to fight, eat, and become, and a buncha fun loot to find. 100% worth your time, and a total blast the entire run.

I really am enjoying this game, I think I am before the final boss right now and it has all been done very well. Characters power gets OP at times then settles back to challenging if you don't pay attention. Brought me back to my old school rpg games that I love.

Final Fantasy Legends 4, essentially. It's great.

The level of polish and balancing is far above what I would expect from an indie developer. The game is very faithful to the SaGa series while retaining its own identity without pandering too hard with references. On the negative side, I found the Babel areas mildly uncomfortable. I got the sense that it was supposed to feel non-euclidean but it did make me wonder if I was missing out on content or chests. On my second playthrough I did fixed encounters with all mutants and got all the way to edenic world without acquiring a very rare ability. I do not know if that was bad luck or if the rate is too low.

I'm a turn-based JRPG fan. However, while I liked the SaGa games and owned them on the original Gameboy, I was never a huge fan of the series. The Secret of Varonis takes everything I love about the turn-based JRPG genre and wraps it in the aesthetic of the SaGa games while presenting a polished, modern feeling turn-based JRPG. It's everything I wanted the SaGa games to be while not actually being shackled by the hardware limitations of the time. I strongly recommend this game for turn-based JRPG fans. Random thoughts: - My time played doesn't seem to be synching correctly between my steam deck and PC. I think I'm nearly finished with the game at the time of leaving this review, based on other reviewers' time spent. - The story is surprisingly good and well-written. Usually indie RPGs really struggle to find the right tone, but I think this one nails it. - I'm playing on the casual setting with random battles. I'm happy with that choice, but it makes the game a little easier than I'd like. I think doing "Casual" with FIXED enemy encounters could have presented a really interesting challenge, and I may go back and try that. I also think doing the "classic" setting with field-mode enemies could be fun too. I don't think a game's difficulty settings have ever made me want to replay it as much as TSoV's difficulty settings make me want to replay it. - I did a 1 of each race party, and my monster is consistently underwhelming. This is probably related to the setting where items recharge at inns because of the "casual" setting. This will make mutant inherent abilities and monster inherent abilities both feel weaker. My mutant is strong though since I've probably fought more battles than I should have.

If you enjoyed the original SaGa (ie, Final Fantasy Legend) games and want more, this is effectively the only game on the market. I'm only partway into it, but having a blast.