Gods and mortals. What better recipe for disaster. Do these interactions ever turn out well? Definitely not in Signy and Mino’s world. The gods first attempt at helping humans ends in such tragedy that the three godly siblings go their own ways. Eventually people forget the gods ever existed, but, even sleeping, their very presence can cause problems of its own.
Such is the case when young Signy is orphaned during a natural disaster. Growing up with her Grandma and finding solace in the company of her dog Mino, Signy has grown into a capable young woman with an impressive set of fighting skills. But time, and men, are not content to let things be and before long another disaster, seemingly caused by the tech company overseeing everything, propels Signy and Mino into a battle to save the world.
Signy’s journey is very much the traditional heroes journey. While her concern is for her grandmother and staying out of the corporations way, when it becomes clear that only she may be able to stop what’s happening, Signy doesn’t hesitate to throw her hat – and dog – into the ring. And in traditional story fare, a colourful cast of characters will join her on her journey.
The story is very much a strong point in the game, revealing as it does many of the worlds hidden secrets, including those behind the disaster that orphaned her. It’s the characterisation that propels the quest forward, with Signy taking the lead in creating a likeable heroine who isn’t afraid to learn from others. And while he may not say much, Mino is just as important as Signy as her partner in crime and combat. The supporting cast bring their own personalities and drama to the table, but are scripted with just the right amount of humour that keeps the tale both moving at a breezy pace while feeling like a fun adventure, dark moments withstanding.
Signy & Mino takes a lot of its cues from the Paper Mario games, both in the visual look and a certain elements of environment design. Most notable are the visuals which give us wonderfully animated and detailed cartoony 2D character sprites on 3D environments from a fixed camera perspective. The environments themselves are relatively small and broken up into areas or rooms which helps to keep the game feeling laser focused.
Visually, Signy & Mino is a beautiful, stylised game that ditches highly detailed textures in favour of primary coloured environments and stylised artwork. Initially, I felt that the environments themselves were a little on the bland side, but the further into the game I got, the more I enjoyed the developers visual choice. It all makes for an easily readable game while keeping the games install size incredibly tiny. Which is a godsend all of its own in today’s bloated install sizes.
Combat is of the turn-based variety and here the developers have, once again, pulled some of its cues from Paper Mario and many of the succeeding, slightly action orientated RPG’s that it influenced. Namely in that you have to pay attention in combat when it comes to dodging, blocking and attacking. This focus in interactive turn-based combat, beyond pressing a button to auto-attack has always been a godsend for me in RPG’s. From Shadowhearts, with its Judgement Ring to Paper Mario and having to time your attacks to do multiple head bounces for higher damage, I’ve loved the idea since its inception. It keeps combat lively and, more importantly, engaging.
Signy & Mino takes it one step further by turning this into the first tag-team combo based battle system I can remember playing. There’s a little bit of a tactical, fighting game feel to the combat as you launch attacks and figure out how to chain them together to deal damage, smash armour, build up your special bars and pull off heavy hitting attacks.
Your party only ever consists of Signy and Mino, with the other characters providing summon support attacks but never joining you in combat directly. Signy is your major focus while Mino is your support partner. Signy has multi-hit and special attacks designed around air-juggling enemies. And Mino supports you in this by knocking enemies into the air, digging them up from beneath the ground and chaining them into throws that you can direct into other enemies. A typical combo, for instance, may start with Signy’s basic double-hit attack, that you already have to time with another button press to connect, followed up by calling Mino in to knock the enemy into the air, followed up by Signy performing an aerial tornado three hit kick before letting Mino air-grab and then smash the enemy into another enemy before swapping back to Signy to deliver a her patented Big Swing power attack to smash it into oblivion.
This is the entire flow of combat here: air juggles and power hits and learning to exploit the tag and combo system to your advantage. Timing is, of course, critical. Execute an attack while the enemy is too high in the air or too low to the ground and you’ll miss. Even more so for dealing with enemy attacks that you can block, if timed right, or, my favourite, double-jump out of the way.
The best part about the combat system, beyond just how much fun it is, is how well polished it is as well. It’s also accompanied by an ear-worm of a Battle Tune that still plays in my head whenever I think of the game.
My only gripe with the game is that sometimes battles can run on for a bit too long, especially boss fights which feature multiple phases.
Signy & Mino also streamlines the levelling system. You only need one hundred experience points to level up and when you do, you get a stat point to spend in the games skill tree. While new attacks are unlocked over the course of the campaign, you can unlock more combo opportunities and more health, alongside other skills and perks.
Signy can be further buffed by crafting different stat affecting Chips to use. While there’s a variety of uses, the earliest stat chip you get, which increases experience gained, ended up been my most used chip throughout the campaign.
Signy & Mino: Against All Gods is an ambitious RPG from a small team whose major goal is to be fun first. And in this respect it accomplishes that goal wonderfully with beautifully animated sprites, a streamlined progression system and one of the best combat systems I’ve used this year.
Pros:
- Fantastic tag-team combat system
- Streamlined RPG progression mechanics
- Good story
- Fun gameplay
- Tiny install size
Cons:
- Fights can run on a bit too long at times
Score: 7/10
Signy & Mino: Against All Gods was played on PC using a code provided by the publisher.
Double AA Gaming 