i think the main thing i could say after completing meg's monster, a bite-sized jrpg by small indie studio Odencat, is that it's a masterclass in brevity. in a lot of ways!
from the outset, the premise is that you, a big beefy monster named Roy, find a small girl named Meg & are determined to protect her and see her safely back home. the general twist on the jrpg formula is that you're immense, have 9999 HP to start, but any time you take damage, it 'hurts' the heart of Meg, and if it drops to 0 she cries, and then the world ends.
every battle is bespoke. every area is usually a single screen that scrolls vertically, selected from a compact world map. items are one-time-use but refresh every battle. it is a jrpg so condensed that i felt the essence of turn-based combat design distilled down to the puzzle-like nature of action choice that good rpgs have, but without a constant number-go-up pressure that is relieved with such a concise scope.
even the music chooses to be simple (but certainly not lacking in complexity), with a pared-down palette of piano & string quartet, and a little percussion and synth thrown in every now and again. it's a beautiful live-recorded accompaniment to pixel art lovingly inspired by games like mother 3 & the lineage of indie rpgs that have come after.
it's a small, perfectly sized story at about 5-6 hours of playtime, and just enough space to get attached to the characters so it can break your heart when it needs to.
super super recommended ✨
