Ah, good ol’ Saturday morning cartoons of the 80’s and early 90’s. For those of us old enough to remember them, they were the highlights of our week and also probably highly miss them. Well, never fear, Saturday Morning RPG is here to fill that hole!
Saturday Morning RPG takes that nostalgia we have for those good ol’ days of cartoons and runs with it. The story is absolutely fantastic in the cheesiest way possible. You play as Marty (gee, I wonder where that could be from..), a high school student who gets thrown into various episodes against the evil Doctor Doom. The game is absolutely filled to the brim with old references from the 80’s and early 90’s from both cartoons and games.
The graphics of Saturday Morning RPG might be a big turn off to some, but it just adds into the nostalgia. Your characters 
look pixelated on a pretty decent looking background (much like SNES-era games). The battle scenes are much the same – set in a 2D stage with you on one side and your opponent on the other.
Speaking of battles though, that’s where Saturday Morning RPG sadly falls very short. It is extremely repetitive and just SLOW to battle anything. The animations are unskippable, long, and often involve a mini-game. Some mini-games are timing based, some are mashers, some are actually a mini-game. Regardless, it gets very tiring to battle things.
Marty also does absolutely terrible damage, regardless of what level you are and what upgrades you choose on level up. Well, of course, unless you do another mini-game! Though to power up you have the choice of one of three mini-games: a masher, a gauge, or just a flat amount. While this charge can go up to x9.9 it is almost never worth it to go that high. Not when things are already kicking your butt and your ways of healing are limited.
Never fear though! Your HP, MP, and item stock gets refilled after every battle. What item stock you have decides what abilities you have access to in combat. Some are much better than others, but you have no clue what they do until you actually use them as there is no description in your menu for the item. 
Saturday Morning RPG is split up into episodes and it works great, especially considering the theme. While there has only been 4 episodes available since launch, a fifth episode has been promised (as has a sixth, at least according to the achievements). They are all great in their own way, with a variety of side quests and collectibles to obtain in each.
So while Saturday Morning RPG falls extremely short on one major RPG element, it shines in the others – story and music. Even is just for the story I suggest picking up this game, though I’d suggest getting it on sale because of the combat issues it suffers from. Hopefully that long awaited fifth episode will be released soon so we can get some more of the fantastic story, but until then at least you can keep repeating what is already there trying to get everything! Or perhaps you could check out some of the other modes the game boasts alongside story mode.
Saturday Morning RPG Review Score
3/5
Worth it for the story and music, so long as you can deal with exceptionally slow combat and repetitive in-combat mini-games!
