What is most striking to me about the game is that it accurately captures the interesting theoretical aspects of the original SaGa games.

As in the original SaGa series, in Varonis, we find ourselves in a sort of post-scientific episteme. Science exists, of course, and there are scientists and researchers, but truth value itself has moved beyond science into the realm of the interpersonal and the political. Scientific knowledge production is provincialized to the realm of hobbies and specialized tasks for specialized individuals. The actual products of scientific production (guns, missiles, etc) are just as usable as other weapons (like swords or bows) which are themselves products of more traditional knowledge structures. Often scientifically-inflected technology is even simply decorative (see the various character portraits and their use of radio headsets as cosmetic/aesthetic etc). This is obviously quite distinct from the contemporary world, but that is precisely what makes it interesting - it is a way of imagining the world beyond science, but not the world mourning the loss of it (as in so many post-apocalyptic stories).

Another somewhat obvious thematic tie is the posthuman/decentering turn the text takes. Like the original SaGa games, it somewhat fails at true posthumanism (which is to say, decentering human perspectives - the robots etc think and act just like humans after all), but, also like the original games, it succeeds at the gesture towards decentering/destabilization. You get this wonderful taste of so many different worlds and cultures, many of which (all the various non-story-important side-worlds) are honestly kind of uninterested in whatever it is you're doing in the tower. They are happy to have guests of course, but they are very much doing their own thing and you are not really part of it and that is just great. None of these are fully fleshed out as distinct cultures, but, with the briefness of your contact, I wonder if the text is conscious of the shallowness and actively deploying it. What I mean by this is that, as with a week trip to Vietnam or something, you can only get a taste of a foreign culture with a shallow contact and you do not move to understanding or appreciating it as you might if you lived there. You of course come away changed, maybe even wrongly feeling like an expert in whatever country you just visited and desiring to tell all your friends about what you learned, but you have only truly dipped the toe in. The similarity of the cultures in the text, with small variation, and their focus on the protagonist's overarching interests (especially in the 'story worlds') does not, to me anyway, feel like lazy writing, but functions more as a recognition of perspective and the shallow 'toe dipping' that the protagonists do in each new world they encounter. The reason for this are the various side-worlds which do have pretty distinct local flavors and are not engaged in your interests or desires.

Mechanically, the game is just great and I wish more games had the Fixed Encounter system that Varonis does. Basically, this has enemies walking around the world map and once you kill them, they are gone forever. Many RPGs are fundamentally about strategizing the next anticipated moment (in a sense, it is kind of regressive as a genre, since this strategizing is only ever in the sake of optimization, but that is neither here nor there). In this way, they are always future-focused, looking forward to what will come and thinking about how best to deal with that. This normally manifests in turn-based combat that encourages thoughtful action, distributing stats for various characters, and buying weapons and armor. However, Varonis expands this (unlike the SaGa games) to the encounters themselves: there are only a fixed number of them, meaning there is only a fixed amount of money in the game (and healing generally costs money). Who do you fight and under what condition? How do you anticipate the next fight will go? You get a preview based on the enemy icon walking around the map, after all. Do you spring for a heal and potentially waste the finite resource of money or try your luck? Lots of little moments of strategy to be found in the actual encounters themselves and it makes purchases (especially the gear-up before the next big boss) so much more interesting. I'm genuinely shocked more games have not done this format, as it amplifies the experience greatly.

Now I can say the things everyone else will say about this game - it is simply SaGa 4 in the way Bloodstained was a new Castlevania game. It understood what made the source material work and thus transcends simply being a fan game or a carbon copy. Put another way: it is not a SaGa-like or a SaGa-clone or a SaGa-fan game: it is SaGa 4. Additionally, the mechanical spins it adds to the series are just wonderful, ranging from the aforementioned fixed encounter system to (excellent) overhauls to how the races/species work. It is an easy recommendation from me and what a joy it was to play.

The Secret of Varonis is a spiritual successor to the original Gameboy SaGa trilogy (aka Final Fantasy Legend), having originally grown out of a fan game. The mechanics are essentially a combination of the first two SaGa games, with a decent amount of modern quality of life thrown in. The story is very similar to the first couple of games, seeing you climb a tower, visit worlds, and fight gods, though it's more focused and fleshed out than what you'd expect from a SaGa game. I actually rather enjoyed it by the end. While there's nothing particularly new here, everything is just a bit bigger, better, and smoother to play than the old games, creating an experience that I think even modern JRPG fans without nostalgia would have a great time with.