Line #36 VideoGame/SmallSaga


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/small_saga_header.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:An epic RPG of miniature proportions!]]
3	''Small Saga'' is a turn-based RPG created by Darya Noghani, released on November 16, 2023. The game was primarily funded through a Website/{{Kickstarter}} campaign, which can be viewed [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sketchyjeremy/small-saga here]]. A demo is available on [[https://sketchylogic.itch.io/small-saga itch]] and [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1320140/Small_Saga/ Steam]]. The game's official website can be accessed [[https://smallsaga.com/ here]]. A tie-in webcomic, ''Needle Knight'', can be read [[https://needleknight.com/ here]].
4
5	Beneath the streets of modern London lies the medieval land of Rodentia, the home of many sentient rats, squirrels, shrews, and other rodents. Their land is a mostly peaceful one, as there are laws in place to avoid conflict with the Gods and Titans (humans and housecats). However, this peace is not enough for Verm, a vagabond who once lost his tail to the Yellow God of Death, and now wields the Titan Reaper (a human's pocketknife) as he embarks on a quest for vengeance.
6
7	Darya Noghani previously worked on ''VideoGame/AviaryAttorney''.
8	----
9	!!The game includes examples of the following tropes:
10	* AmbiguousTimePeriod: Though the game takes place over a year, from Spring to Winter, no specific dates are ever given. The human world is rather generically contemporary, putting the year at "Sometime in the 21st century," and World War Two is vaguely alluded to as having happened almost a century ago. [[spoiler: Aquila says the first book they ever read was "The Anthropocene." A book by that title was released in 2021 in Real Life, and given that they're old for a rat that would set the game a few years later at the absolute earliest, but the copy in Aquila's lab has a different spine and cover from the real book and that is a fairly generic title.]]
11	* AMFMCharacterization: After getting his groove back, Bruce puts on a show with Anton and asks his party members if they have any requests. Siobhan wants to hear a classical piece by an esteemed composer, Gwen wants to hear "Raise Your Bloody Claws to the Dying Sky" by Pestilent Rage, and Verm wants to hear "Needle Knight", a song about the heroic exploits of Sir Leo, [[spoiler: despite Leo having beaten him up and caused him a HeroicBSOD by this point]]. Disgusted, Bruce says they all have terrible taste and just plays "Rat-Tailed Rover" again.
12	* AndTheAdventureContinues:
13	** The game ends with [[spoiler:Verm choosing to leave the kingdom, 'taking a walk' as he says. He doesn't specify if he's adventuring, or trying to find a new purpose without vengeance, or just returning to the old home that he mentions. His friends offer to come with him, but he says he'd rather go alone, though when Siobhan seems upset he adds that they and the other two are the best friends he could have hoped for]].
14	** Depending on the outcome of a late-game duel, [[spoiler:it can be reported that Sir Leo and his daughter, who few others knew existed, were able to flee the revolution and have journeyed south to Aremorio to find a new home]].
15	* AndThenWhat: Leo asks this of Verm before their second fight. Maybe Verm could overturn nature and kill the God, as he claims he can, but then what would happen? Rodent society would be thrown into chaos and, especially if Verm wasn't satisfied and went after other Gods, the Gods would retaliate to catastrophic effect. Verm, who doesn't do much long term planning, doesn't know and doesn't care.
16	* AnimalJingoism: A number of the bosses faced are natural predators of rodents, such as [[spoiler:a cat, a stoat, four young owls, and a cobra]]. There's also a major subplot about grey squirrels with an {{Eagleland}} bent having deposed and replaced native red squirrels, representing how gray squirrels from the Americas have become invasive in Europe and started outcompeting the Eurasian red squirrel.
17	* AnimalsNotToScale: House mice are depicted as larger than moles, while actually small moles are somewhat bigger than large mice. Squirrels are portrayed as lightly built and smaller than rats, though gray squirrels (the larger, invasive species represented by Clan Grey) are very robust and commonly get a bit bigger than the biggest rats, and actually larger than stoats. The size differences between mice and the other species are also somewhat de-emphasized. Pigeons are portrayed as larger than any of the main rodents.
18	* AnimalTesting: This goes on at the Hall of the White Gods, the lab that Gwen [[EscapedFromTheLab escaped from]]. She seems to have been used for prosthetics research.
19	* ApocalypticLog: A book in the abandoned shrew city of Solhill ends before things get ''really'' bad but it's clear that things are going wrong. The earliest entry takes place shortly after the events of ''Needle Knight''; soon-to-be Sir Leo has slain the Vulpes and left, and the tone is celebratory. But the corpse of the Titan sits in the depths of the burrow and rots, starting to attract... other things. Shrews start to take ill, one of whom pronounces that "Curses beget curses".
20	* ArmoredButFrail: The [[spoiler:PreFinalBoss Apocalypse Engine (a fumigation machine)]] has a ''very'' measly 20 HP... but has such high defense that most attacks deal 1-2 damage to it ''after its defense is lowered''. To make matters worse, its Noxious Gas makes your team tipsy, greatly lowering their accuracy.
21	* {{BFS}}: The Titan Cleaver is nothing more than a pocket-knife, but when wielded by a little mouse such as [[TheHero Verm]], it becomes a god-weapon so massive it's wondered aloud by others how he can even swing it at all. Siobhan can't even lift it. It's hefty but slightly more proportionate in the hands of the rather large water vole bandit leader that originally wielded it before getting killed by Verm and Lance.
22	* BigCreepyCrawlies: There are a lot of arthropods serving as minor antagonists, from sewer roaches and treasure chest spiders to scorpions. They're fairly large compared to the rodents making up the cast, but would only qualify as bigger-than-normal to humans.
23	* BookEnds: The first encounter with the Yellow God takes place in an area introduced with the text "Heaven: Tread Softly." [[spoiler:The FinalBoss takes place in an area introduced with "Hell: Tread Softly."]]
24	* BossBanter: Similarly to a particularly spoilery boss from ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'', [[spoiler:Plaguemaster Aquila's boss theme has a vocal accompaniment, consisting of a text-to-speech program commentating on humanity's effects on the environment and the apathy humans have towards them.]]
25	--> ''"Is anyone even listening?"''
26	* BrickJoke: [[spoiler:The undetonated "Excalibur" housed atop Big Ben is never defused by the party after defeating Plaguemaster Aquila - Siobhan specifically mentions that the bomb itself is still active, but the ballista intended to launch it is no longer operational, thereby rendering it incapable of harming either Parliament or the rodent city below it. Once the party have defeated the Yellow God of Death, their victory is cut short by the sound of a massive explosion. The game then cuts to a shot of the Houses of Parliament, with the top of the famous clock tower having been blown to bits.]]
27	* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: The third-from-final boss thinks it's possible that Verm ''can'' kill the Yellow God, but fears what would happen next, especially if Verm got a taste for it. [[spoiler: Leo knows enough about humans to be aware that they would retaliate and that this would be catastrophic for Rodentia.]]
28	* CarnivoreConfusion: A book in Cranbaile insists that carnivores are barred from Rodentia. Real rats eagerly hunt and eat mice but that doesn't come up here. However, Blademaster Lamia is a stoat and makes frequent allusions to eating rodents. Other than Duke Josh, who feeds her prisoners and enemies, everyone including his other guards is distinctly uncomfortable about this. [[spoiler: When the party fights her, she eats a nearby guard, which is distinctly played for horror.]] Halfsight the cat is given dead gladiators to eat in exchange for deterring other Titans from Vinium, but despite Bruce being reminded of Lamia the local rodents are not concerned and even consider the old cat harmless.
29	* CassandraTruth:
30	** When Verm and Lance first fight past the bandits blocking the way to Heaven, the bandit leader uses his final breaths to tell them that it's been taken over by a Yellow God of Death. Lance tells Verm to disregard the warning as the final ramblings of a villain that wants them to suffer, but it soon turns out to have been completely honest.
31	** If Verm attempts to tell the Wizard Lizard about the party's encounter with a rhyming Kraken, the lizard will assume that he's just messing with them. Gwen also responds like this when he tells her about it.
32	* CastFullOfGay: Among the playable characters, we have Siobhan (non-binary), Bruce (gay), Gwen (bi or pansexual), and even Verm himself is strongly implied to be asexual in a conversation with Gwen regarding sexuality.
33	* ChaseFight: In Vinium, gladiatorial fights on Chariot Chuesday take place atop RC cars the residents refer to as chariots.
34	* ChestMonster: Some treasure chests have a creature called an Avarice Spider living in it, which will attack the party when they try to loot the chest.
35	* CunningLikeAFox: It doesn't appear in the game itself, but Sir Leo got his [[TheAce reputation]] by killing a fox that had been raiding a shrew settlement. The fox, as revealed in ''Needle Knight'', had been allowing the shrews to live in one of its "many dens" and claiming tribute in the form of food as rent; when they ran out of provisions, it switched to [[SapientEatSapient eating the shrews]].
36	* DavidVersusGoliath: While the size difference between Verm the mouse and the human God he wants to kill is the most blatant size disparity, many other bosses also tower before the party, such as Tiger the housecat and Blademaster Lamia the stoat.
37	* DealWithTheDevil: ''Needle Knight'' includes [[https://needleknight.com/posts/the-library/ a story]] about The Legend of Oisín the Oathbreaker, a mole lord who made a deal with a Titan, a stoat named Hera, who would single-handedly (pawed-ly?) kill the enemies facing the mole city in exchange for half of his treasury. The legend thinks this would have ended fine, except that Oisín reneged on the deal and hid away most of his valuables before she came to claim them. Hera, displeased, then killed and ate half the town's nobles. It's generally believed to be a very bad idea to break a deal made with a Titan.
38	* EvilOverlord: [[spoiler:King James, the mouse monarch enforcing the current status quo, understands that the Yellow God is a threat and wants to use the Excalibur bomb to kill Him, but doesn't bother to evacuate Muria. In fact, when the commoners start rebelling against him he decides that he can solve two problems at once.]]
39	* FantasyForbiddingFather: Siobhan's Mammy, the leader of Cranbaile, is adherent to the "Old Ways" and will not raise a paw against the gods even when a god's pet cat Tiger is responsible for slaughtering her own people. When Siobhan decides to take up arms themself and wins with Verm's help, first they're scolded for disobeying, and then a letter is sent to the king stating that Verm is a corrupting influence that needs to be taken care of. [[spoiler: She's had CharacterDevelopment by the end of the game and according to her Blademaster is becoming more accepting, sending the Hedge Knight to support them and not asking him to bring them home.]]
40	* TheFarmerAndTheViper: A book of fables recounts the story of a viper who wants to cross a river and asks a raven to carry her. The raven is aware of this trope but despite his instincts picks her up and flies with her... and they land safely on the other side, where the viper thanks the raven and goes about her way peacefully.
41	--> "Hold up. Why didn't you bite me? You had every opportunity. Isn't biting in your nature?"
42	--> "In all thingsss of nature, there is something of the marveloussss."
43	* FourLegsGoodTwoLegsBetter: Most of the cast are completely bipedal. Violet the bat also walks around on two legs and has generally quite human anatomy. Titans, being larger and less anthropomorphic, are more likely to be found on all fours, other than owls.
44	* FriendlyNeighborhoodSpider: A mouse-sized spider in Muria is friendly. It can't speak, but when given insect parts it excitedly flings seeds at Verm, so it has some idea of what trade is.
45	* FurryReminder: While exploring Solhill, Verm and company can smell that the town isn't actually entirely devoid of rodent life.
46	* GiantsKnifeHumansGreatsword: Very common in the MouseWorld of Rodentia, with quite a few characters wielding human-made objects as what they call "[[HumansAreCthulhu God Weapons]]." Verm's "[[{{BFS}} Titan Cleaver]]" is just an ordinary pocket-knife, Gwen's glaive is a scalpel, Blademaster Leo uses a SewingNeedleSword, Diego uses a gavel as a massive warhammer, the scissor-sisters Rosalie and Maisie each use one-half of a broken pair of scissors as longswords, and so on.
47	* GladiatorGames: The shrew settlement of Vinium has an arena where gladiators are made to fight ScaryScorpions and duel on moving "chariots" (RC cars). A citizen speculates that since the entire town is built of plastic LEGO bricks the people crave the relative reality of a blood sport.
48	* HairRaisingHare: Sir George of the Hall of the White Gods worships those gods and thinks the animals they experiment on should accept any treatment, up to and including being killed, with a glad and gracious heart. He's not pleased with his ex, Gwen, for her disagreement and for doing things like running away and dyeing her hair.
49	* HeelFaceTurn:
50	** Pocket starts as an unscrupulous thief that's willing to help Bruce and Anton commit a heist because it seems funny, but can't help gloating and alerts the guards while they're performing, at which point he skedaddles and starts gleefully waving his trophy around when they're captured and he's safe and in the clear. [[spoiler:After a battle with Bruce, Pocket has a change of heart and infiltrates Clan Grey by himself in order to break everyone out before Lamia can eat them.]]
51	** Bree and Stilton, a FatAndSkinny pair of sewer rats, are the first battle in the game as they attempt to rob Verm and his brother. They go straight post-prologue, wanting to inform the king of Rodentia's unaddressed problems and discussing issues with other citizens. Near the end of the game, they're the ones [[spoiler:organizing a revolution on Verm's behalf in order to help Verm's party infiltrate the royal palace]].
52	** If certain sidequests are done before the end of the game, [[spoiler:Rosalie, George the rabbit, and Nemian the Hedge Knight, all of whom were previously battles, assist Verm's party in revolting against the King]].
53	* HopelessBossFight:
54	** Lance versus [[spoiler:the Yellow God]]. None of his attacks deal a single point of damage to it, and once Lance gets its attention, [[spoiler:the Yellow God uses its hand to crush Lance several times for damage way over his maximum health, killing him]].
55	** The first DuelBoss against Blademaster Leo has him parry everything Verm throws at him. Even after Verm manages to break Leo's weapon, he still follows up with an attack with his broken weapon that deals as much damage as the grip of the Yellow God.
56	* HumansAreCthulhu: The people of Rodentia call humanity gods, and many are terrified of even the chance of gaining their attention. [[spoiler:The opening lets us briefly control a mouse who is attempting to attack one of them as a distraction, and it's an utter CurbStompBattle where the human is left completely unharmed and the mouse is crushed to death almost immediately by an attack that does ''hundreds'' of times more damage than their maximum health.]] A book by a Loremaster who dedicated her life to understanding the behavior of Gods says the question she's asked most often is whether Gods are mortal and says this is a controversial topic, but there are verified accounts of them dying.
57	* HumanlikeHandAnatomy: It'd be difficult to build such an advanced MouseWorld without them! The most striking example is probably Violet the bat, who's fully humanoid and has basically finned upper arms, rather than a membrane stretched between elongated fingers. Larger animals known as Titans sometimes also have hands - the stoat Blademaster Lamia is quite capable of using weapons - but are often less anthropomorphic.
58	* InstantMessengerPigeon: In both ''Needle Knight'' and the game proper, the characters hear about the prospect of being carried in a basket by a messenger raven only to meet Ditzi the pigeon, who's good-natured if hapless.
59	** Siobhan's mother contacts the king of Rodentia by sending him a messenger butterfly.
60	* InterfaceSpoiler: Several of Verm's TechTree skills have their names redacted during the prologue, which might be a clue he will change his fighting style before too long. In a wider scale, averted in that [[spoiler:his brother Lance has an entire tree of skills, some with unique names, that you will ''never get to use'']].
61	* InterspeciesRomance: Bruce the red squirrel and Anton the hamster. Gwen the lab rat is exes with Sir George the lab rabbit and gets arrested for hitting on Lamia the stoat.
62	* InUniverseSoundtrack: A tavern rat has a guitar and takes requests, and can play and sing the Traveller's Blessing, Rat-Tailed Rover, and Needle Knight, the last of which recounts the heroic exploits of [[HeroOfAnotherStory Sir Leo]] and is [[AMFMCharacterization Verm's favorite song]]. Bruce and his boyfriend play a cover of Rat-Tailed Rover to distract Duke Josh as an accomplice steals something from his treasury. In that area, the Ash Tower, there's a bat playing an electric guitar version of the area's music. She complains that the Duke has ordered her to only play Clan Grey's theme.
63	* LizardFolk: There are only a few lizards to be seen in Rodentia, and their being lizards isn't commented on.
64	* LongSongShortScene: Most of the songs aren't all that long, but in general the fights are easy enough that a player who's hit on a hard-hitting strategy will regularly clear the fight well before the song is done.
65	* MixedAnimalSpeciesTeam: Verm's party consists of himself (a mouse), Siobhan (a mole), Bruce (a red squirrel), and Gwen (a white rat).
66	* MouseWorld: The land of Rodentia is this, being an entire miniature kingdom built under a human city, with its own mouse-sized cafes, barracks, and other fully-furnished locales.
67	* NiceMice: There are plenty of mice and they have variable temperaments. Since they're smaller than rats are and mainly don't have a lot of power, they're generally depicted as ordinary civilians.
68	* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: After the events of the opening, Verm thinks of Lance whenever he starts to walk away from a friend or ally in need, causing him to say "I'm not running away!" and go to their aid no matter the risk.
69	* OrphanedSeries: While the game itself was complete when it launched, the tie-in ''Needle Knight'' webcomic made during development only lasted 21 pages and covers just the first half of Sir Leo's "song".
70	* OurWerebeastsAreDifferent: Mention is made of "Muswolves," but they're implied to just be a myth. "Ghosts and muswolves" is a Rodentian idiom that seems to basically mean "that sounds like superstitious nonsense." However, ghosts ''are'' seen at a few points in the story, and Vinium's new champion gladiator is said to be a muswolf... [[spoiler:but it's just {{kayfabe}}]].
71	* OminousOwl: They're referred to as Nightwings and of course are extremely threatening to the residents of a MouseWorld.
72	* OutOfTheClosetIntoTheFire: Bruce first encounters Gwen in a Clan Grey dungeon where the latter's crime was simply being queer in a territory that doesn't tolerate it. Bruce himself is arrested primarily for thievery and being a red squirrel, but as the duke is having him and his boyfriend Anton dragged away he does bring up their relationship with disgust.
73	* PacifismBreakingPoint: Bruce is averse to combat, preferring to support his allies with music. However, upon [[spoiler:reencountering Pocket, the thief that betrayed him and led to Anton being imprisoned by Clan Grey]], he decides this is a matter he needs to deal with himself and learns his only offensive skill, "Thwack".
74	* PetsVersusStrays: Since the residents of Rodentia consider humans to be Gods, they're fairly positive about pets, who they regard as having been chosen and freely given housing, food, etc. Gwen contrasts that to living in the Hall of the White Gods, which offers those same benefits but makes them "transactional" as the White Gods have many cruel demands of their experimental subjects. A brief conversation with Halfsight the cat suggests cats have a more varied opinion, with some regarding collars as marks of slavery and others seeing them as akin to fine jewelry.
75	* PointOfNoReturn: Once Verm talks with Bree and Stilton in a tavern about [[spoiler:organizing a revolution as a distraction so Verm's party can sneak into the palace to deal with King James, Plaguemaster Aquila, and the Yellow God of Death]], they warn his party that there's no going back once it starts, with Verm's allies suggesting some final sidequests to undertake first. Talking to the tavern mice again initiates the final sequence of the game.
76	* PrecisionFStrike: The language in the game is mainly on the tame side, but late in the game King James says "Shit!". After the climax, Verm can ask a guard about the fates of various characters who aren't in the palace as of the epilogue, including [[spoiler: Plaguemaster Aquilla]], and the guard will say "Didn't they fucking explode?"
77	* RedHerring: When Verm goes missing [[spoiler: after being soundly defeated by Sir Leo and falling into the sewer]] there is a TimeSkip, and the game resumes with his friends trying to find him. They hear rumors of a particularly ferocious fighting mouse in the GladiatorGames in Vinium, so Bruce follows up on this lead. [[spoiler: Verm ''is'' in Vinium thanks to an unscrupulous shrew [[SavedToEnslave rescuing him to exploit]], but he's been keeping his head down and farming the whole time. The ferocious fighting mouse just has the gimmick of being a 'muswolf' to get the crowds going, and she's quite chill out of the arena.]]
78	* RelocatingTheExplosion: Inverted. [[spoiler: Siobhan is unable to quickly figure out how to disarm Excalibur, but they ''do'' understand the ballista it's hooked up to and are able to prevent it from launching the bomb through the face of a great clock and into the House of Commons. After the final boss fight, it explodes anyway, destroying the clock tower.]]
79	* ResourcefulRodent: While Rodentia as a whole is filled with intelligent rodents, Verm's party frequently comes up with innovative ways to solve their problems, such as Siobhan repurposing a lighter as a God Weapon that fires its flame like a cannon.
80	* RunningGag: Whenever the party has to jump down from a high place, Siobhan always lands on their face, with a squeak instead of a thud.
81	* SavePoint: The game can be saved at any idol, whether it's a golden statue honoring a war hero, a carved wooden figurine, or simply an action figure purloined from the Gods.
82	* ScaryScorpions: Vinium has several scorpions referred to as Imperators - presumably after emperor scorpions - to pit against rodent gladiators. The scorpions are [[WhatMeasureIsANonCute non-anthropomorphic]] and unlike most foes are killed in these combats rather than disengaging.
83	* SchizoTech: The kingdom of Rodentia is roughly medieval, with animals forging swords and wearing armor. The human world above them is on the modern side, enough to have Gameboys and calculators, and various animals use human items as "god weapons" or just as props, such as the Duke of Clan Grey having a vape pen. Rodents also steal electricity from humans. [[spoiler: Aquila also develops simple mouse robots suitable as MechaMooks.]]
84	* ScrewballSquirrel: In the backstory, militaristic and intolerant Clan Gray squirrels came from across the ocean and displaced the gentler local Clan Red squirrels, invoking how grey squirrels from the Americas became invasive and outcompete Eurasian red squirrels. Individual gray squirrels vary in personality with many actually being quite nice, but Clan Grey's leader Duke Josh is volatile, imprisons people on a whim, ensures security by employing a stoat who [[FedToTheBeast eats prisoners]], and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking won't stop vaping in front of people]].
85	* {{Seers}}: After [[spoiler:the jailbreak and becoming enemies of Clan Grey]], the part seek out the Cailleach[[note]]"divine hag"[[/note]] in order to know where to go next. [[spoiler:It turns out that Clan Grey beheaded the Cailleach long ago after being given a prophecy of their downfall, but her four owl children are willing to answer one question for Verm before they demand tribute and try to kill him.]]
86	* SetSwordsToStun: The very second fight the mice Verm and Lance get into ends with Sava dying. The ''third'' fight is a HopelessBossFight against the Yellow God, [[spoiler: who kills Lance with one hand.]] You might think from that that the fights would often be lethal, but after that only a few of them are even incapacitating, never mind that they usually involve knives, fire, and a scalpel, unless they're fighting [[WhatMeasureIsANonCute insects]]. [[spoiler: Lamia is bloody, but she's an exception.]] Verm despairs briefly after his party is victorious over a White God - it retreated barely scratched after all their efforts.
87	* ShortLivedOrganism: Since the cast are rodents, they don't live as long as humans do and refer to "seasons" more readily than years. After the TimeSkip a shrew refers to Verm as being three seasons old, with maybe another two active ones to go, but Verm's pretty scarred and hard-worn by all that fighting; Sir Leo's a whole year older than him and doesn't seem to be regarded as elderly. None of the characters consider themselves short lived except for Aquila, who has several bitter statements to the effect of "a rodent's life is short and meaningless." They also complain that "gods" live one hundred times as long as rodents, which may be them exaggerating.
88	* ShoutOut:
89	** Verm is an {{expy}} of Guts from ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', from his clothing and the BFS that many characters marvel at him being able to use, to an arc of learning to accept and rely on the help of others and that there's life beyond revenge, to even his personality. He even says "As long as I was swinging my sword at a foe, I didn't have to think", and then there's [[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3089642080 this moment]] that's a clear visual reference to Guts riding Zodd.
90	** One location is a toy store that includes a doll of the witchy rabbit persona of Lilith Walther, the developer of ''VideoGame/BloodbornePSX'' and ''VideoGame/BloodborneKart''.
91	** The mythical character of Ratlas in Murida is a reference to ''Literature/MrsFrisbyAndTheRatsOfNIMH''.
92	** Sir Diego in his [[https://needleknight.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/SmallGuinea.jpg armor]] resembles [[VideoGame/DarkSouls Executioner Smough]], complete with hefting a gavel like a war hammer.
93	** An in-universe book called "The Destitute" involves Sir Jacques pursuing Volejean.
94	** ''Needle Knight'' has a reference to ''Film/SevenSamurai'' (or any of the many things inspired by it) as Leo remembers the Tokudaia Ten, a band of warriors who [[TrainingThePeacefulVillagers taught a village to defend itself]] against water vole raiders.
95	** One of the items is an Oaken Ocarina, which has a ''Videogame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' shape and is described as "Nostalgic to the ear".
96	** In the remains of a burnt-out Clan Red city, there's the remains of a statue. "Two vast and trunkless paws of stone stand before you."
97	** A shrew in Vinium ate a bad mushroom and had a vision of being the main character of ''VideoGame/AviaryAttorney''.
98	** Plenty to ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'', given the game functions as a throwback to many classic [=JRPGs=]:
99	*** Bruce gets called a [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV spoony bard]] in a rare case of the word being used correctly.
100	*** The [[spoiler:Octopus]] boss singing is a reference to [[spoiler:Ultros]] from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI''.
101	*** Verm says "[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII let's mosey]]" under White Hall.
102	*** Verm's Cleave attack bears a great resemblance to Cloud's iconic Climhazzard Limit Break, also from ''FFVII''.
103	*** Gwen's a white rat with a cape, nicknamed "Dragon," who wields a spear, all pointing to Freyja from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX''.
104	*** Blademaster Leo bears a great resemblance to General Beatrix, also from ''FFIX'' - both are high-ranking soldiers loyal to a monarch, who are famed in-story as peerless warriors, and are fought as a HopelessBossFight. And just like Beatrix, Leo [[spoiler:eventually turns on his monarch when he learns the truth behind his cruel and selfish nature]].
105	* SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism: ''Small Saga'''s small mammals are mainly {{Civilized Animal}}s with a full MouseWorld. Some of the cast walk around mainly naked with a few accessories and basically look like bipedal rodents, some are more on the FunnyAnimal or even BeastMan side and have head hair and wear full human-style garb including pants and boots. The most anthropomorphic character is a bat that's basically a fuzzy human with batlike ears and a nose and finned upper arms, able to play a guitar and wear a T-shirt. Larger animals or "Titans" are on the PartiallyCivilizedAnimal or TalkingAnimal side. Titans are generally willing to eat rodents, while the smaller animals, including rats, don't go in for that sort of thing. There is also a FriendlyNeighborhoodSpider who doesn't speak but seems to understand the concept of trade.
106	* SneakySpider: If a treasure chest is in a room by itself with spiderwebs about, it's [[ChestMonster actually an Avarice Spider]]. Fortunately, they're not as deadly as they seem, and there are only three of them throughout the entire game.
107	* SuperweaponSurprise: Averted. [[spoiler:The royal court of Murida is aware of the threat the Yellow God poses, and is prepared to defeat it by dropping "Excalibur" on it: an unexploded, salvaged World War 2-era bomb from the Blitz. The problem is that while this would certainly kill the Yellow God, it would also obliterate half of Murida, killing tens of thousands of rodents -- and for King James and Aquila, this is the ''point''. The party therefore has to sabotage Excalibur to prevent it from being launched, and defeat the Yellow God the hard way.]]
108	* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Sir Leo made his name by killing a fox that was threatening Solhill, a shrew town that had set up in one of the fox's dens. This was a very impressive feat and there's a heroic song about him, "Needle Knight". However, late in the game Verm and co can visit Solhill and find no shrews. Leo had fought and killed the fox in the depths of the den, and the shrews were unable to move its corpse. It rotted, spreading disease and attracting other predators.
109	* ThroneRoomThrowdown: Verm's second battle with Sir Leo takes place in the throne room [[spoiler: after Leo has killed the King.]] Verm's not really interested in the King, but in a passage from the throne room up to the hall where he can find and fight the Yellow God.
110	* TimeLimitBoss: [[spoiler: Aquila's boss battle is a lot more dire than most since they need to be defeated quickly in order to prevent Excalibur from launching. You have 240 seconds (''4 real-time '''uninterrupted''' minutes'') to do it or it's automatically GameOver. Aquila outright says that since they have no battle experience, they can't hope to defeat the party; they just need to buy enough time for the weapon to fire.]]
111	* TuftOfHeadFur: A number of characters have these, ranging from just slightly longer fur that seems to be little different from the rest of their fur to a full FurryFemaleMane that may even be brightly colored.
112	* UnexpectedlyHumanPerception: Part of the anthropomorphization package. All rodents, moles included, can read and are happy walking around through spacious brightly lit environments, and don't make all that many references to whiskers and scent.
113	* UnusualEuphemism: Anton tells Brian he should "tuck" when in Clan Grey territory, and clarifies that he means Brian's tail. His nose, paws, and ears being red will apparently go unnoticed but the tail is too far. When the Duke becomes suspicious of the performers, he demands to see Brian's tail and has to clarify that he means his ''actual'' tail, since at first Brian says "I'm flattered but you're not my type."
114	* VagueAge: Rodents are {{Short Lived Organism}}s in comparison to humans. WordOfGod is that post-prologue Verm (mouse) is five months old, Siobhan (mole) three months, Gwen (rat) eight months, Bruce (red squirrel) one year, Sir Leo (mouse) a year and five months, and Plaguemaster Aquila (rat) is five years old. What that means in terms of ''human'' ages is unclear, aside from Aquila who's positively ancient (typically captive-born rats live for around two years with the absolute luckiest reaching four years and change). Are Verm and Siobhan teenagers? Lucky red squirrels can reach ten years old and don't wean until they're two months old or so, does ProportionalAging make him "younger" than the other members of the party? Is Sir Leo actually a CoolOldGuy?
115	* VillainHoldsTheLeash: The prison warden of Clan Grey has the remote control for a mechanical Titan, an Aibou-looking robot dog. His only move is to give it an extra attack; take the Titan out and he's helpless.
116	* VoiceOfTheLegion: Most Titans speak in a large, jagged font, befitting their nature as terrifying monsters to mousekind. They're also able to affect a less intimidating voice, like [[spoiler:Lamia until her HorrorHunger kicks in]], and Halfsight, who as a scary-looking cat deters other Titans away from the shrew town but is regarded as harmless by the residents and speaks with them quite civilly. Diego, while ''very'' large, is probably a rodent under his armor, and he speaks like this except when addressing Leo as his friend. At the end of the game, [[spoiler:Verm speaks in such a font when he tells the fallen Yellow God to "RUN."]]
117	* WiseOldTurtle: Verm can go on a sidequest to steal paint from a human. In doing so he angers the human's pet tortoises, first being attacked by an indignant tortoise child, then the child's angry father for beating her up, then the larger female tortoise for attacking her family. The two smaller tortoises then want all three to gang up on the thieving mouse, but the mother is a GracefulLoser. Her daughter protests that stealing is wrong, and she says yes but sharing is good, and their God has so much paint while the mouse is only taking a very little.
118	* WiseSerpent: A slow-worm can be found in the Gloaming Woods who'll reward Verm for telling him something new. Slow-worms are actually legless lizards, but Verm does think this one's a venomous snake at first, and it's posed in a classical serpentine way rather than being rather stiff-bodied as legless lizards are.
119	* WeirdCurrency: Seeds, though they're a fairly reasonable currency for rodents to have. As Lance explains, they're portable and don't go bad.
120	* WolverineClaws: The champion gladiator of Vinium has gloves like these. Knowing Vinium and its propensity for using human toys, they might actually come from a Wolverine action figure.
121	* WomenAreWiser: In ''Needle Knight'', out of the Thimble Guard party investigating Solhill Rosalie's the one female and the only one who comes across as a professional. Their leader Sir Alex is happy to abandon the village to be devoured by a vulpes, Val is mainly interested in the contents of their peanut flask, and Leo is courageous and knows their duty is important but is also flighty and erratic. When Alex and Leo duel over the fate of the village, Rosalie is scornful and says they should've just compared tail sizes.

Context VideoGame / SmallSaga