JRPGs saw a renaissance in the 16-bit era but gained much wider popularity by the time CD-based systems came around. Titles from Dragon Quest to Final Fantasy and everything in between followed a similar core formula that has stood the test of time. Despite a new focus on more action-oriented experiences, you can still find some developers sticking to tried-and-true, turn-based, menu-driven experiences. If you're a solo developer, how do you make a traditional JRPG in a way that catches everyone's attention? If you're Matt Sharp, creator of Video Game Fables, you take every convention you know, blow them up, and create a game with a hodgepodge of mechanics and humor that somehow all works.

If you've played any JRPG, you already know the basic setup: A princess is kidnapped, the king asks a hero to save her, the big villain is defeated, and the day is saved. In this case, before the hero can set foot outside of the kingdom, Princess Aru simply escapes her captors and returns to the castle. This causes a catastrophe, as the would-be hero falls under the control of the Forgotten Princess, causing the king, the main villain and the castle to get locked away in a pit blocked by a force field. With no other recourse, Princess Aru, the villain's son Tator, and the hero-worshiping delivery person Nate try to find a way to free the captors and find out where The Forgotten Princess came from.

The opening moments immediately let you know that the story will be unconventional. The giant "Paused" text that appears in the sky lets you know that the world is a video game. The denizens all know that they're playing their roles as if it's a play, but their reference to the player as "the Deity" makes it feel a little more important. Both the king and villain came together to write up the game's quest gives the world a semi-tongue-in-cheek tone, but everyone plays their roles and goes with the overall flow. This makes Aru stand out more in the cast, as she's the only one who seems to be tired of the arbitrary conventions, and seeing how exasperated she can get throughout the whole ordeal is part of the appeal to see things through to the end.

On the surface, Video Game Fables sticks to the core tenets of the genre. In the town where you get your goods, there's an inn to sleep in. There's an overworld filled with treasures and monsters alike; this time, they're visible blobs like in Lunar: Silver Star Story or Zelda II: The Adventure of Link instead of random encounters like in other RPGs. There are also dungeons with boss fights, a few side-quests, and secrets.

It doesn't take long before you start to see how different everything is under those genre conventions. Starting with the basics, your party gets no bigger than the three characters you begin with; that keeps the tale focused on the trip, rather than adding new characters at intervals to broaden things. From the beginning, you have a vast selection of weapons that everyone can use and items to buy, but the pool doesn't extend beyond that. You can upgrade your stuff, but don't expect to find a new weapon in a cave in the wilderness. As for side-quests and secrets, there's nothing that'll take you away from the main quest for too long. For side-quests, you can garden, cook to beef up your special abilities, mine to power up your weapons, and fish to exchange sea life for items. For secrets, the secret areas yield more items and coins for crafting.

The world feels rather compressed compared to classic RPGs. It still contains different biomes, but they're so closely packed together that you'll quickly see a change in overworld scenery. It's spacious enough for you to get into a few fights along the way and get more crafting-related stuff, but don't expect the treks to be endless. There's also only one town that's big enough to fill a screen and a half, so it also doesn't take long to craft things, buy items, and take a nap for a full health recharge. Interestingly, the world feels much smaller due to the ability to warp back into the town at any time and warp back to your last spot. Since there is no cost, expect to abuse the feature often.

The XP system is one area of Video Game Fables that has a very surprising amount of depth. You still gain XP by winning battles, but unlike just about every other RPG out there, it isn't automatically doled out to party members, so they automatically level up. Instead, the XP sits in a pool, and you get to choose when you want to level up. When you do, the whole party gets leveled up, so no one lags behind, but the leveling doesn't come with an automatic health refill. XP can be used individually, but it works like currency this way. Equipping a health pendant, for example, requires you to spend XP on that character, and the same goes for opening slots to perform your character's special abilities. It feels like a trade-off for simplicity, but it's an exciting gameplay mechanic. This is especially true when you discover that you can buy back those upgrades, like the extra ability slots and party leveling, to allocate somewhere else when needed; this provides malleability to build exactly the party you want.

The battle system is also deeper than expected. The timeline at the top of the screen shows exactly who's up next and the order in which everyone will execute their moves. Before committing to your move, you can move it up or down the timeline if you want to be more strategic in battle and make it act as a delayed counter to an enemy move. You don't have a full-on magic meter, but you make use of critical hits; achieving one counts as a point. They aren't rare, as you'll get a few during a fight, but using it for a basic attack does nothing. They accomplish special abilities that work like magic spells in other games. Some are traditional, like a crystal that shatters to deliver damage. Some are a little esoteric, like summoning a statue to fall on foes. Others match the game's humor, like bad-mouthing enemies to get their defenses down, bringing up a pop-up inn to make enemies sleep, or summoning a throne to fall on enemies. You don't have to immediately use the critical point for spells, but if you choose to store it, you must remind yourself to store it for every move, lest you waste it on a basic attack.

That depth can feel undermined with the presence of a clock. At the beginning of your turn, a clock begins a countdown until you finalize your decision. The quicker your turn goes, the more powerful your move becomes. While you don't lose your turn once the timer expires, you lose out on any boosts. The game features no pause feature during battles, so you can't stop the timer to evaluate your moves; it becomes a matter of forgoing boosts for tactical assurances or aiming for boosts while understanding how every move functions over time. Considering how enticing boosts can be, there's a good chance that the battle system's nuance will be forgotten by most players.

All of this comes together to produce a breezy JRPG experience. It can feel complicated in spots, but the reduction of many mechanics makes it less daunting. The lack of secrets and lengthy side-quests means that you'll focus on the main storyline, and with a runtime of a little under 12 hours, it's a shorter game compared to its contemporaries. This isn't a game for those just getting into the genre, as there's enough here that doesn't translate well to the more traditional stuff. Rather, this is a game for those who have been already entrenched in the JRPG scene and want something that messes with convention without necessarily going the Western RPG route.

Where your mileage may vary comes down to some of the more unconventional elements. Dungeons can involve some platforming and trap avoidance, so you'll dodge saws or jump over waves of fire. One dungeon has you all driving a car. One boss fight involves a turret section, while another asks you to do some light platforming to score massive hits on the boss. It's more action than some classic JRPG fans may be used to, and those who haven't already bought into the game's overall silliness may see this as another point against it. It punctuates how the humor has seeped into the game design.

Your interpretation of the presentation will come down to personal preference. The sound effects are fine, and the music doesn't deviate too much from the genre norms. The music isn't consistent, as there are a number of moments when it doesn't play, so the silence in some cut scenes is jarring. Graphically, the game seems to be going for a mix of 8-bit and modern. The characters and monsters are done in voxel form but occupy one plane, like in Paper Mario or PaRappa the Rapper. The voxels are huge, which the game takes advantage of in cut scenes by making the eyes convey loads of expression, but the movements are intentionally stilted and characters sway back and forth slightly when they move. Other animations intentionally lack smooth movements. The environments are simple and often display bland colors, but there are moments when some nice baked lighting comes through, like with some stained glass windows. It is a curious graphical mix, so it doesn't take a powerful rig to run it.

This makes Video Game Fables a perfect fit for the Steam Deck. The resolution goes to 1280x720 instead of the expected 1280x800, but the loss in a few lines of pixels doesn't seem too severe. The game defaults to a low preset, but there's a minimal difference between that and high. The game runs at a solid 60fps throughout, and with a runtime of five hours from a full charge, there isn't much reason to try further system tweaks.

Video Game Fables makes for a very good title for those who want something new yet traditional in a condensed form. The world is of a decent size with a ton of quality-of-life additions that cleave out the more tedious parts of the genre. The XP system is deep and thoughtful, while the battle system provides a good amount of depth if you're willing to commit actions to memory. It's all wrapped up in a story that provides a few laughs and a presentation that might be an acquired taste. It's a sleeper title that every fan should check out, despite it coming in a year flooded with big JRPG releases.

Score: 8.0/10