Religion is one of the topics that video games tend to shy away from for fear of being offensive in some way or another. This is an understandable desire and one of the reasons why many of the religions in games are either a vague fictional version or an evil cult of some kind. Those types couldn’t possibly offend anyone because they don’t take any risks at all. So, where does Saga of Sins fit in with all this?

Religious imagery is somewhat often used as a background feature in a variety of games, but generally of that beforementioned cultish variety as a bad guy, or it’s some kind of a highly spiritual form that results in real magic. What about just regular religion? What about a game that prominently features something like Christianity? And not the use of something like Christianity as part of the background, but as an actual integral aspect of the central plot.

Saga of Sins is a game like this. It is fundamentally a game that develops its plot along Christian lines, but Christian lines of a medieval variety. Some of the only games that have really come out in recent years that take a far closer look at religion are games like Blasphemous, which doesn’t use a real religion but more of an immensely darkened form of Spanish Catholicism, and Far Cry 5, which does use a form of Christianity, but it has a cultish angle.

This time around, Saga of Sins actually commits itself to a Christian narrative. There are more supernatural elements at work, but the protagonist is ultimately a highly devout cleric named Cecil. Your main character has just returned from the Holy Lands and is now trying to help his old town with the issues that it faces. You even live in a church, your main ally is the head of the church, and you upgrade your character at a statue of the Virgin Mary.

So, it should be safe to say that Saga of Sins is a Christian-oriented game. In addition, the game explores themes surrounding the Catholic notions of the Seven Deadly Sins. Now, the Seven Deadly Sins have become a mainstay in pop culture in general and can be found in many pieces of media that have nothing to do with Christianity, like the anime Full Metal Alchemist or the obviously named Seven Deadly Sins anime. However, the Seven Deadly Sins are used here as actual sins within the minds of regular people. They aren’t supernatural forces, in the traditional sense, but real issues. The solution to combating those real issues is, of course, more supernatural in design, but you can only stick to reality for so long.

So, if Saga of Sins is a Christian-themed game, then what kind of a game is it? Does it preach at you? No, but there are a few instances of the game contemplating religious questions of why the Christian god may allow certain things to occur in the world or it’ll focus on the very nature of sin, but you often ignore those in favor of the gameplay. The game, while exhibiting a narrative, is strongly focused on its gameplay.

The gameplay is focused around themed levels that are a combination of 2D hack n slash, metroidvania style action platformer. You do not necessarily do much hacking and slashing as you predominantly fight with ranged weapons, but it would not be right to see this as a shooting game. It’s very much focused on a fairly standard, and very old-school Castlevania-era, action approach. You do not have all that much in the way of movement capabilities that you may associate with newer games in this genre, and so it plays like the Castlevania games of the 80s and 90s.

Each of the levels is self-contained, so there isn’t a large overarching world as is common in metroidvania games. Instead, each level is like its own small metroidvania map. These maps are inherently smaller, but Saga of Sins does want you to do some exploration and occasionally use some abilities that you only gain later. So, some abilities may allow you to destroy a certain type of obstacle or climb a certain type of wall. This is where the metroidvania influence comes in. However, it isn’t done to a particularly heavy extent and the game is, ultimately, very linear in its presentation.

This is fine though as Saga of Sins is going for a story-based presentation in which each level is the representation of one of the Seven Deadly Sins. There are not only seven levels, and there will rather be several regular levels based around a sin before you enter the boss level which is centered on whatever that sin happens to be. This allows Saga of Sins to play around with its environments in a way that most metroidvanias cannot, or at least cannot to the same extent.

Each of these themed levels has specific attributes. It’s best to give a few examples of some of the earliest Sins that you encounter, but without giving any real spoilers. So, two of the earliest Sins that you encounter are Greed and Sloth. Greed sometimes has rivers of gold that kill you instantly or special chests that actually contain coins that reduce rather than increase the amount of gold you have, whereas Sloth contains certain floors that can physically slow you down. They are clearly themed around the actual Sins in question, and hence the name of the actual game being Saga of Sins.

Once you have cleared several of these levels and made your way through a few iterations of the same Sin, you get to go up against a boss. Now, the bosses in Saga of Sins are not the most complicated things and they aren’t particularly difficult. They’re often more like levels with a stronger enemy you have to eventually kill, but you shouldn’t expect any kind of a highly complex or sophisticated fight for reasons that we’ll come to soon.

In addition to these Sin levels, there are also non-sinful levels. These levels come from more innocent places, as we’ll explore soon, and these innocent levels will usually contain some kind of a challenge. These challenges are sometimes puzzles, sometimes platforming challenges, or something similar. It gives Saga of Sins a few non-combat levels to use, and that’s a great thing. It really does allow you to have a good bit of variety in there as you switch between the levels created by the minds of Sinners and the minds of the Innocent.

So, how do you actually get through these levels? Well, Saga of Sins is an action-oriented game in which combat allows you to clear your way through the various bad guys in your path. The basic combat is rather clunky in design, and feels a lot like those old-school Castlevania games mentioned before, as you move quite slowly and attack with very little force or gusto. You will fight against your enemies with a few types of projectiles while your enemies walk towards you without much in the way of aggressive AI.

The flying enemies are the most likely to chase you down, but other than that, it's more about the position of enemies as they pace back and forth and don’t even attempt to attack you. They’re like some of the enemies from the earliest Mario Bros. games. They could, theoretically, be jumped over and they would never chase you down, but you’re also often forced to kill them if you want the gold you’ll need for upgrades.

One of the biggest gripes here is that you can’t actually shoot upwards or downwards. Your methods of attack involve shooting either left or right. So, you can’t jump off an area and strike down at an enemy below. You have to jump to the same platform they’re on and then hit them until they die, and hopefully, you can kill them before they walk into you and damage you. Saga of Sins simply lacks the kind of fluid movement and attack style that you may have come to expect from a modern game.

There is one attack that can be used in eight directions, but it’s a special power-up dash ability that kills enemies and can, very occasionally, also be used as a part of traversal, but it can’t be used whenever you want to use it. The minimal movement mechanics and slow speed of the main character also mean that some enemies are literally unavoidable. Take an enemy that is pacing back and forth between two walls as an example, but the space between those two walls is so tight that if you try to kill this enemy, you will get hurt in the attempt. It is impossible to avoid them. Pair this with your slow movement speed; flying enemies will move at exactly the same speed you move at, which means that it’s another unavoidable bit of damage you’ll take.

You cannot strategically shoot upwards or at an angle to take out a flying enemy waiting for you on a staircase, you have to aggro them, make them follow you, turn around as quickly as possible and hopefully kill them before they can harm you. Saga of Sins is a sluggish game that could have benefited from a faster approach to its gameplay, but this will come down to personal choice in whether or not you want a far more fast-paced version of this kind of gameplay as you’d find in something like Have a Nice Death, or if you want a return to the old-school Castlevania style. It’s up to you.

This is further echoed in the platforming sections. These sections often involve instant death pits that can be very annoying. However, while they can be irritating, they’re also often not too difficult. Saga of Sins likes to put checkpoints between these heavy platforming sections and the game doesn’t punish you at all for failing. You can just try again. So, that’s something great.

Now, there was quite a bit of harshness earlier about the combat in general, and for those who are concerned, it does get better. The combat does, effectively, remain slow, but it does come with several upgrades and some variety. The upgrades improve certain attacks, the dash ability, and your health, but the real change up to the gameplay involves the different creatures.

You see, you don’t play as your cleric character within these levels, you instead play as a nightmare monster that has unique capabilities. Saga of Sins allows you to switch between these different monsters on the fly once you’ve unlocked them, and this is great. It means that you’re constantly moving between different types of creatures with unique abilities based on the particular environment you now find yourself within.

Some of these monsters include a werewolf with a long-range projectile and a wall-destroying roar, a gargoyle with a short-range fire breath ability that can also burn certain items, and a griffin that has a spread shot and can climb certain walls. Each of these monsters allows for a different way to play the game. It’s a great bit of variety, and it’s one of the best things that Saga of Sins has going for it.

Saga of Sins is a slow-paced game in terms of combat and movement, but it does something rather interesting. You see, in true Christian religious fashion, the game loves stained glass. The entire game has a stained-glass presentation in which everything is in that style. The environments are stained glass, the characters are stained glass, the enemies are stained glass, and so on. In fact, the edges of the screen have a glass effect to maintain this overall aesthetic, which is great.

The stained-glass aesthetic actually persists throughout the game itself as certain enemies will look like cracked glass when they’re close to death, and you also get your new monster types to play as by repairing the stained glass windows in the church. This also means that the different monsters are, ironically, found in stained glass murals in a stained-glass game that constantly uses stained-glass aesthetics. So, if you like stained glass, Saga of Sins is definitely a game for you!

This unique aesthetic, which isn’t exactly common and has possibly never been done in a game before, works with the religious angle of the rest of the game. Stained glass is, if you know your way around Christian architecture at all, an immensely common sight in churches. It basically is the standard art form within church structures. They love them some stained glass artworks!

So, this stained-glass aesthetic also contributes to the overall religious tone of the game. We haven’t yet explained why you interact with these Sin-oriented worlds. You see, your character in Saga of Sins can enter the minds of Sinners. It’s kind of like a religious take on the sort of thing that Psychonauts does. You enter the mind of someone, and their mindscape is distorted by the Sin that has engulfed them.

Once you enter someone’s mind, you need to fight to the end so that you can free them of their sin. You are purging people of their sins and trying to help them. So, it’s like someone switched the mental health aesthetics of Psychonauts with the Catholic interpretations of sin and just went with it. It’s a great idea and one that allows for the exploration of religious ideas that explore the nature of sin itself and our relationship with the supposedly divine.

Saga of Sins is ultimately a fairly clunky experience that has gameplay that, depending on your perspective, may leave quite a bit to be desired. However, it is a unique experience that is worth exploring, and if you’ve wanted a game that takes religious questions seriously rather than just using them as an aesthetic, this game is for you. Plus, the stained glass look of it all is a very unique decision that’s worth applauding.
 

Justin van Huyssteen (@LC_Lupus)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed