The Secret of Varonis Reviews

Final Fantasy Legend 1-3, but especially 1&2 are some of my favorite games of all time. Also known as SaGa 1-3 in Japan, and the series that would come after these games, they absolutely captivated me in a way that helped me get into JRPG's overall. Secret of Varonis is made by people who love them just as much, if not more, than I do. They fundamentally understand what made these games special, and build upon them. There's numerous quality of life features, ranging from expanded clarity of mechanics, to controlling how espers/mutants level up, etc. Truly, this dev team gets it. I would recommend this game to anyone who wants to experience a very unique set of mechanics where your party gains 0 exp or levels, yet everyone experiences growth and powers up in their own way. Even now, I can imagine different party comps to take care of certain things I didn't get to tap into too much. Also shout out to this being run at RPG Limit Break 2025 for making me aware of this game. I had never heard of it until it was run there, and I loved my time with this game. I cannot recommend this enough.

I'm a turn-based JRPG fan. However, while I liked the SaGa games and owned them on the original Gameboy, I was never a huge fan of the series. The Secret of Varonis takes everything I love about the turn-based JRPG genre and wraps it in the aesthetic of the SaGa games while presenting a polished, modern feeling turn-based JRPG. It's everything I wanted the SaGa games to be while not actually being shackled by the hardware limitations of the time. I strongly recommend this game for turn-based JRPG fans. Random thoughts: - My time played doesn't seem to be synching correctly between my steam deck and PC. I think I'm nearly finished with the game at the time of leaving this review, based on other reviewers' time spent. - The story is surprisingly good and well-written. Usually indie RPGs really struggle to find the right tone, but I think this one nails it. - I'm playing on the casual setting with random battles. I'm happy with that choice, but it makes the game a little easier than I'd like. I think doing "Casual" with FIXED enemy encounters could have presented a really interesting challenge, and I may go back and try that. I also think doing the "classic" setting with field-mode enemies could be fun too. I don't think a game's difficulty settings have ever made me want to replay it as much as TSoV's difficulty settings make me want to replay it. - I did a 1 of each race party, and my monster is consistently underwhelming. This is probably related to the setting where items recharge at inns because of the "casual" setting. This will make mutant inherent abilities and monster inherent abilities both feel weaker. My mutant is strong though since I've probably fought more battles than I should have.