Stained Glass comes to life in Just For Games and Bonus Level Entertainment’s arcade game Saga of Sins where players take on the role of Cecil, a man who has returned to his home kingdom from the Crusades, only to find it plagued not only by the Black Death but by the seven deadly sins. I would like to thank Just For Games and Bonus Level Entertainment for allowing me to review this!
The controls for Saga of Sins are OK and could use a better tutorial system, especially the option to look up the instructions in your options in the event you missed something. Another thing I did not like is that there’s no option to turn the vibration off for your controller, might not sound like much to some of you but if you’re someone who wants to prolong battery life in your controller, vibrations are notorious for draining batteries.
The sound is pretty decent in Saga of Sins, most of the main dialogue is voiced over but a lot of other dialogue interactions with other characters are not which is slightly annoying due to the font being used, depending on the resolution of your screen they may be difficult to read.
The art of the game is pretty unique as it’s done in the style of stained glass windows. They say it’s supposed to be inspired by the style of Hieronymus Bosch, whose works I actually like, I kind of would have wanted to see it more look like something from Bosch than an attempt.
In Saga of Sins, players enter the minds of both sinners and the innocent and take on the appearance of monsters with unique fighting abilities and skills which allow players to explore levels more and find secrets. This would be OK if there were a way to go back and play previous levels which I never found a way to, I’m going to assume it’s something you can do once you beat the game. Though the game is rated E for everyone, it deals heavily with a lot of theological subjects, especially through the eyes of 9th-11th century Europeans. In other words, I would not let impressionable children play this as the talk about sin and eternal damnation may be too much.
Overall, Saga of Sins is OK. As an arcade-style game, it can be fun but some of the core gameplay comes across as repetitive, and some of the platforming is a bit too challenging where maybe the game is more aimed at people who are very into platforming while the casual gamer will become frustrated quickly. On my scale of 1-10, I give Saga of Sins a 6.5 as even though I felt the subject matter is a bit heavy for an E-rated game, repetitive combat mechanics, and lack of instruction, the art and animation, voice acting (when it’s used), and the story keeps the game’s head above water.
Saga of Sins is available now on PC, Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S
