Signy & Mino: Against All Gods is a turn-based RPG by AN Productions- the studio behind the Soda Dungeon mobile games. Signy is a girl who lost her parents in a tragic fire when she was a child. Mino was a lost puppy who found Signy when they needed each other the most. The girl and her dog became inseparable companions over the years, and their unbreakable bond drives Signy & Mino’s story and gameplay.
AN Productions says Signy & Mino is about seven to nine hours long, and I finished it in about eight. As such, the story is not the deepest out there. Signy is a good-hearted, if stubborn, young lady who’s been raised in her grandmother’s forest cottage with her loyal, if lazy, dog Mino. Life goes on until a combination of machines and angry gods threatens the forest villagers and the game’s world at large. Thus, a simple errand leads Signy and Mino on a quest bigger than they could have ever imagined.
The story tries to be philosophical at times, but those moments can feel long-winded. Conversely, some plot threads and worldbuilding questions remain unanswered. Signy and Mino are decent protagonists, but don’t develop much beyond their surface level. The energetic ending looks really cool, though.
Graphics consist mostly of slick-looking sprites atop hi-res, low-poly backgrounds that look like higher-resolution versions of PlayStation One game environments. The visuals look nice and feature vivid colors, but the detailed sprites, with their fluid animations and multitude of facial expressions, feel mismatched atop the blander, simpler polygon backgrounds.
In motion, the Paper Mario-esque side-scrolling looks fine when the characters move left and right. However, when moving “up” (away from the player) or “down” (toward the player), Signy’s sprite is still turned sideways. She doesn’t face away from me when moving up or toward me when moving down. With so much effort put into sprites’ animations and facial details, I’m surprised this specific detail wasn’t addressed.
Speaking of animations, the spritework noticeably shines in Signy & Mino’s battles. Combat actions play out similarly to combo attacks in fighting games, and they look flashy and play out smoothly. No hiccups or jerky motions here, especially during higher-level attacks that have a lot going on. There are also a few animated cutscenes that look appropriately cinematic.
Sonically speaking, compositions sound nice and encompass a variety of music styles. My favorite was the piece in an abandoned mine that had a prominent pickstyle bassline. As a bass player myself, I always appreciate cool bass. Voice acting is limited to battle cries, with Signy’s voice actress as the most prominent. She’s quite convincing as Signy, but I would have liked to hear more voice acting, particularly during the cinematic cutscenes.
Signy & Mino follows a linear path, albeit with a few sudden difficulty spikes. There is only one difficulty level, and though I was fine with it, more advanced players might find it too simple. Environments aren’t huge, but the game encourages exploration with treasures to find in the nooks and crannies. That said, when Signy was behind walls or obstacles, I couldn’t see her behind them. Jumping is a little floaty, but the platforming is still forgiving enough that I did not get frustrated (as I’m not the best at platforming). The most twiddly section of Signy & Mino was this one puzzle dungeon where some of the mechanics were not obvious; the hint was difficult to find and was cryptic to boot.
Enemies are visible on the field and aren’t too numerous, though they do respawn. This is great because battles, while fun, are often lengthy affairs. The battle system is combo-based: Signy and Mino take turns chaining skills together using timed button presses to create multi-hit attacks reminiscent of fighting games. Button press timing for attacking, dodging, and parrying is quite forgiving. I’m usually terrible at dodging/parrying, but I got into a good groove here and can overlook Signy & Mino’s lack of auto-parry or attack-assist options to take timed button presses out of the equation.
Battles are enjoyable at first, but their lengthy and repetitive nature makes them drag during Signy & Mino’s second half. You engage enemies one at a time, so battles against multiple enemies run long. Some enemies also have defenses that need to be breached via certain combos before they even take damage. To add another wrinkle, I maxed out Signy’s level and skill trees about two-thirds into the game, so I had little reason to fight late-game regular battles since I didn’t need to gain EXP. This is where I badly wanted some kind of auto-battle or battle-skip option to ease the late-game tedium.
A few other design elements also left me scratching my head. Firstly, the only consumable HP recovery item does not restore much HP. Why aren’t there stronger recovery items available? To make things worse, you can’t use recovery items outside of battle. This makes no sense to me. Only being able to use recovery items in battle puts me at a disadvantage. If I have low HP and the enemy gets the jump on me out in the field while also getting the first turn in battle, I get knocked out and have to go back to a prior save. Saving only occurs at save points and, more often than not, my manual save was more recent than the autosave, which didn’t kick in frequently enough.
The long and short of my review is that Signy & Mino: Against All Gods is the RPG equivalent of a sweet little empty-calorie snack. It’s nice, but not substantial. Its short playtime slotted nicely into my busy schedule and was a decent little romp. However, several design choices nagged at me, including no way to pet the dog. Signy & Mino: Against All Gods is not a bad game, but could have been so much more.
