Mr. Saitou follows a salaryman on a charming adventure after an accident takes them from their endless, exhausting work to a delightful new world.
The game follows a salaryman whose life has been spent in constant work and overtime, leaving them feeling like their existence has no joy or meaning in it. Working like this is not good for your health, though, and before long, the protagonist has an accident that leaves them hospitalized. This normally gives you a lot of time to think about yourself and your life. What it doesn’t normally do is put you in contact with a whole other colorful universe filled with talking plants and animals. That’s new. Well, maybe not entirely new if you’ve spent some time player the developer’s past game, Rakuen (which the Switch release is bundled in with).
Thankfully, this game isn’t QUITE as devastating as its predecessor, but it is still a powerful look at the ways we choose (or perhaps how we feel forced) to spend our lives. However, it largely does this through contrasting the protagonist’s dull, drab life with the colorful and humorous lives of the characters in the fantasy world. There’s just so much silliness, laughter, and unexpected fun to be had in this fantasy world that you can’t help but get swept up in it all. It makes you WANT life to be better. It makes you WANT to make your life like this, experiencing joy and love each day. It makes you feel that it’s possible, even in a fantasy world that shouldn’t be possible.
Combined with the incredible music (Laura Shigihara’s an excellent developer and SOMEHOW an even better composer), it really makes you feel that life can be better than endless work. Again, while it takes place in an impossible world, it’s the subtle, beautiful way that it makes you feel that love and joy are possible for you that makes it such an incredible experience.
Mr. Saitou will be made available today on the Nintendo eShop and Steam.
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