Introduction

Mr. Saitou is a short, strange, and surprisingly affecting little adventure about a middle-aged salaryman who gets into an accident and wakes up in a child
s imagination where everyone is part-llama, part-worm. It's the sort of game that sneaks up on you like a soft bureaucratic punch: it looks simple, it plays simple, and then it slowly loosens the tight, anxious coil of adult life until you find yourself oddly almost crying over a friendship bracelet. Laura Shigihara, who crafted Rakuens emotional core, returns with another pocket-sized parable that uses whimsy to satirize Japanese work culture and to examine what it means to be seen, useful, and alive. On the Switch, its pace and tone are perfect for an evening when you want to feel something without committing to a 60-hour emotional breakdown.

Gameplay

On paper the gameplay of Mr. Saitou is economical. You control the titular salaryman, a man trained in the art of doing things so other people can look good on spreadsheets, and you shepherd him through a fantastical landscape created by a boy named Brandon. Mechanically the game is a loop of exploration, puzzle-solving, and small fetch-like quests: collect gemstones, help creatures, and move items to their proper places so people (or llamaworms) can be content. The puzzles themselves are gentle and often charmingly weird: giant calculators that act like Sphinxes of Math, cave networks with size-based mechanics, and a quest to get Archaeolotou through a final gate by building a Minimori café and seating the little birds on the stones that belong to them. The Kinoko Matsuri Club sequence, where permission is granted by a friendly foot if you dress as Lil Budz, is exactly the kind of delightfully absurd beat that signals the game
s comfort with the surreal. Gameplay never strives to be brutal or complicated; it's a vehicle for character work. This design choice supports the narrative focus: the challenges exist to coax out conversation, to reveal character details, and to force Mr. Saitou into small moral and emotional choices. When he begrudgingly collects seven metrics for his boss to present in a meeting-now as a llamaworm in a meeting room imagined by a child-the game riffs on corporate rituals without being vicious. The tasks highlight how much of adult life is ritualized compliance. You do the metrics, you go to after-work drinks you don't want to attend, and you learn to carry the social weight of things you never chose. The play loop mirrors Saitou
s arc: a man who was robotically performing a role now gets to see the parts of life he
d been letting pass. Brandon
s presence reorients the entire gameplay experience. He's both a literal guide and a narrative agent: a boy who draws llamaworms and makes friendship bracelets becomes the architect of a healing world. His creations (the llamaworms-Saitou, Widetou, etc.) are both mascot and mirror. They put characters into a softer form, which lets the game probe painful realities-hospitalization, isolation, regret-without tipping into melodrama. The caverns and their gemstone puzzles thus become a therapy room where, by placing stones and solving math-Sphinx puzzles, you help other souls (or feathers, or feet) find their place. It's a satisfying symbiosis of mechanics and story: small, achievable tasks stand in for real-world catharsis. The tradeoff is that players looking for deep mechanical systems or long, tense puzzles might come away wanting. Critics have noted that the gameplay isn't always interesting enough to recommend on mechanics alone. That's fair. The puzzles rarely challenge beyond thoughtful inventory use and pattern observation. But judged by what the game actually wants to do-tell a tight story about a tired person learning to accept small joys and friendships-the gameplay is right-sized. If you come into Mr. Saitou expecting sprawling RPG systems or long form puzzle gauntlets, you
ll be disappointed. If you want a short, sincere experience where each gameplay beat nudges a character forward, you'll find the design thoughtful and well-tuned.

Graphics

Mr. Saitou
s visuals lean into RPG Maker
s pixel-charm, but Laura Shigihara
s art direction and the world
s design lift the aesthetic beyond mere nostalgia. The llamaworms are absurd in the best way: their cute-lumpy sprite design makes them instantly lovable and a little bit absurd, which is crucial because the premise requires you to accept transformatively silly forms as emotionally truthful. Environments are evocative rather than detailed-meeting rooms with a dreamlike tilt, glowing gemstone caverns, and whimsical clubs that double as concert venues. The color palette wisely shifts between the drabness of corporate life and the saturated, childlike hues of Brandon
s imagination, using visual contrast to underline Saitou
s internal journey. Animations are modest but expressive: a waggle here, a blink there, and characters that telegraph emotion without long cutscenes. Small visual touches-like the way Minimori plop down with comedic timing or how the caverns glow like memory-add to the game
s offbeat humor. Sound design and music (compositions credited to Laura Shigihara and Toby Fox) complement the graphics: tunes are homespun and poignant, like a lullaby for post-work melancholia. On the Switch, the presentation is clear and cozy. There are no flashy technical feats, but the aesthetic choices create an intimate stage for the characters to breathe and for their arcs to unfold.

Conclusion

Mr. Saitou is a bite-sized emotional machine cloaked in a goofy costume. Its story arc is deceptively simple but emotionally dexterous: Mr. Saitou begins as a man defined by duty, timecards, and avoidance of personal vulnerability, and through Brandon
s imaginative world he rediscovers agency, connection, and the permission to feel. Brandon himself is not just a plot device; he's a fulcrum, a child
s uncompromising view that draws adults into play and, by doing so, re-teaches them how to be seen. Secondary characters
arcs-like the elderly regret of Mr. Sasaki who laments never biking Lumen Rock Canyon-function as quick, third-act mirrors that reflect what real lives look like when filtered through a child
s kindness: small regrets, missed experiences, and the quiet revenge of doing something joyful again. Humor is Mr. Saitou
s secret weapon. The game satirizes the absurdity of business rituals with a light touch: the spectacle of collecting metrics in a dream-meeting and the social farce of compulsory after-work drinking are handled with a knowing, gentle mockery. The Minimori are simultaneously ridiculous and a believable symbol of every small fear or workplace predator that gobbles up your time. Even the adventures that include dressing up to trick a foot into letting you into a club feel like a soft, surreal therapy-dress the part and maybe the world will admit you. If the game has a weakness, it
s that the mechanical side is modest; some players will want more substance to the puzzles. But in a package this intentionally small and focused, the point isn't to stretch you thin with complexity-it's to create a snug little world where character and theme take center stage. For anyone who enjoyed Rakuen and wants another short, empathetic story, Mr. Saitou is a thoughtful follow-up. For those who love games primarily for deep systems, it
s a cut too brief. On the Switch, it's an ideal late-night companion: quirky, humane, and likely to leave you both smiling and oddly moved. Score: 8/10.

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