Will I do the entire, kinda, saga?
RPG fans preach about the Quintet Trilogy. They also fail to recognize it's five games, but that's for a drunken Facebook reel post. Too bad I don't drink... But I've only ever sorta dabbled in this trilogy. I tried playing Terraenigma but got lost. Twice. And I've watched a dude play Illusion of Gaia before the world ended. Soul Blazer, though, was an entirely new experience for me. The games are loosely connected, so none of that matters, but SB started it all in 1992.
You play a nameless man you can call whatever you want. His canon name is Blazer, but I'm a narcissist and went with Cid. An invisible voice from above poofs you into existence and tells you to save the world. A creature named Deathtoll has ruined everything and turned the souls of sentient creatures into demon spawn points. It's nothing deep, nor is it particularly wide. It functions as a means and not a reason. You're also a personality less mute...
You now have to travel to six towns and regions, killing mobs until they stop spawning to stand on their lair to revive a lost soul. It's actually kinda rad for a few reasons. I like a tangible effect on the world for killing things. If mobs die enough, then you've won. Another is town and community building is something I love in games. So destroying things lets towns grow. It makes the world more peaceful and more expansive! It's not always people or animals who come back. Sometimes, it's a door. This makes all six towns feel unique. And each village has a different dungeon, and that dungeon has a radically different boss at the end connected to a local villain turned good guy. For such an old game, it does a lot of things newer games still don't.
The only downside is how repetitive it is. Your primary method of damage is to swing your sword as fast as possible. All swords function the same, more or less. There are magic spells, but they're hit or miss in terms of usefulness and hard to aim. Your wizard orb rotates around you and can't be manually aimed.
Every dungeon has its own music track, too, so nothing overstays it's welcome. This is good because none of the tracks stand out to me. They might to others, but I found the funky bass MIDI a tad annoying and the drums overbearing or repetitive at times. Maybe there weren't enough chill tunes?
Graphics are so surprisingly varied. Enemies don't get pallet swaps, and the unrepeated dungeons keep everything separate. The more I think about it, the more I can't believe this was released in early '92.
Soul Blazer is a simple game with a simple premise. In terms of world and NPCs, I constantly felt that something was missing. Which can be said about most of the game. The combat works, but I want more. The story is yeoman, but it could be better. The presentation and charm are up there but could easily be higher. There are also technical limitations with the SNES that makes new spawns spawn in invisible, so that sucked.
I did an extended numbers declaration without giving numbers, so... Soul Blader was a short but fun ride, perfect for an in-between of two projects. It gets 32 points out of 50, but it's one of those experiences that feels like it should be higher.
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