Known as "Soul Blader" here in Japan, I've been meaning to get to this game and its two sequels for quite some time now, and a simple sort of Zelda-like was just what I was in the mood for after all of that N64 playing earlier in the month. I honestly had virtually no idea what this game was even like, but its reputation was good enough that I was willing to take the chance regardless. It took me a bit under 8 hours to play through the Japanese version of the game on emulated hardware without abusing save states or using a guide.

Soul Blazer tells the story of a heavenly guardian come down to the world to set things right. The great demon lord Deathtoll was summoned by humanity, so the souls of just about every living thing have been sealed away by his dark minions. It's your mission to head down there and set things right again. While the story's presentation is quite of its time (that being quite simple and without much use of scene-setting music), it's actually a surprisingly well written story dealing with how there can always be hope in the world despite how eager humanity can be to march towards its own demise for personal enrichment. It's not exactly the best story on the Super Famicom or anything, but it was one I enjoyed nonetheless, and it's nice to see a more well considered story in a Zelda-like like this.

While I do call this game a Zelda-like, it's honestly much more like Ys 1&2 and Gauntlet had a baby that was then raised by Actraiser XD (which makes some degree of sense, given that this was made by the guys who made both Ys 1&2 and Actraiser). It's a top down action game much like Gauntlet or Dungeon Explorers, and you go through dungeons killing all the monsters in an area. Upon killing all of the monsters out of a certain spawner, the spawner will explode all on its own, and walking over it will destroy it and free the soul of the being trapped in it.

Upon returning to the town of that particular area (of which the game has seven), you can talk to these beings (be they people, animal, or plant) and receive information, goodies, or just a simple thank you. This game has no money, so your goodies you find generally fall into being either new equipment (armor, swords, or spells), or just the power gems that you collect to power your spells. It's a pretty simple gameplay loop overall, but it's one that works really well regardless. It'll probably be a bit of an easy game for some (though the English version is a little bit harder), but I found its challenge to be juuuust right for me as a veteran of the genre. Even if you are having a hard time, you gain experience points from killing monsters, and there are always monsters that aren't connected to spawners that simply respawn when you enter and leave the screen, so simple EXP grinding to power up more is always an option if you're having trouble~.

The presentation of the game is really stand-out excellent. As mentioned earlier, we're taking a LOT of stuff from Actraiser, as almost all of the sound effects and even significant bits of the UI seem to just be copied directly over from Actraiser. Heck, even the way enemies get stunned slightly after hitting them is right out of Actraiser XD. Thankfully, not only is the Actraiser stuff very good and functional, so reusing it here is hardly a problem, but we also got a banging soundtrack too! This game's soundtrack was awesome, and there was barely a new area I got to where I didn't say out loud "oh hell yeah, this song rocks!". The graphics are also very pretty, though they're certainly of the time for a '92 SFC game.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. With a nice little story and really fun and balanced gameplay, this is a super easy recommendation. If you like 2D Zelda-type stuff at all, then this will likely be a game you quite enjoy, and you don't even need to be super good at these sorts of games to beat it. An awesome action/adventure game to spend a weekend with, if there ever was one~.

The first in Quintet's 'unofficial' Gaia series, Soul Blazer is an action-RPG whose gameplay reimagines LoZ as a chapter-based, pseudo-town builder propelled by clearing waves of enemies in dungeons. i.e. Battle encounters could spawn quest points found in their corresponding level's hub, which take the form of buildings, hint-giving NPCs and special loot. The most interesting of which is found in the latter - namely their accessories and armor, equipped items with a range of extra abilities (whether to circumvent hazards or enter areas) that have more in common with Zelda than with ARPGs. By pairing those tools with the fragmented, gradually-expanding design of its trials (unravelling in tandem with hub unlocks and vice-versa), they offer a mini version of classic overworld-to-dungeon progression, but in discrete segments rather than a rigid dichotomy. And - along the way, plenty of shortcuts facilitate the frequent backtracking expected of this action-to-adventure loop. In their hands, dungeon-crawling is not necessarily about finding the boss/exit.

Its only weak point is the combat, a fast-paced albeit repetitive and somewhat awkward system in which enemies don't respond to offense; no knockback & no stun, just a split second blink as they continue forward. Those user attacks - however, sport a wildly disjointed hitbox that can pierce through obstacles, effectively inspiring players to hide behind walls, corners or pillars (or a few steps from the spawner) and cast or hack away at approaching foes. Its potential is perhaps better demonstrated in later stages and during boss fights (with a few painful exceptions). Regardless, Quintet engineered a challenging and unique form of crawler that is recursive but not quite rogue-like, thus possibly laying the foundations for Dark Cloud.

Solid as it may be, Soul Blazer feels like it retreads a lot of ActRaiser's ideas outside of the core gameplay loop - as a follower of the Master, you help populate wastelands by destroying monster lairs. The change from ActRaiser's platformer/sim genre hybrid to a standard top-down action RPG results in more polish but less ambition, and in my opinion, a little less charm. In addition to the reuse of some sound effects and HUD graphics, as well as a similarly structured ending sequence, it ends up feeling like this side story of sorts to ActRaiser.

Don't get it twisted, though. It's certainly the more accessible of the two if that makes sense, and by all means a good game whether or not you're judging it on its own two legs. I'd bet a lot of people actually prefer Soul Blazer, even - but I am not one of those people. It just feels a lot safer in its execution, and as a result has fewer pleasant surprises from my experiences playing both. Perhaps the biggest downgrade is the presentation, in which Soul Blazer just can't seem to keep up with ActRaiser's soundtrack and its gorgeous backgrounds and environments (and especially for its time as well, during the console's infancy.) This seems to be due to a shorter development cycle, with Soul Blazer only in development for 9 months according to friends.

I just think ActRaiser seems to hit a lot of the same notes with more grace. That being said, it certainly sets a high bar, and Soul Blazer is honestly not too far behind. I like both, but I think I would recommend this for something more accessible and ActRaiser for something more memorable. Don't trust anyone who has informed you of a direct sequel to ActRaiser. There is not a sequel to ActRaiser.