Super FamiComplete #62: Soul Blazer (Redux)

 

Title: Soul Blazer (NA) Soul Blader (JP)

Release Date: 1/31/92

Developer: Quintet

Publisher: Enix

This is a game that I have been waiting to cover for quite some time on this blog. It is the start of what is known as the "Quintet Trilogy" which is followed up by Illusion of Gaia and finished by Terranigma. Each game follows similar themes and has a very similar action-RPG play style. While I am a big fan of Quintet's first game for the SNES, Actraiser, and do enjoy this games unofficial sequel, I never played Soul Blazer. I certainly knew of its existence, as it was featured in the old player's guide compilations that used to be released way back in the day, and I was always charmed by its boss design. From what I have heard about the game before I started researching, it is a bare-bones but charming experience with a very simple gameplay loop. Let's see for ourselves. 

Being a nerd in the 90s had its perks.

Background

With Soul Blazer, Quintet seems to lift generously from Actraiser for its story. The hero is, once again, the servant of a deity known as "The Master." Now the Master can not directly impact the events of the world, so he requires you, his Soul Blazer, to enact his will for him. Apparently some great evil, known as Deathtoll, has taken over a realm known as the Freilian Empire, and has left the land barren and devoid of life. In fact, he has taken the souls of all the living beings, and imprisoned them in Monster Lairs. As the Soul Blazer slays monsters and clears out Monster Lairs, the world is slowly returned to life, with houses, animals, humans, etc. returning to being once freed. There is some other interesting stuff going on narrative-wise, with a heavy theme being reincarnation; people will return to being as animals or flowers instead of as people.

 

Development wise, the game was headlined by some of the developers of Ys III (which makes a lot of sense when you play the game), who jumped ship mid production from Falcom to join Enix for Actraiser. Shortly after that released, they began to work on Soul Blazer. You can tell this game was made right after Actraiser, in fact, because much of the sounds and even the style of the music seems to be lifted right from the game. Your character makes the same "gasp" sound when he is struck by an enemy, and the music has that synth choir sound and gothic organ sound that made up Actraiser's OST.

Gameplay

Now the aforementioned gameplay loop goes like this: you enter a new area that is barren and empty, and then travel underground to confront the local monster population. Each area in the underground has a set of monster lairs that must be destroyed. You work your way through the monster lairs, which in turn opens up more of the local town. The town will then have some sort of "central crisis" that must be solved before you can continue with the dungeon. You use items gathered in the town and dungeon to solve this crisis, and then you can enter the final portion of the dungeon and confront the boss, who will then open up the next world area. Rinse and repeat five times and then confront the final boss. 

The gameplay loop is oddly satisfying. There are some occasional bumps, but the game moves on a good clip and it doesn't dwell on its rougher oddities too long. Each area is filled with monster lairs, where the souls of the denizens of that area will be trapped. To clear a monster lair, you need to kill all the monsters that pop out of it, and then walk over the lair to collect the soul. This will cause a soul to return to your town and open up another part of the hub. It might release a building, a townsperson, or a plant or animal. It is very satisfying to slowly unlock more of an area and watch it spring to life; I delighted in seeing the barren seabed of the third area spring into a vibrant undersea palace full of sea life and mermaids. The game then hops between managing your town and then clearing your dungeons; when you get stuck and can't seem to progress, you usually know it is time to head back to town, or to clear one of the other monster lairs. Even at the points where I would kind of groan, i.e. where I am in the middle of the dungeon and I am forced to jump back to town, I usually am amazed by all I have unlocked, and I enjoy the little puzzles that I had to work through back at the town. None were really tricky, but they were nice diversions from monster slaying.

The slight repetitiveness of the gameplay loop is buoyed by the fact that the game is pretty charming for an early SNES action RPG. You can tell the localizers were having some fun when translating this game. Animals in the sylvan Greenwood will joke about eating you (complete with the music stopping when they say it), you will enter the dreams of stumps who want to be birds, and overall, the game has a playfully dark sense of humor. 

The visual design is really really basic. The enemies are typical fantasy monsters and usually are more basic than even that (some monsters are just apes, seahorses, jellyfish, lizards, etc). Your main character looks modeled after the 80's anime style with more realistic proportions and structures, and that translates into the game in a rather awkward way. His sprite is just a little too big; he stands taller than Link does in Link to the Past, which increases your hit-box. His face, as well, is not expressive at all, which just makes it look more lazy than well designed.

The areas are sparely designed too: simple color palettes, simple textures, no new or innovative environments really. Each level is your normal fantasy fare: swamps, forests, islands, caves, etc. Probably one of the neatest dungeons is one of the first: you enter a painting that has been possessed by the monsters, and have to save the mayor of the first town who is trapped inside. This, though, translates to a building that is somehow flying in the sky...a neat idea but it still could have been executed better.

While the visual style is very simple and spartan overall, one area where the game excels is in the design of the bosses. While the boss battles themselves can be taxing, they look very striking compared to the rest of the game. The first boss, in particular, is kind of iconic in his design, and was even brought back for a repeat fight in Illusion of Gaia. You can tell that the developers were proud of this themselves, as they even did a big no-no in putting the very visually striking final boss on the back cover of their case. 

As far as challenge, it is not a harsh game with death, as it only takes away all your currency for magic and sends you back to the last save point, yet keeps all the progress in the dungeon and hub town. The combat, as well, is based off of pattern recognition than sheer skill, so it encourages you to jump right back in and fight after a loss. 

The programming of the enemy AI is also just really simple and easily manipulated. Each enemy moves in a set and simple pattern and rigidly sticks to that pattern. Some enemies will track you and your movement, while other enemies will walk in random directions, and others will just hop out, shoot a projectile in front of them, and then retreat. What this leads to is you are easily able to counter or "cheese" your way through a lot of encounters. The second boss, for example, is a set of three statues, each with their own unique attack and movement pattern. The first statue moves in a set box pattern, and then shoots lightning along an X and Y axis. You can easily move around this and just wail on the statues. The second statue chases you actively and will temporarily stop to shoot a projectile, and then will move towards the direction you are relative to him. This, though, can be countered if you just stand near where he spawns, as his platform blocks his movement so that he can't collide with you. The final statue is the trickiest as his projectile tracks you too, but you can just kite him and his fire breath around the platform he spawns on. This is pretty much the case with most every boss. Now I am not really complaining about it, but it did make me cock my eyebrow and break my immersion in the game. 

One thing I love about this game, especially after the very long Romancing Saga, is that it is an exceptionally short action RPG. It is so nice to play an epic RPG in less than 10 hours. It is just the right amount of game play. I also went through this game, except for one part, without a walkthrough. That speaks to a lot for the game world and gameplay loop if the game is intuitive enough that you can puzzle your way through the game without help. There is one part ,at the end, where you have to gather the sacred parts of the final sword to challenge the final boss, and you have to revisit the previous areas and kill previously invincible monsters; this took a peek at the walkthrough to gather where the parts were, and why I kept dying on the final screen before the boss. 

 

Favorite Area
There was one area that made me go "Oh cool," and that was in the 5th world, Dr. Leo's Lab. I thought, at first, that it was going to be a simple robot themed dungeon. Part of this world, though, takes place in small model villages that Dr. Leo has in his house. There are demons infesting this model world, and you have to defeat the little models that make up these model villages. It is a neat little world that feels inspired for a classic RPG.

Music

The music was composed by Yukihide Takekawa, who is a general composed and author who has worked a lot in Japanese tv and film (not many other well-known video games, though). This soundtrack, though, is really quite superb. 

Thoughts

As an action RPG, this game is a progenitor for much of the staple mechanics that you saw in titles such as the Soulsborne series: death is a temporary setback followed by a grind back to the next goal, a central hub that leads out into the "dungeon" areas, and the linking and unearthing of smaller story elements to tell a larger more theme driven story. Even the boss battles, when stumbled upon, have the large lifebars that stretch across the screen, and can be tense affairs similar to the Souls games. I hate to be the person who says that something is the Souls of something, but this game is definitely somewhere in the DNA of the Souls series.

 

Art, Ads, and Supplementary Material

 

 

Verdict

This was a very enjoyable experience. It was a game that made me happy to continue with this blog, as it really is a gem. It has aged very well, and I give this game my full recommendation. For collectors, this game costs quite the pretty penny (upwards of $60-80 dollars last I checked), so it can be a tough find on a budget.