Retro Game of the Month November 2017: Soul Blazer (SNES)

I beat this earlier. It was much easier killing the final boss having been rested and not intoxicated.

All in all this was a fun little game. I didn't complete the side quest to collect all those runes so you can cast spells for free basically. I'm not sure why you would even want that. You essentially complete the game with just using your sword with your magic abilities only really being required in a few small situations where mobs are not reachable by sword.

The combat is simple. Your sword has only 2 attacks (3 if you count the final boss), swiping and holding your sword outright. Although the combat was very basic, it still held my interest for the entirety of the game. I really wish they had some more attack types though to spice things up a little bit. Maybe a charge up attack, or a ranged type attack when you're full HP ala Zelda. You also get a variety of magic abilities throughout the game, all of which are trumped by your sword so it was kind of pointless. Perhaps include puzzles that required using your magic spells to unlock certain areas or treasure to switch things up a bit.

You get a decent variety of armor, swords, and misc items throughout the game. One big pet peeve of mine is that when you upgrade to a new item, that your character on screen reflects that change. For this game you have one character model and even when you change between your 8-10 different swords and armors your character always looks the same. That was a shame, because some of the items had some pretty cool pixel art on the inventory screen. That being said, the different items have certain characteristics that despite not visually changing how your character looks, change their behavior to affect the game in certain ways which gives them a bit more of intrigue other than +better.

The different towns/areas were full of life, and had likable NPC's that inhabited the different areas. Each zone had its own visual distinction, running the gamut of different environments and not making every zone seem exactly like the last. You go from being in a forest, to underwater, to on a volcano, on an icey mountain, all the way to being inside another dimension. So it keeps the gaming experience interesting as you make your way through to the end.

I liked the game and had fun. There were even a lot of nice life lessons being taught as you played through. One which stuck out to me was to live a fulfilling life. There was a lot of thoughtful stuff like that sprinkled throughout the game. I even found it pretty endearing that anytime you saved the game it would encourage you to keep going, and when you died it would tell you to not try and rush and to keep on trying. Although kind of corny, I found it to be a pleasant little touch.

I look forward to next months retro game of the month (if Path of Exile hasn't completely consumed my soul). Great idea Tanoomba!