Soul Blazer

 Believe it or not, I actually do have goals. They may be stupid, but they are technically goals.'

One of my stated goals this year is to play through the entirety of the Quintet trilogy. You would think I would make my goals stuff like learn a skill or a language or something. Why waste time on a hobby you enjoy, right? Anyway, the Quintet trilogy is a series of highly regarded action RPGs which, for whatever reason, I never got around to playing. That's kind of odd for me, because I played tons of RPGs in the 90's and 00's. I hit most of the main SNES titles, but I missed these three, Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma (at least the two games that came out in the U.S., Terranigma was never released here). Some people consider The Granstream Saga, which I played a long time ago, to be the fourth game in the series, but that's not always the case. They always seemed up my alley, but just kind of passed me by.

Anyway, the three games in question are not related to each other story-wise, though they do share some gameplay elements. They are called the Quintet Trilogy because they were all developed by a company called Quintet and published by Enix. Not Square Enix, just Enix. I really miss them being different companies. I figured I would start with the first game in the pseudo-series, 1992's Soul Blazer. As I already discussed, it's an action RPG for the SNES, that came out relatively early in the system's life cycle. While it didn't really have any mechanical similarities, Soul Blazer has some thematic commonalities with Quintet's previous SNES offering ActRaiser. You play as a servant of a deity called The Master, who has been sent down to the Freil Empire to rescue its citizens from an evil sprit called Deathtoll. Deathtoll has managed to bring an end to all existence in the empire, trapping them in lairs guarded by vicious monsters. It's up to the unnamed protagonist to make his way through six areas, clearing out these lairs and restoring people, buildings and animals to their proper place.

The first game that immediately came to mind for me was Dark Cloud. I was actually surprised that the two games had absolutely nothing to do with each other. The gameplay loop isn't just similar, it's nearly identical. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I liked Dark Cloud and while Soul Blazer obviously doesn't look as good or have as many features, it lacks some of the gameplay annoyances that plagued that game. This is largely because it is much simpler. You only have one character, equipped with a sword and a magic attack. Dark Cloud suffered a lot because its ranged characters were so overpowered and it required so much menu switching and that isn't a problem here. However, the core gameplay is very similar. You work through large, labyrinthian dungeons, clearing monster lairs and solving puzzles. Each monster lair will either open a new path in the dungeon or unlock a structure or character in the hub town. Some of these characters will provide helpful information, some are just for show and others are critical to advance the story. You don't need to clear every monster lair to continue, but there is rarely a reason not to do so. The same is true for collecting items, though some swords and armor are required to beat the game. The bubble armor, for example, is required in St. Elles to breathe under water. The magic spells are unique and varied, from a stationary bomb to a fireball to a barrier, and all have their uses throughout the game.

Each of the six areas consist of hub towns with one or several dungeons around them. There's a good variety of locations, from the standard town aesthetic of Grass Valley to the underwater kingdom of St. Elles to the sprawling Magridd Castle. All of the dungeons are on theme and the difficulty curve is very tight. The dungeons start out easy, with simple puzzles and easy monsters. As you progress, there will be more challenges, monsters will shoot or move in irregular patterns, or you will have to contend with damaging floors or falling debris. It's not perfect, but it's a relatively fair challenge. I will say there are quite a few points where the game does become a little monotonous. Many of the monster lairs can be cleared by just kind of standing in one place and swinging your sword. With the right combination of stats and armor, you can start tanking damage in the late game pretty easily. The bosses are challenging, but it's in a somewhat problematic way. They all sort of encourage you to find ways to cheese them rather than actually learn their patterns. The final battle with Deathtoll is also kind of disappointing.

I will say there is a pretty decent story here. That wasn't always the case for action RPGs, especially in the early 90's, but Soul Blazer does have some interesting things going on here. Some of it requires reading between the lines a little bit, but I actually like that. I think it's a problem with media in general where every plot point or twist has to be shoved in front of everyone like "LOOK AT THIS, PAY ATTENTION TO IT." I don't know if it was intentional here, but it kind of works. Soul Blazer gets surprisingly in depth about the meaning of life, what happens to us when we die and why we love our animals so much. Again, it doesn't go as deep as a modern game, or even a game from later in the 90's, would have gone with the subject matter, but it's still kind of cool. For as little character development as there is, you really do start to care about the human characters you interact with and the world they live in. I think this is backed up by the quality of the NPC dialogue, it's surprisingly good for an era known for its absolutely atrocious translations.

Soul Blazer is a very simple game that checks all the boxes of a first game in a series that set a clear foundation for what is to come. It's very rough around the edges and lacks a lot of features that even its contemporaries could offer. However, it offers some solid level design and plenty of fun moments. It didn't blow me away, but it was a good time that doesn't require as much patience as some retro games do. Soul Blazer is the kind of game that may not be transcendent, but even a modern gamer could pick it up and have a good time with it. It has me pretty excited for the next two Quintet games, which I have heard relatively positive things about. You can tell by looking at both Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma that they definitely took things up a notch. As for Soul Blazer, it was a great starting point that's definitely worth checking out.

7.5/10