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.
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What a fun concept for a game. It's got the ActRaiser-esque split between action gameplay and supervising a growing town, but the action scenes play like ALttP and there's no real management involved on the town side of things. There's not much to the combat, and there's an unfortunate number of times where progression involves standing in place and waiting for enemies to spawn and throw themselves on your sword, but the rhythm of progressing through a dungeon and seeing something new get unlocked in town every minute or two was so addictive that I just had to clear the whole thing in one sitting. Plenty of fun little moments, cool environments, and interesting bits of dialogue sprinkled throughout, too.
played this game for the first time recently & it kind of blew me away. really, the only complaints I have are the lack of music variety in towns & some weird difficulty spikes. otherwise I really loved it, definitely a hidden gem.
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