Soul Blazer

"A Great Little Gem for the Beginner RPGer"

I have lately begun restoring all of my old NES and SNES collection. I was a big Dragon Warrior fan and stumbled across this gem as I was pouring through e-bay looking for enix games. I had never played it or even heard of it, but decided to give it a try. This is what I thought of it:

STORY: You are sent by God to save the world from the evil king. Pretty basic, at a glance, but I thought that all of the characters fed into the story quite nicely. Add that to the interesting mission of releasing everyone's souls and you get a pretty good story line. I found myself rushing back to town after saving a new soul to see where the story went next. And, even though it was not as in-depth as others of its time (FF2, FF3, Chrono Trigger), I found it to be quite refreshing. Rating - 8.5

GAME PLAY: Very easy RPG. This is why I think that this game is for the beginner. It is so straightforward. It is very linear (with some slight backtracking for Red-Hot items and emblems). The monsters seemed to be just right as far as a level/difficulty ratio. It seemed like every time I was about to die, I would level up and regain all life again. The bosses are fairly easy, too. Even the final boss, if you are leveled up enough, is toast. Very easy gameplay. Rating - 7.5

CONTROLS: VERY SIMPLE. The character moves at a manageable speed, each button has its own use, easy, easy, easy. Rating - 10

GRAPHICS: Decent. I've never known enix to be front-runners in this category. It wasn't too early a game for the platform (1992), so I thought they could have made certain areas a little better, but overall pretty good. The sprites are decently defined. I thought the evil world was done very well. Rating - 7.5

Overall, I really liked this game. I bought it for ten bucks used, and I don't think I would pay much more for it. I beat it in one day!! It is a very straightforward rpg. However, I did need a FAQ/Walkthrough to find all of the emblems. Anyway, great game, great company, great time. OVERALL Rating - 8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/19/02, Updated 03/19/02