LTTP: Soul Blazer

[YankeeH8er]

I just started playing it the other day with Katie, what a great game. Like Zelda but with RPG elements. I am really surprised at how much there is to do in each area. All in all an excellent game, I was surprised to see the Enix logo at the begining. I am so used to see Square Enix now.

[Katie]

I'm loving it! It was one of my favorites back in the day (one of my mom's, too).. there are flaws, of course, but overall, it's great fun. I think bringing people and creatures back by defeating enemy lairs is a pretty cool idea, as well.

I'm thinking the next game we start up should be Secrets of Mana, so we can both play at the same time. I never beat it when I was young, either, so it'll be partially new for me, too.

[Frogacuda]

The third game in the series (Terranigma) is my favorite, but Enix bailed on the US market before it came out so the only English version is the European one.

[Katie]

I'll have to see if I can get some sort of an emulator to play that one. I thought I remembered a sequel to Soul Blazer that was completely different from the original (though I could be confusing that with Act Raiser). How is Terranigma different, compared to Soul Blazer?

[Frogacuda]

Other than being set further ahead in time and having generally nicer visuals and level design, it's not radically different. Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma all play pretty similarly and seem to take place in the same world (although it's never made 100% clear).

Definitely not "completely different," you might be mixing it up with something else (Mana series, maybe?)

[Bruhaha69]

Is this game related to Illusion of Gaia? It looks kinda like it, but I've never played this one. Didn't really like Illusion of Gaia, though.

Edit: Nevermind, Frog answered

[Katie]

I hardly remember Illusions of Gaia, though I'm pretty sure I still own it. I think I was so stuck on the idea of beating the lairs and releasing some cute resident of the world that I never got into it.

Act Raiser is the one that changed drastically between the first and second one. In the first, you started and ended each land by playing a side scroller, but the main part of the game was kind of a sim (shoot baddies with arrows while helping the people build their town and ride evil). But it had none of the sim in the sequel.

[Frogacuda]

Is this game related to Illusion of Gaia? It looks kinda like it, but I've never played this one. Didn't really like Illusion of Gaia, though.
Illusion is generally considered the weakest in the series, just because it's very linear compared to Soul Blazer and Terranigma.

Oh yeah, Granstream Saga is regarded as a kind of unofficial/spiritual sequel as well.

[NeoZeedeater]

I loved Soul Blazer back in the day. I played a bit of it again a few years ago and it didn't seem quite as good as I remembered but I'll probably play through it again some day. I rented Illusion of Gaia when it came out but it didn't grip me the same way. And I was irritated that Terranigma didn't come out in NA. I didn't play it until way later on emulator. It seemed well made although I still haven't played that much of it.