Old School action RPGs might be a lost game form, but it hasn't lost it's appeal.
Soul Blazer was released by Enix on the Super Nintendo. It is a one player game so you'll be soloing it the entire time you play. The story has you start off as a man that was created from the heavens sent down to set the world straight. A king has commissioned a great scientist to communicate and eventually open a portal to the world of Evil causing most of the world's inhabitant's to be enslaved.
The creatures of the world can be set free by destroying portals in each area of the game. After defeating the enemies that spawn out, you can then stand on the portal from where they came, and finally close it off permanently. Every time you do this, more people and animals will be freed and the area of the town will be rebuilt. When you go back to the towns of each area, you can then talk to the newly freed people and animals. They will give you hints and items that will assist you in the journey but not all of them have a role to play as many of them give you useless information.
The game has six worlds, if you want to call them that and each one has a boss. As you progress through each monster filled zone, you will hit two checkpoints that allow you to go back to heal and save. This makes the game a lot faster, but also a lot easier. It would have been great if this was a portable game but adding these features wasn't a necessity but it is nice to be able to go back to save frequently, if you choose. Also in each zone, will be treasure chests containing different items. If you expect the game to have many different items to collect, you'll sadly be mistaken as the game only has 8 weapons, 8 armors, 8 magics, and some other items that are mostly related to advancing the story.
All the weapons are swords so you'll be spending all your dungeon crawling time swiping your sword. What's nice, is it's an arc so it can hit 5 squares around you so you don't have to be standing directly in front of the enemy. What is also nice, is the ability to "crabwalk". You hold down the "L" or "R" button and you will hold the sword out and you can strafe back and forth. The only downside to this attack, is that it does about 1/3 of the swiping attack so choose wisely.
As for the armors, most of them don't do much. Some enable you to avoid fire damage while others allow you to stay under water without taking damage. As there are 7 different zones, some of them have fire, or under water, or ice. Basically, the armor is useful in one area and then becomes obsolete because the next armor is much better. It would have been better if they made the armors more versatile or made different zones have combinations of obstacles but that isn't the case and it makes the armors feel tacked on like you just need them to get to the next zone.
As you slay enemies, you'll get experience points, which are clearly labeled, and also gems. Gems are little yellow orbs that can come in denominations of 1, 5 or 10. The larger the amount, the larger looking the gem is. Gems are solely used for magic. As you progress through the game, you'll get more and more magic and you'll be able to cast magic. All of the magic comes from a little blue orb that rotates around your character at all times. This can get annoying because it can get hard to aim the magic at the appropriate target but when you get use to it, you can aim it fairly well. Gems can also be drawn in with your sword in crabwalk mode so it's a nifty trick if you need some spellcasting resources.
The floating blue orb also can get improvements in various zones if you can free the right NPC. Some of them allow you to see hidden passages or invisible enemies. Though in reality, you don't need them, it would make the game quite a bit more challenging if you don't have them. Unfortunately, they show up like a second right before you need them so this part of the game, just like the armors, feels a little convenient.
As for the sounds of the game, they are all fairly basic so don't expect to get wowed at any moment. The sword swings all sound the same and there are no foot step sounds. As for the music, each zone has it's own music that fit the area just right. The most memorable is the music in the water zone as it sounds like it's a slow, flowing mood and I think it's just perfect.
As for the gameplay, it's about going into the next monster filled area and slashing them all to smithereens before releasing more creatures and then back to town just so you can go back to the dungeon and do it all over again. The gameplay is simplistic and completely repetitive. It's a fun game for a while, but there's not a lot of replay value. On top of that, the game can probably be completed in around ten to fifteen hours and that's collecting all the "secrets" the game has to offer. The gameplay is mindless in a lot of senses and I found myself barreling through zone after zone. I rarely died and if you do, the only penalty is you lose all your gems, which can be quickly recollected.
Back in 1992, I beat this game as a two day rental. Today, not much as changed. I beat it rather quickly but what you still have to consider, is for the short time you play, it's still a fun game and because of that, I recommend this game to anyone. Just don't expect to play this game over and over, or expect a lot of reasons to play more because there isn't. This game is a simple hack n' slash that does the basics really well.