The Gaia series

Post by **manaman** » Thu May 17, 2007 8:30 am

Soul Blazer . . . is a Super Nintendo Entertainment System console role-playing game . . . [s]imilar to their previous game ActRaiser, [where] the player takes the role of an angel sent by a deity to destroy monsters and release the captured souls of a world's inhabitants. This game is the first in a loosely-grouped trilogy of similarly-themed Enix/Quintet titles referred to by fans as the Soul Blazer trilogy, along with Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma. . . .

As in ActRaiser, the player frees a series of towns by fighting monsters in traditional dungeon-crawl battles (Act Raiser was side-scrolling; Soul Blazer has a top-down perspective). However, Soul Blazer eschews the SimCity-like aspect of ActRaiser. . . .

Soul Blazer (along with Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma) is part of a loose trilogy referred to by fans as the Soul Blazer series. Certain aspects of the plot recur within the trilogy, although the main storylines and gameplay differ significantly.

Soul Blazer also has the characteristics of being a spiritual sequel [defined by Wikipedia with the following: "Instead of being a standard sequel, spiritual successors share genres, themes, styles, and often developer teams, without continuing on a previous story."] to ActRaiser, which was made by Enix as well. In fact, the "Master" in both games may be the same character. In both games, a holy being comes down to the land to fight monsters, and aid in rebuilding a civilization. Many sounds, including the grunts of the main character, are directly from ActRaiser. In contrast, ActRaiser's true sequel, ActRaiser 2 forgoes the town building aspects entirely and has a high difficulty level making it less accessible to mainstream gamers.

Soul Blazer itself has been compared to the Dark Cloud series of games for the PlayStation 2. Both are dungeon-crawl adventures that involve releasing parts of town as you explore.

"Soul Blazer." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 9 May 2007, 16:27 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 17 May 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =129552212>.

"Spiritual successor." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 16 May 2007, 04:55 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 17 May 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =131224153>.

Here you all are,

I thought I found this somewhere. Now, I realize that Wikipedia is not a set in stone academic source, but I feel there is at least some degree of logic that makes this argument compelling for me even as it stands. Besides, the sense of continuity between the three games Danny mentioned in the first place is fairly loose--why not extend it to the other two games?

Peace,

manaman

Post by **Magus_Melchior** » Thu May 17, 2007 5:58 pm

Ahh, Soul Blazer. Or the Japanese Soul Blader, which was less encumbered from the big English monospaced font, so some of the dialog was actually humorous. Madly addicting game, great mechanics.

The one thing about Illusion of Gaia that really bugged me is that if you suck at the game (as I do), you can't go back and gain levels (easily, anyway) if you're outclassed by a boss-- as far as I can tell, they completely controlled the level-up process, which is as wrong as any RPG can get.

Terra Nigma brought back just about everything that made Soul Blazer fun, I think. At the very least, it had a pretty good story along with the game, though I have to agree that much of it was designed to keep you strung along to the anticlimactic end.

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Thu May 17, 2007 7:27 pm

Magus_Melchior wrote:The one thing about Illusion of Gaia that really bugged me is that if you suck at the game (as I do), you can't go back and gain levels (easily, anyway) if you're outclassed by a boss-- as far as I can tell, they completely controlled the level-up process, which is as wrong as any RPG can get.

Yeah, that annoyed me too in Illusion of Gaia. They may have been trying something new too make the game harder, but they also made it kind of annoying that way too. If you forgot to beat all the monsters and get leveled up in hp, attack or defence, you were done for in the next level.

The red jewals were okay, but it was also annoying to forget to get them. They were 50 in total and I never got them all to see the jewal keepers secrets. Does anyone know what it is? Transforming to Freedan made Will's attack and defence rinse by 1-2 points and Shadow by 3 points. I always still liked Freedan the best because of this techs and the other reasons I mentioned before. I'm too lazy to write them again, but you can see them on the first page of this topic in one of my posts. Maybe I'll quote myself on that if someone wants me too.

Post by **Deques** » Fri May 18, 2007 11:00 am

I have a special surprise for you Danny, if this goes well

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Fri May 18, 2007 6:47 pm

Surprise? I wonder what, a clip from Illusion of Gaia?

Post by **Elazul** » Sun May 20, 2007 3:43 pm

I played Terranigma some years ago... Illusion of Gaia too, but not sure.

In the past year I tried to play Terranigma again. It is a cool game, but I always got bored in the second tower. Maybe is the ground design, but I really don't like those towers.

Ok, downloaded all of them too... I will play it again someday...

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Sun May 20, 2007 5:51 pm

I got stuck in the second tower too, it's more of a puzzle then there are enemies. I used this site to help me: http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/snes/terranigma/
It helped me, I hope it helps you too! It sould have everything you need.

And this is the info for Illusion of Gaia: http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/snes/iog/
Soul Blazer: http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/snes/sb/

This sould contain the most info you'll find on the web which is just about everything. Rpgs classics has tons of awesome 'classic' games like CT and many others. It's worth checking out!

Post by **Elazul** » Mon May 21, 2007 2:41 am

Thanks! I use this site too, it is a really good site. I almost forgot it

I'am playing Illusion of Gaia right now... A nice game. Maybe I can finish this one. ^^

Post by **Deques** » Mon May 21, 2007 7:52 am

darn, its not going as planned as i wanted. i wait a few more days

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Mon May 21, 2007 8:22 pm

Elazul: Your welcome, it was no problem for me. Enjoy the Gaia series, it's great! Even though it's only made up of 3 games.

Deques: Ah, no problem take your time. It's sounds like something nice.