Welcome back the The Game Collection!
Last time I talked about Soul Blazer, an action
RPG from Quintet that sparked an excellent,
loose collection of games which some refer
affectionately to as The Soul Blazer series.
Today we’ll be taking a look at the next
entry in the series.
I am SuperDerek, and this is Illusion of Gaia!
Illusion of Gaia is another action RPG by
Quintet, which was released in Europe under
the name Illusion of Time.
Development began immediately following Act
Raiser 2, and was localized by Nintendo to
the United States in 1994.
The game was built from the ground up, featured
larger sprites, combos, three playable characters,
special charged moves, and more.
In fact at first glance you’d probably wonder
how anybody could consider this to be in the
same series as Soul Blazer, which is a valid
question.
Illusion of Gaia was developed under the title
Soul Blazer: Illusion of Gaia.
But the Soul Blazer series is actually more
of a loose collection based on recurring themes,
such as reviving a dying world, getting tangled
up in the battle between good and evil gods,
and recurring locations & characters.
Lastly, all games were developed by more or
less the same team.
In Illusion of Gaia, you play as a teenage
boy named Will whose father went missing while
they were exploring the Tower of Babel together.
Will has lost his memories of the trip, but
decides to set off on a journey to find his
father, and of course, save the world in the
process.
This journey takes you to several real world
locations including Aztec ruins, the Great
Wall, and the Pyramids of Egypt.
Unlike Soul Blazer, Will isn’t a silent
protagonist, in fact he often narrates the
game which is pretty unique.
Even so, he still suffers a bit from not having
much of a voice or personality of his own.
As with Soul Blazer, this puts the focus onto
the rest of the cast, including several of
Will’s friends that accompany him on his
travels.
They are the main drivers of the drama within
the game, and are also the sole sources of
character development.
In Illusion of Gaia, when you arrive in a
new town, there’s usually a puzzle of some
sort that you have to solve in order to unlock
the next dungeon.
Dungeons follow the typical Zelda formula
where within a dungeon you are presented with
obstacles which can only be overcome using
items or skills acquired within that dungeon.
What’s excellent about the execution within
Illusion of Gaia is that the skills you acquire
maintain usefulness within combat throughout
the rest of the game.
Speaking of which, combat within Illusion
of Gaia is worlds apart from Soul Blazer.
Soul Blazer was solid, but ridged, but Illusion
of Gaia is fluid and very fun.
The game introduced dashing, dash attacks,
charged attacks and jump attacks.
And with the ability to switch between 2 other
playable characters for set portions of dungeons,
you’ll never feel yourself getting bored
with combat.
Leveling your character is achieved by defeating
every last enemy in a room, at which point
you are given more hit points, attack power,
or defense.
The one drawback for me is that once you complete
an area, you can’t really go back to it.
Unlike a lot of other games of this genre,
the world never really opens up for you to
go exploring for missed power-ups or hidden
red jewels.
Soul Blazer featured mandatory backtracking,
but Illusion of Gaia forbids it.
Illusion of Gaia for a long time was what
I considered to be one of the prettiest games
for the Super Nintendo.
But after playing through it again I can see
that there were a few corners cut.
Almost none of the backgrounds feature parallax
scrolling, so you’re missing that nice depth
of field that you had even back in some parts
of Soul Blazer.
But that’s really just a nit-pick though,
as you can see that the game sprites are nice,
big, and detailed, and well animated too.
Also, the towns and dungeons are nice and
varied too, as a matter of fact I don’t
think there were many, if any assets that
were reused between towns or dungeons.
The music of Illusion of Gaia feels big and
booming, exploring the dungeons and the landmarks
feels big and dangerous because of the great
soundtrack.
And the touching moments within Illusion of
Gaia are all that much more memorable because
the music was there to back it up.
Thanks to the help of some great marketing
by Nintendo of America and Nintendo Power,
Illusion of Gaia would go on to sell 300,000
copies in the United States alone, more than
quadrupling the sales of its predecessor.
The game shipped with a thick instruction
booklet, which was essentially a complete
walkthrough of the game.
Due to this massive success, Illusion of Gaia
is a much more common game than Soul Blazer,
and by extension, a lot cheaper.
As a matter of fact, right now the game costs
less than even Breath of Fire, a jaw-dropping
$18.
Illusion of Gaia was a huge step for Quintet,
who was really beginning to master their craft
on the Super Nintendo.
And before the end of the Super Nintendo,
Quintet managed to outdo themselves yet again.
But we’ll talk about that next time, on
The Game Collection!
