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Review by: GenoForPrez
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Reviewers Score:
9 / 10
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Posted: January 09, 2006
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Illusion
of Gaia
System: SNES
Genre: Action RPG
Overall Rating: 9/10
A very much improved sequel.
Review:
Storyline: 8/10
Note: Illusion of Gaia is one game in a trilogy consisting of
Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia (aka Illusion of Time), and Terranigma in
that order.
In this greatly improved sequel to Soul Blazer, you play the part
of Will, a mischievous teenager growing up in the small port town of
South Cape (which is cleverly noted on the world map in Terranigma,
though you never travel there). While spending time with his friends in
an old, abandoned cave, Will and his friends come to realize that Will
has been endowed with unique gifts including telekenesis and an
alarmingly accurate intuition. On top of this, Will discovers that he
can now see certain things that other people cannot see. He enters a
mysterious portal and finds that he has been summoned by Gaia, the
legendary goddess of the earth, and that there is a meteor plummeting
toward the earth that carries an evil power strong enough to destroy
humanity. Gaia claims that Will is the one destined to stop it. Bonus
points for side stories involving Will's friends.
Gameplay: 10/10
The gameplay is great and a huge improvement on the very basic Soul
Blazer. Illusion of Gaia completely does away with the idea of
"monster lairs" and goes back to the traditional approach of
having the monsters wander freely in the dungeons. However, they stick
to Soul Blazer's system of receiving awards for eliminating all of the
monsters in an area. Illusion of Gaia uses this system to level up your
character instead of unlocking new areas on the map like in SB. The game
also keeps the original idea of having enemies drop crystals when you
defeat them, but in IOG the crystals give you lives (similar to coins in
Super Mario) whereas in SB they acted as mana points. IOG introduces a
lot of new elements to the SB format though. For example, they allow
your character to shape-shift so that you can muscle through the
dungeons by alternating between three forms, all with different
abilities and strengths. The abilities are really what makes this game
fun and the designers did an excellent job of laying out the dungeons so
that you would have to use the abilities to solve them. They also
introduced a side quest where you may search high and low for Red Jewels
which can be used to purchase power ups for your character. The Red
Jewel quest was no doubt inspired by SB's side quest where you search
for the eight "master emblems". This game keeps you hooked by
continuously offering you something new in each new segment of the game.
Audio: 9/10
Great music overall, but that one dungeon theme got pretty old after a
while.
Graphics: 9/10
Great artwork, especially on the dark knight. Everything is
well-polished and pleasing to the eye. The town of Freejia really stands
out to me as a great example of artwork in the game, so keep your eye
out for it.
Replay Value:
9/10
I had enough fun playing this game that I can say that I would
definitely consider playing this one again down the road.
Cameo Appearances
In playing through the trilogy, I couldn't help but notice that IOG made
the most references/inside jokes to the other games in the series
(primarily SB). There may be more, but these are the ones I noticed.
Just a warning, there are some mild spoilers enclosed, so if you don't
want to know, then stop reading now. For anyone who has played SB and is
curious, here you go:
***Potential Spoilers Below***
Turbo the Dog - when Will and Kara are lost at sea, they are
rescued by a man who
informs them that they should thank his dog since it was the dog that
found them. The dog's name
turns out to be Turbo which is the exact name (and the same sprite!) as
the Turbo from Soul Blazer
who was the guardian animal spirit of the forest town. Turbo appears
again in Terranigma as Meilin's
dog, but a new sprite is used for that one.
The Kissing Couple - In the town of Freejia, when you are
entering the hotel, look up and to the
left and you will see a man and a woman kissing in one of the upstairs
windows. If you enter that building
and go upstairs and walk in on them, they will immediately turn away
from each other. If you speak to them,
the man will say, "I had something in my eye" and the girl
will say, "I was helping him." This also occurs
in Soul Blazer in the last town (castle). If you have freed all the
souls and enter the infirmary, there will be a
knight and a nurse kissing who immediately turn away. If you talk to
them, the nurse will say, "I was helping him." and the knight
will say, "I had something in my eye." Coincidence? I doubt
it.
The Moon Tribe - Several times in the game you will encounter the
Moon Tribe, which is made up of strange
creatures that look like the wavering faces of spirits. The sprites used
for the Moon Tribe people were originally
used for enemies in certain dungeons in Soul Blazer.
Potted Flower - In one of the towns, there is a red flower in a
pot. If you approach it, you will find that you
can talk to the flower. This is no doubt a head nod to the red flowers
you unlock in the first town in Soul Blazer.
Once again, it is the exact sprite used in SB.
Solid Arm - If you manage to collect all 50 red jewels in the
game and speak to the jeweler, he will instantly
teleport you to his mansion. The first thing you will notice is that
there is a constant haze blowing rapidly through the mansion, which if
you look closely is the same "mist" effect used in the
last room of the last dungeon in Soul Blazer. And if you manage to
navigate the mansion and reach the final room, you will be engaged in a
boss fight with none other than Solid Arm who is the boss contained
inside Dr. Leo's painting in Soul Blazer. Before you fight him and after
you defeat him, he will mention someone named "Blazer" who
beat him before and will vaguely explain the transition from SB to IOG. |
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