One of the titles in the very loosely connected Soul Blazer series, Illusion of Gaia (or Illusion of Time in Europe) is an interesting fusion of action and story, fantasy and reality, and some truly mindboggling design decisions. Do you have what it takes to kill monsters by bludgeoning them with a flute?
Note: This is a Super Nintendo title. It may or may not be available via the Wii Classic Console Store. There are bound to be copies for sale on Ebay, however!
As noted earlier, this is just one part of a larger series, although the connections are tenuous at best. Two of the titles that we received in the United States was ActRaiser and Soul Blazer – the former blends side-scrolling action and world building, while the latter is an action/adventure title. The best of the series is undoubtedly Terranigma, an amazing action title that unfortunately never made it to the United States. But don’t worry, aspiring novices - Illusion of Gaia’s connection to these games is subtle (in fact, you probably won’t notice unless you beat the optional hidden boss).
In Illusion of Gaia, you play Will, a boy who once traveled with his father to the Tower of Babel. His dad disappeared there, and as Will has settled into something akin to a normal life, he and his friends have noticed something unusual about him. Will displays some form of telekinesis, limited mind reading, and he alone sees dimensional portals; these portals all lead to a small room that looks like it’s placed in space. In this room is a friendly creature identified as ‘Gaia,’ appearing to be just a large face floating in the starry abyss. One day after school, Will receives a summons to the castle – he is to deliver a ‘crystal ring’ to the King personally; too bad Will has no idea what the royals are talking about! Thus begins his journey…
1. Graphics [Meh] Although the graphics do not obstruct the game play, they also add very little to the experience. All of the characters look pretty similar and with very little detail, with the sole exception of Will. This makes the game look very strange; it’s like Will is an adult running around with a bunch of children. The environments feel flat. None of the enemies, save for some of the boss monsters, are even remotely interesting to look at. Even worse, the world map just looks terrible, and the forced use of Mode 7 (the Super Nintendo’s “3D” effect) makes me want to cry. Strangely enough, the item menu has some decidedly unnecessary graphical pizazz, depicting swirling mists and pillars for the six statues you need to collect.
Will and Gaia, sittin' in a, uh, demiplane...nevermind.
2. Game Play [Good] Illusion of Gaia is overhead action – think Legend of Zelda. Unlike Zelda, you can only make attacks in areas filled with monsters. Also unlike the more popular series, you get more powerful by killing monsters….but only if you kill every single monster in an area. Combat is pretty simplistic – you run around and hit things with your flute (or sword) until they die. Will learns a few special moves over the course of the game, as well as gaining the ability to transform into a ‘Dark Knight’ named Freedan (who also learns special moves). You might think there’d be some strategy to changing from one form to the other in dungeons, but the game makes it fairly obvious when you should change bodies.
When you kill enemies, they drop motes of energy; when you collect 100, you gain an extra life. Yup, that’s right. There’s no money to collect or items to buy. You do, however, collect ‘Red Jewels;’ there’s a mysterious jewel collector who follows you around the world, disguising himself so he fits in with the locals. He’s got a list of things he’ll give you if you bring him enough jewels. This is an interesting idea, but the execution is just horrible. When you find a Red Jewel, it goes into your inventory. You must go into your inventory, select the jewel, then ‘use’ it; the jewel will then magically fly to the jewel collector. Extra steps just to annoy the player, really. What about healing items? Well, there are about 10 or so herbs in the game, which restore some health to you. If you use them up, too bad, gotta beat the game without any.
While the regular monsters rarely have any special abilities or defenses worth noting, the few boss monsters are pretty cool. Many utilize the trick of being invulnerable except for a few seconds at a time, while others will punish you with attacks if you just beat on them. The difficulty of these fights varied wildly; the first boss fight has some challenge to it, while the next two are cake. The sandworm looks impressive until you realize that standing at the bottom of the screen and swinging as fast as you can upwards will let you destroy it without taking any damage.
Outside of combat, the key to progressing through the game is talk to everyone. In order to get any further in the game, there are often some ‘triggers’ that must be met (like reading a note or talking to a specific person), which can be infuriating. After witnessing a mildly embarrassing cutscene in Watermia, check your inventory for a letter; this bit of advice may have just saved you 30 minutes or more of wandering around the city wondering where the heck to go next! Also, be careful about hitting buttons to quickly – you can miss a ton of text by hitting a direction button accidentally as a text prompt appears. One more tip: while in Euro City, wait in line at the store in the bottom-right corner for five minutes to get in. Yes, five minutes.
Witness the blistering awesomeness of Mode 7, in the face!
One final quibble – if you manage to find and collect all 50 red jewels, you can get into the bonus dungeon and fight an extra boss monster. This is a relatively cool sequence, with no reward other than a little extra story exposition. I can’t think of any other game that rewards extra work with…nothing. Oh, you get an extra Herb, like you’ll really need it. Meh.
3. Grab-Factor [Trash] The story in Illusion of Gaia may be pretty amazing, but the eye-meltingly bad translation just kills whatever value it might have had. For a good chunk of the game, four or five characters follow you around; I can’t tell you any of their names, because they just serve as uninteresting plot-fodder. Most of the cool plot sequences involve Will having a dream or vision, particularly one where he finds himself on a golden ship, hailed as a king, and is given one of the six statues he’s supposed to collect. He wakes up to find the ship a wreck, all the crew skeletons, yet the statue is still in his possession.
The game designers apparently were on a quest to pound into your head that humans are insignificant, but the Earth is precious. The narrative becomes uncomfortably preachy about other obvious themes throughout the story. And then there’s the ending, which is so inexplicably bizarre…well, I don’t want to ruin it for anyone. Just be ready for a serious “WTF? Really?!” moment.
Something else that kept bugging me was how disconnected the world felt; for all thoughts and purposes, the towns and dungeons you go to may as well be individual planets you are hopping between. Nothing represents this better than the boss monsters, which seem to be in the game only because every good game MUST have boss monsters! Only a few actually tie into the games plot.
Some of the plot sequences may have seemed like a good idea at the time to the designers, but, honestly? Just because the characters are stranded on a raft or in a jail cell does not mean I, the player, wish to be bored as you sort of ‘emulate’ the feel of being alone! Gah!
Random boss monster #1, plus Dark Knight Freedan!
4. Soundtrack [Good] Although I utterly loathe the world map theme (just like every other aspect of it), the rest of the soundtrack is pretty decent. Of particular note is the music that plays during the final boss battle – pretty epic stuff. Many of the tracks have a dreamy, alien feel to them, which is kinda cool.
5. Replay Value [Meh] If you want to go back and get all the red jewels, there’s that to do. But otherwise, you’ll only be replaying this just for the sake of replaying it. It is a rather short game.
Overall Game Rating: 1.5 [Meh]
Genre: Action/Adventure By: Quintet System: Super Nintendo
