Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King Review
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Developer: Castle Pixel
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Publisher: FDG Entertainment
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Genres: Action, Adventure, RPG
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Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC
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Release date:
- March 28th, 2017 (PC)
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October 27th, 2017 (Nintendo Switch)
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Playtime: 10 hours
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Reviewed on Nintendo Switch
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Disclosure: I have received a digital copy of the game from the publisher
Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King is a SNES era inspired game, more specifically The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past inspired. Is it unique enough to be its own game instead of a clone? I hope you guessed it is, because otherwise you will be sorely mistaken.
Starting with the story, well there is a story inside the game’s story. You see, what you’re playing here is a story that a grandfather (the narrator) is telling his grandchildren. This is a story about a young maiden called Lily that tasks herself with saving her kingdom’s King by traveling across the world to collect the necessary items to release the monarch from a curse and defeat the mage that cast said curse. Throughout the adventure the game is filled with amusing and entertaining commentary from the children, as if you were actually listening to children being told a story of this kind. So, during gameplay you will read some funny dialogue, such as when you find the mage’s secret lab and one of the children comments “I wish I had a secret lab”, or when Lily finds the mage cursing the King and gets hit by one of his attacks, immediately one of the kids expresses his concern about whether she was dead or not, followed by a response from the other child “She can’t be dead silly! The story just started!”.
Moving on to the gameplay, here is where it’s most evident the semblance to A Link to the Past. From the general combat to the overall game structure you can tell where the inspiration for the game came from. However, Blossom Tales firmly distinguishes itself with its quirky and playful dialogue. Some of my favorite examples are: “Crocus’ Evil Master Plan” scroll, which starts with “Do not read unless you are me!”; the contents of one of the letters I delivered were “I’m Jeniffer, or Jen for short. Or J Dawg, J Drizzle, J to the Pizzo, Little J, Jiggy J, Jay J, whatevs”; and lastly my favorite part, that is, puns: “Your next delivery is to a lumberjack named Jack. Last name, Lumber.”. Besides the dialogue, Tales sets itself apart with its engaging and addicting combat. Between the array of different weapons and abilities at your disposal (which you can swap on the fly and you can never run out of) and the amazing visual and audio feedback, killing bandits, golems, ghosts, etc. feels good and addictive. The feeling of throwing a bomb to kill as many enemies as possible at once or simply slashing through zombies doesn’t really wear out throughout the game.
Well, there’s still a couple more aspects this game does right that should be addressed. Speaking of things that make you feel good in the game, there’s a lot of breakables across the world, and you know what that means. It’s always fun to destroy a couple of jars or boxes here and there and the game is aware of that, in fact, there’s sections scattered across the world dedicated to this. For instance, there’s a house full of jars for you to destroy. At the end, after clearing the house, one of the NPCs is heartbroken because you’ve destroyed his “precious collection of jars”, while his sister is grateful because now they can have “normal furniture”. Another feature that astonished me when I first encountered it was player choice. It’s true it doesn’t change the game completely, but it was surprising and delightful when I arrived at a village that was under attack, and the two grandchildren started discussing whether the village was under attack from archers or golems. Then the grandpa decides to let the kids choose, that is, me, the player, which one was true. I ended up choosing golems, mainly because I wanted to see their designs, and when I entered the village there they were with no archers in sight. All in all, it’s this kind of small things that in the great scheme of things make Blossom Tales stand out from its peers.
Still on the topic of gameplay, there’s still some important things to mention. First off, are the dungeons. Throughout the world there’s a handful of them, and they are all fantastic. Yes, these were the highlight of the game for me, besides the combat. Each time I completed a dungeon and its puzzles I was filled with excitement and wonder about what the next one would be and look like. In each of these dungeons there were bosses, and were they great. The boss fights kept me engaged and eager to fight the next one. Let me give you an example, there’s a boss fight that plays out as if you were playing a Bomberman level, yes, a Bomberman level! Besides the dungeons, there’s the exploration. As you explore the open world you have a lot of branching paths, so you want to explore them all, and so does the game. By exploring each path you’ll find chests (containing gold, upgrade pieces or “quest” items) or underground areas with puzzles to complete with a chest at the end. There was even an instance where I found a brand-new item in one of these underground areas. Speaking of items, as with the Zelda games, in the dungeons you’ll find brand new items/weapons, particularly as boss fights rewards. Then, as you’d expect, you’ll have some follow up puzzles that make you put that brand new weapon to use so you get familiarized with it.
Moving on to the audio and visual design, there are some things I have to say. Visually, the game is a marvel. Instead of having those 4K HDR graphics or realistic facial expressions what you have here are high-quality 2D assets, specifically pixel art, and that’s what makes up for a big chunk of the game’s charm. However, for the sound design, there were some things that bothered me. While overall the sound effects and soundtrack were good, there were some instances where I had to lower the music volume because it was way too loud. The other thing is, you see, throughout the world there’s a type of puzzle that is used often, one of those where the game shows you a sequence of items that lit up and you have to hit them in that order, with the length of each sequence increasing each time. The thing is, these items are pillars that produce sound when hit, and the sounds were, at least for me, incredibly irritating. It reached a point where I would just sigh whenever I saw a puzzle of this type. In sum, while this did retract from my enjoyment, compared to the rest of the game it’s almost nothing, it’s more of a cumbersome thing that popped up once in a while.
Final thoughts:
Blossom Tales is a great game in a year filled with big and extravagant games. It’s a small experience that fills a much needed space, specifically on the Switch. It’s one of those titles that pretty much everyone that owns a Switch (or a PC) should play. Right from the beginning you can tell the developers poured their hearts and souls into this game and what resulted from it is an amazing experience that will make you smile from beginning to end.