Apparently I'm on a Quintet roll instead of on a Soul Blazer trilogy roll... I had this on the SNES in college, but couldn't make it very far, because the action sequences are unforgivably clumsy.
There is a desire to excuse how bad they are by saying, "Well, it was 1990", but in 1990 we had good platformers. There's no excuse for how messy they are, because they aren't doing anything new. It's disheartening, because the rest of the game is daring.
The sim segments are fun and creative, attempting to do a light Populous thing, telling its story through the work you do for people, but without giving you the option of being a huge jerk. The only stories actually being told here are told by your worshippers, and they do feel like proto-Quintet narratives. Lost faith, the stress of being a person in a civilization, and the growth from one dying age of humanity to the next thriving age of humanity (a nice touch: Every area has a Stonehenge looking thing you enter to fight, and when you beat the monsters it becomes a Grecian/Roman looking structure).
I liberally used the rewind button on this one, and the last boss rush was a real piece of shit move, but hey. This game was a big deal in 1990, and while I didn't understand it then, at least it impacted enough people to get Quintet on the path they ended up on. I can't be mad about that.
There is a desire to excuse how bad they are by saying, "Well, it was 1990", but in 1990 we had good platformers. There's no excuse for how messy they are, because they aren't doing anything new. It's disheartening, because the rest of the game is daring.
The sim segments are fun and creative, attempting to do a light Populous thing, telling its story through the work you do for people, but without giving you the option of being a huge jerk. The only stories actually being told here are told by your worshippers, and they do feel like proto-Quintet narratives. Lost faith, the stress of being a person in a civilization, and the growth from one dying age of humanity to the next thriving age of humanity (a nice touch: Every area has a Stonehenge looking thing you enter to fight, and when you beat the monsters it becomes a Grecian/Roman looking structure).
I liberally used the rewind button on this one, and the last boss rush was a real piece of shit move, but hey. This game was a big deal in 1990, and while I didn't understand it then, at least it impacted enough people to get Quintet on the path they ended up on. I can't be mad about that.