Sam Thorne reviews Blossom Tales…
One reason for the Nintendo Switch’s ‘indie gold rush’ period, as many people have coined it, is due to the sheer lack of storefront curation or quality vetting on other digital marketplaces like Steam. Every indie game coming to the Switch seems to be of reasonable quality – at least playable and functional at worst, and most things have had at least some kind of sizzle reel or small marketing push from the big N. In fact, I can’t say I’d heard of Blossom Tales at all prior to it’s announcement for the Nintendo Switch, which is proof in the pudding for the rise of the ‘Nindies’.
Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King started life as a failed campaign on Kickstarter back in 2014 by indie start-up devs Castle Pixel, with the game eventually being picked up by FDG Entertainment. The game is best described as a Zelda-like, strongly drawing from the Legend of the Zelda: A Link To The Past in terms of SNES-era visuals, gameplay and puzzle design. Nostalgia based projects can often be divisive among fans, as there’s a thin line between simply replicating something, and making an homage which respects the original while adding a few unique twists. Thankfully, Blossom Tales is the latter and not the former.
The game’s premise is simple. You play as a young knight recruit called Lily, who must rescue her kingdom after the king is sent into a permanent sleep by the evil court wizard Krokus. While the plot and general set-up do resemble Zelda heavily, the tone is far different. The story is played off as a bedtime story told by a grandpa to his two grandchildren, managing to retain a light, comic tone throughout which really suits the game’s colourful and bouncy visuals. The humour really helps to distinguish Blossom Tales from its inspiration, but mostly it helps the story keep rolling, as the whole thing is fairly straightforward.
As you’d expect, the real meat and potatoes of the game are its dungeons. True to Zelda form, each one has a clear theme, this time they’re based on the elements – earth, fire, ice, etc. One comment would be that the dungeons feel linear, there’s less optional rooms or dead ends, it feels like you’re always on the right path. However, the puzzle design is fairly competent, ranging from basic block pushing puzzles, to advanced problem solving and mazes. It also retains that classic set piece of the one item you find in a dungeon, is the one you need to proceed with, be it a bow & arrow, or boomerang, or other. Overall, the dungeons are fun if not a little too easy, but they do the job.
As for Lily, she controls exactly like SNES-era Link did, pretty much down to the detail. She slashes, she spin-attacks, she uses a range of other weapons and items as needed. Besides a few quality of life upgrades, like your magic meter powering every item, instead of you having to hunt for bombs, she is Link. You’ll even start off with the meagre three hearts of health, until you find containers in dungeons, beat mini-games, or find them exploring the outside world (which is mostly optional). Here is where the nostalgia works best, because combat and exploration feels great in Blossom Tales, just like it did in a Link To The Past.
In summary, Blossom Tales deserves its position as a premium nindie, as it draws heavily from Nintendo-singed roots and pays great homage to a true classic. Beyond that, the care, passion and inspiration from Blossom Tales isn’t hard to see, it’s an homage by Zelda fans, for Zelda fans. It’s a short, but sweet Zelda-like that’ll keep you happy from start to finish.
Pros:
- Controls are tight, everything plays incredibly well.
- There’s plenty of optional content and world to explore.
- Humour and whimsical tone adds a nice touch.
Cons:
- Could have added more to put more of a unique spin on the 2D Zelda formula
- 2D SNES-era graphics won’t be for everyone.
- Dungeons and puzzles can be a bit too simple at times.
Rating: 8/10
Sam Thorne
