"Blossom Tales" particularly enticing for Zelda fans
If you're a fan of the classic NES Zelda game will love this modern day action-adventure RPG. Blossom Tales follows a young girl named Lily who has become a Knight of the Rose in a quest to unlock a secret remedy in order to save the King from an evil spell.
Your main goal throughout the game is to strategically maneuver yourself through a variety of dungeons and puzzles while defending yourself from enemies and level obstacles. Along the way, you will face many uncover many useful items and NPCs that move the story along.
The first thing I noticed about this game was the resemblance to the classic NES Zelda games. However, the graphics on Blossom Tales are far more advanced and smoother. Next was the music, which is well crafted and became an immediate plus during my testing of the game.
Upon playing through my demo at PAX East, I quickly learned the control layout and jumped right into the action. As you would expect, the movement in the game could be all done through the D-pad. The only other actions were block, strike and a special attack button that summoned small AOE bombs. Some enemies in the game could be eliminated only by using your special attack or a sword-smash move, which required only that you hold down the attack button for a short period of time.
The dungeon puzzles were certainly more intense than anything I've played in classic Zelda. The best way I could describe it is if Nintendo were to have come out with a Zelda maker much like their Super Mario Maker game and just let people have it with incite puzzles and challenges. In reality, that's how close the two games felt in terms of style and mechanics.
Blossom Tales will feature four dungeons, action-based combat, retro-Zelda play style and a unique Princess Bride-like storyline to follow. The game is set to be released March 28 on Steam and later on consoles.
