Soul & Sword - Part 6/12 - SNES - ソウル&ソード ~ Spooky Dolls
Playlist: • Soul & Sword | ソウル&ソード
Soul & Sword is a Super Famicom (Super Nintendo) game only released in Japan in 1993. You play as Rick, an adventurer who wants to live the adventure. You get off on an island called Valcanon, renowned for its numerous adventurers that brought their dreams and hopes to it. But how far are you willing to go to create memories? Will you give up on your dreams? Or create a life of adventure never to be forgotten?
There is no great evil in Soul & Sword. No princess to rescue. No world to save. Nothing. You adventure, and you finish when you want. You wander around the island and accomplish various quests here and there. Sometimes to help others, sometimes for fun. Go back to the island's port and you can end the game whenever you want. That's why I get the "first ending" in the very first part of the playthrough, to see what it would be like. And also because I almost gave up on the game.
This game is the very definition of open-ended. Non-linear. Do whatever the heck you want. Since you can do pretty much anything, it can be hard to know what you should actually do. Some events can only be triggered after you've completed other quests, but many of them can be accomplished at any time. There's 34 of them.
Once you get the hang of it, the game can become really fun, as you progressively discover new areas. The main problem, however, is the sheer number of random encounters. There are a crap ton of random encounters in Soul & Sword. Luckily, there's a way to alleviate that. Buy Sai Medals. Sai Medals will let all of your characters escape from battle 100% of the time. As soon as I could afford it, I bought 99 of them and always restocked after every adventure. It helps. Of course, you don't want to avoid every battle constantly, because you still need to level your characters up. The regular "flee" command from the menu is strange, because ONLY the character who chose the flee command will flee! If some characters fail to flee, they remain in! I had never seen that in a JRPG before. Besides physical attacks, you can also cast spells or use skills. Spells use MP, skills use HP. Everything needs to be bought in a shop or found in a treasure chest. You never learn anything from leveling up. The battle view reminds me of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. I love that we are tiny little characters fighting against huge monsters. The monster design is very good, too, and we kept getting new designs until the very end of the game.
Another weird thing about the game, however, is the equipment system. You can only equip weapons or armor if your matching stat is the same level or higher. That's fine. What's weird is that the game keeps giving out items you're too weak to equip. By the time I finished the game, i.e. after finishing every single event available, there was still a majority of weapons/armor I couldn't equip because I was still too weak! If you never avoid any battle, maybe you'll eventually be strong enough?
The quests you get to participate in vary greatly throughout the game. From a fighting tournament to a mirror castle of puzzles to a drinking contest to a 'who's lying' logic problem to a village quarrel to standard treasure hunting to saving a village from pirates to a legendary sword to winning a beauty contest... there's a lot here. Some events can only be triggered at a certain time of the year, and you get a maximum of ten game year to finish everything. For the most part, though, most of it plays pretty similarly -- it's really all about the different little stories you get to take part in, not unlike Dragon Quest VII would do a few years later.
Unfortunately, I played the game in 30fps because my capture card is old (the SNES outputs 60fps), so that makes some of the spells cast during battle invisible, sometimes. Sorry. Parts 10 and 11 were played in 60fps but are only in 720p as a result. There is a spiritual sequel to this game called Traverse: Starlight and Prairie, also for the SNES, that costs a ridiculous amount of money these days. Soul & Sword is, on the other hand, much cheaper.
Anyway, I'm happy I didn't give up on the game in the end, because there's a lot to like here. The game is quite original in its approach -- I just wish it didn't have so many random battles.
0:00 - Adventure 33 The Cursed Dolls
1:51:00 - Adventure 04 The Collector's Requests (cont'd)
2:12:50 - Adventure 21 Man-Eating Trees
3:31:40 - Extra: Hint Man in Lukuraina Forest
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#superfamicom #snes #ソウル&ソード