Product Info

Platform

Switch, PC

Publisher

FDG Entertainment

Developer

Castle Pixel

Genre

Action, Adventure, RPG

Players

1

Release Date (NA)

Mar 28, 2017

Purchase From

eShop

Steam

While there isn’t a 2D Zelda game on the Nintendo Switch now, Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King fills that void, and will leave you wanting more.

Sir Lily and Her Journey

The storyline of the game is simple but entertaining. It starts off with two kids waking up their grandfather to hear a story. Before the grandfather makes a close reference to Zelda, the kids want to hear a new story, so the grandfather decides to tell the tale of the “Kingdom of Blossom”. This tale was about a girl name Lily who just became a Knight of the Rose and now has to save the king from a deep slumber. In order to awake the king, Lily must grab three key ingredients, and in her way is the king’s evil brother, the Wizard Crocus.

The narration for the game does a fantastic job of integrating the grandfather and his two grandkids in the story. At times when Lily is about to enter a fight, the grandkids will jump into the dialogue. They will let you choose what enemy are you up against, or the grandfather will make up scenarios, thus changing the scenario for the hero.

First Impressions Are Important

When you start up a game, most of the time you’ll have a flashy, animated opening scene. This might be nitpicking, but Blossom Tales’ splash screen isn’t very impressive as it’s just a logo and black screen. Sure, this isn’t that big of a deal but when booting up the game and hearing that energetic song playing, I would love it to feel more animated before starting Lily’s adventure.

A Familiar Taste

Many games over the years have tried to use a gameplay formula from popular games such as Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, and Mega Man. Some have worked, some have not; Blossom Tales does it right.

The indie game uses familiar formulas from classic 2D Zelda games such as earning unique weapons in each dungeon, collecting heart pieces, and using an overhead style of gameplay. Even though the formula is derivative, it feels great. You can go into people’s houses, take money from their chests, and break their pots, Zelda-style.

Another familiar taste from Zelda is the resurrection of your character when your health is diminished in battle. While Zelda uses fairies to help resurrect you in battle, Blossom Tales’ resurrection flowers do the same job, and with no need to have it equipped. 

One unique element that is unlike many action role-playing games: If you have the “Butterfly Spirit” item or the “Bee Medallion,” you’ll have one of these insects enter the battlefield to aid you in the fight for a limited time. They don’t deal a huge amount of damage but the additional help is a plus.

Can You Feel it?

Going back and forth between the joystick and the directional pad (D-pad) both feel equally right. On some occasions, when crossing tight pathways or dodging enemies, the D-pad is more reliable for that accurate movement compared to the joystick.

The inventory screen is a normal setup, displaying all the weapons, heart pieces, ingredients, and more. You can also set three items from your inventory as shortcuts based on the Switch’s control: “A”, “X”, and “B”. Having three inventories right at your fingertips comes in handy during battle.

Deja Vu?

Blossom Knights has four dungeons to explore (not including the king’s basement). Each dungeon has a set of puzzles that are used frequently: Floor tiles that require you to change its color, play “Simon Says” with stones, and activate basic switch panels. While fun at first, they start to become repetitive as you’ll play the same types of puzzles multiple times in the same dungeon. Regardless of the repetition, the dungeons are still fun to explore.

Like the classic Zelda titles, in each dungeon you’ll receive a unique weapon, but they aren’t necessary to defeat the dungeon boss. Most of the weapons you pick up are mostly used outside the dungeon for uncovering secret caves and defeating enemies. You’ll find yourself using bombs and the boomerang the most in boss battles than the sword.

Another familiar setup in Blossom Tales are the teleportation panels in each dungeon. Like The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, the panels are located prior to fighting the dungeon’s mini boss. The teleportations are also available through the world and are very handy when travelling, but require some work to reach one. Once you complete the story, you are rewarded the ability to teleport anywhere. A neat gift but it would be more useful before finishing the last dungeon.

Identical to Link’s attacks in Zelda, Lily can use her sword to do a swing attack when holding down the sword’s attack button. After finding all three ingredients, Lily is rewarded with a power-up on her sword. When all hearts are filled, swinging the sword will release a beam, playing homage to the classic Legend of Zelda. As for weapon upgrades, you can increase the power of your bombs, and bow and arrow.

There are many other tributes to the Zelda series that Blossom Tales makes including dungeon bosses but doesn’t discourage how the game plays. The dungeon boss fights are enjoyable till the very end, even if their movements are predictable. When up against a dungeon boss that lashes out massive amounts of attacks on the screen, known as bullet hell attacks, it was shocking at first but after dodging through them felt like an accomplishment.

Filling the Screen

The enemies and backgrounds are designed as very vibrant and gorgeous, filling up every pixel on the screen. The small animations such as the clouds are extra gravy to the game’s design. However, compared to the enemies, Lily and the secondary characters in the game feel a bit bland. More details on Lily would help her stand out more.

Play It Loud

Let’s talk about the game’s soundtrack. The first game that crosses my mind when listening to this music is the classic Super Nintendo epic, Secret of Mana. With upbeat tunes from exploring the world of Blossom Tales to mellow tunes of the wastelands area, the music captures each scenario and area very well. I highly recommend it to those who enjoy casually listening to video game soundtracks.

What’s Next?

After completing the story, what’s next? There are a few side quests such as finding missing scrolls, delivering mail, and finishing your heart pieces. However it doesn’t feel like quite enough to keep the journey going after the story is completed. Additional depth to the side quests could help strengthen it, or even requiring them to be done before finishing the last dungeon.

Overall

Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King is a strong indie game that’ll entertain you with its amusing dialogue, pawesome soundtrack, and stimulating gameplay. 2D Zelda fans will want to journey as Lily.

A Nintendo Switch review code was provided by FDG Entertainment for this review.