Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King

I was going to 100% this, but it's so boring and aggravating that I just can't and won't. It didn't take long to start disliking this when I first booted it up. Seriously... it was less than 30 minutes, when I started dreading this. I could have turned it off and refunded it as I just knew it wasn't going to get better, but for some reason I wanted to annoy myself and decided to play until the end. I was going to try and explore everything but after a couple hours, I couldn't be bothered and then just decided to get through the game as quickly as I could. The controls are so wonky and you cannot configure them. I played with keyboard. You move with the arrow keys, you attack with Z, and the two item/tool buttons are X and C. You interact with NPCs and furniture/signs with Z. So you may swing your sword instead of interacting with something, or vice versa. Lily controls weirdly and hitboxes are sometimes wonky. I did not really like any of the music, especially the freaking castle town music, which was getting on my nerves and giving me a headache. (I had to turn down the music volume a lot.) Every item uses the stamina/energy/magic meter (Whatever it's called.) Yes, the bombs and bow. There's no quantity to arrows or bombs, even the boomerang uses the meter, you just have to wait and let the meter recharge to use the items again. The side quests are just "Fetch" quests, As in a character wants 20 of whatever they ask of you and you have to go kill the mob that drops it over and over again until you get the 20 materials and then bring it back to them. The material does not drop from every single mob, so you will more than likely have to kill more than 20 of the specific enemy type. So although it shouldn't take very long considering you can easily reset the enemies by leaving the room/zone and then enter it again, it's kinda tedious and boring, and two(?) defend the NPC for a minute or so from small waves of enemies quests. OH and a deliver the mail to a specific NPC in a specific area quest. You have to do this like 7 or 6 times. (Very boring and tedious in this game.) You get an achievement if you complete the whole quest, but I didn't because the last person you have to deliver to is the the traveling merchant guy who's apparently only available between 9AM-5PM REAL TIME! The writing of both the story and dialogue is very childish, which obviously means this game is meant for kids, but then there's the terrible controls, the repetitive and semi-annoying puzzles (especially the singing stones puzzles), the bullet hell-like damage sponge boss fights, and the rage-inducing crumbling pathways/bridges. There's a really annoying secret basement in one of the "towns" where the challenge is a narrow crumbling pathway/bridge that goes on for too long, and if you fall, it sends you back to the beginning of the room. (I also can't imagine kids wanting to play random indie games, let alone pixel indie games. If they're into the graphics and old-school games, then they're just going to play the iconic/classic/popular old games.) So the age rating is kinda all over the place. A random NPC literally says: "I'm Jennifer, or Jen for short. Or J Dawg, J Drizzle, J to the Pizzo, Little J, Jiggy J, Jay J, whatevs." Why? The "About The Game" section of the game's page lists these "Features": "15+ hours of gameplay" - (This is only true if you do the boring side content / go for 100%. Otherwise, the main story is less than 6 hours. A couple of my hours are AFK hours.) "Huge, diverse game world with many different locations" - (I feel like this sentence is kinda a lie. Sure the world is kinda big (Not huge), but your character (Lily) gets stuck/slowed down on a lot of a lot of crap, making you traverse the map a lot slower. And it's not really diverse with "many" different locations. Most of them are pretty empty and are practically just the same as the previous zone.) "5 challenging dungeons" - (Boring, straightforward and way too long? Yes. Challenging? No.) "Various items impacting gameplay and fighting style" - (There weren't a TON of different items, despite what some reviewers say, but anyways, there's really not much reason to use them other than the bombs and your sword.) "Fun, charming storytelling" - (No. It got old quick, and the characters (Grandpa, Lily and Chrys) story "interruptions" felt pointless and kinda broke the immersion. Also why did the game have to spell Chris like that... and I'm surprised Chrys didn't care that Grandpa put his sister in the story, making her the hero, and didn't feel the need to put Chrys in it lol.) This is not worth the $15 price tag. I got it for $4 and I can't even recommend it at that price. I really wanted to play more zelda-like/clones, which, I mean, I did, this is very obviously inspired by TLoZ, but it all felt a bit "off", like I was playing a custom game on Warcraft 3. (Weird, I know, but it just gave me those vibes.)

Blossom Tales is a charming indie pixel art game that offers a concise and enjoyable experience, taking roughly 14 hours to achieve 100 percent completion. The game uses a sweet bedtime story as its narrative foundation, which adds a unique layer of personality to the adventure. However, from a completionist perspective, the game can be frustrating because it lacks a clear tracking system for missing items. The map itself is unfortunately quite difficult to read, and it would have been a great improvement if completed objectives were clearly marked on it. This lack of oversight makes it exceptionally difficult to use guides during the endgame, as there is no easy way to identify which specific secrets are still outstanding. Additionally, the inventory system feels a bit unorganized since it lacks fixed slots, items are simply added in the order you find them, which makes scrolling through your gear quite tedious. It also would have been a significant quality-of-life improvement if the game allowed players to map more than just two items at a time for quicker access during gameplay.

A decent zelda-like. some positives... + good boss fights + good overworld + decent music (not very good but still enjoyable) + decent length for a zelda-like (not too long) some negatives... - difficulty is not coherent - dungeons are just okay - items are just standard zelda stuff

Don’t really have much to say other than it’s a good LoZ clone. You got dungeons You got a world to explore with sidequests, mini games and secrets. And the music and graphics look good. However I don’t have much else to talk about that isn't an annoyance so I’ll just say if you like LoZ clones cause you don’t like the real deal for some reason like me, go ahead and get it. And maybe its sequel, I haven’t played that one yet. Okay.Okay. Now… -Why is there no gender select. Usually this is a non-issue but the set up is that this is a story told to a pair of twins by their grandfather. One boy and one girl. And the player character is Lily, the girl twin. Why no boy twin option? I know it doesn’t matter since Lily isn’t a character but it’s the easiest and obvious way to get a feature like that in. -The sword kind of sucks after the first dungeon. Sure it’s fine for puzzles and cutting grass, but after getting weapons like the bow, bombs and boomerang, two of which can be upgraded, and some late game spells like the fire shield or lightning storm, why would you ever use the sword. Sure at the end you can shoot lasers but only at full health. -Okay, I like the puzzles…Except those singing stones ones. The optional ones can get annoying long with one I had to cheat by recording video of the sequences. -The mini bosses felt harder than the regular bosses for some reason. With the exceptions of the rat king and golem, all the boss fights were ‘hit it until it dies’. But the mini bosses either felt like they had more health or were just harder to hit. That’s my list of complaints. Still a good game which I can recommend.

Having a good time so far, just finished the first dungeon and I've already got 8 hearts? I would definitely call this an easy game unless things change? Recommend if you can get it for a few bucks and love top down zelda. Complaints? I don't like how the shield works. If I hold down the shield button and swing my sword, the shield will not come back unless I release and repress the shield button. That annoys me. Also I can't rebind what button the sword is on, and its the interact button so sometimes I pick up an object I was just trying to slice through.

Played entirely on Steam Deck with no adjustments necessary. The perfect game for the system. Played this already on the Switch start to finish, but loved the game so much, I wanted it on the Steam Deck and to achievement hunt. Very satisfying Zelda inspiration that knows what it is, and doesn't wear out it's welcome. There is a surprising amount of difficult bits in some of the platforming, puzzles and boss fights. If you're a fan of A Link To The Past and games akin, this is a must play.

Feels very true to old-school third person 16 bit games like Zelda (which they reference as an easter egg in the beginning). Great game for new nostalgia and relaxation.

Plays just like Zelda a Link to the Past for the retro systems. I played a lot of those 2D Zelda games and really enjoyed them. This game scratched that itch. Worked great on Steamdeck -- designed for booting up, play for 5-20 minute, then put down. It has auto-saving, summarizes the story to catch you up again, and the HUD/map tells you where you need to go next. Still allows you to explore a lot and rewards you for it. I explored a lot, and it made the main storyline that much easier -- exploration gives you bonus hearts and bonus weapons. While not required, they make the main storyline much easier.

Fun game that's give the LttP feel while still feeling modern. It's not at all a difficult game but it's fun and provides enough of a challenge through combat and puzzles.

I appreciate the "we need more zelda likes" ideal. Not to reduce this down to solely that. Fun, if almost too easy. Short but packed with enough to keep my interest. It is a short maybe 10 hour affair if you spend your time looking around for things. I actually replayed it as I saw that I had the second game and couldn't remember much from when I first played it years ago. I hope that the second is as good as this one if not better.