[h2]A great game despite it's shortcomings[/h2]
I originally played Mothlight, many many years ago, and more recently (albeit some months ago) played Orogenesis, and I realised "oh, there's another one called Soulscape? Why haven't I played this?" And I played it, and just like the others, I loved it, I'll admit though, I don't think it's quite on the level as the other 2, it has some issues, but I still really enjoyed this, I don't know that I'd recommend this as your first exposure to Samu's games, maybe, maybe not, I could kind of go either way depending on the person, but I've loved all of Samu's games I've played so far, and I think you should give them all a go, and 2/3 of them are free so what have you really got to lose? If it's not for you, well don't buy the last one, but if you give them a try and want more, consider buying Orogenesis.
But let's get into the game, I like the start, it just kind of lets you get thrown in, not too much exposition to read through, and that stays pretty consistent throughout, I think far too many RPG maker creators need to learn from this game in that aspect, let players learn [i]while[/i] they play, don't pause the game for exposition, keep it going as much as you can, with only the briefest of pauses, or no pauses at all and convey your exposition through alternative means, the design of the world, the characters, optional content, even the way a monster fights can convey a wealth of information.
The sprites are all pretty good, I'll admit they're simple but I love that sort of hand-drawn pixel art style Samu is so good at, which especially shines through in the battle sprites here, but some overworld sprites too; the tiles are all pretty simple but they're a fantastic example of "less is more", if the grass was a bright green like so many games do it'd look cheap, it'd be overpowering, something as simple as going with a paler green makes such a massive impact on keeping the player immersed without diverging from the style of the characters within the world, and the dithering as the tiles go further down is a really nice touch to still add a subtle level of detail.
I love that as with most of Samu's games, it doesn't take itself too seriously, even with the darker aspects, although I do appreciate the more brooding contrast of Mothlight following it up, still a bit silly, but much darker, and the dark sea is referenced in this game which is just so good to connect the worlds through a single line of dialogue without going in depth to explain what the black sea is, I'd love more games in this series if Samu is up for it, or more fleshing out of the world, hell I'd gladly watch an anime of all these stories and the world they're set in, not that that'd ever happen.
There's also some great audio references, I recognised some but couldn't quite place my finger exactly where from, but there's the [spoiler]Asuka scream from Evangelion, used in several enemy attack noises, and I would swear on my life the sound played when using orbs is from Sailor Moon, so those are both appreciated[/spoiler], I think the audio does cut off a bit abruptly for both, the second more than the first, but this is an earlier game, Samu was clearly getting used to using RPG maker, hence some of the issues which I'll talk about now.
The stairs don't really work like you'd expect of stairs in an RPG maker game, thankfully there's fairly few horizontal stairs which is where the issue is most prominent, but it's an issue nonetheless and can really break immersion, also there are some tiles you should be able to walk through and can't, but vastly more often, tiles you shouldn't be able to walk through but can, nothing game breaking, but you see why it's an issue, also some animations play whenever entering a room, like if you just killed or destroyed something big, leave and re-enter, it'll continue to play that sort of "death animation" every time, just some sparkles, not game breaking, but again, little things.
I think it'd be incredibly easy to soft-lock yourself in this game, I don't see any grinding areas or anything to help avoid that, so that's not great, also towards the beginning of the game you may find yourself just going back and forth to heal every time after a fight, not great, I think really it may be a better option to just have the player heal after every fight except for a couple select circumstances, I don't think it'd ruin the game for you, but it can be a tiny bit annoying.
The combat with the dragons is a fairly interesting concept, having to engage in and win a fight to unlock more abilities, but I don't really think it reaches it's full potential here, you just kind of stop using most dragons after a point because they're unreliable or worse than your normal attack, the white dragon for example, towards the end the white dragon was pretty much useless to me, I'd try to use it just to see if there was any time it'd actually be more effective but no, really unfortunate, still a great concept I haven't really seen done a whole lot before, I wouldn't say it's necessarily done badly here, but it doesn't do much to differentiate from any other RPG maker combat you've seen before.
Status effects can be a bit confusing and aren't explained to you, there's no text saying "burnt, abilities are unavailable to you", you just have to figure it out, which I can imagine being frustrating for some players.
Still though, these are just the criticisms I picked out, I found this game really enjoyable despite all of them, that's just me, maybe you will, maybe you won't, it's free, you can at least give it a go, if you decide this isn't for you, maybe you'll prefer Mothlight, which is also free but a bit more developed in terms of atmosphere, world-building, characters, etcetera, this came first so you can really see the seeds for Mothlight which was yet to come, but also if you played mothlight and weren't into it because it's too edgy, maybe this will be a bit better for you, it's a bit sillier, it's not got as many random intimates in the designs (although they're still present), it's not as polished but it's got other qualities that may be more appealing if you weren't into Mothlight.
Also, why are there so many stairs and how the hell does he use them? He's in a wheelchair, my biggest criticism with this game would probably have to be it doesn't utilise the fact the main character is in a wheelchair whatsoever, not even in the design of the world, HE CLIMBS LADDERS... IN A WHEELCHAIR... I would've been more interested to see the world built in such a way that no stairs or ladders were needed, or maybe you have to go down some stairs but you can't go back up since you're in a wheelchair, you get stuck, go find a new route, whatever, I think there's a wealth of potential in that premise especially in this world, but it's just not utilised, I guess maybe it's meant to be a joke, protagonist in a wheelchair kicking ass, but it just doesn't even really impact anything enough for that, so I don't really think it benefits the game, and I could totally see some people thinking it hurts it more than anything, I wouldn't go that far, I get the sentiment.
Like I said, despite all my criticisms, I loved this game, maybe you will too, and if not you've got nothing to lose anyway, give it a go, see what you think, maybe you'll have a new series to fall in love with if you do.
P.S. All games by Samu can be played and understood fine with no prior knowledge of other games so don't worry about that when it comes to playing Soulscape, Mothlight, or Orogenesis, I'd suggest playing in order of release if you're going to play them all, but if any of them just aren't for you, you can skip it or start elsewhere with minimal impact, playing the other games just expands upon and enhances the world, the story and it's place in the world can still be understood fine without any other context.
