Indie Game of the Week 464: Blossom Tales 2: The Minotaur Prince

Sequel season continues unabated with a Zeldersatz follow-up to a game I covered way back in 2020 (#175) that was, entirely coincidentally, also a 2017 release like The Darkside Detective (the sequel to which we covered but two entries ago). Blossom Tales was a fairly textbook example of a Zeldersatz: one happy to simply homage its obvious inspo source rather than to try to surpass or subvert its format in any way, giving you that same combination of exploration, combat, and puzzle-solving that made Nintendo's series a household name (and also a movie now, apparently?). Blossom Tales 2: The Minotaur Prince seeks to follow those same hover-booted footsteps as its predecessor with a slightly bigger world to explore and more traversal items to play around with as you navigate overworld areas and dungeons alike. As with the first, the story is conveyed through a framing story of a grampa telling a story to his kids—the ol' Princess Bride "Falkin' it up," as we in the biz probably call it—and follows Lily as she attempts to rescue her jerk brother Chrys after he is spirited away by the insidious Minotaur King when Lily makes the ill-fated choice to wish her brother gone (I guess they needed an even more overt Labyrinth movie reference by having the brother-snatching villain a monster that traditionally inhabits labyrinths).

As such, it's exactly what you'd expect from a Zeldersatz: the old-school top-down perspective; new traversal-enabling items doled out in each of the game's three major dungeons (though a smaller number than in most Zelda games, it makes up for it by how much larger both they and the overworld map are); various bottles, health, and stamina upgrades earned through commerce or side-questing to improve your fighting odds along with a few choice upgrades to your main sword weapon; and environmental puzzles that generally fall into familiar constructs like pushing blocks onto switches or quickly activating a series of levers. On that note, there are multiple times when the two children being read to will demand some editorial control over the narrative, typically whenever an enemy ambush happens and they argue whether being attacked by wolves or giant snails would be cooler, as well as a few other cases like your trusty Epona-like mount (which is actually too awkward to be all that useful, given it can't get over climbing ivy or rivers) being the standard horse or a less standard pig. Though graphically reminiscent of older Zeldas with its pixelated style, it offers up a few of that series' more recent affectations including a spoils-based treasure system where you can scrounge up endless amounts of plants, fish, and monster parts and use them to brew potions, provided you have an empty bottle on hand. The knock on effect of this is that you'll usually end up with far more of this junk than you'll ever need and you'll find that the regular recovery hearts become that much rarer to locate as a downside: collecting your 100th peony or persimmon isn't all that useful when you're desperately smashing pots to find those life-saving organs.

So my choice is between Sokoban or Simon Says? Talk about your dilemmas.

I don't mean to come down on Blossom Tales 2 too hard because it does get a lot of things right: the visuals are basic but serviceable given the era of Zelda it hearkens to, the music is some really catchy orchestral/chiptune fusion that certainly fits the genre's swashbuckling vibe, you do occasionally get some pretty creative puzzle concepts between all the cliché Pipe Dream/Sokoban/Memory Match mainstays, and the central story of sibling rivalry and eventual reconciliation is a good one for non-only kids to internalize (though it could do with far less references to popular media; just let your stories for children be more earnest without hiding it behind several layers of camera-winking meta humor). Yet for as relatively minor as its issues are they all eventually become legion before too long. Like how the game's greatly varied approach to item usage becomes a detriment: a Zelda dungeon and its puzzles are typically designed in such a way to only require a handful of items, often a fraction of what you might have found by that point in the game, and the reason being is so you're not constantly dipping into your inventory to reassign items to buttons and disturb the flow of the exploration. Blossom Tales 2 does not pay this design choice any heed and thus you're constantly popping back in to juggle items across the two active item slots you've afforded despite modern controller layouts providing far more options. It gets exasperating far too soon, and the fact that the inventory is this confusing mishmash where everything is ordered by when you found it—including the bottles, which get tossed into the mix rather than being given their own little section—makes it that much harder to find anything on top of the frequency of bringing that menu up. (Technically, you could also switch out your sword as a third option but there's no point where you won't want a sword equipped, especially as it's the only offensive item that doesn't eat up your stamina bar and demand cooldown periods.) The overworld is also way too big, taking up far more of the game than the dungeons do which, given how relatively plain overworlds in Zelda tend to be, gives the game a lop-sided ratio of interesting level design (i.e. the dungeons) and the liminal filler between them (i.e. the overworld). Finally, there's a lack of sophistication to the combat that puts it behind even A Link to the Past, a game from 35 years ago, where you swing your weapon around with almost no weight behind it as enemies barely flinch to your attacks and you also can't knock them down pits or let them get hurt by the dungeon's traps in your stead. If anything, it feels less like a modern interpretation of an older Zelda game than it does a contemporary imitation: a Neutopia rather than a Link Between Worlds, as it were.

Here's an example of what I mean by the constant item hot-swapping. I needed the hookshot (actually a yo-yo this time) to get into this nook via that wooden post, then a lantern to light this brazier, and also a shovel to dig up that dark spot just to the right of said brazier. Fortunately, at least I don't need an item to push that block out of the way and escape.

Despite my kvetching, though, I do think its heart is in the right place, it has some neat conceits (the section of the overworld that's dedicated to the minotaurs' labyrinth home is designed far closer to a dungeon floor with its circuitous pathing), and it provides plenty of bang for your buck if my 20+ hour final runtime is any indication. In its adherence to the old video game sequel rule of go bigger or go home(...r), it may have stretched itself too thin with too much samey content over too large an amount of geography (an 8x11 world map is kinda nuts given how big each square is) and though it includes nice touches like a set of songs to play with various effects that's still yet another item I have to go back into my inventory to pluck out and use (the twins get to decide on which instrument that is too: a guitar or an accordion) to the extent that even the promise of the delicious convenience of fast travel or getting around quickly on a horse/pig wasn't worth going back in and out of that menu every thirty seconds. While it can be a little bit of a chore to play, you probably won't find a Zeldersatz quite as devoted to the classic action-adventure format nor specifically to Nintendo's series of elfin adventures or to its many upgrades and additions over the generations. Just be aware before you leap into its world of beasties, bounties, and busywork that this journey will be far from a minor tour.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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