Fun puzzles, exciting dungeons, and satisfying exploration makes this retro-style title a joy to play through. With loads of Zelda inspiration and fun, new takes on puzzles and boss battles within the beloved formula, Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King is a delightful take on a familiar style.
Overall, I found Blossom Tales to be a very good 2D Zelda clone. It was put together more competently than I expected from an Indie developer. That’s not a dig on Indie devs – it’s praise for a game done well enough that it only fell a few notches short of games like Minish Cap (though even shorter). If you are looking for an Adventure game that follows the top-down Zelda formula closely, there might not be a better game for you on the Nintendo Switch eShop than this one.
Blossom Tales might be a bit heavy-handed in its homage to the Zelda games of the past, but it brings a certain charm and fun to the Switch library. It also makes for a pretty good substitute as long as I still can't play A Link to the Past on my Switch.
While it may be easy to disregard Blossom Tales as a simple Zelda clone, the amount of charm and effort put into making it wholly unique, while honouring its inspiration, is both admirable and deserving of attention. Its dungeons feature genuinely thought-provoking puzzles, its combat requires a fair amount of strategy, and its story's Princess Bride-like narration lends itself to copious amounts of charismatic story beats. The faux retro graphics won't win over anyone sick of the style and the first impression perhaps relies upon referencing A Link to the Past a bit too much, but Blossom Tales is an incredibly creative and wholesome adventure that knows exactly what it is, even if it isn't entirely original. If nothing else, it's an immensely satisfying scratch for the Switch's 2D action-adventure itch.
A carbon copy of classic Zelda games, but in my opinion the best part of this game is not how it looks, but its story design. A mixture of fairy tales.
Judging a game on its own merits is very important. However, when a title happens to borrow just about every aspect of its design from an iconic game series, it’s hard not to acknowledge. Claims could be made that a game like this is nothing more than a shameless clone, but thankfully in the case of Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King, the developer has intentionally crafted it with a sense of love and admiration of classic Zelda games. While it’s not as flawlessly executed as the series it draws inspiration from and it doesn’t add anything particularly groundbreaking, it's still a heartfelt tribute to the earlier entries in Nintendo’s long-running series.
SummaryExplore a huge open game world in classic action-adventure fashion! Prove your worth by fighting through monster-infested dungeons to save the Kingdom of Blossom!