• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

An Island Worth Exploring

Whenever you think of retro anything, it brings back the feeling of simple nostalgia. While I browsed the web trying to find something to satisfy the retro-itch I've felt lately, I stumbled across Paradise Blue. While at first the brighter shades of tiles and the tropical looking locales put me off, I decided that I would give it a far chance in hopes of having that love of role-playing games come back to me.

And the game didn't disappoint.

The game's premise was simple enough, and I'll quote from the games' homepage:

“In the old Island of Azulea, the natives were pushed away from the land they once held. The ones who conquered the land have settled and created a new civilization on the Island. Now that the King is near death, there are 2 groups that are fighting for the throne. 

You can change your class once you beat the 1st boss. Before then, you can choose which starting class you want your characters to be, out of 6 of them (Fighter, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, Thief, Monk). You gain ABP after a battle, so once you get enough ABP, the character can learn an ability from their class. There are 40 quests in the game to take.”

In Paradise Blue, you play as a group of mercenaries hired by a group aiming to raise their leader into power over the Island of Azulea, and while your characters themselves are more or less the backbone to the group, they say nothing and instead let their tag-along employers, Neil and Ameila, do all the talking.

The game-play itself heavily revolves around how you construct your team from the classes they present within the game. On the outset, we have the ones listed in the premise of the game: Fighter, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, Thief, and Monk.

But there's never a need to fear that the classes you pick are the ones you're stuck with. Rather, instead of sticking with the respective difficulty found in retro titles, Paradise Blue allows you to freely change the classes of your team, so long as you have the 'token' required to switch classes with. This enables you to create some rather nifty combinations for your characters as you play, and there's no real downside to changing on the fly to suit your needs, though dedication to one class for a little while will prove useful in the long haul.

As you can no doubt tell, the combat is turn-based, a traditional staple of old school role-playing games from yesteryear, and while most games have switched to a faster paced style of combat, this game never made combat feel like it was a heavy-fisted slog through hordes of enemies. Rather the contrary – one interesting thing to note, on the topic of enemies, is that instead of random encounters, we're given 'touch based' over world fights.

No need to count your steps or dread what's coming next – you'll see the enemies just as they see you. And you may be asking yourself, “What about grinding? Old school games had that in spades!”

Well, that may be true, but Paradise Blue also takes that convention and drops it. Enemies on the Island of Azulea are all one time encounters. Once you defeat a group of foes, they'll never re-spawn. It's an interesting mechanic in itself because this forces the player to think about how well they can manage their team so any given member won't fall behind in case they're knocked out in a fight.

Likewise, though, you have only so many fights within the game and that means only so much money to use for your traveling band of warriors. In the game, like many before it, equipment being the best it can be is the fine line between success and failure, but having the best equipment doesn't always mean there aren't ways to further get the edge in battle.

Paradise Blue incorporates a system where, as you quest, a few of the island inhabitants will entrust their services to you, for a price, and these services can range from the mundane like path-finding and faster walking speed to providing mana restoration during battle and nullifying physical damage!

While the game itself is on the shorter side (having clocked in around eighteen to twenty hours on my first play-through), you may find yourself stopping to admire the work put into the game by the developer.

Navigating the Island of Azulea is simple enough, too, with easily recognizable landmarks and stops along the way, as well as a handful (but not overdone) amount of posts to point you in the right direction. And should you need to cross the island quicker than being on foot, there was a way too (featuring an iconic bird from a certain franchise we all might know of!)


But what would an exotic location be without equally satisfying music to accompany the journey?

The music is another strong point of the title as you'll find each location has it's own theme, and each track has a certain charm to it that prevents them from getting old or stale as your explore the island. You'll find yourself enjoying the music as you travel Azulea to see what secrets it holds for the ever thorough explorer.

The story, while short in its telling, I feel, takes a backseat to the presentation. This is a title that's very much about the journey rather than the destination, and offers something to be desired for those seeking something meatier to sink their teeth into. But don't let that be what turns you off from the game; try it out and see for yourself as I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a retro RPG that's unique as well as giving nods to the gaming greats that inspired it.

Overall, I'm giving the game a steadfast 4.5 out of 5 for being a strong presentation of how retro styled games can, with good use of environment and music, and solid yet simple game-play, can turn itself into a classic all of it's own.