Ah the Game Gear, Sega’s attempt to topple the Game Boy and Nintendo’s domination in the handheld market. It was a powerful piece of machinery with a beautiful screen that made us feel like we had a Genesis in our hands …..that was until Pokémon was released and we completely forgot It existed. Looking back it actually had a decent number of games, one of these being a little known gem called Sylvan Tale.
Sylvan Tale is an action adventure game by Sega for the Game Gear, released on January 27, 1995 as a Japan exclusive. It was produced by Motoshige Hokoyama (credited as Hoko Chan) who worked on many games such as Shadow Dancer (Shinobi), the Sonic Game Gear games and Temp Jr. Sylvan Tale stars a boy by the name of Zetts who one day finds a magic sword on top of a giant tree and is tasked with collecting six magic items needed to rid the land of evil monsters. The story is pretty basic but it’s the game play, music and beautiful graphics that really make this gem shine and shows off what the Game Gear was capable of.
Gameplay: The game play is similar to the legend of Zelda series, most notable that of Major’s Mask. In the game the main character collects special items that allow him to take on different forms. This lets him defeat enemies, solve puzzles and travel to areas his human form could not. Some of these transformations include a turtle that is slow but has high defense and is immune to spikes, a mole that lets you break boulders blocking your path and tunnel to hidden areas and a merman that lets you …..well swim. Though the game is very linier exploring the area around you is important for finding hidden treasure chest. These chests contain upgrades for your heath and give your transformations new abilities that are necessary to conquer the many dungeon’s puzzles and bosses.
Graphics: The graphics for this game are surprisingly good. The sprite work is beautiful and ranges from bright and colorful in fields and forests, to dark and spooky while inside dungeons. The characters are also very well done, the main character especially (turning into a merman while on land never gets old!) Some NPC’s heads follow you around the room, while others blink or do an animation when you talk to them. Its little details like this that help bring life to a game world and immerse the player in the adventure.
Music: Turning on the game the first thing that you will notice is how good the music is. The music was written by Saori Kobayashi who was also responsible for the music in the Panzer Dragoon series, as well as the upcoming spiritual sequel Crimson Dragon. The music ranges from heroic and upbeat to slow and slightly depressing and really sets the mood for an epic adventure.
Close: If there are any negative points it would be that the game is very linear and short. It can be beaten in less than ten hours but it’s time well spent. It’s a shame that this is the only entry in the series. This game has it all, good music, surprisingly great graphics, fun game play and could have been the foundation of a true rival to the Legend of Zelda. Though the game was only released in Japan it was translated into English by fans. This is an excellent hidden gem for the Game Gear that I would highly recommend to any Sega fans or fans of action adventure games in general.