The sounds that are heard during the ambient segment impress the most for me, because there's a sense that you're there among those sounds you hear in the background there's banging meal (Galadonia), water drops (Tori), bubbles (Atlena), and even snoring (Quagmire), and Afralona's ambience is downright creepy and scary at times. Some of my favorite interludes play during the dungeons of Tori where it sounds huge but inviting, Atlena with the very calming and relaxing harp melody, Quagmire where it sounds desolate and scary, and Afralona where it sounds very ominous but with its apt Egyptian flare. What was this place in its former glory? O.O
Two of my favorite areas overall are the underwater dungeon of Atlena where it is not only beautifully designed but is completely lathered in smooth water-layering wavy gradients of blue which adds so much atmosphere (up until you fight its boss) another favorite is in the overly vegetated ruins of Quagmire (shut up!) where it looks as if it had not been set foot in for centuries, adding to the intrigue is the way its walls are showing their age and how some windows fell down from their very foundation. =D Some of the areas that spring to mind are the mushroom-infested rooms of Tori, the Aztec-like corridors of Deeso (with unusually big busts here and there), and the eerily-designed deserted tombs of Afralona with the upside down pyramids and the sarcophagi hanging on its walls. Any time you go back to the surface, defeat the dungeon bosses, and when you eventually obtain the Save spell your progress will be saved and at this point you're given the choice to either continue or to take a break and go back to the title.Įquinox is an extraordinarily gorgeous and visually arresting Nintendo 16-bit game its strong attention to detail is incredible and the colors attached to each environment of Galadonia are so succinct. Any time you find a new weapon you should fight a troll with it on the surface to augment your health capacity by one, and every time you gather a magic spell your magic capacity will increase by one, and the defeat of each boss will give you an extra bit of health and magic. Every now and then are blocked doors for which the gates will only open if you have the proper key with the corresponding color fortunately your health and magic can be replenished again when you find an apple and potion respectively (one of four different colors), sometimes left behind after the last enemy has been vanquished in the room or found if it's just sitting on a platform. Some enemies you contend with are ghosts, shining metal knights who can only be struck from behind, Tazmanian Devil-like creatures who tire out after a while of spinning, and bouncing blobs and in most rooms you will encounter one or more of these enemies, never fighting two different kinds of enemies in the same space. Let's talk about one of my favorite Nintendo 16-bit games of all time! =D While Equinox got good word of mouth by the gaming press in its initial run it wasn't really until the days of the internet that it would pick up its popularity and garner a cult following. In my original 2011 review I praised it and gave it a 9, and honestly that score still applies here but it's been over five years since I covered it and a lot could happen in that amount of time (especially since I played more games since then)-not to mention the fact that my paragraphs were overlong (and since late 2012 I learned to make smaller ones) and I wanted to talk about it with the improved writing capabilities I currently prowess.
A few years after Solstice's release the Super Famicom received Software Creations-developed and (John and Ste) Pickford-headlined Solstice II on November 1993 published by Epic/Sony Records in Japan, followed in March 1994 by the American and European releases of what would become retitled as Equinox (not to be confused with the 1986 Mikro-Gen ZX Spectrum game of the same name) published by Sony Imagesoft back when they were still on good terms with Nintendo.