Planet Xbox 360 ranks Soulcaster #1!

Gerry Holt writes in Top 10 Xbox LIVE Indie Games You Have to Play:

“This has to be my favorite indie game. It is an old school styled RPG where you play as a wizard who has stumbled onto a land of monsters. It reminds me a lot of NES style graphics with the innovation in a lot of RPGs seen in the SNES era. The wizard happens upon a statue of an archer that speaks to him and offers him a soul orb. This soul orb allows him to summon the archer to fight for the defenseless wizard. Enemies spawn from random orbs on the map. Once the last enemy from that orb is killed, the orb explodes and allows passage to the next section of the dungeon. Along the way, you meet more warrior statues that join you through soul orbs; a knight with melee attacks and a thief who throw Molotov cocktails over walls. Using the extra soul orbs, you are able to summon one of each warrior or multiple images of the same one. You can recall warriors one at a time to replace them using the Y button. This system gives it a tower defense meets dungeon crawler feel. The game features a password saving system similar to Metroid. While you are at that screen just try inputting Justin Bailey, you know you want to. According to the creator this is one of 6 hidden passwords that will activate special things within the game. Soulcaster is an excellent RPG hybrid that only 240 MS points.”

Week 3 Press

Soulcaster has really exceeded my expectations in critical reception.

“This is an absolutely amazing little action / strategy game that isn’t easy to categorize. It combines the best elements of Shining Force / Final Fantasy Tactics with dungeon crawling and tower defense games, and it all comes together with great results.”

Curious Soft/XBLARatings.com

“Soulcaster was a pleasant surprise: a mash up of an 8-bit RPG and Tower Defence, thereby ticking virtually all of the right boxes for anyone who’s ever ordered pizza for a night in with their Nintendo controller…”

xnPlay – The Juice Report

“… excellent …”

Tycho/Penny Arcade

“Everything from the level design, item names, graphics, sound, gameplay, and little in-jokes, Soulcaster harkens back to the day of retro-RPGS and is a great buy for anyone with the points.” (8.5/10)

Trace Aber/411Games

“Another one I checked out was Soulcaster, which I loved. … The music’s really great.”

Signed In Podcast

“I’ve never seen anything like this … definitely, definitely worth your time. Very different.”

NooBTooB Podcast

Huge thanks to all the critics who took the time to play through and review the game.

Week 1 Press

OK so this game has gotten much more attention than I ever imagined. There’s not much more I can say right now so I’ll just put up some pull quotes.

“I got to say I really enjoyed this one and if you are looking for a top-down action adventure role playing game with a retro look and feel it would be difficult for me to not recommend Soulcaster.”

Two Fedoras

“I highly recommend action and strategy fans alike to check out Soulcaster, there’s good a reason why it has already shot up into the top 20 rated Xbox indie games.”

GayGamer.net

“The soundtrack for the game is as amazing as it is fitting and makes me hope this guy is successful just so I can hear more songs by him in his games. The shopkeeper’s song is the most epic 8-bit metal song EVER and yes, I’m kinda serious about that.”

Digital Quarters

“Soulcaster is completely playable, incredibly polished, nostalgically retro, and insidiously addictive.”

XboxHornet

“Well worth the money.”

Zeboyd

“With a shop to upgrade, multiple paths through each stage, and a ‘hardcore’ mode, this is pretty much the best Tower Defense game on XBLIG OR on XBLA, rivaling even Defense Grid for sheer amazingness.”

– WDesm on xblaratings.comm

And for the ultimate press any developer could ever hope for, still leaving me in a state of shock:

“I caught a trailer for an Xblig called “Soulcaster” that took me a while to parse, but it’s out already, so discerning the truth of it is a straightforward matter. It’s lovely. It plays for all the world like a combination of Bomberman and Tower Defense, and I hadn’t considered it previously, but them’s two things what might benefit from juxtoposin’.”

– Tycho on Penny Arcade

Days before release, the critics are raving about Soulcaster!

GameTrailers users respond to the official trailer. The hype is almost uncontrollable!

“The graphics in this game is OMFG, it’s like OVER-PAINTED PIXELS or what? Disgusting.
Gay(m)play is like ugly breed of Tower Defense and mindless exploration.
Who the hell requested this game to be ever created? Don’t those guys have anything else to do?”

“Tower defense version 354. Nothing new and executed poorly, move along nothing to see here.”

“Well if this isnt a lets make a Quickbuck developer team! If u guys make money off of this Gem… upgrade to Snes platform. Good Luck Guys!”

“retro, sure. but seriously, it looks worse than a cell phone game.
better be cheap.”

“This looks like it sucks big time … even for an indie game. “