[7/20/08] Terranigma

[Devia Eleven]

Published by: Enix

Developed by: Quintet

Genre: RPG

Number of Players: 1

Release Date: Oct. 20, 1995

 

 

Terranigma, is an action RPG released exclusively on the SNES. The game was developed by Quintlet and was published by Enix. The plot is about the restoration of the world, by a boy named Ark, while he ventures from pre-historic times, to the present, and future. Throughout the game you will be restoring vacant wastelands, back into their original counterparts consisting of modern earth like biomes and ecosystems.

 

 

The game is a real time action RPG, you can freely roam around dungeons, and fight off various monsters of your selection. Ark, the main protagonist of that game, wields some type of staff that is seen to be composed of magical power. The staff acts as a staff and not much else, you have your running attack, basic strike, running jump attack, and rapid poke attack, where he rapidly pokes the staff in a sporadic motion. The running jump attack takes the most damage out of all the attacks I listed above. There are only a certain number of staffs that you can hold. In the weapon menu, there are little boxes that mark a soon to be obtained staff's postilion, you cannot hold as many staffs as you want. It's predicted that all of the staffs in the game will indeed fill all of the empty boxes seen in the start of the game. When switching weapons, the weapon actually changes when you attack in game, the visual change is present, instead of the basic attribute and statistical change. The armor is the same way, but the body armor of the character does not change, like the weapons do.

 

 

With only one character being played with the entire game, you feel as if you've actually done something, and the fact that one troublesome young boy can withstand an arduous journey, filled with enigmatic monsters and vicious creatures, is quite badass. Although sometimes people follow you through dungeons, you do all of the fighting. The main dungeons in this game are decently sized, it's not difficult to get lost. There is an unsurprising amount of backtracking in dungeons, because this is necessary to complete puzzles. There are more puzzles in this game than you can count on your hands and feet. The puzzles can sometimes be hard to solve, and they will have you trying to figure out how the developers were thinking while making the puzzles, and creating the solutions to them. Some are really misleading, and reading plays a large role in this game, just like any other RPG. You would be hurt, if you happened to miss any text rolling across the screen. Every word requires attention being paid to. No puzzles in this game are dead giveaways. Sometimes in dungeons, visual puzzles are present, and the background is all too consistent to find any type of indication on a wall or anything. Most puzzles will have you visiting the internet for some assistance.

 

When leveling up, your health increases the most out of all your other basic stats. You can obtain magic, and they can be used and are stored in a Magic Box. The game tells you when using a magic spell is pointless. There are various items that replenish health, and other key items. Key items are strongly important in this game, some missions will not let you pass without them. Grinding does the trick here though, some rooms in dungeons provide many enemies to defeat, killing them over and over guarantees massive EXP. Bosses become a joke because of this. As far as the navigation goes, there is a massive map, and it is the earth's map. Some continents are actually named after the earth's continents, and of course the contents of the continents are not identical to earth's at all. Sailing on a boat, is a great way to find this out. You cannot fight on the world map, only in dungeons. Each town is composed of many people who have something to say, and about two or three side quests waiting to be unveiled and completed. Ark, the main character, is not a silent protagonist thankfully, and has some emotional plot twists with women. A portion of the main storyline involves saving women and what have you.

 

 

There are countless amounts of towns and areas in this game. Some areas are barren wastelands, and at most times contain rare items. They are all scattered across the world, random areas that only consist of items, no enemies, no people present. Swimming is here, as well as flying, and boating. Each continent has a harbor where you can dock your ship, and the plane you use can be landed on a long strip of road. The world is undoubtedly massive, the entire earth's map is at your disposal. The monsters are obscure and awkward, these include mutant flowers that spit poison, zombies, zombie fish, bats, wolves, mutant trees, etc. But after massive grinding, nothing will be able to touch you mostly. Only things like poison, make a large threat. The dialog, from the people, is varied. Different towns have different types of vocabulary standards. Ark doesn't talk unless the conversations is involved with the main storyline.

 

 

For a 16-bit console, the music is rather larger-than-life. The goldy audio from this game is baffling. They consist of wondrous corridors, the large dungeons spew off music that just puts you into a adventurous, curious, and wondrous mood. The music remarkably matches the concept of a person sitting in a room alone with the lights off, and the television screen glaring into you his/her eyes. You will find yourself pausing the game, or standing in idleness, just to listen to the most epic and profound composition made by a Japanese composer. Nothing else can be said about the music, there aren't many sound effects to note, but they don't cause problems. The look of the game is nothing short of Chrono Trigger. I recommend you download this game, this is a game that I heard about on the internet.

 

Gameplay - 7

Graphics - 9

Sound - 10

Story - 8

 

Overall - 8.5

[basilbr]

Was a strange game. came out toward the end of the snes' lifespan, some called it actraiser3 and i dunno what to say about the storyline, it has similarities with secret of mana, depending on how far into the game you play. I still have the cartridge lying around somewhere.

 

decent review Side.

[ken_cinder]

Unofficially the 3rd in a series from these two. The first being Soul Blazer, and the second Illusion of Gaia.

 

All 3 of these games share common elements, cameos/names and other things.

 

I've never played any of them, other than Illusion of Gaia for a short period. I think I'll put all 3 on my list of "To play" though, ty.

[Skythe]

Reminds me of Secret of Evermore too.