Terranigma

"Revive the world"

Terranigma was never released in the States due to the release of the Nintendo 64 and the flagging popularity of the SNES, but us lucky people in Europe or Australia were able to sink out teeth into this great game, and what a joy it is!

The game starts off simply enough. You are Ark, a young boy in a strange village filled with floating crystal. Nobody ever leaves the village, or ever wants too. Up to his usual tricks and pranks, Ark opens a previously un-openable door and finds a strange box with an even stranger creature inside.

From here, he must find and explore five towers to resurrect the five great continents of the world and eventually revive the human race and their technology.

The game has an amazingly original storyline, though it does handle time a little weirdly, you can, for example, befriend someone in the 'middle ages' of the game and they will not age a day when the 'futuristic' period of the game comes along! But, this is a minor quibble, and is for the most part handled well.

One of the most interesting features of Terranigma is helping technology advance. About mid-way into the game you will reach a town called Freedom, which has fairly primitive technology. By helping giving items to certain people, or helping with experiments, or telling them about new places and tastes you can expand the technology of Freedom (and various other towns and cities) until they all have 20th century technology. It is exceptionally rewarding seeing a small, backwards village become a bustling metropolis filled with modern day devices and looks!

Combat is action-based, similar to Secret of Mana, though you only ever have control of one person, Ark. He has access to a variety of moves, most of which are useful. Combat is generally fast and easy, though I did not like how simply touching a monster damages you. I much preferred the Secret of Mana way in that they actually had to attack you to hurt you.

I found magic to be very useless in the game - so useless that I have never used it at all! Oh, I may have used it once or twice to watch the effect, but that really doesn't count. The 'avatars' of each race (birds, animals, people, etc) each give a pin that is used the same way as magic, and while these may be a tad useful (though, again, I have never used these before) they cannot be used during a boss fight, which renders them useless. However, I never felt the game suffered from the lack of a capable magic system, so this wasn't a huge problem. The game does, however, waste most hiding spots for treasure with magirocks, the 'currency' of magic.

Graphically, this game is very well done. It is colourful and doesn't palette swap enemies too often. The levels and areas are exceptionally varied, from prehistoric Earth, to medieval Earth, to modern day Earth, etc. Ark has a wide range of animations, as do some of the other characters.

Musically it is quite good, especially Yomi's theme. Sound effects are adequate, though nothing stands out as truly amazing.

The game has its fair share of quirks and oddities, and at times is quite humorous. Humor is too often ignored in RPGs, so this was definitely a welcome change.

One very odd thing I found with this game was the leveling system. It is the standard gain-exp-and-then-level-stats-in-a-arbitrary-manner but as my levels got to a certain amount (I think it was 31 or 32) I found myself gaining huge stat boosts. I went from receiving one or two to each stat and a few HP, to gaining something like 50 Hp and ten or more for each stat! I'm not complaining as it made me, the compulsive leveler, feel quite good, it just seemed odd.

Another odd thing I noticed was the boss fights. Say you are level 12 and are fighting a Slime for a boss (Doesn't actually happen but bear with me). You attack and do 1 or 2 damage. Not a lot is it? You die really quickly and get discouraged. The next day you load up the game you level up once or twice and fight it again...suddenly you are dealing out 20, 30, 40 even 50 damage for each hit!!?? What is going on here? It is very annoying because when you reach a boss and do 1 or 2 damage each hit you think you are woefully unprepared, when in actuality gaining just one level may be enough to dish out lots of damage.

Minor problems aside, this is a great game, with a great storyline and a great (though somewhat predictable) twist. Buy and play it now!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/07/02, Updated 07/31/02