Terranigma is another gem of a game by Enix. Released in the SNES era, Terranigma is one of the last games Enix released before they closed down their American offices. It enjoyed a fairly large cult following, but suffered minimal success. Terranigma’s story, gameplay, and graphics brought alot to the SNES system.
Terranigma is also the thrid installment of the Soul Blazer series. Soul Blazer was released here in the states, and like many Enix games,but, what is strange is that Enix changed the name to Soul Blazer 2 to Illusion of Gaia and Soul Blazer 3 to Terranigma. Square did this with Final Fantasy 2 and 3 on the SNEs. The three titles share the common bond of a hero out to save the souls of the people around the world rounding out to create an excellent Action RPG series rivaling Squares Seiken Densetsu series.
Terranigma may remind you of other Enix titles, such as Dragon Warrior 7, or Square’s latest Legend of Mana game. Your home town is the only thing known to you, but when the elder instructs you to leave and seek out the towers to save the world from a growing evil, you discover more and more continents and areas to explore, thus adding more and more to the adventure.
Terranigma starts off with a young man named Ark. The town crush, Elle, wakes you up early in the morning and tells you that the sky is lit up with Blue Crystal. After visiting with the towns folk, you are told that the town elder would like to talk with you. Prior days events at the weaving shop left Ark in alot of trouble and you are forced by the elder to go and apologize for letting loose the chickens and wreaking havoc. You return to the elder to tell him that you apologized, but he is missing, and outside of his door a group of teens crowd around a door that was forbidden to enter. Once you come back to the elder’s home one of your friends is freaked out and tells you that the forbidden door had sucked his friends in, you break down the door and find your friends frozen solid. You discover a box and a creature to help lead you, the elder tells you to explore four towers and youre off onto your adventure. You eventually travel the world and even descend into the underworld.
Though it is a somewhat nice concept, the story suffers from the standard “kid sets off to save home town, ends up saving the world” and “find more continents to explore” fare, but dont let that bog you down. The story keeps fresh and enjoyable throughout the game.
The sound in the game is very crisp and clear. The background music is enjoyable and never gets redundant. Sound effects are nice, but could be a little more varied, but overall, the sound and music of in the game is very nice.
The graphics are quite stunning for an SNES game. The sprites in the game are well drawn and movement is nicely animated. Many effects and colors help add to the gameplay. The over world map makes use of the SNES’s Mode 7 graphics capabilities. Enemies range from small to incredibally large and intimidating.
The gameplay is much like The Legend of Zelda’s, as in it is an action oriented RPG. One of the really nice aspects of Terranigma is the menu system. Once you obtain the box found at the elders house, you can enter it to equip and use items, check your stats, dungeon map and an assortment of other things. The puzzles in the game aren’t brain wracking either, and the more harder ones give you hints and tips.
The battle system is very refined. Instead of just slashing away with your sword like in other Action RPG’s, you have many other attacks in your arsenal. You can keep hitting the attack button and Ark will rapidly thrust his weapon at his opponent, which is a great way of pinning down enemies with a large number of hit points. You can dash at a creature and pierce it with the point of your sword, you can leap towards an enemy and do a spin cut, or for the larger, you can combine the dash and leap for a deadly attack.
This game is one of my new favorites. It was released around other great RPG’s and Enix games as well, and, in turn, was over shadowed by these more popular titles. Even with its mild success, Terranigma is a great game to play. Its over all feel is very enjoyable, and easy. The game is pleasing to the eye and the story rarely gets boring, even with its dated cliche’s that plagues nearly every RPG now. I give this game a 8.5. Have fun. :-)
-- Kyle Gatlin