Seriously... Why Does Nobody Talk About Terranigma !?
- Thread starter A.K.B.
- Start date
Well remembered =/= sold well, though. Besides, Terranigam was developed at the tail-end of a generation. The US was already admiring the PlayStation and N64 by then. Europe got those systems later.BreakfastMan said:
BTW whenever Americans complain about not getting Terranigma, I kind of want to punch them (well, not literally, but... you know?). Soul Blazer was never released over here. Our first encounter with Chrono Trigger was on the DS. Earthbound? Wii U. Europe's first Final Fantasy was VII, unless you count Mystic Quest ('Mystic Quest Legend'), we started with the second Lufia (though NOE was courteous enough to translate it to odd languages like Dutch, making it perhaps the only JRPG available in that language). No Breath of Fire, no Super Mario RPG (!!!)... Seriously, it would be easier to just list the RPGs that were released in Europe.
Never heard of it TBH although looking at the OPs list I feel our tastes differ quite a lot so maybe I wont like the game much but ill give it a try and see how I feel about it. Ive played `classics` or `forgotten gems` before and quite often either thought they were garbage or just did not enjoy them as I am sure many others have, still worth it though for the odd one that you truly enjoy.
Still never finished Secret of Mana (right at the end) or Chrono Cross (lost interest halfway through).
Still never finished Secret of Mana (right at the end) or Chrono Cross (lost interest halfway through).
Terranigma not being released in the US is exactly why it's an unknown title outside of its cult fanbase. While it was released in PAL regions at least so no need for fan translations. As for the reasons why it was never released? It can be chalked up to two reasons or perhaps both:
The game has more than a few religious references scattered through the game that probably wouldn't have gone over too well in the US back then.
The much more likely reason though was that during development Enix had closed down their US branch, meaning that for a few years no Enix published games reached North American shores.
It's a shame too, Terranigma is such a outstanding game to the point I liken it to the Chrono Trigger for PAL regions. (at least until the DS version came out) Another thing about that is us Europeans (and fellow Aussies too) never received any of the big SNES RPG's like Final Fantasy VI, the previously mentioned CT and FFIV. Hell, PAL regions didn't even get a Final Fantasy title outside of Mystic Quest until Final Fantasy VII!
As for the rest of the Soul Blazer/Heaven and Earth Trilogy of which TN is a part of, Soul Blazer was the first title in the series, and until years later I honestly didn't know it existed. From what I've played so far, especially compared to the latter two titles, it's just... Not very good. Definitely hasn't aged very well, in my own opinion of course.
As for the second title, Illusion of Time (Illusion of Gaia everywhere that's not Europe and Australia) I owned this first before TN came out, and it's a damn good game in it's own right. It's the most linear of the three but it has the richest characters and world of all. I personally think it's just a few hairs behind Terranigma in quality. The only thing that marrs it in my opinion is the bad translation.
As for Terranigma, the music is crazy good, settling it alongside some of the best SNES/SFC soundtracks. But enough gushing, the game does have it's own (minor) problems, such as the weird leveling system. You can reach some areas of the game at a decent level but the enemies can and will wreck you unless you raise up a few levels, then suddenly almost everything in the area is your *****. One dungeon and boss is an infamous example of this. It just can feel a little unbalanced is all. Another is that in both IoT and TN, if you want to 100% the game you pretty much just might need a guide for your first play-through as there are a ton of missables. This wasn't uncommon for the era though.
In the end, if any of you reading this have a passing interest in Terranigma (and the other two titles in the trilogy) then keep in mind your only options are to buy the cartridges at an exorbitant price, and in the case of Terranigma you should keep in mind that if you are buying the European (black box) version there's a pretty good chance you won't get the English release. A much safer bet is getting the Australian (white box) version instead. And also you will of course need a PAL SNES or alternately modify your existing machine to take PAL cartridges. There's also reproduction carts modified for playing on a US SNES that you could buy for a much cheaper price, but I hear these versions have problems of their own such as a lousy internal battery. Other than that the only other option available to you is playing them on an emulator as they have not been made available on the Wii, 3DS or Wii U Virtual Consoles. ActRaiser, Quintet's debut title is available on the Wii VC though and is an interesting game in it's own right. It isn't part of the Soul Blazer trilogy however.
Information on Terranigma and the other three titles. Spoilers abound in the plot section of each. Avoid!:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Blazer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_Gaia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terranigma
Information on the developer, Quintet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintet_%28company%29
One final comment: There is one more game that is considered to be the final entry in the "trilogy", called The Granstream Saga for the PS1. While I've never played it myself it is apparently pretty bad to average at best, and was made by Shade, a devteam consisting of former staff from Quintet. because of this fans don't consider it a part of the Soul Blazer/Heaven and Earth trilogy.
The game has more than a few religious references scattered through the game that probably wouldn't have gone over too well in the US back then.
The much more likely reason though was that during development Enix had closed down their US branch, meaning that for a few years no Enix published games reached North American shores.
It's a shame too, Terranigma is such a outstanding game to the point I liken it to the Chrono Trigger for PAL regions. (at least until the DS version came out) Another thing about that is us Europeans (and fellow Aussies too) never received any of the big SNES RPG's like Final Fantasy VI, the previously mentioned CT and FFIV. Hell, PAL regions didn't even get a Final Fantasy title outside of Mystic Quest until Final Fantasy VII!
As for the rest of the Soul Blazer/Heaven and Earth Trilogy of which TN is a part of, Soul Blazer was the first title in the series, and until years later I honestly didn't know it existed. From what I've played so far, especially compared to the latter two titles, it's just... Not very good. Definitely hasn't aged very well, in my own opinion of course.
As for the second title, Illusion of Time (Illusion of Gaia everywhere that's not Europe and Australia) I owned this first before TN came out, and it's a damn good game in it's own right. It's the most linear of the three but it has the richest characters and world of all. I personally think it's just a few hairs behind Terranigma in quality. The only thing that marrs it in my opinion is the bad translation.
As for Terranigma, the music is crazy good, settling it alongside some of the best SNES/SFC soundtracks. But enough gushing, the game does have it's own (minor) problems, such as the weird leveling system. You can reach some areas of the game at a decent level but the enemies can and will wreck you unless you raise up a few levels, then suddenly almost everything in the area is your *****. One dungeon and boss is an infamous example of this. It just can feel a little unbalanced is all. Another is that in both IoT and TN, if you want to 100% the game you pretty much just might need a guide for your first play-through as there are a ton of missables. This wasn't uncommon for the era though.
In the end, if any of you reading this have a passing interest in Terranigma (and the other two titles in the trilogy) then keep in mind your only options are to buy the cartridges at an exorbitant price, and in the case of Terranigma you should keep in mind that if you are buying the European (black box) version there's a pretty good chance you won't get the English release. A much safer bet is getting the Australian (white box) version instead. And also you will of course need a PAL SNES or alternately modify your existing machine to take PAL cartridges. There's also reproduction carts modified for playing on a US SNES that you could buy for a much cheaper price, but I hear these versions have problems of their own such as a lousy internal battery. Other than that the only other option available to you is playing them on an emulator as they have not been made available on the Wii, 3DS or Wii U Virtual Consoles. ActRaiser, Quintet's debut title is available on the Wii VC though and is an interesting game in it's own right. It isn't part of the Soul Blazer trilogy however.
Information on Terranigma and the other three titles. Spoilers abound in the plot section of each. Avoid!:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Blazer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_Gaia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terranigma
Information on the developer, Quintet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintet_%28company%29
One final comment: There is one more game that is considered to be the final entry in the "trilogy", called The Granstream Saga for the PS1. While I've never played it myself it is apparently pretty bad to average at best, and was made by Shade, a devteam consisting of former staff from Quintet. because of this fans don't consider it a part of the Soul Blazer/Heaven and Earth trilogy.
*peeks in upon seeing the last poster was named Arcadian Legend* Oh...sorry...I thought my fanfiction self posted for a moment here...
Anyways...Terranigma. Personally, I would love to see this game added to a list of titles that should be added as WiiU Ware. The other Mother titles would also be on this list...though I suspect those games will be made available if what I heard about a Mother 4 are correct, especially considering the popularity of Citizens of Earth right now.
Heck...release Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma all at once as a collection as WiiU Ware! It would be awesome!
Anyways...Terranigma. Personally, I would love to see this game added to a list of titles that should be added as WiiU Ware. The other Mother titles would also be on this list...though I suspect those games will be made available if what I heard about a Mother 4 are correct, especially considering the popularity of Citizens of Earth right now.
Heck...release Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma all at once as a collection as WiiU Ware! It would be awesome!
Terranigma is flippin' sweet. I made it all the way to the end on my last play, but didn't grind enough before I went to the big bad's science fortress so I was too underleveled to win.
I just love the big reveal. "Oh you thought the part with the towers was it? THAT WAS NOTHING!" And after that it's all gold, except for the big castle dungeon in medieval Spain. That slogs a bit.
Also ++++ Soulblazer. That game is awesomefun.
I just love the big reveal. "Oh you thought the part with the towers was it? THAT WAS NOTHING!" And after that it's all gold, except for the big castle dungeon in medieval Spain. That slogs a bit.
Also ++++ Soulblazer. That game is awesomefun.
Squenix should have done this back on the Wii VC honestly, They put ActRaiser up there so it's not like they don't own the IPs. If they ever do port the trilogy to Wii U Virtual Console though I'd definitely buy them all in a heartbeat.GamemasterAnthony said:
Bad timing probably had a lot to do with it too. It came out the same year as the Playstation did, and for all that generation feels like it got to a poor start in retrospect it was a huge deal at the time. It's hard to get excited about an import only 2D RPG the same time as gaming exploded onto the third dimension. By the time it had a cooling off period it had to compare against Fallout, Baldurs Gate, Planescape Torment.
In the end it was a cool game but not an event. It's definitely a game that deserves a remaster though.
In the end it was a cool game but not an event. It's definitely a game that deserves a remaster though.
Sure, but it's also worth bearing in mind what demographic The Escapist has. While the split between Americans/Canadians and the UK is probably relatively close, that's still a fairly large portion of the userbase who have never even heard of the game because it never physically existed in our section of the world. Additionally, while there is a certain love for JRPGs among users here, the community in general has a much more significant bias toward PC gaming and away from Japanese games.NPC009 said:
I don't imagine many websites are very different in that regard, unless the content of the website itself is far more driven by focusing on Japanese content.
What we have to consider is the fact that Terranigma, and really Quintet's games in general didn't make a huge impact in their home market either. Don't get me wrong, you can see influences of games like The Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma in some games released later, but they didn't set the Japanese market on fire. They barely made a sizzle worldwide.
As for why this is, who knows? The stories were rather complex for Action RPG's at the time, and Terranigma had some deep and fairly satisfying combat. But, like today, there were a lot of people who stratify themselves into "Action/Adventure" and "RPG" camps and felt strongly that never the twain should meet.
So you had games trying to be all things to all people. Games trying some new things, that failed somewhat, but when they succeeded, they did so brilliantly. And like many such games, their creators names aren't marquee'd anywhere, they aren't superstars, and no one really knows what Quintet's former staff is up to these days.
One influence that I think Terranigma had was its interweaving of religious themes into the narrative. It did so subtly without seeming overtly pro or con, and really treated the subject matter well. Whether you were Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, Pantheist, etc. you could play the game and still feel included in its story. At the risk of hyperbole, for a 16 bit game it was a fine attempt at using the medium of video games to deal with the things that make us human.
(Also, RoboTrek/Slapstick was a blast. Man, I wish Quintet were still around
)
As for why this is, who knows? The stories were rather complex for Action RPG's at the time, and Terranigma had some deep and fairly satisfying combat. But, like today, there were a lot of people who stratify themselves into "Action/Adventure" and "RPG" camps and felt strongly that never the twain should meet.
So you had games trying to be all things to all people. Games trying some new things, that failed somewhat, but when they succeeded, they did so brilliantly. And like many such games, their creators names aren't marquee'd anywhere, they aren't superstars, and no one really knows what Quintet's former staff is up to these days.
One influence that I think Terranigma had was its interweaving of religious themes into the narrative. It did so subtly without seeming overtly pro or con, and really treated the subject matter well. Whether you were Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, Pantheist, etc. you could play the game and still feel included in its story. At the risk of hyperbole, for a 16 bit game it was a fine attempt at using the medium of video games to deal with the things that make us human.
(Also, RoboTrek/Slapstick was a blast. Man, I wish Quintet were still around
)
#JRPGs Arent RPGs
Cos you never role play in any of those games, all you are doing is pushing a bunch of melodramatic teens from one scene to another, less role playing more japanese adventure time
Cos you never role play in any of those games, all you are doing is pushing a bunch of melodramatic teens from one scene to another, less role playing more japanese adventure time
