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stellarwindLet it be known that Terranigma is one of the most amazing fucking games EVER released on ANY system in the entire history of Humanity.
Okay, now that I got that off my chest I can talk more sanely.
Anyhow. How'd I get onto Terranigma again? Here goes.
I was having a discussion with a close friend of mine and Soul Blazer came up. Which reminded me that:
A: I never actually got to play it. OR Illusion of Gaia. And I wanted to play both of them for a long while.
B: I haven't played Terranigma in over nine thousand years and I loved that game to pieces.
C: They're exactly the kind of games I've been craving lately.
And so I started somewhat of a Soul-Blazer-Series-athon, starting with Soul Blazer itself, proceeding through Illusion of Gaia, and finally ending in Terranigma.
Soul Blazer itself was fun with the exception of the tedious bosses and somewhat awkward translation. The game mostly centered around the resurrection theme - both on a larger scale (you, in the role of the nameless 'Blazer', a divine being sent by the Creator Deity of the SB world, referred to as 'The Master', destroying monster lairs where the souls of various life-forms in the world are captured) and on a smaller scale (little interludes involving the personal lives of side-characters and their dreams). The storyline felt a little lacking in plot exposition, though, making the game feel more like a long string of battles and dungeon crawls. But it STILL kept me playing for hours, so all good. I played that game for a whole night straight and that's saying something.
Illusion of Gaia to me is the weakest part of the series game-wise both gameplay-wise and story-wise. It LAGGED. One long string of lag. I painstakingly played the game with a guide by my side just to get all the [eff!]ing Red Jewels to see how IoG connects to Soul Blazer, and let me tell you something... It was rather disappointing. Not even a bloody special item. Just an optional boss you get little for except for a small bit of plot exposition. It was nice, but not really worth the frustration. ^^;
IoG mainly centered around a group of human characters and their adventure following the main character around. Said main character, by the way, wields a neon-pink flute which he bitchslaps his enemy with, has psychic powers and Telekinetic abilities, and has the capability to transform into an angry looking bishie knight with the most retardedly deformed sprite ever concieved for a main character. Any more description and It'd be too much spoilers. All I can say is the plot actually centers around these characters and their journey, and the lack of ability to backtrack and explore the world (which was a nice feature of Soul Blazer as well as Terranigma) is annoying as frell. Very limited inventory space, too. >>; I think the game only got really awesome at its end, disturbing as it was...
Terranigma on the other hand was -perfect-. It had just the right amount of plot and the right amount of action, and the only boss I could REALLY call tedious was the final boss (I suppose that makes sense, considering the insane amount of damage Ark can deal in later levels), the storyline was fine-tuned to extreme levels and awesome as hell, the music was gorgeous, the graphics push the SNES' abilities to their limit and beyond, and... Yes. There's a reason why it was one of the only action-RPGs I've really loved even when I wouldn't touch the rest of the genre with a ten foot pole.
That game never fails to make me cry. It's just that beautiful.
Kind of a shame it's a bit little known. But really? Having played this game I am happy it never got a US release. Even without considering the fact the localization of SB and IoG left the games with some seriously awkward translations in comparison to Terranigma (which was only localized in Europe and Australia), a lot of the themes in this game would have been considerably watered down by those those [eff!]tards at NoA. Granted, this means little chance of the game getting a Virtual Console release, but, well, the game is practically nonexistent nowadays and so I don't feel bad at all about emulating it. AND I get to flip off NoA while I'm at it. ^^
Err, yeah. Now that I'm done with my Terranigma fangasming I should cut out the rambles before I end up emitting spoilers by mistake. That game is too awesome to be spoiled. It must be experienced. >>;
Okay, now that I got that off my chest I can talk more sanely.
Anyhow. How'd I get onto Terranigma again? Here goes.
I was having a discussion with a close friend of mine and Soul Blazer came up. Which reminded me that:
A: I never actually got to play it. OR Illusion of Gaia. And I wanted to play both of them for a long while.
B: I haven't played Terranigma in over nine thousand years and I loved that game to pieces.
C: They're exactly the kind of games I've been craving lately.
And so I started somewhat of a Soul-Blazer-Series-athon, starting with Soul Blazer itself, proceeding through Illusion of Gaia, and finally ending in Terranigma.
Soul Blazer itself was fun with the exception of the tedious bosses and somewhat awkward translation. The game mostly centered around the resurrection theme - both on a larger scale (you, in the role of the nameless 'Blazer', a divine being sent by the Creator Deity of the SB world, referred to as 'The Master', destroying monster lairs where the souls of various life-forms in the world are captured) and on a smaller scale (little interludes involving the personal lives of side-characters and their dreams). The storyline felt a little lacking in plot exposition, though, making the game feel more like a long string of battles and dungeon crawls. But it STILL kept me playing for hours, so all good. I played that game for a whole night straight and that's saying something.
Illusion of Gaia to me is the weakest part of the series game-wise both gameplay-wise and story-wise. It LAGGED. One long string of lag. I painstakingly played the game with a guide by my side just to get all the [eff!]ing Red Jewels to see how IoG connects to Soul Blazer, and let me tell you something... It was rather disappointing. Not even a bloody special item. Just an optional boss you get little for except for a small bit of plot exposition. It was nice, but not really worth the frustration. ^^;
IoG mainly centered around a group of human characters and their adventure following the main character around. Said main character, by the way, wields a neon-pink flute which he bitchslaps his enemy with, has psychic powers and Telekinetic abilities, and has the capability to transform into an angry looking bishie knight with the most retardedly deformed sprite ever concieved for a main character. Any more description and It'd be too much spoilers. All I can say is the plot actually centers around these characters and their journey, and the lack of ability to backtrack and explore the world (which was a nice feature of Soul Blazer as well as Terranigma) is annoying as frell. Very limited inventory space, too. >>; I think the game only got really awesome at its end, disturbing as it was...
Terranigma on the other hand was -perfect-. It had just the right amount of plot and the right amount of action, and the only boss I could REALLY call tedious was the final boss (I suppose that makes sense, considering the insane amount of damage Ark can deal in later levels), the storyline was fine-tuned to extreme levels and awesome as hell, the music was gorgeous, the graphics push the SNES' abilities to their limit and beyond, and... Yes. There's a reason why it was one of the only action-RPGs I've really loved even when I wouldn't touch the rest of the genre with a ten foot pole.
That game never fails to make me cry. It's just that beautiful.
Kind of a shame it's a bit little known. But really? Having played this game I am happy it never got a US release. Even without considering the fact the localization of SB and IoG left the games with some seriously awkward translations in comparison to Terranigma (which was only localized in Europe and Australia), a lot of the themes in this game would have been considerably watered down by those those [eff!]tards at NoA. Granted, this means little chance of the game getting a Virtual Console release, but, well, the game is practically nonexistent nowadays and so I don't feel bad at all about emulating it. AND I get to flip off NoA while I'm at it. ^^
Err, yeah. Now that I'm done with my Terranigma fangasming I should cut out the rambles before I end up emitting spoilers by mistake. That game is too awesome to be spoiled. It must be experienced. >>;
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 06:11 am (UTC)But seriously, Terranigma? I'd like to play it. Too bad I'm stuck in this realm where it doesn't exist. I'm confused, maybe I'm just a bad gamer---but why would it be a BAD thing if it got released here in pig country?
no subject
Date: 2008-03-23 05:44 pm (UTC)It seems that Americans REALLY love censoring everything out of their games - and ESPECIALLY Nintendo of America. Oh no, we can't talk of Alcohol in a game! Let's make it coffee instead! Scantily clad female battle sprite? Let's badly MSPaint clothes over it! Subtle sexual references? Let's edit the entire fucking dialogue! And OF COURSE we CANNOT HAVE RELIGIOUS REFERENCES, ONOES!
... Terranigma has all that and a bag of chips - except for the sexual references and sprite edits, that is. It makes references to God and the Devil, heavily centers around the subject of ressurection, and contains references to religion (the game seems to feature the biggest Jesus statue I've ever seen in a game - although said statue is located in the game's equivalent of Rio de Janeiro, where there's an effing huge Jesus statue in the real world.), Alcohol (and people drinking to drown their woes) and Mass Genocide among other things.
If Nintendo of America would have gotten their filthy claws on this game it would have been censored to death and back before being released. <<; Honestly, if anyone wonders why Nintendo has a 'kiddy' image in the States - that's why. And they're doing it to themselves.
And that is why I say Emulators are one of the best things to ever happen to the Internets. Without them, a lot of classics would have been lost forever.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 04:12 am (UTC)I thought it had something to do with censorship, I've been fighting that ((as I've said in recent entries )) since preschool. Its why I went foreign film. I'm too hippy for censorship. XD You know what REALLY fucks up my shit? Is when they say "defeat" instead of "kill". PET PEEVE.
Oh I know ALL about Rio-J man. I've seen that huge fucker. That sounds like SOME kind of awesome. I can't hardly believe something like it exists on an old module.
And thats something I like about PS IV---they didn't edit out the "maudlin drunk" on Dezolis. XDDD
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 06:38 am (UTC)Ah well. Their selloutness today still doesn't take away their past awesomeness.
Also, the official reason Terranigma wasn't released in the States was actually the fact that the American division of Enix stopped existing in 1995 - and Terranigma itself was released in 1996.
I suppose that sales would have also had something to do with it - Terranigma was released close to the end of the SNES' life and to the beginning of the Nintendo 64's, and Nintendo are more the type to invest in their next gen consoles than in the older ones they wanted to start phasing out. Is why Mother 1 was never released even though the localization/translation process was complete. Too close to teh end of the NES' life, and they much preferred putting effort into plugging Mother 2 for the SNES, AKA Earthbound. >>;
Business is a fucked up world. But yeah. Again, the localization/censorship this game would have gone through if NoA touched it. (shudders)
Ah well.
I feel like somehow obtaining a screencap of Ark standing at the Jesus Statue in Liotto and captioning it "You WILL accept Terranigma as your one true saviour." for some reason...
no subject
Date: 2008-03-24 07:34 am (UTC)