The back third is a complete slog. As soon as you revive humans you better get ready for vague objectives and fetch quests galore. Kinda reminds me of Breath of Fire's end-run, but even worse. It's super ambitious for an SNES title I'll give it that, maybe with only Chrono Trigger or FFVI in competition for what it was trying to achieve.

I get that they were trying to make this almost world-building simulation take place within the confines of a JRPG, but figuring out what to do is always a problem at this point. The western portmanteau for the title, Terranigma (Earth/Riddle), is definitely more apt than the Japanese, Tenchi Souzou (the creation of heaven and earth). But it's less Zelda puzzles and more what do I need to do to progress? Lots and lots of that.

First third is amazing and now I realize why I always lost interest somewhere after that.

If we're being real this is the culmination of ActRaiser, Soul Blazer, and Ilusion of Gaia as it has traces of all of those games directly in its story and design.

I might want to do a more in-depth review later but I'm just glad I finally beat it now. I liked the ending quite a bit, but getting there was pretty rough. This went from a 4.5 to a 3.5 game for me sadly. Mainly due to the vagueness of the story and the translation.

One more bucket list title completed.

Been dealing with some health problems lately so I'm too sick to work on my own projects but instead have a lot of time for bucket list games. Can't complain (too much).

Terranigma is one of the several "good vibes" SNES games. Others include Chrono Trigger, Soul Blazer, Secret of Evermore, EVO... probably more. But they're the best type of nostalgia imo. Only a few other PS1 games come close to that feel. Can't really describe what that feel actually is, but if you know you know I'd say.

I've tried beating Terranigma twice, but I lost interest about halfway once and the other I think I got stuck on Bloody Mary (that's the boss that everyone complains about so I think that was probably it).

This game is beautiful though. Graphics and music is absolute top notch for the system. Might even be my favorite at times. I don't mind being sick so much if I have Ark as company.

Terranigma is a game that I wish I could experience again for the first time every single time I play it. It is easily one of the best games of its era on the merits of a complete package. Terranigma is by no means the most complex game on either story or gameplay fronts, but manages to execute them in a way that has not been replicated by anything before or after. The gameplay is simple but easy to learn and keeps the pace going strong. In a way it feels comparable to how fast bump combat can feel when adjusted to, especially with the inclusion of dashing attacks that keep you moving while attacking. The story is not the most convoluted of the genre but stands apart due to its theming, and, more importantly, making the limited usage of scenes count when pieced together into a greater narrative, ambiguous or not. This game is one of the few JRPGs that truly does feel like an odyssey of legend, from the mere premise of restoring the world and its inhabitants, good and bad, to how the story is paced alongside the ever-changing world and how you interact with it in your journey. It is a game that starts out calm and mildly familiar before completely pulling the rug out from underneath, and has the most effective weaponization of a homecoming I've ever seen in a video game. This one is a must-play for anyone interested in Super Famicom / Super Nintendo RPGs.

Quintet's search for elegant and varied battling culminated with Terranigma, the final (and by far the best) part of their trilogy that struck the right balance of brawler, RPG and adventure ingredients. Moreover, it consolidated and polished ideas they established in the past: The platforming of ActRaiser, Soul Blazer's multifunctional equips, the Zelda influence and special attacks of Illusion of Gaia, and the premise of 'world restoration' (that connects these 3 games together) are expanded dramatically and set to slick production. But theirs is - above all, an action-RPG that's repetitive without feeling monotonous. New and versatile options (jump attacks, rapid strikes) complement the better ideas of IoG (KOF-style running, dash attacks with i-frames), and the result is an ever-fresh moveset whose execution seems closer to fighting games than to contemporaries (Seiken Densetsu 3, Secret of Evermore, etc.). Equally fortified - if not as complex, are its dungeons, where stronger elements of LoZ fuse with Metroid elements (unlockable auto-equipped skills, hard-to-reach treasure), while retaining their gift for original designs, scenarios and aesthetics. They also mark a return to form for their RPG side (EXP & item-based upgrades in place of its predecessor's collect-a-thon-esque approach), and - for once, their bosses are fun to challenge, although one wonders if that's more so due to their designs or combat's merits.

It's not only gameplay that excels: Early-game dungeons are followed closely by vibrant, warped, almost psychedelic cutscenes played in slow-motion, that achieve disorienting effects via creative use of Mode 7. When the trip subsides, these scenes begin to depict more traditional but no less poignant stories whose ecological, historical and humanitarian themes reveal the true soul of the Gaia series. Whereas Soul Blazer was more preoccupied with gameplay, and IoG with personal subplots, here their storycrafting skills advanced to a whole new level of maturity. More than a meticulous update, this is one of those rare SNES games that are as much a visual treat as a functional & narrative one.

I'll be thinking about the game for a long time to come, and I can say that about very few games these days. Terranigma does a lot of things very well. The battle system is fun, the hit feedback is fantastic and the sound effects when attacking enemies are super characteristic. The music is generally a great strength, there are so many beautiful pieces in this game. I particularly liked the pacing of the game, how quickly dungeons, story sections and exploration alternate is great and it hardly ever gets boring.

The themes that the game raises are sometimes really profound and philosophical. It's about duality in all things, good and evil, light and shadow, freedom and predestination, nature and progress, but also the differences between different social systems. I particularly liked the first half of the game, which is really original and different from other JRPGs of the time: you are still alone in the world, talking to animals and creating new life. When humanity begins, the narrative takes a more traditional trajectory, but that's not a bad thing either.

As good as the pacing is, the second half unfortunately also has lengths and somewhat crude narrative reasons why Ark has to do this or that ("You have to go to China because a trader is buying up all the metal there and I can't build my plane that way" or "The plot is is reaching its climax, the big final battle is imminent, please collect 5 McGuffins that are scattered wildly around the world before we continue"^^).

And there are also elements in the dungeons that deserve criticism. It happened twice that I got stuck there and the solution to the puzzle was that I should have found an item hidden somewhere in the dungeon (dog whistle and later dragon lance). I had to backtrack half the dungeon to do this, which was annoying and I would have killed for a map.

The usability of the menu navigation is also horrific. To place an item in the quick use slot, the following dialogue appears: "Select item? - Yes, No", With a click on "No", it then goes into the quick slot, lol^^ I only realized that after 5 hours or so. But the inventory is beautifully designed, especially the magic chest looks great, even though magic is mostly unnecessary in the game. The difficulty level was almost always appropriate, but sometimes fluctuates extremely (Bloody Mary WTF), for the final boss I had to grind for 14 minutes because I did exactly 1 damage per attack at level 29, but hey, 14 minutes is close to nothing, so it's totally ok.

Overall, just for the melancholic mood, especially in the first half and the very serious themes in general, it's worth a look and is actually fun all the time (except the stealth dungeon, what was that for :D). The ending is absolutely amazing, I'll remember it for a long time.