It's not that bad. Honestly wish I played it as a kid, I might have liked it. It might be too odd for kids now, but it's a game that was geared towards being beatable by children. Or American adults. lol

The way it combines Final Fantasy Adventure (Mana 1) with simpler JRPG battles is kinda cool. It's like if Final Fantasy had more Zelda elements. But there's more to it that makes it its own thing and not overly comparable to any other game. It has a lot of charm, almost like a platformer from the time.

The only problem here is calling it a Final Fantasy, it's really not, but then I guess no one would have played it.

WELTORV ESTLEIA

that is all

Okay. Now that I played it a bit, how many PS1 games let you set your height and weight... and I have never seen a game let you choose whether you are left or right handed. Lots of customization.

So I make my guy as tall as possible and as fat as possible. After a brief introduction the game seems to be mostly open, so apparently we have a sandbox JRPG here or moreso than just about any other JRPG on the system I think.

I guess I'll mention that I have played so many JRPGs in my life that I've reached a point where my lack of knowledge in actual Japanese doesn't even matter that much and I can usually find my bearings pretty easily as these "rich fantasy worlds" can get rather predictable at times.

Anyway, I talk to some guy in a bar and buy something for 15000 when I only have 100 and he promptly takes me to jail. Never even gave me the "Sorry you are broke!" dialogue box. Damn.

After waiting awhile I get to leave and I immediately travel south until I've made it past 4 or 5 load screens. I was hoping to find the world map and fight some monsters at this point but instead I run into a very small old man who is lying on the ground (Actually he's probably not that small, I'm just very tall). I take him back to my home and he is my new pet.

to be cont'd

p.s. WELTORV ESTLEIA

Mostly mindless guilty pleasure crafting game. Addictive and simple enough to let me tune out of life for a few hours. I don't often get into the whole crafting genre, they can get pretty tedious and you often need a guide or lots of tutorials. This is super casual on the surface but can get pretty in-depth if you explore all of your options. There's a reason for every upgrade, and they'll all make your game slightly easier if utilized (well, except for maybe eating gems). Occasional pretty standard Zelda-style puzzles here and there that are sometimes challenging.

My biggest issue is that when you do too many actions (such as building a bunch of buildings) the game has ridiculous slowdown. Luckily, if you save and exit and restart the game, the slowdown disappears. Make it a habit of restarting every few hours or so.

This might seem like a deal breaker for some but this is a solo dev game so I let it slide considering. It only lasts around 15-25 hours so I don't feel like I've wasted too much of my life on it.

Basically an optimization sim if you want it to be, but you can also still beat it the sloppy way (it just might take longer).

The minimalist approach to practically everything in this game could easily be mistaken as a conscious design choice. There are a number of unique NPCs that I believe were likely originally additional party members but the feature eventually got nixed, which just proves to me that this game was originally more ambitious, at least in one regard.

There’s also something to say for how isolated this can feel at times. Not only because of the single party member but because of so many long narrow paths in dungeons that I guess enemies couldn’t fit into. Just some liminal creepiness whether intentional or not.

Edit: Finished. That was one of the longest 11 hour games I've ever played. Don't even necessarily mean that as an insult, it certainly felt like a "quest."

Part of me wants to try the "upgraded" Japanese version to see if it improves the overall feel. It's not like there's much story to follow anyway.

I’m glad I played this, regardless of whether I enjoyed the entirety of it, as it’s a truly incomparable experience.

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.

I'm sure the word "cozy" has been used hundreds of times during this game's development. It's basically BOTW and Stardew Valley with maybe a little bit of Animal Crossing, no surprise then that the Switch version seems to work better than the PC version, as it might be the main focus.

You can hang out with friends like most MMOs but it is very single-player driven.

Did I say this is cozy? Guilty pleasure but there's certainly nothing wrong with it, even if the opening is so much like BOTW's that it may as well be an homage.

It feels weird saying this but you should actually play the Switch version if you're going to play this.