I expected to fall head over heels for Terranigma and while it is often a profound and beautiful experience, I sadly did not enjoy playing it as much as I had anticipated. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adored the gradual worldbuilding as the game went on (Dragon Warrior VII eventually would embrace a similar idea and I love that game) but unfortunately I had a difficult time looking past the complete lack of meaningful progression within the combat. If this game was significantly shorter it wouldn't be an issue but you start the game with what is essentially your entire bag of tools for the whole playthrough; the only newly introduced options being a small list of spells that always felt far too cumbersome to use outside of some pretty specific situations. If there wasn't such a huge emphasis on combat then I could simply overlook this but a majority of the moment to moment gameplay is spent crawling through dungeons while dispatching piles of enemies and I always felt my eyes glaze over after a few minutes as I just did not find it engaging. That aside, it was also disappointing when the refreshingly brisk pacing of Acts I+II took such a massive nosedive in Act III as you get sent on far too many wild goose chases seemingly just for the sake of padding time; though to be fair, the results of these excursions tended to be memorable and interesting. I also can’t deny that the final moments of the game were genuinely amazing to behold but they still weren’t enough to erase the bitter taste left in my mouth from the cumbersome preceding hours and when the credits eventually rolled I found myself letting out a sigh of relief rather than one of fulfillment.