Terranigma (1995 Video Game) User Reviews

Awesome. Anything less would be an understatement.

[ZedPower · 10/10 · 5 December 2000]

Tenchi Sozou (Terranigma) may look and play like your typical action/roleplaying game, like The Legend of Zelda, or Secret of Mana, but is light-years beyond anything found in any of the great SNES-era classics where it matters: storytelling.

You play the role of Ark, a daring young man living in a mysterious subterranean world, built from lifeless crystal and bathed in an endless sea of fusing magma. After breaking the seal on a mysterious box hidden away in his village, Ark is suddenly entrusted with the impossible tax of bringing life back to the dry, withered lands of his planet's surface.

Eventually aided by the few struggling souls that survived a past cataclysm, Ark bravely begins this journey of resurrection so man could once again inhabit the world. But nothing is as it seems in this twisted reality... The fate of Earth comes to rest on his shoulders, and it's up to him to discover what really destroyed the world, and what exactly is the force working against his quest for life.

Anything else would be spoiling the story, but rest assured that it is but a fraction of the plot. You will be shaken to the core, that I can guarantee. The writers at Quintet have done their homework, and I can safely say that no video game plot has made me think and ponder more than Tenchi Sozou's, ever. This is definitely a well-deserved five star.

The game itself is a solid bird's-eye-view action/RPG, in the tradition of Zelda and its two prequels, SoulBlazer and Illusion of Gaia. Perhaps it won't blow your socks off, but it's challenging, well-balanced, and generally a blast to play.

The graphics and sound are on par with the plot. That means they're excellent. The soundtrack is memorable and fits the mood perfectly, and the visuals are near unmatched on the system. You want eye candy? It's there.

The bottom line is: if you can get your hands on Tenchi Sozou, by all means do. You won't regret it.

Undeniably fanatastic, but . . .

[benjaminburt · 9/10 · 13 October 2018]

Terranigma is a great game, and it's a shame it never got a release in North America. It's probably in the top 10 SNES RPGs, or even in the top 25 games on the system (which has arguably the best library of any console). The controls are tight, the story moves at a brisk, enjoyable pace, the soundtrack is absolutely gorgeous, there are funny moments, dramatic moments, and somber moments. This game should be played by just about anyone, especially fans of RPGs or action-adventure games like Link to the Past. If I had one criticism to level at the game, leveling is kind of unbalanced, and sometimes you have to grind, which is totally jarring when you're moving through a brisk, story-driven game. But this is relatively minor, Terranigma really is a must-play.

Now, I'm about to go into a spoiler, and I really don't want this game spoiled to you. I'm giving you a chance. Go out and play it. This next section is for people who have already played the game. You probably won't even get what I'm saying if you haven't played it. Terranigma is one of the best-kept secrets of the SNES, are you really going to ruin it for yourself. Leave, go play it, and come back to this review. Please? You think it's not a big deal, it is. All right. Everybody gone? Okay, here we go.

I hesitate to say that the story of Terranigma is great. It's made up of a bunch of great parts, but look back on it as a whole, and you're like, "huh?" I would relate it to this one episode of the Simpsons. Sideshow Bob takes Bart to a fictional "Five Corners" (analogous to the U.S.'s real-life "Four Corners") where five state boundaries intersect. Bob will stand in the first state, stick his gun over state line, pull the trigger in the second, it will pass through the third, strike Bart in the fourth, and he will fall dead into the fifth. No chapter or event breaks the narrative in Terranigma, but the sum total doesn't really make any sense. Last chance to back out, I'm spoiling the whole plot.

Okay, here's the premise. The planet is a sphere with an exterior face (represented by Light Gaia, or God, growth, progress) and an interior face (ruled by Dark Gaia, or the Devil, death, destruction). Over time, life evolved on Earth (much like on our world), but Dark Gaia rose up to oppose this life. After a climactic battle in Antarctica, neither side was victorious, and the continents and life were sunk into the sea. Good so far? Good. Now, what does Dark Gaia want? I suppose the destruction of life. So hasn't Dark Gaia achieved that? No, you'll tell me, because all life was in stasis, not death. Okay. But what's the difference? Light Gaia didn't seem to be resurrecting them anytime soon. No life on the surface world seems like a win to me.

Well, let's chalk this up to Dark Gaia pathologically wants everyone ever dead. Okay, so Dark Gaia takes a human from the Light world and either corrupts him or reincarnates his spirit into a dark being, the protagonist Ark, but Ark doesn't know anything about this. Dark Gaia makes spiritual projections of himself to serve as villagers and re-creates a village from the Light world just to raise Ark. He even re-creates a princess, Elle, to serve as Ark's lover? Why . . . ? I suppose this is to lull Ark into a sense of security and heed the word of the Elder, but why does he need her to be a copy of a real person? I guess you could argue that Dark Gaia cannot create, only mimic. But later, when your talk to the villagers of the Dark World, they become spooky scary spirits, but not so with Elle? Why?

Okay, so, in short, Dark Gaia, the Devil, tricks Ark into thinking it's his duty to resurrect the surface world. Interesting Dark Gaia wants to resurrect the surface world only to kill it again, but I've already mentioned that. Dark Gaia's ultimate goal seems to be to awaken his prized pawn, Beruga, a mad scientist who froze his body and made concoction that can turn people into zombies. How people becoming zombies is a benefit to Dark Gaia, I have no idea. Anyway, Dark Gaia puppeteers Ark into resurrecting humanity and helping it with scientific progress, only to develop the technology to awaken Beruga. His task accomplished, Dark Gaia, appearing in a dream as the Elder, tells Ark that he has completed his mission, and he can just go die. Ark discovers he was tricked.

Ark is told by the forces of good to find the five Starstones and take them to Antarctica, to the site of that epic battle. When he takes them there, his original Light world self appears, tells him that our protagonist, Ark, is the chosen one, and kill him. WHY? We are told that Ark was created from the Light world in the Dark world so that he could be an agent of both Light and Dark, and that's why he is the legendary warrior. It seems he wasn't just taken from the Light side, or this guy that appears and kills you would be one and the same as you. Our protagonist isn't wholly from the Dark side though. So who is this Light side Ark? Why does he kill you? Is it because you awoke Beruga? If the damage is already done, why does Ark need to be killed? It makes no sense.

Of course, our protagonist, Ark, is reborn as a baby through the power of Light Gaia. Let's not even question this. Dark Gaia sends out Elle from the Dark side to kill the baby. However, when Elle sees that it's Ark, she refuses. Why does she have a will of her own? Is she not a creation of Dark Gaia? Anyway, she sacrifices herself to defeat Yomi, Ark's little demon and traveling companion. Luckily, Ark gets Yomi's counterpart from the Light side, so no problemo there. Oh, yeah, Ark grows up into a full adult and becomes the legendary hero, this is the power of magic, I'm not even questioning that.

Ark and a ragtag team of buddies he has met along the way attack Beruga's fortress and destroy his airship with the biological weapon. Ark then must face Dark Gaia himself. After an epic final battle, Dark Gaia is defeated, "sealed" away. Ark realizes, as a creation of Dark Gaia, he will disappear. He awakens in his home town, the lovely place he grew up knowing, and as he falls asleep, he dreams he's a bird, flying over the surface world. Now, this ending is great. Great music, great dialogue, an altogether fitting conclusion. But, when you look back, you say, "But wasn't Ark originally from the Light side, and he was resurrected by Light Gaia, so why can't he go live in the Light side? I guess in my interpretation, Ark survived that final battle with Dark Gaia, but because of Dark Gaia's defeat, he split in two, the Light Ark going back to the surface world and the Dark dying in the underworld.

Anyway, like I said, the story hits really strong beats, but there are some pretty significant breaks in the internal consistency. Still a great game, you have to play it (hopefully you already have).