Terranigma



An Action Adventure slash RPG for the Super Nintendo, and also a Spiritual Successor to Illusion of Gaia, which in turn was a Spiritual Successor to Soul Blazer which was a Spiritual Successor to ActRaiser. Still with us?

Anyway, the game centers around Ark, a mischievous little scamp who, bored with life in the quiet underground village of Crysta decides to ignore the orders of his village elder and Open That Which Should Not be Opened, which results in the entire population of his Doomed Hometown (except one chicken) turning into crystal. From there, Ark is then tasked with not only restoring his hometown, but also Saving the World that is above him.

So similar in play style to its predecessor, Terranigma has often been confused as, and even referred to (in-game, no less) as Illusion of Gaia 2. A fantastically enjoyable game, but was generally crippled in sales due to being released very close to the end of the Super Nintendo's life, as well as being released practically everywhere in the world except America for some reason. Chances are it probably couldn't find an American publisher due to the Nintendo 64 literally being right around the corner (it was already released in North America when Terranigma was released in Europe), coupled with the multiple themes of religion and death present in the title.

Known as Tenchisouzou, the original Japanese name of the game, it also got a short Manga adaptation by the same name.


 * Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewers in Neotokio.
 * After the End: Sort of.
 * All Just a Dream:, Or Was It a Dream? It's possible that it shows how a past lifecycle ended.
 * Alternate History: A bit hard to avoid because of the Decade Dissonance. Also, in the town expansion sidequests, the player can change history. For example, if you lie to Bell about his girlfriend dumping him, he won't invent the telephone.
 * An Interior Designer Is You: Ark can design his own house in Loire, but it doesn't serve much purpose. You can save your game and rest for free in it, though it costs so much compared to inns that it's unlikely you'll ever make a profit.
 * Possibly parodied, as Ark remarks that he doesn't have any use for much of the furniture when he buys it.
 * Artistic License: Biology: Continuing on Illusion of Gaia's theme of trying to show their work, but not knowing quite enough:
 * It's explained late in the game that.
 * In the ending, it's revealed that.
 * During chapter 2, you revive birds, then all animals, then humans. While the last one can be excused due to Humans Are Special, birds are animals too. They're not even in a different phylum than the animals in the Safaritorium! You also never revive fungi or microorganisms despite them being just as (if not more) important to the ecosystem than plants.
 * The order of revival is patterned after the order of creation in the Genesis narrative. First Land, then plants, then birds (and sea creatures), then the rest of the animals, then man.
 * Fungi show up near the Ra Tree after it's revived. Its possible that fungi and microorganisms are lumped in with plants.
 * Awesome but Impractical: Topping out your character isn't worth it that much, as the final 6 levels require double the EXP gained over the previous 44, and the reward for persevering is only 46 life points, 9 strength, 11 defense and 6 luck.
 * Background Boss: Subverted with Gossie. The enormous, fire-breathing two-headed dragon looks quite menacing, but it's actually a friendly creature. The real boss are the Hitoderons, the smaller starfish monsters in the foreground.
 * Badass Cape: Ark has a really nice-looking traveling cloak that he sadly doesn't wear except for when he's traveling the overworld.
 * Batman Gambit:.
 * Because Destiny Says So: Or rather,.
 * Beneath the Earth: The Underworld.
 * Big Boo's Haunt: and Sylvain Castle.
 * Big Eater: Ark, who will eat any food you have him interact with.
 * /: Take your pick, it's harsh either way.
 * Blind Idiot Translation: The aforementioned Illusion of Gaia 2 reference should've said Illusion of Time 2 because the English version of Terranigma only came out in Europe, and not America.
 * Oh, so many examples in this game. This troper's favorite occurs here: four evil dolls circle Ark singing a Japanese children's nursery rhyme, the last line of which is a clue to which doll is the "real" one that Ark should attack. The dolls' circling is timed so that they stop as soon as the nursery rhyme is finished. Now, to be fair, this is a very tricky thing to translate. There are a few ways one could go about this:
 * 1. Try to make an English nursery rhyme that uses the same number of characters as the original Japanese, so that the nursery rhyme would still end in the right place. This would be almost impossible due to the extreme verbosity of the English language as compared to Japanese.
 * 2. Write an English nursery rhyme that's as short as you can get it, and collaborate with the coders to lengthen the dolls' spin time to match the length of the new nursery rhyme.
 * 3. Write an English nursery rhyme that's as short as you can get it, and collaborate with the coders to speed up the rate at which the text appears so that it matches the length of time that the dolls spin.
 * 4. Be unfathomably lazy and just do a literal word-for-word translation of the nursery rhyme, leave the dolls' spin length alone so they stop spinning right in the middle of the song, before the last line that gives the hint to the identity of the "real" doll has shown, and call it a day.
 * Guess which one the localization team chose?
 * Boss Remix: If you listen carefully, you can hear traces of Setting Off on a Journey and Light and Darkness in the final battle theme, Overcoming Everything.
 * But Thou Must!: Among the most Tear Jerker use ever, when.
 * Chekhov's Skill: There exist only two critical uses for guarding: one is the boss fight at the end of the Escort Mission, and the other is the final battle where it limits the power output of the Wave Motion Gun attack to Scratch Damage.
 * Collision Damage: Can be confusing at times, as many enemies have weirdly-sized hitboxes.
 * Compressed Adaptation: The two volume Japan-only manga, which is currently being translated by Glacial Rebellion on Blogspot.
 * Continuity Nod: One of the places Ark can (optionally) resurrect is Mu, the location of the Vampire Twins from Illusion of Gaia.
 * Cruel and Unusual Death:.
 * Cute Mute:.
 * Darker and Edgier: Compared to Illusion of Gaia and certainly Soul Blazer.
 * Dark Is Not Evil:.
 * Decade Dissonance: Justified because most of the development is created during the game, and the ones that weren't are either from before the plane (thus making it hard to share the technology) or from.
 * There is also Decade Dissonance within a city itself — one of the characters, Perel, is a stereotypical black 90's skateboarder kid. You first meet him in a village that's around the seventeenth or eighteenth century in terms of technological progression.
 * Developer's Room/Easter Egg: You can visit Quintet's offices in Neotokio. One of the developers refers to the game as Illusion of Gaia 2.
 * Doomed Hometown: Kind of, though the first chapter centers on fixing it again.
 * Doppleganger Spin: Used by Bloody Mary's dolls - an inadequate translation meant people not familiar with the Japanese children's' game it was based on would have no idea which target to attack.
 * Downer Ending/Bittersweet Ending: Could be either one of them, depending on how you interpret The Stinger. It's incredibly touching though.
 * Eat the Dog: Ark is offended when snowed in with a mountain goat whose avalanche survival plan involves eating her dead husband.
 * Engagement Challenge: There is one in Loire, although.
 * Escort Mission: At one point in Chapter 2, you have to help Leim do a test that all lions have to do. It's quite frustrating.
 * Eternal Recurrence: An important plot device..
 * Evil Genius: Dr. Beruga.
 * Exposition Fairy: Yomi.
 * Fission Mailed: . This also happens when.
 * Flashback Nightmare: has one in Yunkou.
 * Forced Level Grinding: Mostly because gaining levels increases your power exponentially, and when you're even slightly under-leveled, you won't be able to deal more than a scratch with each hit. Even against common Mooks.
 * For Doom the Bell Tolls: In two tracks, Setting Off On A Journey (the Underworld theme) and Wandering Spirits (the "creepy" theme).
 * Foreshadowing: In the beginning, talk to the kid near the pond in Crysta. If you are Genre Savvy, you just know it will be important, only not how much...
 * Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: In typical Quintet fashion, almost all the bosses are these. The only aversions are the parasite plaguing the Ra Tree, the Final Boss and, arguably, Bloody Mary.
 * A God Am I:.
 * A God I Am Not
 * Good Bad Translation: The somewhat good translation begins to fall apart near the end of the game, and it's debatable whether it completely shatters or magically redeems itself with Beruga's infamous "I thank you for arousing me" line.
 * Gory Discretion Shot: Every time someone dies, the screen just turns black and, at most, flashes red. Which is surprising, considering how often this trope was averted in Illusion of Gaia.
 * Guide Dang It:
 * In Yunkou, a sidequest requires you to cross all the way back through the Taklama desert and give a flower to the mute girl in the nomads' camp. In fairness, the game does tell you that flowers will cheer up a mute girl. Unfortunately, there are also red herrings clouding the issue. The mute girl in the nomads' camp? Not the only mute girl in the game..
 * Due to Forced Level Grinding mentioned above, most people seem to think that you're meant to gain a good 5-10 levels before fighting That One Boss Bloody Mary to be able to do more than single-digit damage to her. However, what you're meant to do is to use your various spell-casting rings to deplete most of her HP. The only problem is that you're only allowed to use them against specific bosses, the game never tells you which ones, and it's easy to forget that it's even an option.
 * The Final Boss only becomes vulnerable if you turn your back to it. The game does not give you any hints to this.
 * Happy Ending Override: Ark wonders what he was fighting for, and in the ending.
 * Heel Face Turn:.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:.
 * Hide Your Children: Averted with the.
 * Hoist by His Own Petard:.
 * Holding Out for a Hero: The entire world does this, requiring a hero to restore the continents and further human evolution.
 * Hollow World: The game starts out in one before you head to the world.
 * Human Popsicle:.
 * Humans Are the Real Monsters: If you return to Evergreen after resurrecting humanity, you will notice that it has taken a change for the worse. Also, if you expand Suncoast (Australia), the animals you helped earlier will be captured and put in a zoo.
 * I Just Want to Be Normal:
 * I'm a Humanitarian: One goat in Chapter 2 doesn't think anything of eating her dead husband.
 * Immortal Hero:.
 * Improvised Weapon: A lot of things Ark gets his hands on could be used as spears or rods. Even spiky plant branches.
 * Inn Security: Every time you get a free night at the inn, expect something relevant to the plot to happen.
 * Insurmountable Waist High Fence: A few particularly infuriating cases.
 * Interface Screw: The Confused status ailment that randomly rotates your directional controls either 90 or 180 degrees. Taken further, in that every time the game reminds you that you're confused, the controls are re-randomized.
 * Invulnerable Civilians: About all you can do is bean folks with thrown pots.
 * Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: A lot of famous people appear in the game with different names. Sven Hedin and Christopher Columbus are two examples.
 * Leitmotif: Characters with their own theme songs include Yomi, Elle, Leim, Royd, Fyda, Perel and Beruga.
 * Lost Forever: A bunch of the civilization growth bonuses should you elect as mayor of Loire or lie to Bell about . Or even if you screw up the construction of the Big Mick.
 * You can also miss raising Polynesia and Mu from the ocean in the first chapter.
 * There are also numerous magirocks that can be permanently missed if the areas where they are located in get changed.
 * The Lost Woods: Norfest Forest. Particularly aggravating in that trial and error is a necessity because your pathfinding item only indicates whether you take a correct turn, and there's also a section that's quite dark.
 * Love Makes You Evil:.
 * Mad Scientist: Dr. Beruga.
 * The Man Behind the Man: So many of them..
 * Meaningful Name: Ark.
 * Also Yomi, which means "the Underworld" in Shinto mythology.
 * Mercy Invincibility: Barely. Like, half a second. Don't rely on it.
 * National Stereotypes: Yunkou depicts a highly unflattering portrayal of China. The townsfolk there do not speak properly unlike the other people around the world, and the town itself is polluted and unclean, with a brownish coloration outside and ugly pipes and vents on the insides.
 * Never Got to Say Goodbye:.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The plot practically revolves around this trope. Hell, the game starts off with you opening Pandora's Box..
 * Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:.
 * Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Meilin ends up being this several times even in-story with her Psychic Powers to create the illusion of dead people.
 * Nintendo Hard: A few of the bosses are made exponentially more difficult by having Collision Damage coupled with weird hit detection, an Instant Death Radius that forces you to use an attack that gives you a few frames of invulnerability with a possibility of getting caught up on the boss and taking massive damage, or has absurd attacks that deal damage faster than you can heal.
 * Yet, at the time of its launching, the game was heavily criticised for being far too easy. Go figure.
 * Even by today's standards, this game is pretty easy. The "few frames of invulnerability" are pretty much the whole attack that you're using almost exclusively because it does the most damage in almost every case. The game just gets difficult if you miss one or two levels and so cause minimal damage. When you come back after 15 minutes of Forced Level Grinding most fights are trivial.
 * No Sneak Attacks: Averted when.
 * Omnidisciplinary Scientist:.
 * One-Winged Angel: The Final Boss. It's a Quintet game, this is a given.
 * Physical God:.
 * Pimped-Out Dress: The sprite for Bloody Mary.
 * Pixel Hunt: The secret areas on the world map.
 * Playable Epilogue: The saddest one ever.
 * Playing Tennis With the Boss: The second form of the Dark Morph, which is probably an intentional Shout-Out to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Also, the first form of the Final Boss, though it's reflected at an angle rather than straight back.
 * Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Ark.
 * Prodigal Hero
 * Prophecies Are Always Right:.
 * Rare Candy: There are potions which increase max health, strength, defense or luck.
 * Reincarnation: Another important plot device.
 * Scary Shiny Glasses: Beruga's glasses.
 * Scenery Porn: Just look at some of the images of Earth during the resurrections during the first part of the game.
 * Schizo-Tech: Since the game covers some 2,000 years of human and technological evolution over the space of a few (in-game) years, it's hard to avoid this in places. Also leads to Decade Dissonance when some cities advance before others.
 * Science Is Bad: ...Maybe. On the one hand, technological and scientific progress helps the people in the game grow and prosper, but on the other hand, one of the primary antagonists is a Mad Scientist... Perhaps the moral is "some science is good, but too much is bad"?
 * It's more like a Positivist view on science, meaning that science is more like a neutral... thing, and that depending on the use people give to it, it can be good (most of those who invented something) or bad (Beruga, hands down).
 * Sealed Good in a Can:.
 * Shoot the Shaggy Dog:.
 * Subverted;.
 * In some ways, the.
 * Social Darwinist:.
 * Spam Attack: Rapidly tapping the attack button will cause Ark to go into a flurry of jabs with his spear.
 * Speaks Fluent Animal: Ark begins his journey with the ability to talk to animals. Animals and plants, actually. He loses this power when he resurrects humanity.
 * Spiritual Successor: Of another Spiritual Successor that was a successor to a Spiritual Successor.
 * Star-Crossed Lovers:.
 * The Stinger: . Throughout the years, some theories have evolved concerning how this is possible (not counting "it just happened"). They include:
 * Strawman Political: The Dirty Communist candidate in the Loire election is literally dirty - a notorious deadbeat drunkard. Not so much in the moral sense, though. However,.
 * There's quite some confusion about Louis' political orientation. Most players call him a communist, but he has also been called a conservative. On the other hand, Jean's idea to use taxes to advance production, city infrastructure, technology and cultural life could also be seen as a more refined communist position. One could argue that Louis simply represents populism in general in opposition to Jean's authentic and informed political decision-making.
 * Tactical Suicide Boss: The Cadet form of the Dark Morph and the first form of the Final Boss, which both involve Playing Tennis With the Boss.
 * The second form of could be considered either this or just plain Idiot Ball, as well. It's flying, so you can't hit it unless it comes close to you, which it presumably does to attack you better or... something. You'd think it would wise up to this after the second time you whip around and smack it though.
 * "Three Laws"-Compliant: Beruga directly references all three laws, except his interpretation of the Zeroth Law rewrote "Humanity" as "Dr. Beruga", meaning that any threat to his being was to be immediately terminated.
 * Thriving Ghost Town: Louran, a prosperous and thriving town in the middle of the desert....
 * Throw the Dog a Bone: Played to a ridiculous extent in the ending.
 * The Stinger.
 * Time Skip: There is actually one in between the resurrection of humankind and your awakening in Lhasa, spanning three years. You are casually informed about this by an NPC. It can be easy to miss.
 * The Tokyo Fireball:.
 * Treacherous Advisor:.
 * Tsundere: Meilin. Verging on Yandere, but gets better.
 * Turbine Blender:.
 * The Unfought:.
 * Useless Useful Spell: The only time you'll use spells is when fighting Bloody Mary because every other boss fight flat-out disables your magic for no real reason. A shame because the magic you get is actually pretty darned powerful.
 * Video Game Geography: Both the underworld and the overworld maps are in fact toroidal. Although in the case of the underworld map, a lava sea prevents you from travelling all the way around in any direction. But yeah, the overworld is completely toroidal, you can get to the South Pole by travelling north from Greenland.
 * Was It Really Worth It?: Ark wonders this, and in the ending.
 * Where It All Began:.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:.
 * Tsundere: Meilin. Verging on Yandere, but gets better.
 * Turbine Blender:.
 * The Unfought:.
 * Useless Useful Spell: The only time you'll use spells is when fighting Bloody Mary because every other boss fight flat-out disables your magic for no real reason. A shame because the magic you get is actually pretty darned powerful.
 * Video Game Geography: Both the underworld and the overworld maps are in fact toroidal. Although in the case of the underworld map, a lava sea prevents you from travelling all the way around in any direction. But yeah, the overworld is completely toroidal, you can get to the South Pole by travelling north from Greenland.
 * Was It Really Worth It?: Ark wonders this, and in the ending.
 * Where It All Began:.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:.