I need to get over my weird apathy for emulated games. I loved (LOVED) SoulBlazer, and Illusion of Gaia was pretty great, too! So why have I not played Terranigma, their Europe-only sequel? I think it is because I am a big dope, maybe.
Forgive the slightly dated text of this issue. All that Xenoblade and Last Story doom-and-gloom. My goodness!
I rather enjoyed that one . . . I believe I even sent you an email urging you to play it, like, 12 years ago or something. You know how when sometimes people hound you to do something, you’re even less likely to do it? Maybe that’s what happened. :)
I’ve played the intro a few times. I just can’t enjoy an emulated game for whatever reason. I lose interest a few minutes in.
I’ve had a couple of false starts with Terranigma for the same reason, but I’ve made much more progress in my current playthrough than ever before. And it’s worth sticking with, because it just keeps getting better.
Interestingly, it might be more of a proper sequel to Soul Blazer than Gaia was, since you once again play the role of an outsider systematically restoring the world to order (often via poignant and humane vignettes, which were the main factor Gaia upheld within its adventure novel framework). But as you’d expect from a game released in 1996 versus ’92, the concept was greatly expanded both in scope and detail, to great satisfaction.
Emulated or not, it’s worth playing. In fact, it was emulation that led to me importing a copy from Australia (yay!), and modding my SNES to play the game. Totally worth it.
As for your aversion to emulated games, does this extend to Virtual Console releases and collections like Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection? Seems like it should… or is it the legitimacy that bothers you more than anything?
Anyway. Terranigma. Awesome. Go play.
Should I look out for an UK-copy of the game? I´m going to the USA in 2 weeks, I could take it whith me an ship it to you from the east-coast…
He wouldn’t be able to play it.
Terranigma has that late-SNES-super-hardcore-extra-region-lock protection like Super Mario RPG. You need a very specific version of an import adapter to be able to play it. Unless you want to give Jeremy a PAL Super Nintendo and a power converter as well, that wouldn’t really help him. Plus, the game is not really on the cheap side of the price range, sadly.
Best, easiest way, like @Nobuyuki said: throw a software mod for homebrew on the Wii and play with Classic Controller.
That said, Terranigma is probably my all time favorite game. It was a seminal moment in my life as a consumer of media, if I may say so. I was 11 when it came out, my dad had just passed a year prior and a huge adventure where you go out and “fix” or “revive” the earth while experiencing nods to historical events (*ring*ring*!) accompanied by a fantastic soundtrack opened my eyes to the potential for videogames like no other game had before.
Gameplay wise, it has flaws (magic is almost useless, German pack-in players guide tells you to level up to L25 to beat a certain boss but 16 year later you learn on the internet that you can actually use magic in that rare case…). But I just can’t or won’t shut up about how awesome it is regardless. The theme of life/death/rebirth paired with the gorgeous visuals and music and being set all over the actual real world while allowing you to build up cities, it’s just pure gaming-gold.
Parish, go play! :)
You should look into emulation on the Wii. Once you’re playing it on a TV, with a Classic Controller, you’ll never even notice.
Or just plug a laptop into a TV. There’s a few options out there for USB SNES pads it seems.
Big fan of this one, though I tended to get stuck in Louran every time I played it.. until I found out about the infinite levelling trick from the boss in the tree. I want to play it again now, but I don’t have a SNES anymore.. just the cart. Its non-showing on VC is rather infuriating, if it ever showed up I’d dust off the ol’ Wii and have another go.. maybe when Wii U comes out… hah!
One surprise I had coming to Japan several years after first emulating the game on my old Windows 98 PC was realizing that the Japanese title “Tenchi Sōzō” is also the Japanese name for the Christian and Jewish creation narrative of Genesis. How fitting, right? http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9%E5%9C%B0%E5%89%B5%E9%80%A0
So a more proper translation of the title of the game might have been simply “Genesis”?
Wow. Though I can see why that probably wouldn’t have flown as a title for a SNES game.
So I take it you’ve never had a look at the various hacks and gameplay balances available for the FFT iso? That’s a shame, often they make the game worth replaying again and I know it’s a favorite of yours. Oh, and Terranigma is super neat!
I hear you about the emulation thing. Feels so strange, even with the right controllers and stuff. I don’t even really care for officially released collections on systems other than the native console.