The Granstream Saga

Quintet never really got their footing back after Terranigma was passed up for a North American release; they hung on for a few more years, taking another crack or two at the RPG limelight, but eventually gave way to making mediocre budget titles before fading into obscurity.  Granstream Saga was an attempt to bring their usual style of grim-themed RPGs to a new generation, but it struggled to make headway among other juggernauts of the time (most particularly Final Fantasy VII, released the year prior).  This probably wasn't helped by its extremely restricted design -  the game is almost entirely linear with no chance to deviate from the set story path (even level gains are all pre-scripted events) and the combat is focused entirely on repetitious one-on-one duels, so it lacks the epic scale of other contemporary RPGs. Somehow it feels both high-budget and low-budget at the same time, with a lot of high-quality animated cutscenes, well-rendered environments and decent VO for the time, though the 3D animation is rather stiff in comparison and a lot of elements are depicted only through text rather than as onscreen events.  Unlike most lackluster RPGs, though, it recognizes its own shortcomings, providing a relatively brisk experience (15-20 hours) that doesn't overstay its welcome too much.  Granstream might hold some appeal for fans of games like Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma and Soul Blazer on the SNES, but it certainly doesn't outshine any of them.

Developer: Shade
Publisher: THQ
Released: 1998
Platforms: Playstation 1

Soul Blazer

The followup to Quintet's 1991 hit Actraiser and the first in a loose trilogy of similarly-themed action RPGs for the SNES, Soul Blazer was a modest success that has since developed a fan following.  But does it hold up as well as its brothers, or is this just the forgotten first in line?

Soul Blazer  came out on the heels of two highly-acclaimed games - Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, and its own predecessor Actraiser, so it had quite a tough act to follow.  Particularly as it borrowed elements of both - the top-down perspective of Zelda (with a few more RPG elements worked in) and several thematic similarities to Actraiser, so it was only inevitable that there would be unfavorable comparisons between the games.

But while it may not be the most fondly remembered of Quintet's library, one can't say it doesn't try to be a good game in its own right.  SoulBlazer certainly shows a lot of elements that would become Quintet hallmarks, most prominently in its dark mood.  The player is put in the role of an angelic character, tasked with rejuvenating a destroyed world and banishing the evil that caused it.  Between this, he visits towns and speaks with people there, and can revisit a "home base" of sorts to regenerate HP and save his progress.

The action in Soul Blazer largely takes place from a top-down perspective, though rather than having a focus on puzzles, Soul Blazer is more focused on action, having the player traverse levels, avoid traps and clear out "monster lairs" one-by-one, gaining experience for kills and uncovering treasures for destorying layers, before eventually confronting a level boss.  It's actually a bit reminiscent of Gauntlet in that regard.  The developers also went out of their way to ensure that focus stayed on player skill rather than simple stat-grinding - the amount of points one can earn in any given area is usually finite, so the only way to overcome the bosses is to memorize their patterns and counter accordingly.

The game does work in a few other RPG elements too, with the most prominent example being the equipment one finds throughout the adventure; usually as a reward for clearing certain monster lairs or viewing certain milestone events in towns.  In addition to the typical boost in one's defense stat, armors often have a secondary effect - the Ice armor, for example, makes one immune to damage from fiery floors, while the Bubble armor makes the player able to enter underwater areas.  Often these are just specific to one stage, but a few others have added benefits later on - the Magic armor halves the cost of magic, while the Light armor makes the player immune to attacks from weaker enemies, for example.

Weapons follow a similar trend, with some being required to defeat a particular type of enemy and others proving useful in different ways later in the game as well.  For example, the Psycho sword can stun metal creatures, the Zantetsu sword can outright kill them, and the Critical Sword, while one of the weaker weapons, has a small chance to instantly kill any enemy it hits (sans bosses, of course). Arguably the most useful one, though, is the Recovery Sword, which is not only powerful, but causes the player to regenerate some health when an enemy is defeated with it.

Magic is an interesting element in the game too.  While the player doesn't get an MP bar per se, these attacks are instead performed by spending Gems (a name which initially led me to believe there was a shop system, but no such thing exists in-game).  They are awkward to use, though, as all of them originate not directly from the player, but from the "soul" that steadily orbits around him throughout the game, making them somewhat difficult to aim.  There is a surprising variety of effects (launching a fireball straight ahead, arrows in four directions, leaving a ring of energy that damages enemies on contact, and so forth), though I generally found it more convenient and practical to just kill enemies with my sword instead.

Soul Blazer also definitely isn't Quintet's finest game in its aesthetic design, with graphics that are decent but lack the clean, chibi-fied style of Zelda or the intricate detail of some of their later games like Terranigma; nothing about them is bad, but not a lot stands out either (the highlight easily being some of the more grotesque boss designs).  Similarly, the soundtrack isn't as memorable or epic as Quintet's other SNES games; Yukihide Takekawa went for more of an upbeat rock soundtrack that sounds distinctly more like "video game level" music than most of Quintet's library.  It still does a good job setting the mood for the environments and giving the action some punch, but it's a very different feel from the more moody scores of Actraiser, Terranigma and Illusion of Gaia.

And I think that also works to explain Soul Blazer as a whole.  It lives in the shadow of games that came before it and is even more overshadowed by Quintet's own pseudo-sequels that came later.  But those who give it a chance will find that it's a pretty interesting game in its own right; sort of an experimental outing that allowed Quintet to get their footing and make more ambitious and polished action-driven games in the future.  Definitely worth a look on its own merit too, especially for some of its interesting story elements and challenging battles.

Developer: Quintet
Publisher: Enix
Platform: SNES
Released: 1992
Recommended Version: N/A

Actraiser

One of the first major releases for the Super Nintendo, Actraiser was one part action, one part god game and one part RPG, putting the player in the shoes of a deity and having them reclaim a broken world from evil.  But does this inventive fusion of genres still hold strong today, or is Actraiser just a game to be cast off and forgotten?

Released only a few months after the Super Nintendo's debut, Actraiser is fondly remembered by many as one of the essential early SNES games.  Not only did it show off the system's capabilities with some amazing graphics, a huge sense of scale with its two distinct gameplay modes and some downright incredible orchestral music (composed by the legendary Yuzo Koshiro, no less), but even the concept was a relatively unique one at the time - sims and god games were starting to gain a foothold on the PC with games like Simcity, SimEarth and Civilization, so seeing one on a console was a pretty fresh experience for many.  Even the box art was eye-catching, showing a massive lightning storm over the pyramids of Egypt with the caption "Create order from chaos!", letting SNES adopters know they were in for something grandiose and epic.

Even with Nintendo of America's censorship policies in place, the scope of the concept wasn't difficult to grasp either.  Playing as "the Master" (God in the Japanese version), the player takes control of an angelic being and does battle with the forces of Tanzra (Satan) across two modes of gameplay.  The first one of these the player sees is the side-scrolling action game element, where the player starts off with a relatively meager health bar and a magic meter with one charge to start (though more can be found in stages).  These segments are relatively simple platforming fare, avoiding traps and dispatching minor foes, each capped off with a boss fight that often requires carefully-placed movement and attack timing to overcome.

That element is serviceable, if slightly clumsy to play and ultimately not much different than what was already seen before in several prominent NES titles.  But between action segments, one is treated to the sim element of the game, and this is what truly makes Actraiser into something special.  There are six locales to visit, each with a temple at its center, and the citizens of each town each face their own hardships that the player will try to help fix.  Most prominent among these are constant sieges from demon lairs - spaces on the map that constantly spawn enemies, which the player must eliminate with the aid of their angel servant until the lair is cleared, lest they destroy crops and houses and terrorize the populace.  Defating enemies also earns the player SP, which allows them to perform other godly feats, detailed below.

Just as important as defeating Tanzra's minions, the land around the cities is often not suited for expansion, with shrubs, deserts, marshlands and other deterrents preventing the city's population and crops from growing.  To combat this, the player utilizes a number of Miracles to clear the way for cities to grow.  Lightning burns away trees and bushes, rain sweeps away sand, and using the power of the sun to melt snow and dry up swamps are among your godly abilities.  One can also summon wind to blow enemies off the map, though this of questionable value as they will gain no SP (required to fuel more Miracles) for doing so.  Finally, one can also summon earthquakes, which devastates all low and mid-level buildings and crops on the map; this doesn't sound especially useful, but doing so does actually come in handy in the later stages of the game, forcing cities comprised of lower-level buildings to rebuild as high-level ones that support more citizens.

The city sim elements in turn help the player during the action segments; as populations grow and thrive, the people will begin to worship the Master more and his power in turn grows, expanding his health bar and total number of spell slots for the action segments and in turn improving his odds at overcoming the enemies within them.  The player will also gain more SP for the city segments, letting them use Miracles more freely and gain access to new ones, steadily allowing them to reclaim land for their citizens and power themselves up further.  A simple, but effective balance between the two major gameplay styles.

Actraiser's concept is certainly an interesting one that melds two gameplay styles in creative fasion, but it's certainly not as deep as one might expect from a game with simulation elements.  There aren't really any Simcity-style random disasters that can cause unexpected harm to cities, for example, nor does one have to micromanage resources like power, water and technology.  In fact, your citizens mostly just work on their own and only rely on you to fend off monsters and take on the occasional obstacle they can't handle themselves (like having to trigger an earthquake to reveal a sunken island).  Still, there is enough to do in these segments that they never get to be too tedious, and one can occasionally find a hidden secret or two by experimenting with their powers (like striking the temple with a lightning bolt, which causes the citizens to relinquish an extra life in fear of your wrath).

Still, the unique fusion of gameplay elements, as well as consistently entertaining design, make Actraiser a compelling experience.  Moreso with its creative (and frequently grotesque) monster designs, polished graphics and, of course, a fantastic Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack that fully took advantage of the SNES's sound hardware, resulting in a game that sounded as close to a real symphony as you could get on a video game console.  There is even a bit of replay value, as completing the game once unlocks "Professional Mode" - a higher difficulty that makes the action segments much more challenging but sadly excludes the sim element entirely.  It's not hard to see why this game is a cult classic for the system, and for fans of Quintet, it's an interesting look at where their forays into the RPG genre began in the 16-bit era.

(Also notable: The game's sequel removes not only the sim element, but the RPG element as well, and revamps the gameplay to be more of a slower-paced action game similar to the Ghosts n' Goblins series.  Still a game worth playing, but a vastly different experience from this one.)

Developer: Quintet
Publisher: Enix
Platform: SNES, Wii Virtual Console, Mobile
Released: 1991, 2004, 2007
Recommended Version: I have only played the SNES version, so I can't speak for the mobile version's quality.  The Wii Virtual Console version (no longer available) is a direct port of the SNES version.

Illusion of Gaia

Quintet's third prominent outing on the Super Nintendo, Illusion of Gaia was something of a more linear Zelda title, putting emphasis on dungeon puzzles and enormous boss encounters on the backdrop of their usual moody storytelling.  But did they manage to make this one a hit too, or does it just pale in comparison to Actraiser and Soul Blazer?

Quintet is a name known to several old-school gamers, particularly for one of the first games to get major attention in the west as one of the first big SNES titles.  That game was Actraiser - a combination of a sidescrolling action platformer and a city simulation.  Backed by a story about God and the devil (aka "Master" and "Tanzra" respectively owing to NOA censorship) squaring off with humanity's existence at stake.  That, paired with a moody soundtrack that still gets acclaim to this day, made it a very distinct and memorable, if not especially deep, title.  Similar themes would also carry over into their later game called SoulBlazer, though the game itself was more of a straightforward action title with some light RPG elements.

Illusion of Gaia is another game continuing in that same vein, though the journey is now a more down-to-earth and personal one.  Starring a boy named Will and his circle of friends as they are thrust into a world-spanning adventure by a strange series of events, the game takes interest in giving each of them a personal journey and development as the events of the story unfold.

However, despite the story encompassing several characters, only Will himself is actually playable.  At a glance, he seems to operate similarly to Link from the Zelda series, being able to slash his weapon in any direction and block attacks by facing them and spinning his flute with the shoulder buttons.  He is also said to have a "sixth sense", which comes into the game in a few ways - telepathy lets him communicate with various NPCs and objects, and he can also pull objects toward him with telekinesis while blocking.  A few others are unlocked as the game progresses, with Will being able to do a charged shoulder tackle, a tornado spin and a slide, which work both as attacks and as a means to bypass certain obstacles.

Character progression is fairly mundane too, though it features a somewhat unusual format from some RPGs; rather than gaining experience points, the player instead earns stat upgrades by clearing all enemies from a room - they'll either add one hit point to their maximum, one attack point or one defense point.  Defeating certain enemies will also clear obstacles on the map, and these are fixed each time.  Basically, one will want to defeat every enemy they come across to maximize their effectiveness in the later stages.  Collecting gems dropped by enemies will certainly help too - the game has a somewhat unusual "lives" system in place where, if the player dies while having a life in reserve, they will simply restart at the entrance of the current room.  Dying with no lives in reserve, though, will send them back several rooms.  For every 100 gems collected, one life is added to the player's reserves, maxing out at nine.

As the game progresses, Will also unlocks two alternate playable forms.  The earlier of the two is Freedan the Dark Knight, an enormous armored figure that wields a powerful sword and can launch a projectile attack known as the "Dark Friar" to trigger switches or damage enemies from afar.  The second, unlocked late in the game, is known as "Shadow", and has the ability to become a liquid-like form to sink through floors or simply avoid damage for a few seconds.

All of this sounds like a setup to give the game something of a Metroid-like feel, allowing the player to backtrack and find new secrets and areas as new abilities and forms are unlocked.  To a small degree, this is true; however, Illusion of Gaia has a very linear layout overall - very rarely is the player afforded chances to backtrack to previously cleared areas and find new things.  Usually, if one can find something, it's available as soon as they come to a new place and they should find it as quickly as possible, as if they leave that area they're likely not going to be coming back.

As one can imagine, this is a bit of a pain if you're trying to complete the game's overarching sidequest.  Throughout the game there are a total of fifty hidden Red Jewels, and collecting enough of them will earn prizes when cashed in at the Jeweler Gem - usually in the form of powering up one of your abilities or giving you small stat boosts.   In dungeons, these are usually in plain sight - most often found in prominent treasure chests - but in towns they tie into several different things, from NPC dialog to minigames to simply checking jars, bookshelves and background objects.  Collecting all fifty and talking to him one last time will unlock a bonus dungeon and boss that serve as a small callback to Soul Blazer, though no additional rewards are unlocked by completing it - not even a stat boost or an extended ending.

But while Illusion of Gaia's gameplay and design has a few rough edges, one cannot deny that Quintet once again plays to their strengths in its aesthetics.  The visual style of the game is downright gorgeous, with vividly colored, imaginative takes on real-world locales and some downright gorgeous animation, particularly on the main character.  Character designs themselves are provided by Moto Hagio - a relatively unknown name in the west, but a prominent shojo manga artist in Japan (though fans of obscure '90s anime releases may be familiar with the dub of "They Were Eleven").   And of course the game's soundtrack is phenomenal, sounding less like a Super Nintendo game and more like a full orchestral score, telling the tale of the fantastic journey the protagonists face.  Both of these add tremendously to the game's charm and atmosphere, taking what would be a good-but-not-great video game and punctuating the writing to turn it into something truly captivating and memorable.

In short, Illusion of Gaia is something of a forgotten classic for the Super Nintendo.  Its gameplay draws many cues from the Legend of Zelda series and executes them in a competent if somewhat underdeveloped fashion, while its storytelling and atmosphere rank among the best in gaming even today.  Its well-written characters, dark themes and yet overall uplifting feel make it into a truly captivating journey.  It may almost never be mentioned in the same breath as games like Link to the Past, Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger, but to me at least, this one stands as one of the greatest the Super Nintendo had to offer and one of my favorite games of all time.  It really is a crime that this one hasn't gotten any kind of official re-release on any download services or microconsoles.

Developer: Quintet
Publisher: Enix
Platform: Super Nintendo
Released: 1994
Recommended Version: N/A

Robotrek

Quintet is a beloved name among fans of 16-bit gaming, producing a number of cult classics that maintain their unique appeal even today.  However, not too many talk about or even remember Robotrek.  But is that because the game is the black sheep of their lineup, or is this another gem that was simply overlooked?

Robotrek was an odd case, being released in the thick of the RPG renaissance by an acclaimed publisher, and yet it flew under the radar while games like Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy III (actually 6) and Phantasy Star IV crept into the limelight.  It has an interesting premise, too - building robots which fight in lieu of your main character and a unique combat system with a few new quirks not seen in any prior JRPG.  But where did it all go wrong?  Well, let's take a look.

Robotrek is known as "Slapstick" in Japan and appropriately tries to be a humorous game with its cartoonish characters and silly dialog.  However, this proves to be the first of its stumbling blocks - Enix's translators were somewhat notorious for missing the mark with their translations, leading to many instances of dialog that just leave the player confused rather than want to laugh.  Some elements do still work (the particularly outlandish villain designs, for example), but it's not a good sign when an element of the game that's right in the Japanese title gets mangled in the North American release.

A more flagrant flaw soon shows itself as well.  Quintet was a company known for giving their games an epic, operatic feel, and a large part of that stemmed from their soundtracks; simply put, they used the technology of the SNES to tremendous effect, creating scores that sounded just a step down from a real-life orchestral performance.  Robotrek's soundtrack, on the other hand, is drab at best and downright obnoxious at worst, with the most egregious offender being the combat theme - a downright irritating twenty-two-second loop that will have you reaching for the mute button after only a few battles.  It's just sounds so out of place given what we'd already come to expect from the company, and with games like the aforementioned further upping the ante for RPG soundtracks, it's hard to believe they decided that this was acceptable for their own entry to the genre.

But there is more to a game than aesthetics, and Robotrek does at least make efforts to be unique on a gameplay front.  The centeral theme of Robotrek, as the name suggests, is that the player can build and customize their own robots to fight in their stead during battles.  Up to three can be created, though unfortunately only one can be on the field at a time, with the player having to manually swap them out and using a turn each time they do.

Each robot can be equipped with three weapons - one on each arm and one on their back.  Arm weapons come in a variety of forms - guns, swords, axes and shields to name a few - while the back slot is generally reserved for a long-ranged bomb attack.  Each robot's stats can be freely adjusted as well, letting the player make a "roadblock" robot equipped with two shields and maxed defense, but no offensive capabilities whatsoever if they choose (and honestly, this is not a bad idea during some of the later bosses - swap in your defender once your fighter falls, heal your fighter back up, then swap them in once the coast is clear).

The combat system is also relatively innovative for the time, working somewhat like the Active Time Battle system from Final Fantasy.  Each character in the fight has a time bar that slowly ticks up, and once it fills, they can take their action.  Each action the player takes will deplete more of their time bar, requiring a longer time to take their next turn if they use a more powerful weapon or attack.  For example, a sword swing will only deplete the bar slightly while a bomb will deplete a large chunk of it.  The tradeoff, of course, is that more powerful actions generally deplete more time from the bar, adding a risk-versus-reward element.  The player can also pre-program combination attacks, allowing them to strike multiple times in a single round with their various weapons; this too comes with a drawback as all of the attacks used will deplete a respective chunk of the bar.  The player has the option to speed up the time bar's filling as well by rapidly pressing A and B, though this comes at a price too - if they do this, their robot's defense will weak until their next turn, making them more vulnerable to attack.

That's all well and good, but combat overall is relatively limited.  There are no real "spells" or spell-like special moves available to the player, meaning that your only action at the beginning of each turn is using an item, attacking or defending.  A few weapons do have special properties - Sword 3 causes a lightning attack to strike all enemies while Hammer 2 causes the character to recover HP when striking an enemy - but for the most part, combat is rather one-note and monotonous.  Which isn't a particularly good thing when the game also requires substantial amounts of grinding and stat redistribution in order to overcome many of the bosses, lest you be stuck doing only a single point of damage to them with each attack.

Robotrek is one of the earliest games I can think of to utilize a crafting system as well.  Throughout the game, the player can combine items together in order to make new ones - in fact, this is required for all of the top-tier weapons in the game, as well as many key items needed to proceed in the plot.  Combining a Sword and a Hammer, for example, will produce an Axe, while combining a Rusty Drill with a Clean will create a usable drill.  A creative idea, though it's once again hampered by the translation - items tend to have very similar names (Axe 1, Axe 2, Scrap 5, Scrap 7, et cetera) and only certain items will combine into specific weapons, leading to either much trial and error or forcing the player to have a guide by their side so that they will know what scraps go with what other scraps to create a useful item.  As one can imagine, this only gets more frustrating when one needs to craft a particular plot item to proceed, but then had to go through a trial-and-error process to figure out exactly which part goes with what to create said item.  The game attempts to rectify this by letting the player read books to discover various crafting combinations; however, the player's level must match or exceed the level of the book in order to successfully read it and gain the recipe.  Which means - you guessed it - more grinding!

Overall, Robotrek is a disappointment.  Not because it's a bad game, but because it's a mediocre RPG overall, mostly forgettable outside of having a few clever (if not always well-implemented) elements.  In comparison to the well-paced, beautiful emotional experiences that Quintent games like Actraiser and the SoulBlazer trilogy provided it just doesn't have nearly as much to offer.  Pair that with the fact that the Super Nintendo was starting to get a large number of incredible, groundbreaking RPGs around the time this one came out, it's not hard to see why Robotrek is one that few people bother to revisit.

Developer: Quintet, Ancient
Publisher: Enix
Platform: Super Nintendo
Released: 1994
Recommended version: N/A

Terranigma

Quintet's final game to be released outside of Japan, but also one of their most overlooked.  But is that a result of its quality, or just an unfortunately-timed release?

The mid-1990s was something of a golden era for RPGs; computing technology saw many large leaps in that time frame, allowing games to reach amazing new heights in both design quality and aesthetic style.  Japanese RPGs in particular had a huge boom in popularity, with games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII taking the genre away from the perception of a slow-paced, grind-heavy experience and into something more akin to an anime series or action film on a cartridge.  Square was not the only one to jump in on this trend, though - Sega's Phantasy Star series also saw a leap to a manga-inspired style of storytelling with Phantasy Star IV, the Lunar games on the Sega CD took things in an almost Disney-esque direction with their high-quality voice acting and animated cutscenes, and behind them both, a mostly overlooked company called Quintet crafted some memorable experiences of their own on the Super Nintendo.

A small company born of alumni from Falcom's Ys series, Quintet made their first leap into prominence with the early SNES title Actraiser, a game that combined elements of platforming, RPGs and city simulations together.  While not the most well-polished experience out there, its unique combination of gameplay styles paired with an amazing orchestral soundtrack (courtesy of legendary composer Yuzo Koshiro) helped push the SNES into the spotlight and also served as the first example of Quintet's distinct storytelling style - battles of good and evil forces in desolated worlds, pulling no punches with their dark themes and tragic characterizations.  A pretty uncommon sight for a system owned by a company that would censor games for so much as using the word "kill".

Quintet would later go on to publish several other highly regarded (though niche) titles, including Robotrek, Illusion of Gaia, Actraiser 2 and of course Terranigma.  Terranigma is perhaps their most overlooked game, though that mainly comes down to the timing of its release; by 1996, Quintet's former publisher Enix had closed their North American branch and overseas distribution rights for Terranigma went to Nintendo themselves, who passed on releasing the game in North America in favor of promoting the Nintendo 64 (a decision which also famously resulted in the cancellation of the long-anticipated Star Fox 2).  As a result, the game's English release was relegated to being a European exclusive, and even there was only printed in very limited quantities, drastically limiting its reach.

A very unfortunate turn of events for Quintet, especially because Terranigma is the company's most refined work by a significant margin.  The relatively simple visual style of their earlier games has been totally overhauled, providing a stylized and beautifully animated aesthetic heavily reminiscent of Square games like Chrono Trigger and Treasure of the Rudras.  The gameplay has been similarly built up, with combat no longer consisting of simple attacking, blocking and dodging; the player can now do spinning attacks, sliding kicks, rapid-fire slashes and running slashes, all of which prove useful in various ways throughout the game.  Also somewhat uncommon for the series are a traditional leveling system (defeating enemies to gain experience points and stat increases) and, more shockingly, a money system - defeated enemies now drop gold that you use to buy new equipment, giving the game a slightly more traditional RPG feel in comparison to its predecessors.

The game also now has a magic system, though the way it operates is somewhat odd; throughout the game, the player connects "Magirocks" that serve as an MP gauge of sorts.  They must also buy magic rings and pins, which are one-use spellcasting items that require a certain amount of Magirocks to "store".  Using a ring/pin casts a particular spell, freeing up Magirocks for later use.  It's an interesting idea, but as most spells tend to be fairly weak (especially in the game's late stages), I didn't end up using them much.  Still, I can't help but wonder if this element was something they didn't have time to fully flesh out before the game's release; given the sheer number of Magirocks hidden throughout the game, both as findable items and prizes for completing sidequests, it seems a bit odd that they'd put so much effort into incorporating something into the game's design only to have most castable spells be underpowered and effectively worthless...

The story of the game follows Quintet's format, following your protagonist Ark as he ventures through a devastated world and restores it to life by defeating the forces of evil.  However, Terranigma adds a new dimension to things by also taking the player on a journey through time, having them restore life to the planet in Earth's distant past, helping species to survive the harsh life of an ice age, and finally helping humanity rise to prominence and build cities across the world.  Each era also highlights evil in a new form, beginning with malevolent life forms seeking dominance over the planet and expanding into something more human - vengeful ghosts, scientists gone evil, and even some friends and allies may turn out to be more than they first seem.

Terranigma's world is also enormously expanded from its predecessors; not only are is the sheer number of areas you can see and explore much higher than Quintet's earlier games, but the amount of freedom you're given to explore them has expanded as well.  Between story missions, the player is largely given free reign to wander the world, which in turn can lead to discovering numerous hidden areas and treasures off the beaten path.  The era of man also lends itself to a very substantial side-quest, allowing the player to rebuild numerous human settlements and bring them into the modern age by solving the problems each settlement faces.  While nowhere near as in-depth as, say, Actraiser, it nevertheless proves to be a very rewarding endeavor; seeing a small town blossom into a sprawling city through your actions is a great deal of fun, and each time it happens, you gain access to more fun sights to see and characters to interact with (including more than a few minigames and character upgrades).  It's also a chance for the game to work in a bit of light humor in between its darker elements, with a chef named "Mac" inventing the hamburger and spawning a worldwide restaurant chain, among other things.

Of course, no mention of a Quintet title can pass without also bringing up its soundtrack, and in Terranigma's case, there is no disappointment to be found.  Their hallmark grandiose orchestral scores shine through once again in Terranigma, lending every location a distinct and memorable atmosphere and perfectly setting the mood of the storyline, especially in its darker moments.  It easily stands among the best soundtracks in the RPG genre, let alone on the SNES, and holds up perfectly well today even despite twenty years of technological advancement.

In a way, Terranigma is both Quintet's greatest success and their biggest flop.  Terranigma's creators wanted their own blockbuster title to rival games like Lunar and Chrono Trigger, and in many ways they succeeded in creating it; the game shines with the company's trademark charms while also expanding far beyond the limits of their previous works to create a grandiose role-playing adventure that stands among the finest in gaming even today.  Due to the circumstances of its release, however, it never had a chance to attain anywhere near the same level of popularity as its competition, and its high production costs ultimately led to the company's downfall.  Quintet did remain in business for several more years, but they never attempted a project of such scale again, instead releasing a few low-key Playstation and Saturn games before being relegated to contributing artwork to Gust's Atelier series, then falling off the map completely.  A sad end for an extremely talented studio, but they left behind one hell of a legacy for their fans.

Developer: Quintet
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Super Nintendo
Released: 1996
Recommended version: N/A