is a 1995 action role-playing game developed by Quintet for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), with manga artist Kamui Fujiwara acting as the character designer. The game tells the story of the Earth's resurrection by the hands of a boy named Ark, and its progress from the evolution of life to the present day. The game is the third entry in an unofficial trilogy of action role-playing games created by Quintet, including Soul Blazer (1992) and Illusion of Gaia (1993).
Terranigma was published in Japan by Enix on October 20, 1995, and in Europe and Australia by Nintendo starting in December 1996; the game was not released in North America due to Enix having already closed its U.S. branch by the time localization had finished, and has not been re-released due to complicated issues relating to its rights. The game has been met with critical acclaim for its presentation, gameplay, and story, while being criticized for its difficulty.
Gameplay
frame|left|Ark fights enemies in the first dungeon area.
The game keeps a top-down perspective view of the world and utilizes an action-based real-time battle system that allows the player to perform different techniques depending on whether the protagonist is running, jumping, attacking, or using a combination of these three actions. Each attack is meant for dealing more damage to certain kinds of enemies, though in most cases there is little to no difference regardless of the technique used. Projectiles launched at Ark can be blocked by the guard technique, which is otherwise ineffective against melee attacks. Since the beginning of the Earth, the external Lightside, the surface world, stood for growth whereas the internal Darkside, the underworld, represented decline. Over the course of billions of years, these two forces came to be called God and Devil. After opening a forbidden door and touching a mysterious box containing a friendly demon named Yomi, every citizen in the village is frozen. The only person not affected by the curse, the Elder, guides him to resurrect the continents of the surface world in order to unfreeze the people. For the first time ever, a human being leaves Crysta to explore the underworld, which is portrayed as a frozen wasteland of imposing crystal mountains and rivers of magma. He conquers the trials of the five towers, each representing one continent, and revives the mainland of the Earth. Upon returning to his hometown, the Elder instructs him to travel to the surface world and to resurrect all living beings. Ark says goodbye to his lifelong devoted friend Elle and sets out to the Lightside. Ark tries to attack Beruga after this revealing twist but is stopped by robots, injuring him severely in the process.
The Elder once again appears to him, saying that his mission is fulfilled and he may now pass away. Ark realizes that he has been used by Dark Gaia (the "Devil"), whose plans of world domination required Ark to resurrect the planet. Just as he is about to die, Kumari, a wise human who watched the world's growth through reincarnation, teleports Ark out of Beruga's laboratory. He then instructs him to go search the five Starstones and to lay them at the grave at Time's End in order to call the Golden Child. Ark obtains the stones one after another and sets them into skull statues at Dryvale, the location at the South Pole where the final confrontation between God and the Devil once took place. This leads to the appearance of Ark's Lightside self; the person Dark Gaia used to create Ark himself. His Lightside self reveals to him that he, the underworld Ark, is the legendary hero and then kills him.
In the fourth and final chapter, "Resurrection of the Hero", Ark is reborn as a baby through the soul of the surface world, Light Gaia. He is kidnapped by Darkside Elle who was led there by Yomi to eliminate a threat to Crysta. When she realizes this threat is actually Ark, she allows him to awaken as the legendary hero and grow back into an adult in the process. Yomi then decides to kill Ark by himself and reveals he has been working for Dark Gaia all along. He fails, as Darkside Elle sacrifices herself to kill Yomi and save Ark's life. Yomi is conveniently replaced by a "Light Version". This series is nicknamed either "Quintet Trilogy", "Gaia Trilogy" or "Heaven and Earth Trilogy" (after Terranigmas Japanese title, which translates to "the creation of Heaven and Earth") by fans. In actuality, according to the producer of Enix USA, there is no connection between Soul Blazer and Gaia, but the former title is related to ActRaiser.
Publisher Enix commissioned the developers as a subcontractor and decided for the title to be an action role-playing game for strategic reasons, based on Quintet's experience in that particular genre and the good reception of their earlier games by Japanese players. Tatsuo Hashimoto created the computer graphics cover art and also rendered the background images for the resurrection scenes.
The music of Terranigma was composed by Miyoko Takaoka and Masanori Hikichi, the latter of whom was responsible for the design of the sounds as well. Yuzo Koshiro, who had previously composed the soundtrack for ActRaiser, contributed the music for the laboratory area, but did not get credited. The English scripts of the game used in the European and Australian releases by Nintendo were translated by Colin Palmer, Dan Owsen, Hiro Nakamura and Nob Ogasawara.
Release
Terranigma was first previewed in mid-1995 and slated for an October launch window. Early previews prior to release showcased several differences compared to the final version such as the ability to climb the five towers outside using claws, different room layouts and plant decorations around the HUD. It was first released in Japan on October 20, 1995, by Enix for the Super Famicom under the name Tenchi Sōzō. It was also released in Spain in April 1997 and in France on the summer of 1997. The game wound up never being published in North America because Enix had already closed its US subsidiary by the time the localization was finished. Except for the guide book, none of these materials have been released outside Japan, though Club Nintendo published a 32-page comic illustrating scenes from the game up to the events of the third chapter in Germany. A Japanese soundtrack album titled Tenchi Sōzō Creative Soundtracks, with 33 compositions and six arranged tracks of the game's music, was released by Kitty Enterprises on October 25, 1995.
A petition by the game's Japanese fanbase, backed by artist Kamui Fujiwara and co-composer Miyoko Takaoka, began in July 2021 to either re-release or remaster Terranigma. This fan-led effort renewed speculation on the status of the rights to Quintet's games. According to Fujiwara, Quintet president Tomoyoshi Miyazaki had "disappeared" to his knowledge; he speculated this was why the rights to republish the game were complicated, that Miyazaki was not available for contact.