History VideoGame / Terranigma

* EatTheDog: Ark gets offended when a mountain goat suggests eating her dead husband, when she and Ark end up being snowed into a cave and need to survive.

An ActionRPG for the UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem published by [[Creator/SquareEnix Enix]] and developed by Quintet. It is considered to be part of a loose trilogy alongside ''VideoGame/SoulBlazer'' and ''VideoGame/IllusionOfGaia'', although the three games are not officially tied to each other outside a few unused localized titles.[[note]]''Illusion of Gaia'' was once planned to be released as ''Soul Blazer: Illusion of Gaia'', while the unreleased US version of ''Terranigma'' was going to be titled ''Illusion of Gaia 2'', a title that is still referenced in-game in ''Terranigma'' (despite ''Illusion of Gaia'' being titled ''Illusion of Time'' in PAL territories).[[/note]]

* MadScientist: Dr Beruga. He became obsessed with the idea of immortality and created a cult following his goal, experimenting on people. Some were willing, others not so much.

A fantastically enjoyable game, but was generally crippled in sales due to being released in 1995, very close to the end of the Super NES's lifespan, as well as being released practically everywhere in the world ''[[NoExportForYou except America]]'' due to the bankruptcy of Enix America and not being able find an American publisher due to the Nintendo 64 being ''right'' around the corner (it was already released in North America when ''Terranigma'' was released in Europe). The multiple themes of religion and death present in the title probably had a role too.

** Tons of civilization growth can be lost by doing certain things. Lying to Bell about his long-distance girlfriend dumping him leads to him not inventing the telephone, while option to elect Louis as mayor of Loire upon the death of King Henri ends up stagnating Loire's growth completely. Even messing up the construction of the [[ShoutOut BigMick]] can lead to it never being properly created.

The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth. After the forces of Light and Darkness fought a fierce war with no winners, all life was wiped-out from the surface and the continents were sunk in the oceans. Life could only endure underground, where everything got covered by a crystal-like mist.

This quest takes Ark to resurface all the continents and start the circle of the evolution of the species, from plants, to animals and finally human being. And from there, recreate all of human history, including events like the discovery of America or inventions like Edison's light bulb, among many others.

A fantastically enjoyable game, but was generally crippled in sales due to being released in 1995, very close to the end of the Super NES' lifespan, as well as being released practically everywhere in the world ''[[NoExportForYou except America]]'' due to the bankruptcy of Enix America and not being able find an American publisher due to the Nintendo 64 being ''right'' around the corner (it was already released in North America when ''Terranigma'' was released in Europe). The multiple themes of religion and death present in the title probably had a role too.

### Opt for a literal, word-for-word translation of the rhyme in question that created absolutely nonsensical lines to Western players, leave the dolls' spin-cycle alone and have them stop in the middle of the rhyme, and keep the clue on having to attack the one behind Ark in the last line, which no player would see because of the spin-cycle and translation being out of sync. This forced players to either perform [[TrialAndErrorGameplay trial and errors]] until they figure out the right thing or to stand for a long time, waiting for the rhyme to finally end and tell the player what to do. And this was the picked option.

** [[spoiler:Beruga]] mentions to have created a vaccine that would cure people of a deadly virus. But vaccines are useless once a person is already infected. All a vaccine can do is to train the immune system to kill the virus faster in the case of an infection occuring. A much more sensible scenario would have been to say that majority of people were already infected by the time the vaccine was completed, rendering it nigh-useless.

* ChekhovsSkill: Guarding. This skill is only useful twice in the entire game, and those times are so far apart, the player has likely forgotten that guarding is even a skill. One is against the mud monster when escorting Leim, and the other is when the FinalBoss uses their destructive [[WaveMotionGun field-filling]] attack, with guarding limiting its damage to barely anything.

## Louis gets labelled as a [[DirtyCommunist communist]], when he could be labelled a conservative, too. He's a notorious, deadbeat drunk, but is also generous and does care for Loire a lot. Voting for him will lead to Louis sobering up and doing his best to run Loire as it has been, but this leads to Loire's growth stagnating and never advancing past old ideals. And talking to Louis shows that he eventually succumbs to drinking again because the pressure of being in charge becomes too much.
## Jean gets treated as a [[UsefulNotes/{{Capitalism}} capitalist]], but his ideas of using tax money to improve production, infrastructure, and technology could be seen as a more refined communist position. But he's dressed in smart clothes and [[SmartPeopleWearGlasses wears glasses]], and always believed that Loire wouldn't be able to advance under King Henri's rule. Voting for him will result in Loire being able to grow into a larger town and gain technological progress. And Jean asks Louis to work alongside him, which leads to Louis to sober up permanently.

* DummiedOut: The Quintet quiz is inaccessible in all non-Japanese versions, though most versions still have text pertaining to it in its code. There is also a test room, and a removed building from Suncoast, and unused interiors for Storkholm.

** Upon resurrecting the animals, the game shows an image of [[Disney/TheLionKing the sun rising over the Savannah, with the silhouettes of various animals walking by]].

** In general, the German localization by Claude Moyse not only loved changing names, for some reason turning Yomi into 'Fluffy', but also contained quite a large amount of {{Woolseyism}} in it.

** Nobody realls mourns the death of King Henri.

** The child near the pond in Crysta has him generally mention things that become important shortly after.

A fantastically enjoyable game, but was generally crippled in sales due to being released in 1995, very close to the end of the Super NES' lifespan, as well as being released practically everywhere in the world ''[[NoExportForYou except America]]'' due to the bankruptcy of Enix America and not being able find an American publisher due to the Nintendo 64 being ''right'' around the corner (it was already released in North America when ''Terranigma'' was released in Europe). The multiple themes of religion (as you might guess, this game doesn't make any Creationist happy...) and death present in the title probably had a role too.

!! The game contains examples of the following Tropes

** The ending reveals that [[spoiler:Yomi is LUCA, the last universal common ancestor of all lifeforms. Except that Yomi is multi-cellular, so that cannot possibly be true. Even if he were to be assumed to be the LUCA for Kingdom Animalia, he has bilateral symmetry, which only appeared midway through animal evolution]].

A fantastically enjoyable game, but was generally crippled in sales due to being released very close to the end of the Super NES' lifespan, as well as being released practically everywhere in the world ''[[NoExportForYou except America]]'' due to the bankruptcy of Enix America and not being able find an American publisher due to the Nintendo 64 being ''right'' around the corner (it was already released in North America when ''Terranigma'' was released in Europe). The multiple themes of religion (as you might guess, this game doesn't make any Creationist happy...) and death present in the title probably had a role too.

----

** Nobody realls mourns the death of King Henry.

** In general, the German localization by Claude Moyse not only loved changing names, for some reason turning Yomi into 'Fluffy', but also contained quite a large amount of woolseyism in it.

* EngagementChallenge: King Henry of Loire promises the hand of his adopted daughter Princess Elle in marriage to anyone who can manage to get her to [[CuteMute speak again]]. [[spoiler:Subverted, since he doesn't care for his daughter. He wants her to speak again and regain her memories, so she can tell him the location of Storkholm's treasure.]]

** [[spoiler:The Elder being Dark Gaia]] has foreshadowing, if the player takes a closer look to them. [[spoiler:The Elder is the only one to not get crystallized by Pandora's Box opening. This could be written off as him not being in Crysta when it happened, but Ark was also extempt from it -- with the eventual revelation that this Ark is a part of Dark Gaia, it makes a lot more sense. He also seems to have extensive knowledge of the outside and surface world, despite Crysta being basically a bottled location. He can telepathically talk to Ark and tell where he is, even when he's on the surface.]]

** The Elle seen in the vision of Astarica. She drank something that was supposed to have killed her, but she managed to survive for a long time without food and water. She claims to have ascended godhood, and uses her abilities to kill the Roy and Fyda of the vision.

* GottaCatchEmAll: Partway through the game, Ark has to collect seven [[MacGuffin Starstones]].

* HeelFaceTurn: Roy was a pompous jerk towards Ark during the events of Loire, but he became an ally of Ark's in Dragoon Castle.

* KilledOffscreen: The drop in prices for Metal confirms that Wong, who was buying up all the available stock, was killed by [[spoiler:Roy]] in Dragoon Castle.

* TheManBehindTheMan: [[spoiler:Dark Gaia was behind Beruga, who was behind Wong, who was behind King Henry.]]

** Ark can be referring to his journey being like Noah's Arc.

** Averted when [[spoiler:Princess Elle admits in a letter to Ark that she killed King Henry in his sleep, after remembering what he had done to her parents and their home]].

** Tons of civilization growth can be lost by doing certain things. Lying to Bell about his long-distance girlfriend dumping him leads to him not inventing the telephone, while option to elect Louis as mayor of Loire upon the death of King Henry ends up stagnating Loire's growth completely. Even messing up the construction of the [[ShoutOut BigMick]] can lead to it never being properly created.

* ScienceIsBad: Zig-zagged. On the one hand, technological and scientific progress allowed people to grow and prosper, coming up with new ways to keep in contact through long distances with the invention of the telephone and sharing knowledge through the use of airtravel. But the other hand shows that it can lead to people like Dr Beruga gaining knowledge and power they tend to abuse. But the game makes it clear that science itself is more neutral -- it all depends on how each person uses it.

** Late game revelations make Ark's actions appear this way. [[spoiler:Ark is one of two chosen ones, and his quest of resurrecting the world and humankind was performing a role he had been doing in his previous lifecycle, and many other cycles before that. Ark will always die at the end of his journey, since his death is necessary for his role to fulfill because the final step includes having to destroy his own world, as well as himself, to let the other Ark awaken and perform his role.]]

## Jean gets treated as a [[UsefulNotes/{{Capitalism}} capitalist]], but his ideas of using tax money to improve production, infrastructure, and technology could be seen as a more refined communist position. But he's dressed in smart clothes and [[SmartPeopleWearGlasses wears glasses]], and always believed that Loire wouldn't be able to advance under King Henry's rule. Voting for him will result in Loire being able to grow into a larger town and gain technological progress. And Jean asks Louis to work alongside him, which leads to Louis to sober up permanently.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: After the events on Dr Beruga's airship, nothing is ever mentioned again about [[spoiler:Meilin, Meihou, Fyda, Roy, and Perel]]. Not even by Ark himself. [[spoiler:The airship is seen crashing in Australia, so there's no indication if any of them survived. It's heavily implied that Fyda and Roy died, but the whole situation is overall pretty vague.]]

* BlamingTheRailroadedPlayerCharacter: The player has no choice but to open Pandora's Box, resulting in Ark and the Elder being the only ones not turned into crystal. The Elder chastises Ark for this, then sends him out to fix things. [[spoiler:And later revelations prove that Ark was an even more tragic pawn case to begin with.]]

** The world was better off with [[spoiler:Dr Beruga]] dead. [[spoiler:Both cycle of worlds.]]

* NoPlaceForMeThere: [[spoiler:Ark ultimately realizes he will not get to live in the world he working so hard to save, and he and his old world are doomed to disappear in the end.]]

* BecauseDestinySaysSo: Everything in the game occured because it was Ark's destiny to do so. [[spoiler:Except the second half of the game involves Ark continually [[ScrewDestiny screwing destiny]], which is implied to also be something predetermined. Half of Ark -- assumed to be the dark half -- technically exists beyond the scop of fate, allowing him to follow and change Destiny's path.]]

** The Elle seen in the vision of Astarica. She drank something that was supposed to have killed her, but she managed to survive for a long time without food and water. She claims to have ascended godhood, and uses her abilities to kill the Roy and Fryda of the vision.

** Ark cures Princess Elle's muteness and has her regain her memories. This ends up sparking the French Revolution.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: [[spoiler:Ark opening Pandora's Box actually caused the surface world to experience an apocalypse, which included killing Dr Beruga and actually saved the world from his evil plans. Except the player is only told this after being tricked into resurrecting Beruga in the new world.]]

** Averted when [[spoiler:the Elder sends Underworld Elle to kill the reincarnated hero while he's a newborn]]. The intended assassin cannot get themselves to go through with it, though.
** Also averted when [[spoiler:Princess Elle admits in a letter to Ark that she killed King Henry in his sleep, after remembering what he had done to her parents and their home]].

** The second form of Dark Morph requires the player to hit their projectile back at him. This was likely an intentional shout out to ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast A Link to the Past]].

* DepopulationBomb: The virus Asmodeus. [[spoiler:This virus was what devastated the previous generation of humankind, from the world that Beruga had belonged to. Upon his resurrection in the curent world, he uses it to wipe out almost every person in Neotokio.]]

* KilledOffscreen: The drop in prices for Metal confirms that Wong, who was buying up all the available stock, was killed by [[spoiler:Royed]] in Dragoon Castle.