Terranigma was very much an enigma of a video game, especially to North American audiences, as the title never released stateside. Gaining a massive cult following from its original release in 1995, the game’s fanbase petitioned in 2021 to bring Terranigma back, either as a straight re-release or a remaster. Sure enough, with the successful petition and a little support from artist Kamui Fujiwara and co-composer Miyoko Takaoka, the game has finally been confirmed to return next year from Clear River Games.
At Gamescom, I was lucky enough to sit down at Clear River Games’ booth and play a bit of Terranigma. This was my first taste of the game, having known of it only due to one of its infamously difficult bosses (more on that in a minute) and how difficult it became to purchase the game in the 30 years since it first came out.
I was offered the opportunity to play three different segments of the game, and I had enough time to try two. The first was the opening chapter. To quickly delve into the plot without spoiling too much, a cheeky young chap named Ark does something he really shouldn’t have, and as a result, froze everyone in his village in place, aside from the elder. In a dystopian world where humans dare not venture outside the village, the elder enlists Ark to right his wrongs and set out to save the village, and restore the planet from the hollow, desolate landscape it has become. As Clear River Games’ rep tells me, though on the surface the story seems like a basic “young man goes out to be the hero and save the world”, it is much deeper than that, exploring complex themes like isolation, existentialism, loneliness, the sacrifices people make for the greater good and so forth.
After leaving the village and going to the overworld (really, underworld), Ark is asked to clear the trial of five towers. I beat the first and spent some time in the second. What immediately jumped out at me was how stellar the pixel art looked three decades on. The way Ark and the enemies around him animate is a sight to behold.
The game, as you play it, is a top-down action-RPG not unlike Zelda’s classic titles, where Ark uses both his trusty weapon to spear enemies on the ground and in the air, as well as magic abilities he gains through his adventure. A traditional level up system is in place for gaining EXP by defeating enemies. Treasure and health pick ups can be found in dungeons, and all of the good stuff you’d expect from a game of this ilk is here and accounted for. While playing through the game, I’m briefed on why this re-release has come to be, and the really big thing that jumped out at me speaking to Clear River Games is the company’s sheer hyper-focused desire to keep games like this preserved. That they don’t get lost to the sands of time and that modern gamers can pick it up and fall in love with it, as people had done decades previous.
The second part of the demo I had a pop at was the aforementioned notoriously difficult boss fight, Bloody Mary. To put it quite bluntly, she absolutely decimated me. I didn’t get anywhere near taking her down, and although I started to catch on to her patterns and I found the fire magic that is a weakness of hers, it still wasn’t enough to defeat her. Although I had my butt served to me on a platter, it stoked that classic gamer fire within me to want to try again and again. If we weren’t pressed for time, I don’t think Clear River Games would have been able to get me to leave the room. I couldn’t pay a higher compliment than that; both from the almost intense level of love the team has for this game, as well as the fun I had playing it, only made me want to play it more.
To touch on some of the new stuff here, one big change added was how items and magic are handled. In the original game, Ark would hop into a box to select his items or magic. While it’s a novel idea, in practice it is quite time consuming and clunky. Here, Clear River Games has added a quick menu to make selecting what you want simpler and less immersion-breaking. Other additions have been added too, like artwork displays on the sides of the screen that 16:9 ratio would normally fill out but would be black and empty in 4:3, and a CRT filter. More quality of life changes have been made as well, but the team says they aren’t showing everything just yet, but to expect more news soon. The big takeaway was that Clear River Games made it paramount that the Square title be playable just as it was years ago in this new version, for the sake of preservation.
After my session with the game, I came out with my interest piqued and a confidence that the game was in safe hands. We can’t wait to see what else is lurking in the shadows for this game before its release in 2027.
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