/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5634876
Eh, it's just because people like Soul Blazer and Terranigma more, so it's at the bottom of the 3 by default. It doesn't really mean it's a bad game though. For me, they complete the Quintet Triangle of action/hot jams, childhood adventure, and themes of life.

>>4041206
Soul Blazer/Illusion of Gaia/Terranigma are my favorite Zeldamanias. Come at me.

>>3121904
It's not part of the (already very loosely connected) "saga" by any means. Granstream's designer himself confirmed that ActRaiser, ActRaiser 2, Soul Blazer, Gaia and Terranigma are thematically connected in the mind of their writer, whereas Granstream was his own project. It being part of the "series" is just something Hardcore Gaming 101 made up.

>>3121939
It's worth playing because they're good games on their own, but bear in mind that Illusion of Gaia in particular is extremely linear and limits your travel interaction constantly. They're all different experiences but it's nice to see how the writer develops his themes over the course of the games.

Terranigma was released 20 years ago today. So let's have a thread about it, what you liked, what could have been better, what you think happens after its ending, and maybe this time we can also try to solve the mystery of whatever happened to writer/director Tomoyoshi Miyazaki and Quintet itself.

>>2362265
It allows you to play Terranigma at 60fps like the Japanese original instead at the 50fps that it's capped on because PAL sucks. That's about a 20% speed drop. Just use the patch, it DOES make a difference and it makes the gameplay a lot more fluid.

>>2362252
>>2360273
Granstream Saga being a "fourth" Soul Blazer game is a shitty HG101 meme. Even the "patchwork trilogy" thing is just a fan meme. Kouji Yokota talks about that on Szczepaniak's book:

>JS: Fans regard Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, and Granstream Saga, as a loosely connected four-part saga.
>KY: Yes, I think there was a common custom or thread shared among the games, in terms of scenario writing, such as like the delivery of the dialogue, and so on. So in that effect I think there was some resemblance. Starting with ActRaiser, and followed by Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia, the games are definitely connected, in Miyazaki-san’s mind, at least. Whereas Terranigma and Granstream Saga are somewhat different. Because I was the one who came up with the basic idea for Granstream Saga. I don’t know about Terranigma though.

>JS: ActRaiser is part of a trilogy with Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia?
>KY: Yes, I think like you said there are resemblances among the three games, because Miyazaki-san kind of liked the idea of having a god versus a demon, in which the main character is on the side of the god and battles the demon. That is the underlying concept that he likes to adopt, which unites those three games. He liked to grapple with the themes of creation and destruction, and he was good at entwining human existence within the context of creation and destruction in order to create drama. I think Miyazaki-san became very popular because he was able to come up with a convincing script, incorporating pathos, or a kind of sadness into it.

Granstream is a very good game and it doesn't need to ride on pretend prequels to be good. It's good on its own. In b4 >no faces

>>2189860
ITT people who don't know what "thematic sequel" means.

Read Quintet interviews. They've always wanted to make a game like Terranigma. That's why all their games that aren't Robotrek are thematically similar and focus on creation. Their themes are progressing toward Terranigma.

The "they're chronologically linked" theory makes no sense at all. Magridd's kingdom, Gaia's comet, Deathtoll, the hollow earth, these are all things that are incompatible between games. Lisa, Kara and Elle's roles are very much different. Blazer is an angel while Ark is basically the devil's proxy. Etc etc. You can't really fit them together without some pretty lame mental gymnastics that fall flat in the face of what the game designers said.

>>2191074
Granstream Saga's story and design isn't even by Quintet itself. Yokota talks about this in Szczepaniak's interview book. He also regards Actraiser 1 and 2 as part of the "creation" series btw.

>>2191581
>Quintet chose to make a racing game and then ended
Quintet also made Planet Laika (a really bizarre game where multiple personalities for the main character allow for multiple game modes) and Solo Crisis (strategy RPG based around terrain manipulation). IIRC they also made Brightis (and RPG) and some Godzilla game for the Dreamcast.

The reason for this was that during the SNES era they had a partnership with Enix, which gave them priority when releasing titles but confined them to RPGs once Soul Blazer stuck. During the PSX era they broke their partnership and instead went with Sega and Sony, and tried to branch out to other genres. Problem was that the oversaturated market + the experimental nature of their games didn't mean a lot of sales for them and they went bankrupt.

The more you know.

Here's the info I've gathered on Quintet.

>>1725554
Quintet's big mistake was to break their partnership with Enix. Since its inception in 1989, Enix published all Quintet games until the end of the SFC era. For reasons that haven't really been made clear, Quintet and Enix parted ways then, and Quintet banked on alliances with both Sega and Sony to get their games published during the fifth gen. Now, as you may know, Enix never actually developed anything, and instead worked closely with a few outsourcing teams. But with Sega and Sony the situation was completely different, as both had in-house teams and the competition for getting published was larger.

It's also worth noting that Quintet had no franchises to speak of. Yes, the so-called creation series are loosely related thematically, but since ActRaiser 2 Quintet always refused to make sequels from their games. And while their Quintet games were experimental for sure, once they broke loose from Enix their game concepts were almost surreal (see Solo Crisis or Planet Laika). Sadly, as we all know, that's bad for video game business.

In the end Quintet ended up going bankrupt according to Ando Hiroyuki (https://twitter.com/drunkenAndo/status/198081167390543872).).

>>1725745 is right, Ar Tonelico is about the only reference to "a" Quintet post-2002. They are most definitely disbanded. Their website was shut down on 2008, and hadn't been updated in 6 years. Their last message in 2002 was that they couldn't give out information regarding their situation/products, written as an explanation for shutting down their boards.

Quintet members have worked in other games since 2002, but they haven't mentioned "Quintet" as a company again. While it's never been said, I think it's obvious that their bankruptcy problems manifested in 2002, and rather than making them public they kept it secret, Japanese style, while trying to address them internally. Evidently, that didn't work, and now Quintet is gone.

>>1065104
Don't worry, that only has a couple of items, one of them a equipment piece that athough you'll miss is easily outclassed by other weapons.

The five towers was just a tutorial, gameplay-wise. Story-wise, it's just the introduction to the main character and his world.

The outer world is huge. It'll start out empty, but that's why you're there for! The combat is fun and it always stays that way. The dungeons will get different and much more varied, just as the overall setting will. Plus you'll start meeting a lot of characters.

After some events there, the plot will feel open-ended for a while until you get a new mission. Then it's a non-stop rollercoaster to the (great) end.

>>1065040
Everybody knows it was a game series. Terranigma is my favorite by the way, I'd say my least favorite is ActRaiser 2, but even then I'd also give it a 8/10. You know, opinions.

>>1065104
Don't worry, that only has a couple of items, one of them a equipment piece that athough you'll miss is easily outclassed by other weapons.

The five towers was just a tutorial, gameplay-wise. Story-wise, it's just the introduction that introduces the main character and his world.

The outer world is huge. It'll start out empty, but that's why you're there for! The combat is fun and it always stays that way. The dungeons will get different and much more varied, just as the overall setting will. Plus you'll start meeting a lot of characters.

After some events there, the plot will feel open-ended for a while until you get a new mission. Then it's a non-stop rollercoaster to the (great) end.

>>1065040
Everybody knows it was a game series. Terranigma is my favorite by the way, I'd say my least favorite is ActRaiser 2, but even then I'd also give it a 8/10. You know, opinions.

>>1065104
Don't worry, that only has a couple of items, one of them a equipment piece that athough you'll miss is easily outclassed by other weapons.

The [spoilers]five towers[/spoilers] was just a tutorial, gameplay-wise. Story-wise, it's just the introduction that introduces the main character and his world.

The outer world is huge. It'll start out empty, but that's why you're there for!

The combat is fun and it always stays that way. The dungeons will get different and much more varied, just as the overall setting.

>>1065040
Everybody knows it was a game series. Terranigma is my favorite by the way, I'd say my least favorite is ActRaiser 2, but even then I'd also give it a 8/10. You know, opinions.

>>997141
>After that they made an "interesting" psx game called The Granstream Saga, And then nothing much else. I was thinking about covering the individual games and then talking about how the granstream saga has similar themes to their previous games but ultimately fails to live up to their old stuff. does that sound like something you'd watch?
You're giving it the wrong focus, but if you do reasearch it you'd arrive to the same conclusion. Quintet made many games after the SNES era. Solo Crisis, Code R, Brightis, and Planet Laika. They also were brought in to help other companies after that.

Quintet's downfall was breaking their relationship with Enix and switching to Sega. The Saturn flopped and then they no longer had a fixed (nevermind worldwide) publisher. Their games were still very experimental, so stuff like Planet Laika had no chance to be translated. Granstream Saga was the most formulaic thing they made after Terranigma, which is probably why it made it overseas.

As far as I know, Miyazaki (Quintet's founder, president and main director/writer) ultimately dissolved the company circa 2009, when he became the president of Giga Factory. I could be wrong on the "dissolved" part, but he certainly does't work there anymore, and without him it wouldn't be the same anyway.

If you DO make an episode, make it informative. Your no joke policy sounds great. But you should also be thorough. Be extremely aware that English sources regarding Quintet and its demise are pretty much useless; you'll need to read Japanese sources to get a much clearer picture of them.

If it sounds too hard, you could try starting with the other suggestions you have in this thread. You'd have much more readily available sources, so it'd be a lot easier. Quintet could be a later episode.