/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.4774663]

Is Illusion of Gaia the most underappreciated retro game, considering its quality?

[Anonymous No.4774683]

It's easily the worst of the trilogy.

[Anonymous No.4774693]

No, Wild Arms 2 is the most underappreciated entirely because of shoddy editting resulted in most of the dialogue reading like all the characters spoke english as a second language. Really 2 was the best of the franchise.

[Anonymous No.4774694]

>>4774683
I agree, though it's still a pretty good game.

[Anonymous No.4774706]

>>4774663
It has a disjointed story with extremely cliched and shallow characters, some of the worst writing ever ("Will started to develop feelings for Kara", ffs), amazingly detailed graphics (based on some horrible shojo designs that thank god don't translate into the sprites), great soundtrack, fun gameplay, solid stats progression (a rarity in Quintet games) and rushed game design (Shadow's cut powers, for example). I think it's rated fairly enough. It's a solid game but indeed easily the worst of its "trilogy" in all respects except graphics and maybe music, depending on your taste.

[Anonymous No.4774714]

>>4774706
Shadow was gonna have powers?

[Anonymous No.4774738]

>>4774714
From https://tcrf.net/Illusion_of_Gaia
>Some blue slime, smoke, and flames, also loaded into memory on the inventory screen. These come right after Will and Freedan's Dark Power icons, meaning they were almost certainly intended as a trio of powers for Shadow, who otherwise only gets any abilities from the Aura flame item. The slime seems to correspond to Shadow's ability to morph into liquid, and the flame may be the Phoenix used in the final battle. The smoke's purpose is unknown, however.

It's fairly obvious they had to cut them, it's the only character that doesn't get powers in the status screen. Its abilities depend on the aura item (which is a pretty shoddy implementation of it, imo) and you unceremoniously get the firebird thing out of nowhere at the very last minute.

[Anonymous No.4774751]

>>4774738
Well shit. I had no idea. That's pretty cool though.
Will was still the best fighter due to his jump attack, but I think it's funny how you fight the final boss with a super powered melee weapon that can fire projectiles. Quintet seemed to love that trope

[Anonymous No.4774759]

>>4774683
It's easily the best

[Anonymous No.4774762]

>>4774751
That's only if you count Shadow as a super powered melee weapon, since the projectiles are fired directly from his … arms or pseudopods or whatever.

I did appreciate that in Terranigma it was just you whacking a spear into the devil's face and, later on, its vagina.

[Anonymous No.4774767]

>>4774693
I really loved 2, it was excellent. Not quite as good as the first though - having to find towns and dungeons will forever mar a game far more than a bad translation

[Anonymous No.4774909]

>>4774683
pretty much.

The story was so assbackwards. Like what the fuck was the part where some friend turned into some giant fish off-screen and you and your party are just like "okay," and it's not further mentioned

[Anonymous No.4775237]

>>4774683
>trilogy
It's not a trilogy.

[Anonymous No.4775278]

[Anonymous No.4775283]

>>4774663
Best part was the scene with pig and fire...
I like first game in trilogy the most.

[Anonymous No.4775284]

>>4774663
>considering its quality
>quality
ha

The only part of this game that was fun was eating hamlet.

[Anonymous No.4775321]

>>4774706
>>4774909
The English translation is fucking garbage and so full of incomprehensible lines and mistranslations the English version makes extremely little sense. The original is much better.

[Anonymous No.4775357]

I'm in the camp that the translation helps the game's weird, disjointed atmosphere

[Anonymous No.4775446]

>>4775321
>The original is much better
Have you played the original? It still has low effort writing, "Tim began to develop feelings for Karen" isn't really an improvement. I guess having a Leviathan and cannibals instead of Riverson and starving natives is nice, but let's not pretend like the plot magically makes any more sense in Japanese.

[Anonymous No.4776128]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wneh3m88xkM

I liked it. Yeah, the translation made shit confusing and story beats tended to get glossed over quickly but the actual gameplay was fun: exploring dungeons and fighting monsters, changing into new forms and gaining new abilities. Music was amazing too.

[Anonymous No.4776143]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkvqrd_GDew

>Then rest a while.

[Anonymous No.4776172]

Soulblazer is my favorite, Terra is my least favorite, and I consider Actraiser to be part of the series

/trolling

I like the mood of Gaia, it has a nice sadness to it, the Ankor Wat theme is nice, there's a lot of content to explore, and it has about as much polish as you can reasonably expect

But it's not memorable. It doesn't quite work for what it is, which is a kind of emotional exploration through history. And there's no "wow" moments at all. A wow moment would be like finding out you can go back and kill unkillable enemies with a different weapon in soulblazer

[Anonymous No.4776185]

>>4776172
I liked Gaias Skygarden dungeon. And the Vampire dungeon. Other than that I didnt care too much for the game. Some boss fights were okay.

[Anonymous No.4776491]

It has the best soundtrack on the system

[Anonymous No.4776504]

>>4776128
that's the problem with translating japanese media. the very core of it all is just so difficult to translate over. you lose so much character, personality, and other unique quirks that just don't exist in english

[Anonymous No.4776524]

Not enough Gaia fanart exists

[Anonymous No.4776801]

>>4776172
>and I consider Actraiser to be part of the series
It is, according to Quintet themselves.

[Anonymous No.4776894]

Can someone direct me to a site of game discussion where a thread like this is unacceptable?
Holy shit, /vr/ keeps getting worse and worse. Fucking Retro RPGs.

[Anonymous No.4776905]

>>4775284
That scene is just "your mom is a tree and your dad is the sword"-leves of stupid.

[Anonymous No.4776942]

>>4776905
It's based on an old Buddhist folk tale about self sacrifice. It also makes sense in the context of the story. Gaia's plot has tons of weird moments and stupid writing, but this particular one is actually decent. I don't understand why you think it's anywhere near the caliber of Mana's "your mom is a tree lol".

[Anonymous No.4776951]

>>4776942
The fact that the spirit of Will's mom pops out ruins it. By itself it really wouldn't be so bad.
Is that part also in the Buddhist tale?

[Anonymous No.4777021]

>>4776951
Oh, yeah, Will's mom randomly showing up was needlessly dumb. Still not anywhere near as dumb as your mom being a tree and your dad a sword.

In the original tale, it's not a pig but a rabbit, and a god takes the rabbit's spirit out of the fire and leads it up to heaven. Yeah, not the same.

[Anonymous No.4777028]

>>4774663
Fuck no. It's very mediocre.

>>4774706
This.

[Anonymous No.4777040]

>>4777021
Okay, not quite as stupid if I think about it.
But because of this, I will always think "they jumped the shark."

[Anonymous No.4777113]

Yeah, it's an amazing game. It takes a while to 'click' though

[Anonymous No.4777143]

>>4777040
There isn't any single part of IoG that isn't all weird and messy. The scenarios and setpieces all have this weird disjointed quality to them, like nobody had a clear idea what the game was about or what order things were supposed to happen.

It's also clear a bunch of stuff got cut that was actually supposed to make sense.

This is weird, because Soul Blazer and Terranigma both make a lot of sense and have a great pacing and spatial arrangement.

[Anonymous No.4777183]

>>4777143
Quintet outsourced the scenario writing for Illusion of Gaia's to a science fiction writer named Mariko Ohara. Here's a short interview with her about the game: http://home.exetel.com.au/layzee/translations/oharamarikointerview.html

Nothing juicy or really standout interesting, outside of the part about the "Stand By Me" movie which was based on the Stephen King novel "The Body". The most obvious similarity with the game being the general theme of a group of boys going on a journey (albeit more local than international like the Gaia crew) and dealing with adult matters the best a young person can deal. Others include them playing cards early on in the film at their treehouse hideout vs Gaia's seaside cave, Teddy Duchamp's mentally unstable father vs Rob/Lance's mentally challenged father, and a reference to vampires on a magazine (Gaia has a pair of boss vampires). Female characters are glaringly absent in the movie and probably book, so perhaps Ohara was also conscious of this as she penned Illusion of Gaia's story?

Regardless, the writing in this game isn't terribly well done even for 1993 standards.

[Anonymous No.4777217]

>>4777143
>There isn't any single part of IoG that isn't all weird and messy
That's true, and some are made even weirder in the translation. Like Will being ashamed of Neill because the later wants to be alone for a bit after his parenty turned out to be spirits of the Moon Clan.
>The scenarios and setpieces all have this weird disjointed quality to them
There's an old Miyazaki interview where he said his inspiration is drawn from travel guides. Looking at IoG, that seems obvious, and in Terranigma it can be seen as well, even though it works much better there. Maybe the attempt to throw everything in there (like Nazca lines, Angkor Wat and the pyramids, too, because really, why not) made it so messy in the end.
But then there's what >>4777183 said, which suggests a different cause, or at least something that compounds that issue.

[Anonymous No.4777913]

>>4774683
Soul Blazer > Terranigma > Illusion of Gaia is unironically pretty damn accurate

[Anonymous No.4778257]

>>4777183
>>4777217
In the book >>4776801 is quoting, that same former Quintet member says that they wanted to create Soul Blazer 2 and had tons of ideas for it (and shows some concept artwork for it), but then Enix brought it Moto Hagio and Mariko Ohara to do the art and the story for that new project, which became Illusion of Gaia. Apparently Quintet tried to skirt around Ohara's story to incorporate their own planned plot elements, resulting in a very disjointed work.

Also, I think it was in their former website that they explained that the hardest part of working in Illusion of Gaia was the translation. Apparently they worked closely with the localization teams abroad. Bear in mind that ActRaiser 2 was pretty much requested to them by Enix of America, so the Quintet/Enix games after that one were usually conceived of as international products from their inception. The same thing probably happened with Terranigma.

[Anonymous No.4778275]

>>4778257
If you guys are interested, I found that concept artwork for Soul Blazer II from before it became Illusion of Gaia.

[Anonymous No.4778285]

Also, the exact quote plus a clearer artwork scan:
>The initial plan was to make Soul Blazer 2. But Enix wanted a hook, as you said, and wanted some celebrities for the game, so Moto Hagio and Mariko Ohara. Also don’t forget Yasuhiro Kawasaki for the score, the music. [Ms Hagio, Ms Ohara, and Kawasaki-san came to meet with the development team and] were to be involved, and those were the instructions. Ms Ohara came up with the broad outline of the world and the story she wanted for the game. We got together for meetings with Miyazaki-san and discussed how to proceed. Miyazaki-san had some ideas that he wanted to implement [from the original Soul Blazer 2 plans], so he would take the world created by Ms Ohara and try to realise his ideas within this world Ms Ohara created. The maps were created based on ancient ruins, and I had a lot of materials for that, so I supplied materials to design the stages.

[Anonymous No.4778781]

>>4778257
>Quintet/Enix games after that one were usually conceived of as international products from their inception
How do you mean that? Sounds a bit like "pandering to Western audiences", which I am not sure is the case except maybe for Actraiser II. If you only mean "planning to release it overseas from the start", then yeah.
Speaking of Actraiser II, it was developed almost the same time as IoG,so it's not at all surprising things get messy under these circumstances.
Relevant: http://shmuplations.com/quintet/
Funny what it says about making international releases harder, though. Actraiser actually ended up being easier. IoG, on the other hand, was more difficult.

[Anonymous No.4778816]

[Anonymous No.4779215]

I'm sure I'll just be told to 'get gud', but I'm stuck at the boss fight with the vampires. Anyone have any tips to help out? I have one herb and am having trouble still.

[Anonymous No.4779219]

Also, have a creepy, screaming face.

[Anonymous No.4779223]

>>4779215
Are you fighting them as Will, or as Freedan?
If the former, you can actually go back to a Dark Space somewhere and still reach the boss fight area with Freedan.
If it's the latter, lots of practice and trying to memorize patterns, I guess?

[Anonymous No.4779229]

>>4778781
Oh yeah, I don't mean pandering, I mean that they were aware that their gmes were going to be localized abroad and took an active role in that process, which sounds rare for small Japanese game developers such as Quintet. It's sad that they're gone.

>>4779215
Are running out of health or out of time? One herb at that point of the game is extremely low, why don't you have more? Anyway, you can abuse Will's jump attack (which gives you a lot of invincibility frames) to survive the vampires. You can also transform into Freedan to fight them by going to the farthest Dark Space in the dungeon which has his statue, Freedan will deal more damage and survive a bit better.

Or you can always just git gud.

[Anonymous No.4779247]

>>4779223
>Are you fighting them as Will, or as Freedan?
I was using Will. I thought I couldn't go back. I'll go transform and try again.

>>4779229
>Are running out of health or out of time? One herb at that point of the game is extremely low, why don't you have more? Anyway, you can abuse Will's jump attack (which gives you a lot of invincibility frames) to survive the vampires. You can also transform into Freedan to fight them by going to the farthest Dark Space in the dungeon which has his statue, Freedan will deal more damage and survive a bit better.
>Or you can always just git gud

Running out of health. I think I wasted my herbs for no reason earlier. I would feel more confident as Freedan. Thanks to you both.

[Anonymous No.4779267]

>>4779247
>I was using Will. I thought I couldn't go back.
As did I. Then I thought "let me just look up real quick whether you can fight as Freedan here and figure out how myself if that's the case", and to my relief it was possible.
You should do much better now.
>>4778816
Would be ironic if Claude Moyse got convicted for tax fraud at any point in the future.

[Anonymous No.4779518]

i played through illusion of a gaia as a kid and it was alright. i played through it again somewhere around 2005 because i had forgotten i beat the game. then i played it through again in 2016 because i forgot i had the beaten the game.

Everything up until the pyramid dungeon is fine. pyramid to the end of the game is whatever.

[Anonymous No.4781261]

Where are the Will x Kara fanfics?

[Anonymous No.4781419]

>>4774663
I think people are being a bit harsh on the game honestly. It's a pretty simple if fun arpg. The story is wonky and absurd but it has some weirdly touching and memorible moments. I've heard that the Japanese script is just as weirdand illogical which is weird considering they hired a actual published writer story to make the story good.

It's no SMT but the use of some real world and/or mythological locations was pretty cool even if neutered by NoA in some regards.

I would say it has a appropiate reputation, not a title that makes many people's top games lists but still a solid game that is recommended and discussed fairly often.

This song still gets me every time.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zbA98pYh244

[Anonymous No.4781428]

Having played all of these games both when they came out and as a full-series replay within the last couple months, this is the correct order:
1.Terranigma
2.Illusion of Gaia
3.Soul Blazer
4.Granstream Saga

[Anonymous No.4783727]

>>4781419
On the game, no. on the story, yes.
It does have these endearing moments which many people remember, but they then confuse these perhaps good moments with the story overall being good. That's my impression, anyway. But the story as a whole is a real mess.
I don't think most posters ITT would disagree with IoG being a solid game just because of that

[Anonymous No.4783778]

>>4781419
>I've heard that the Japanese script is just as weirdand illogical which is weird considering they hired a actual published writer story to make the story good.
this happens every time a game developer tries to get a professional writer to write a game plot, the writer ends up having no idea what they're doing and forcing a plot direction that isn't actually possible in the game as it's designed

because the two never meet in between, you never get the strange magic like when you have shigesato itoi who felt like making a game in the first place and actually had involvement with the whole team making the game and what was happening in it

[Anonymous No.4783817]

>>4774663
nope, bacon was the best part

[Anonymous No.4785542]

>>4776524

That Lilly makes me diamonds

[Anonymous No.4785546]

>>4785542
WHERE IS THE GAIA HENTAI

[Anonymous No.4788164]

bump

[Anonymous No.4788276]

>>4775284
The goat scene in Terranigma is a much better version of this

[Anonymous No.4788385]

>>4788276
its the difference between being pre-midlife-crisis and post-midlife-crisis

[Anonymous No.4788968]

>>4785546
you probably don't want that sort of thing to actually exist

[Anonymous No.4789068]

https://johnfriscia.com/2014/11/17/the-jackal-in-us-all-a-critical-analysis-of-illusion-of-gaia/

Thoughts on this write-up?

[Anonymous No.4789084]

>>4776801
In my head I see E.V.O. Search For Eden as an offshoot despite not being developed by Quintet themselves (I think? Maybe they shared staff?) due to some similar themes, sim/action hybrid game, etc.

[Anonymous No.4789090]

The one thing that stands out in my mind about this game is the reversal of darkness being the force of good, and light is the force of evil. I appreciate that.

[Anonymous No.4789146]

>>4785542
>Lilly
>making anyone diamonds

she doesn't even have a pet pig

[Anonymous No.4789149]

>>4776524
it's true

[Anonymous No.4789793]

>>4789068
From the length of the article and its title, I immediately thought "overanalysis incoming". But most of it was actually fair and reasonable.
As for that parts about the Jackal, though, I have to wonder whether the developers actually put that much thought into it. Something tell's me "deadline's coming up, now what do we do with him?" is a more likely reason for how the scenes involving the Jackal played out.
Though I might be wrong about that.

[Anonymous No.4789967]

>>4788968
yes i do

[Anonymous No.4790105]

>>4774663
Shit game with the worst translation in SNES history.

[Anonymous No.4790856]

>>4790105
>worst translation in SNES history

Not even close.

[Anonymous No.4790858]

>>4779215
Literally just focus-fire one into the ground as fast as you can.

[Anonymous No.4791526]

>>4790105
>worst translation in SNES history
Utterly false.

[Anonymous No.4792380]

>>4790856
This reads like Tommy Wisaeu wrote it.

[Anonymous No.4792387]

>>4779215
Improve yourself

[Anonymous No.4794015]

>>4790856
>Homncruse

[Anonymous No.4794021]

>>4788276
>>4788385
Oh god, I forgot about the goats. I love Terranigma, although I wish the age of humans had the same spark the earlier chapters had.

>>4788968
nvm, this was ok

[Anonymous No.4794072]

>>4774663
No. You just have low standards.

[Anonymous No.4794148]

>>4789793
I think the Jackal is something Ohara wanted but Quintet didn't, so they just dropped a couple hints about him being a thing, made him show up per Ohara's script, and then called it a day.

[Anonymous No.4795501]

>>4794148
Possible. Though it is interesting they did a somewhat similar thing with Beruga.
Neither Will nor Ark fight humans (I count neither vampires nor zombies as humans).

[Anonymous No.4795584]

>>4795501
There are some similarities, but Beruga had a much more active role in the story and his death actually has some thematic irony to it rather than being sort of random. Also Will does trigger the trap to burn the Jackal, Ark doesn't really do anything to get him killed.

If anything the Jackal being the culmination of the whole King Edward is evil storyline is supremely underwhelming. I don't think the game really makes it clear that Kara was kidnapped from Angel Village by the evil King thinking he'd get access to the Babel Tower using her. Now that's some piece of story they reused in Terranigma in a much more coherent capacity.

[Anonymous No.4795696]

>>4795584
Admittedly, the similarity is mostly superficial.
Even though you learn much earlier of the Jackal, you interact with him even less than with Beruga. Him being some looming threat could maybe have worked, if only you were reminded of him a little more often. One mention at the start, an optional dialogue in Euro and, what else again?
>I don't think the game really makes it clear that Kara was kidnapped from Angel Village by the evil King thinking he'd get access to the Babel Tower using her
You mean her being trapped in the painting? I can't remember anything pointing to King Edward being involved in that, so yeah, not clear enough.

[Anonymous No.4795980]

>>4795696
In the Japanese script, a woman in Angel village says that a girl named Karen (Kara) was taken from them long ago, and that now she has returned and Ishtar took her to his studio. In the translation, she puzzlingly says "once a girl named Kara came here. Ishtar praised her beauty. Then she went to his studio".

We're told that (Dark) Angels are the evolved form of humans. At the Tower, Will's dad says that the reason both him and Kara can survive inside the tower is because they're evolved humans.

Edward and Edwina's cruel treatment towards her (I mean, they send a hitman to kill her when she escapes the castle) probably stems from the fact that they're not her real parents, they stole her away from the Dark Angel village in order to access the tower. But they also need the crystal ring, thus, the starting events of the game.


Anyway, a woman in Dao also shows you a picture of the Jackal too, probably so you don't go "wtf" when you meet him at the pyramid.

[Anonymous No.4796136]

>>4795980
Yeah, I never would have guessed that line from the official translation, even though the latter seems familiar.