All three games left a large impression upon me. It's been a very long time since I last touched Soul Blazer itself, but I try and set aside some time once every few years to play through Illusion of Gaia/Time & Terranigma. I suppose my fascination for ancient civilizations, mythology, history, and geography helped blossom my love of the games in to complete adoration.
I'm going to gush and start listing some great memories that have stayed with me through both games:
- Discovering the "hidden" Itory Village and letting that
beautiful song repeat itself over and over, before heading in to the Incan Ruins. I already loved the stories of the Incas during my childhood, so it was pretty awesome to run through some places that "represented" them in an obscure game back when Japanese RPGs weren't that popular.
- Getting on to the Incan gold ship, only to be then cast adrift with nothing but Kara to accompany Will. Some people hate that section but I've always loved it for its change of pace.
- Checking out Neil's place and then visiting the Nazca Plains where you begin to see spirits while
this beauty of a track plays.
- Heading up to Sky Garden. For some reason the pretty greenery always reminds me of Bomberman.
- The only cool thing about Mu is its mythological ties represented by an underwater palace (how cool!?) and the name. I used to hate it because those vampires would always kill me and they were shits.
- Ankor Wat! Such
awesome music. Shame they couldn't spell it properly.
-
That ending music, with Will and Kara standing upon the comet looking down at the blue marble. Whenever I throw it on I have to let it repeat itself several times before I change the tune.
-
The entire opening. The second half being the best.
- Heading outside of the house you start in for the first time and letting the
music wash over you as you marvel at the floating bubbles. I must have spent several hours running around in Crysta doing absolutely nothing just so I could hear the music. Throwing pumpkins in to the river, stirring up the chickens, playing hopscotch with the kids, running laps around the village continuously. Too much time.
- Meeting Yomi for the first time while everyone freezes over mysteriously, only to be yelled at and commanded to head out to the towers. Anyone who didn't feel intimidated in the
Underworld, complete with its weird mirrored sky, is lying.
- Resurrecting the continents and then being thrust on to the
Overworld despite its barren and empty appearance at first. It was like a brand new game shoved on to your lap.
- For some reason I really love the Ra Tree dungeon. Maybe it's such a welcome change of pace and colour compared to what the Towers were. Having
kick ass music probably helped, though no one can dispute those haunting tunes in the Towers.
- Having to tumble through
mountains and cliffs to resurrect the birds and grabbing those sharp claws to become the crab version of Spiderman.
- Gaia had Mu, Terranigma has
Zue. What a shitfest. I have no reason why I dislike it.
- Heading in to
Louran was always cool. Best usage of zombies before they re-exploded in to popularity 15 years later.
- Walking through Norfest Forest and discovering the carbon copy of Crysta.
- Seeing towns everywhere and knowing that your actions later in-game will allow them to expand in to cities. Not only that, but you could pimp an apartment up just for yourself!
- Rescuing Columbus and unlocking ship usage around the globe. Fuck you, Bloody Mary.
- Seeing the (secretly resurrected) Mu again during an exploration, only to sigh at the relief that there are no vampires.
- Killing off old mate Dr Beruga in the labs in Russia and then defeating Dark Gaia, only to experience the bittersweet
ending complete with a tiny dash of the Crysta theme kicking in at the very end. Was it all a dream?
But yes, the music helped play a large role in the appreciation and certainly helps the nostalgia boost itself.
Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma are both fantastic. Gaia hits dat nostalgia sweet spot, though. Music is freaking classic too,
my present to this thread.
So awesome.
