SNES - Illusion of Gaia

Haiku-Review:

a fascinating
twist on our Earth's history -
and the best places

Additional Comments:

I first encountered this game in the early 2000's when I had to purchase another SNES to replace my original one that had broken sometime in the mid-late 90s. The game came free, along with a few others, when I bought it off of eBay. I was curious, as I think up to that point, I may have only known the game by title, and in passing at that. Right off the bat, I loved this game and to this day it is still one of my all-time favorite SNES games and probably still my favorite game that has the Enix brand attached to it. I've just always enjoyed the action/adventure fighting style so much more then the unwieldy turn-based system that other Enix products had. But there's so much more reason then just that.

Illusion of Gaia has one of the greatest stories I've come across - which, to me, presents a rather atypical ending and what's-to-come considering its roots in the strange history/fantasy mélange that supports it. What's more, the story takes you to some of the most fantastic places in our own history/mythology such as the Nazca Lines, Angkor Wat and even Mu. Are you kidding me? They went with Mu over Atlantis - that is fucking awesome!!

Also, both the music and graphics are superb. The dungeon themes, especially, are devilishly intense and really create a mood of danger, which I think helps give the dungeons the feeling that they're harder then they really are. But my favorite tune is probably the peaceful Itory Village.

I suppose if I absolutely had to make a complaint, it would probably be the total linear gameplay that the game incorporates. Although it really doesn't bother me, there is really no game deviation going on here, though if you can manage to find all 50 gems, you do get to visit a bonus dungeon known as Gem's Mansion. In my most recent playthrough, I was still unaware of this and only found out while researching some minor inconvenience on GameFaqs. Damn, I was already so close to the end too, did I really want to restart the whole game? You bet I did. Unfortunately, Gem's Mansion was nothing to brag about, though it did have a really cool Layer 1 effect going on with scrolling ghosts. However, the boss, Solid Arm, is much harder than Dark Gaia, which in my opinion is a fairly easy boss for an end boss. In fact, Solid Arm gave me more trouble than those dastardly Vampires in Mu - but that could be because I've finally gotten use to those two - though I certainly recall raging pretty badly the first time I ever fought them.

Oh, one other nit-picky concern is the game's use of Mode 7. As cool as the effect probably was in its time - I find it to be nothing more than unnecessary bling that really slows down gameplay. I love the map, but I think the whole Mode 7 bit could have been executed better.

Nano-rant:

Ok, I do have one other complaint. Kara is a fucking, stuck-up, prude little bitch who I want to punch in the throat repeatedly. Seriously, I don't think there is any other game character in the history of video games that I hate as much as her. She makes the raft scene an absolute chore to play through, and leaves me pleading with Will to just boot her into the ocean - let the shark's finisher her once and for all. And then, without want to give the ending away - WTF!?!?!?

Rating: 4.5 gems out of 5