In the pantheon of SNES games, Terranigma is often situated at the top, alongside some of the greats. And I am betting that very few of you have actually played it. Only released in Europe and Japan near the end of the SNES’s lifespan, the game is finally getting another day in the sun over thirty years later. I don’t want to drown in terminology but for consistency’s sake I’ll call this one a remaster. That said, the folks at Clear River Games were upfront in saying that they tried to not touch anything that didn’t need it.

As such, this is pretty much Terranigma in the best possible way. The quality of life improvements are most notable in the UI. Save states, CRT-filters and some small tweaks make the experience a lot more enjoyable. Another standout is the spell system, which now allows you to swap between specific spells and items using the triggers. No longer needing to open and close the pause menu makes the game run incredibly smoothly.

This is an action RPG at heart, similar to something like A Link to the Past or Secret of Mana. I was told that there were also a few tweaks to bosses, though details are still kept under wraps. My biggest question was how this could happen, given that the rights for Terranigma have been a notorious clustertruck for the past thirty years. It definitely took a lot of work and the team at Clear River Games told me that they have been incredibly happy with the collaboration on this particular project. They are attempting to work as closely as possible with the original team that made the game and it shows in the artwork and attention to detail they’ve shown so far.

If you’ve played Terranigma before, then you know what to expect. There will be no changes to the text or translation whatsoever to keep as true to the original spirit as possible. For all the newcomers, it seems that this will be the game to keep an eye out for if you want that classic SNES Action RPG experience sometime next year.