Terranigma Beta Version

Terranigma, AKA Tenchi Sōzō in Japan, is an action RPG developed by Quintet and published by Enix / Nintendo for the Super Nintendo in 1995 / 1996. Unfortunately, the game was never released in the US, but managed to attain cult status in Japan and Europe, regarded by some RPG fans as one of the best role playing games on the system. Before the game was released, gaming magazines published some beta screenshots, in which we can see some interesting differences:

• It was possible to climb towers using claws / bare hands, instead than chains (it’s possible to climb some walls with claws in the final game, but only much later in the game)
• There was some sort of green plant around the HUD
• Different rooms layouts
• In the first tower, the second floor looked like the third floor from the final game

A video from the same beta version was also published in “brute press” (?) VHS Vol.24 July 1995 (【非売品】ブルートプレス Vol.24 1995年7月号). If you notice more differences, let us know in the comments below!

Thanks to Youloute, Pantalytron, Crediar and Celine for the contributions!

Source: Unseen64

Terranigma Debug Room Code

D2B0-3F2A
3FC2-37C7
EDC2-3717
4C23-3F47

Talk to the person in the entrance of the Elder's house for Debug Menu. Disable the code after you've used it, and save your game if you want. When using the 'Debug' option, you'll spend quite a while leveling up. Leave the room and enter again before talking to the person for other debug options. Each time you use the 'Debug' option, it sets your EXP to 90,000 (Level 34), adds 1 of all types of magic, adds 35 Magirocks, adds 1 of several types of armor, and adds 1 of several different weapons. It will only add up to 8 of each item, for reasons that almost assuredly relate to using the option too often during debugging and the game glitching for the programmers.

Credit to: Ugetab

What's the bird carrying Ark around?

As you can see, in English it was translated as a gull, which could mean any number of shore birds (source). If you think that's a bit vague, look at the Japanese version:

Here it is simply called wataridori, or migratory bird. Even the English translation hints to this in dialogues, showing how gull was just a short word to stand in for migratory bird which was impossible to use, given the cartridge limitations for the recurring names.

But there's more! On the one and only Japanese board 2ch someone pointed out that you'd need a really big migratory bird for this sort of task. Well, good thing there's already such a bird that is portrayed in both Western and Eastern mythology as carrying humans or transferring souls. Its name? Shirasagi, a term denoting all big migratory birds with long beaks and white plumage, such as the stork or the white heron.

And now you know what's that bird which carries Ark around in a bag, just like a baby (subject for infinite jokes among Japanese fans).

Even more, you can see how Ark's metamorphosis in the end all ties in neatly with this. After all, storks are symbols of the soul and its next voyage. The ancient shirasagi ceremony wonderfully portrays this role, with the dancers momentarily transformed themselves in the majestic white bird.

Let's just hope Ark turned back into a human after he reached Elle's house in Storkolm (lit., stork islet). It would be a tad hard to enter the door with such a long neck.

Clearlevel Graphic

Most people playing Tenchi Souzou cleared the game around the 32 level mark, in fact mean value being 33.8 (33.3 excluding the level 50 outliers).

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Tenchi Souzou Strange Monster Names

So, did you know that...

• Huball (ヒューボール; hyūbōru) takes its name based on the whizzing sound (ヒュー; hyū) it makes when it whooshes to attack you?
• Guardner’s name (ガードナー) could also be read as Gardner? Now, where’s the garden?
• Dignal was in fact called Tignar (ティグナール)? What does it mean besides ‘grace’ in Icelandic or ‘beams’ in Latin? Maybe it comes from Tignale, Italy or likes eating Tignard cheese?
• Parionton is in fact a Peryton (ペリュトン) that Quintet misspelled as Perynton (ペリュントン)?
• The miniature Quacker (itself misspelled by Quintet) is called Iwamogeru (イワモグラ) which means 'stone mole'?
• Borfe is actually called Lesser Borfes (レッサーボルフェス)? Where is the Greater Borfes? Probably in Loulan: the similar, yet stronger, Borfes (ボルフェス) seems to point to this. There’s also a Japanese MSX game called Borfes.
• What in English is simply a bee was initially a Beagle Runt (ビーグルラント). You couldn’t make this stuff up even if you wanted to!
• The tortoise-like Dungun shooting projectiles is in fact Bullet (ダンガン; dangan)? Makes sense.
• The Basilisk is in fact just a Demi-Basilisk (デミバジリスク)?
• The fat frog monster Douma means something like Big Belly in Japanese?
• The Sabre Wolf was originally a mere Saber Dog (サーベルドッグ)?
• The evil gnomes called Rakshaki (ラクシャキ) in game are based on Rakshasas from Indian mythology?
• The Chonchons in Loulan are way out of their natural environment in Argentina and Chile?
• Bloddy Marry’s monstrous daughters are all called Carmilla? Le Fanu strikes again!
• There’s a similar magical monster called マドゥー (Madou, Maduu, Madoo, etc) in the Kirby games? It’s first appearance there is more than 2 years after Terranigma though.
• Gumin (グーミン) may refer to the Gum People?
• The fish boss Kali in the Mermaid’s Tower is in fact called Carrie (キャリー)?
• The Great Lakes monster’s name, Hitoderon (ヒトデロン) is a pun on the common starfish (海盤車; hitode)? It already appeared in Metal Max 2 which was released more than 2 years before Terranigma.
• The Phantom in NeoTokyo sewers is in fact a Necromancer (ネクロマンサー)? It is related to the Warlock (ウォーロック) in Norfest.
• The Colossus should be in fact called Charriot (キャリオット)?
• The Probes appear as Bits (ビット) in the Japanese version?
• Those enemies called Dog Soldiers in English are in fact Goblins (ゴブリン)?

Translation Differences between Terranigma and Tenchi Souzou

First of all, most differences are due to the differences between the Japanese typeface and the English one. Whereas in Japanese with a single character you can write a whole word or at least a 2 or 3 letter syllable, in English you only have one letter. This is the reason for most of the Overworld short names, weapons, armors and items names. For example, Taklama is タクラマカン i.e., Taklamakan, in both the Japanese version and in Standard Japanese. Yet the English cartridge memory couldn’t allow for 10 characters on one row for titles, so Taklamakan became Taklama.

Besides such shortenings, others are more imaginative. Magirock is プライムブルー (Prime Blue) in Tenchi Souzou. You’ll notice that both are around the same character-length (8 and 7) whereas Prime Blue is 10 (including the space) something which again isn’t allowed by the cartridge memory.

Proper names of actual historical figures, when differing from English (like Keinz for Keynes and Hedyn for Hedin) are due to translator ignorance as both the correct and the incorrect English versions are ways of translating the same names as they appear in katakana, a more limited writing mode (syllabary) than full alphabetic scripts like the Latin alphabet.

Sidenote: To illustrate how these differences arise at a grander scale than a mere video game translation, let’s take the case of Louran. In fact, it could have been Loulan, Rouran or Roulan just as well given the katakana in game, where it appears as ロウラン (RO-U-RA-N). Yet there truly was a kingdom in that part of the world, which the Chinese, from whom the Japanese took the name, called it 樓蘭 (Lóu-Lán). Still, even this name is incorrect, being just what the Chinese could pronounce of the kingdom’s true name which was Krorän.

Lastly, a remaining source of what appear as mistranslations is Quintet’s own imperfect knowledge of English, which they put into Japanese katakana. For example the golden woodpecker-like monster ペリュントン reads Peryunton yet it is clearly meant to represent the Peryton and as such ペリトン (Periton) or, if you want to be Greek about it and account for the y (upsilon), ペリュトン (Peryuton). The European translators decided to translate the katakana in English pronunciation: Parionton is the name in game. They chose the form and not the essence, as it were. Yet doing this was one of the alternatives. One which gives a certain flavor to the game, just as the game’s Overworld geography, created with the limited 90s technology and game design principles gives the same flavor: that of an alternative Earth, not ours yet still not so far away.

Tenchi Souzou Mysteries 天地創造の謎

カボチャ
Q: クリスタルホルムにいるしゃべるカボチャ、あれって何？何でしゃべるの？
メイリン
Q: メイリンって、何で超能力者（幻影使い）なんでしょうか？
A: メイホウ爺さんには予知能力があるので、超能力を持つ家系の可能性があります。

飛行船墜落後
Q: 飛行船墜落後、アークの仲間はどうなったの？
A: 仲間達の行方はゲーム内では語られることはありません。
しかし小説版「天地創造（著：久美沙織）」ではロイドとフィーダは生き残る設定になっているそうです。

病気の女の子
Q: クリスタルホルム北西の家にいた病気の女の子が、ラストではいなくなっていましたが彼女はどうなったのでしょう？

Source

Terranigma secret credits to Enix

h/t to Gurk for the observation

Dreams in Terranigma

Have you noticed that the game begins with a dream (the Continental Souls getting entrapped in the Five Towers) and Ark waking up, and ends with Ark going to sleep and another dream?

Ponderables: Ever Wonder Why?

• On the title screen, what place is that?
• Where does Ark get all that gel for his hair?
• Isn’t it boring in Crysta? What do people do all day?
• Where to all the people in Crysta sleep?
• Why can’t Ark hand the cooking lady the pot she asked for?
• How come Ark has to equip his clothes at the beginning of the game? Is he naked?
• Why can’t Ark carry more then nine of each item?
• And why can he buy more than one of each spear or armor? You never uses more than one!
• Why are there incan statues on the Underworld towers?
• Why do monsters explode?
• Are Cadets male or female?
• Why didn’t the fortuneteller or the merchants in Crysta freeze?
• For that matter, why did only humans and chickens freeze? What about the butterflies in the snowglasses (or whatever those tiny things are) or the pumpkins or the trees or even the grass? Aren’t they living beings? Haven’t they got a soul?
• Why doesn’t anyone notice that half the city is frozen?
• What is Elle weaving for the Elder in Chapter 1?
• Why hasn’t anyone left Crysta before Ark? I mean, they could go through the forest… or go down the river…
• In the continent ressurection scene, there’s a part where the screen zooms out of the world map… Well why is everything just a little bit different? And why is Mu there, if it hasn’t been ressurected yet?
• Who tied the rope that leads to the King of Kingbirds’s nest?
• How does grass grow so quick in Zue?
• Why are the nomads so paranoid with not talking to strangers?
• How do cities expand so fast?
• Why don’t the pictures in Sylvain Castle match their description?
• On the ship from Litz to Freedom, where does the crew sleep?
• How does Keinz get to every town before you do?
• How does Ark navigate his boat and fly his plane without a crew?
• How does Ark use the 3-Part-Rod like a normal everyday spear?
• Why does Mosque have an airfield?
• Why didn’t the monsters in NeoTokio die from the Asmodeus?
• Why didn’t LEIM die from the Asmodeus?
• Why didn’t Dark Gaia save Beruga?
• Did Royd and Fyda survive the airship crash?
• Why does Ark say, in the ending sequence, that Yomi came with him on his entire journey if he only had that Yomi (Light Yomi) with him on the last chapter?
• Why do they call it a “Time Bomb” if it’s switch-activated?

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