So I convinced my wife to play Illusion of Gaia...

[Kaigetsudo]

...And she seems to be enjoying it! She just got past Mu and is now at the angel village. I am impressed she was able to beat the Vampires by herself without much of my help! (she isn't exactly the big gamer type, you see.)

Anyway, after this point I am looking forward to her beating the game and seeing her reaction to the ending... I was always curious to see what she as an adult person thinks of this game's culmination, as opposed to me in my teens where I was touched to tears.

Let me share some of the highlights of our playthrough:

-She read Freedan's name as Ferdinand at first, and for a while kept mixing the names up. Now we call him Ferdinand in good humor.

-At the Incan Gold ship, I didn't stop her from checking the queen's corpse before talking to Seth. After Seth got eaten she was pretty bummed but not at all shocked, until I told her she missed the red jewel he had with him.

-After finding the Rama statues at Mu, one of us called them the Banarama statues (not sure which of us did) but it became a running gag through the rest of the Mu playthrough.

Well, let's see how far we go with this. If she beats the game I'll make sure to mention her thoughts on it. Like I said before, I want to view this game from a contemporary perspective, but I think more than that I just want to be able to share the experience I've held dear for so long with a loved one.

(God I sound so mushy...I apologize)

Later!

[tay120n64]

I've always wanted to do that!

I tried playing through it with my most recent gf, but we only made it about half-way through, and she didn't seem very interested.

[Fazermint]

I see this is your first post, so... WELLKHOM!

Sounds like you two had a lot of fun together. My girlfriend plays my games some times, but she's really busy. Maybe I'll make her try IoG as well some time when she has vacation

There's a forum member called Freedan here. However, from now his name is Ferdinand, I assure you...

[Yet One More Idiot]

The Banarama statues.... awesome-LOL!

I too would be very interested in hearing your wife's responses to playing the game, being that I was....I think about 12 when I first played it back in '94, not even a teen. I was a little surprised, but it didn't move me to tears.

What really shocked me - and DID move my sister to some small amount of tears when she watched me playing it - was when Hamlet sacrificed himself at the Native Village. That was sad. V_V

[Mantaray]

i think i was only 7 when we beat it at last (which was also how old the game was back then) so i barely understood what they were saying but loved it to death anyway. if i could play it for the first time again, i'd be very happy.

whatever you do, dont let her stop playing till the end im impressed by her, too. she beat the vampires without much trouble, you said? how'd she do with castoth?

[Yet One More Idiot]

sora-mage wrote:

i think i was only 7 when we beat it at last (which was also how old the game was back then) so i barely understood what they were saying but loved it to death anyway. if i could play it for the first time again, i'd be very happy. whatever you do, dont let her stop playing till the end im impressed by her, too. she beat the vampires without much trouble, you said? how'd she do with castoth?

I don't get why everybunny says the Vampires are so hard. The very first time I played the game through, okay so I was 12, a bit older than you, but I beat the Vampire twins on I thnk it was the second attempt, after getting wallopped by their tag-team attack the first time.

What stumped me on my first play-through was trying to find my way around on that damned Mountain Temple! I got lost up there for weeks before I found my way through it and then back out again!

[EverPhoenix]

i didn't find the vampires too hard. castoth was a pain, however.

for the ending, my reaction was "wtf was that". it made no sense to me at all.

but good on you for getting your wife to play it - more people need to enjoy these games!

[Mantaray]

compared to castoth, those vamps were rather easy. like with the mummy queen, it just took a lot of running.

[Yet One More Idiot]

sora-mage wrote:

compared to castoth, those vamps were rather easy. like with the mummy queen, it just took a lot of running.

Yeah, the Mummy Queen can be a bit hard, with all the running and planning your route so you don't get trapped in a corner by the ghosts.

When I die, that's usually the reason, 'cos the ghosts manage to trap me in the corner - especially when they turn in a ring of ghosts and spin around the room, they can quite easily trap you then.

[tay120n64]

My response to the ending was, "WHEN IS THE SEQUEL COMING OUT?!"

[Yet One More Idiot]

tay120n64 wrote:

My response to the ending was, "WHEN IS THE SEQUEL COMING OUT?!"

Lol, that was pretty much my response when I originally completed Illusion of Gaia - "When's the sequel?!?", but our stores didn't hold very much outside of the Games Top 10 charts, so I never even saw Terranigma on sale.
If I had, I would've been disappointed when there wasn't a sequel to Terranigma. XD

[Kaigetsudo]

Fazermint wrote:

There's a forum member called Freedan here. However, from now his name is Ferdinand, I assure you...

That's... Awesome! Thanks for the warm welcome by the way.

Yomi's Evil Twin Intern wrote:

What really shocked me - and DID move my sister to some small amount of tears when she watched me playing it - was when Hamlet sacrificed himself at the Native Village. That was sad.

Oh man oh man, I am really looking forward to her reaction to that one. Who wasn't shocked by that insanity? If you ask me that part is a climax of it's own, haha!

sora-mage wrote:

whatever you do, dont let her stop playing till the end Very Happy im impressed by her, too. she beat the vampires without much trouble, you said? how'd she do with castoth?

Castoth gave her a pretty hard time, had to try several times. Thing is, he's real easy for me, like I won't even use herbs against him normally, but the Vampires, geez. They're just too unpredictable and they have the weird shield thingy that damages you when you touch them. Messes me up real bad.

EverPhoenix wrote:

for the ending, my reaction was "wtf was that". it made no sense to me at all.

This is the reaction I'm expecting from her, haha!

Anyway, we're past the Great Wall now. I was a bit surprised at her indifferent reaction to Ishtar, whom freaked the crap out of me and my brother when we first saw him vanish into his self-portrait. She had trouble getting there too, because she didn't talk to that ONE ANGEL who tells you what to do. During the whole time I was assuming she did so I didn't want to help her out. Now I feel like a buttface.

Of course there was the Nana and Sabas encounter. I was glad she remembered them, it makes the moment so much more powerful. She told me Will's a douche for NEVER telling them what really happened. Haha!

Also, I had forgotten how ridiculously easy the giant Centipede is.

She almost quit halfway through the Great Wall, but I REALLY wanted her to see the Lance and Lilly moment (dammit it's one of my favorite parts!) so I urged her to keep going. She thought it was adorable and I think she buys into Lance and Lilly's relationship even more than Will and Kara's.

Next time, on to my least favorite part of the game, uhh, Mount Kress... (geez, I even forgot the name)

[inferiare]

Funny enough, we used to have a "fan club" of sorts around here a long while back that was something along the lines of "Will is an uncaring jerk".

[Yet One More Idiot]

Lance and Lilly's relationship is built up in a more believable manner, I think, than Will and Kara's.

But I still think that both couples are very cute. :3

I hate Mt Kress too. The first time I played it, I got lost for about 3 weeks* amongst all those damn vines, I couldn't find my way out at all and I had trouble even finding the Dark Spaces. Luckily the baddies don't respawn while you're still in the level, otherwise I don't think I'd ever have got out.
(*In case you're wondering, that's not 3 weeks of solid playing; it was about 1-1.5 hrs/day of playing though, so I was lost up there for a total of 20-30 hours all told)

[Kaigetsudo]

Hey guys, I have returned from the world of the shadows to provide an update on the situation.

After much procrastinating and numerous distractions we were able to beat the game a few days ago. Success!

I'm actually quite proud, although she had a little trouble at Angkor Wat (I forget how difficult that place can be) and the Pyramid, my wife was able to beat Dark Gaia all by herself (with a little help from save states, and some backseat gaming...). In fact the only boss I had to step in and beat was the second battle against the Mummy Queen.

Of course, there's the famous Hamlet scene. I felt horrible. She was so happy when Hamlet came back at Euro, and there I was just counting the minutes to his unchanging fate. She took it rather passively though, she was sad, just not to tears, haha. (She was thrilled to be reunited with him at the top of the tower).

She did freak out at Jackal's death. Then again, so did I. I had actually forgotten him crawling on the floor calling out to Kara in flames. Yeah... wtf Mariko Ohara... I always wondered why Jackal isn't a bigger deal in the story. You KNOW he's there, but once you see him, that's it, dead. Guess he's an excellent spy/tracker/assassin if you didn't even notice him following you...

We kinda decided not to get all the red jewels since A. She's never played Soulblazer and B. Yeah, we missed the third one you get when the man at south cape fishes it out randomly (is it really random? I always hate having to pick that one up.).

Final Verdict:

While she found it hard to buy the relationship between Kara and Will (I keep telling her she has to think about the time they spent together in the raft for it to make any sense), she really liked the coming of age story and the realistically grim situations you were put in. She's not exactly tolerant of games that may feel dated so I was glad she saw the timeless qualities in IOG. I had a lot of fun replaying the game with someone fresh into the series and to share an experience that was such an impact to me as a teen.

Well, guess that's it. Thanks for tuning in, it was a lot of fun.

P.S. There was no crying at the end. Yeah, I guess if you don't buy the relationship from the start you certainly aren't going to, which bummed me a bit. I still think the scene where Kara and Will say their goodbyes is beautiful and as a kid it didn't get any more romantic than that. Of course, you can't say no to the kind of happy ending where all the old friends are reunited in the next life as normal children.