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1993 · SNES · Super Famicom
| Region | Date | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | 27 Nov 1993 | Enix |
| North America | 26 Sep 1994 | Nintendo |
| Europe and Australia | 21 Jun 1995 | Nintendo |
Will is a boy who survived an expedition to the Tower of Babel and can't remember how. In pockets of the world called Dark Spaces, a being named Gaia lets him save his game and, as the story moves on, change form: into Freedan, a tall dark knight with a sword, and later into Shadow, a being of pure energy. Will himself fights with a flute. Illusion of Gaia is a top-down action adventure in which you switch between these forms to reach places and fight what the others can't.
It drops most role-playing trappings. There are no experience points, no shops and no equipment. Clear every enemy in a room and you get a permanent boost to attack, defence or health, once only. Healing herbs are rare. The journey runs in a line through ruins drawn from our world: Incan ruins, the Nazca Lines, Angkor Wat, the Great Wall of China and the Egyptian pyramids, each holding a piece of the puzzle.
Quintet developed it, the studio behind ActRaiser and Soul Blazer. Enix published it in Japan on 27 November 1993, and Nintendo published it in North America on 26 September 1994 and in PAL regions, retitled Illusion of Time, in 1995. Yasuhiro Kawasaki wrote the music, manga artist Moto Hagio designed the characters and novelist Mariko Ōhara worked on the story.
Nintendo of America softened the story for release. A tribe near Angkor Wat was originally shown as cannibals, and Will's school was a church run by a priest; both were changed. Fans often group it with Soul Blazer and Terranigma as a loose trilogy, though Enix USA's producer said it had no story connection to Soul Blazer.
Its atmosphere is the strongest thing about it. The story is melancholy and strange for a 1993 console game, with a comet that threatens the world and an ending that asks what its heroes will remember. The ruins give each chapter a distinct look and mood. Switching between Will and Freedan to solve a room is simple but satisfying, and the score is lovely.
The structure works against you. Most areas lock behind you once finished, so any Red Jewels you missed are gone, and the only side quest can become impossible without warning. Combat is basic, the puzzles often come down to hunting for one switch, and the linear path gives little freedom. Go in expecting a story more than a system.
Will fights with a flute. It's a small detail that says a lot about Illusion of Gaia, a game that walks you through Incan ruins, the Nazca Lines, Angkor Wat, the Great Wall and the pyramids, and keeps asking what people leave behind.
Johan Huizinga argued that play is older than culture. Illusion of Gaia makes a lovely, strange fit with that idea. Every monument you visit is something a civilisation built and left, and you explore them through play, the older thing. A boy with a musical instrument wanders among the stones like the first person who ever turned a ruin into a game. The ending asks what its heroes will remember. For most of us, the honest answer is not the monuments. We remember the play: the dark rooms, the nerve it took to clear one, the melancholy tune. Empires rise and crumble into level design. People go on playing in the ruins, as people always have.
Read: Older than us: play before people →
Verdict · 7/10
A moody, memorable adventure with a real sense of place, held back by thin combat and missable collectables. Worth playing for the journey rather than the fighting.
