Editing Terranigma (section)

== Synopsis ==
=== Setting and characters ===
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In ''Terranigma'', the planet is portrayed as a hollow sphere (though the map in the game is mathematically a [[torus]]) that has both an external and internal face.<ref>{{cite video game |title=Terranigma |developer=[[Quintet (company)|Quintet Co., Ltd]] |publisher=[[Nintendo of Europe]] |date=December 19, 1996 |quote=The planet possessed two souls. An external face and an internal face. Lightside and Darkside.}}</ref> Since the beginning of the Earth, the external Lightside, the surface world, stood for growth whereas the internal Darkside, the underworld, represented decline.<ref name="opening">{{cite video game |title=Tenchi Sōzō |developer=[[Quintet (company)|Quintet Co., Ltd]] |publisher=[[Enix|Enix Corporation]] |date=October 20, 1995 |language=ja |quote=この星が生まれてからの46億年という年月は・・・大いなる二つの意志によって進化と衰退をくり返している。ライトサイドの意志で新たな生命が生まれ・・・ダークサイドの意志で氷河期が訪れる・・・ライトサイドの意志で道具を使う生命が生まれ、新たな技術が次々と作られていく・・・ダークサイドの意志によってひずみが生まれ、その犠牲者が出る・・・人類はその二つの意志をそれぞれ「神」と「悪魔」という名で呼んだ・・・ / 4.6 billion years after the planet was born, evolution and decline repeat by reason of two great wills. At the will of the Lightside, new life is born. At the will of the Darkside, ice ages come. At the will of the Lightside, life using tools are born, and new technologies are developed one after another. At the will of the Darkside, wrongdoing is born, and it claims its victims. Humanity comes to call these two wills by the names "God" and "Devil".}}</ref> Over the course of [[Age of Earth|billions of years]], these two forces came to be called God and Devil.<ref name="opening" /> Regardless of this inner antagonism, rapid progress took root and primitive life forms evolved to plants, animals, and humans. Technology and industry further expanded civilization, but the fight between God and the Devil was still taking place, more fiercely than ever. The conflict culminated in a final battle in [[Antarctica]], on the surface world, but neither of the two forces was victorious. The continents of the surface world submerged into the sea and the underworld was sealed away.

=== Plot ===
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The first chapter of the game, "The Outset", introduces Ark, a mischievous boy who lives in Crysta, the only village in the underworld.<ref>{{cite manual |title=Terranigma Instruction Booklet |section=Prolog Story |page=4 |publisher=[[Nintendo of Europe]] |date=December 19, 1996}}</ref> After opening a forbidden door and touching a mysterious box containing a friendly demon named Yomi, every citizen in the village is frozen. The only person not affected by the curse, the Elder, guides him to resurrect the continents of the surface world in order to unfreeze the people. For the first time ever, a human being leaves Crysta to explore the underworld, which is portrayed as a frozen wasteland of imposing crystal mountains and rivers of magma. He conquers the trials of the five towers, each representing one continent, and revives the mainland of the Earth. Upon returning to his hometown, the Elder instructs him to travel to the surface world and to resurrect all living beings. Ark says goodbye to his lifelong devoted friend Elle and sets out to the Lightside.<ref name="Kotaku"/> 

In the second chapter, "Resurrection of the World", after having crossed a dimensional crevasse, Ark is confronted with the barren land that was once the Earth's surface. His first task is to free the giant tree Ra from a parasite that is afflicting him. This causes the resurrection of all plants in the world, helping Ark to cross the mountains of [[Guyana|Guiana]]. He travels further into the world, reviving birds, the wind, animals, and eventually mankind.

In the third chapter, "Resurrection of the Genius", the Elder appears to Ark in a dream and tells him to keep helping humanity grow, as the world is still in the [[Classical antiquity|fledgling stages]]. He continues his journey, travelling and expanding cities, assisting with the invention of groundbreaking technologies, and also—much to his surprise—encountering a Lightside twin of Elle, who lives as the adopted daughter of a French king but was rendered mute by a traumatic event in her childhood. Ark manages to break this condition, and over time Princess Elle begins to grow close to him. In continuing to follow the Elder's commands, Ark ultimately awakes the ingenious Beruga, a scientist who survived the destruction of the previous world by hiding himself in cryogenic sleep. Beruga provides Ark with an insight into his personal image of [[paradise]]: a perfect world where all insignificant life is killed with a virus named Asmodeus and everyone else is made immortal by turning them into [[zombies]].<ref>{{cite video game |title=Terranigma |developer=[[Quintet (company)|Quintet Co., Ltd]] |publisher=[[Nintendo of Europe]] |date=December 19, 1996 |quote='''Beruga:''' I created this life. Isn't it beautiful? With this system, people can live forever. Death is no longer fearful. Talk to the zombie in the nutrient bath.}}</ref> Ark tries to attack Beruga after this revealing twist but is stopped by robots, injuring him severely in the process.

The Elder once again appears to him, saying that his mission is fulfilled and he may now pass away. Ark realizes that he has been used by Dark Gaia (the "Devil"), whose plans of world domination required Ark to resurrect the planet. Just as he is about to die, Kumari, a wise human who watched the world's growth through [[reincarnation]], teleports Ark out of Beruga's laboratory. He then instructs him to go search the five Starstones and to lay them at the grave at Time's End in order to call the Golden Child. Ark obtains the stones one after another and sets them into skull statues at Dryvale, the location at the [[South Pole]] where the final confrontation between God and the Devil once took place. This leads to the appearance of Ark's Lightside self; the person Dark Gaia used to create Ark himself. His Lightside self reveals to him that he, the underworld Ark, is the legendary hero and then kills him.<ref>{{cite video game |title=Terranigma |developer=[[Quintet (company)|Quintet Co., Ltd]] |publisher=[[Nintendo of Europe]] |date=December 19, 1996 |quote='''Voice:''' You survived countless encounters with danger. However injured you were in fighting, you never did die. Do you know why? It is because you are the legendary hero... I represent the Lightside. And you represent the Darkside.}}</ref> 

However, in the fourth and final chapter, "Resurrection of the Hero", Ark is reborn as a baby through the soul of the surface world, Light Gaia. He is kidnapped by Darkside Elle, who was led there by Yomi to eliminate a threat to Crysta. When she realizes this threat is actually Ark, she allows him to awaken as the legendary hero and grow back into an adult in the process. Yomi then decides to kill Ark by himself and reveals he has been working for Dark Gaia all along. He fails, as Darkside Elle sacrifices herself to kill Yomi and save Ark's life. Yomi is conveniently replaced by a "Light Version".<ref name="Kotaku" />

Afterward, Ark departs to defeat Beruga. After he conquers the professor, he returns to the underworld to defeat Dark Gaia. The victory over that entity brings forth the destruction of the Darkside. In the end, Ark realizes that as a creation of Dark Gaia, he, along with the village of Crysta and the underworld, shall now vanish with the Devil's demise, though it is implied he and his loved ones in Crysta will be reincarnated. He goes to sleep, after being told by Light Gaia that he, as creator and defender, is what the humans would call a god. Ark's last dream pictures him as a bird flying above the world that he helped to exist, watching it grow older.<ref name="staff" /> An epilogue plays which shows Lightside Elle at her original home. There is a knock at the door, and she answers it. The game then ends.