"You found a big fat Roast Leg of Yak!"

That is my favorite line from one of my most beloved games ever, Illusion of Gaia for the SNES. Now most of you have probably never heard of this game. It was one of the most underrated games of its time but also one of the greatest. When I first played the game I was very young and still very new to the video game world. I didn't hear about the game in a magazine or on TV or anything of that nature. One day my sisters and I found it in a video store down the street and thought "A game with a picture of the world on it? Well that looks interesting!" That's pretty much how I rented all my games at the time. "If it has a pretty picture on it then it must be good!" Mind you I was like 8 at the time plus I'm a girl. Renting games that way you are bound to find a lot of retarded games, but luckily this was not one of them.

Taadaa!

The game is an action RPG game made by the publisher Enix (which became Square Enix) released in 1994. The game takes place in the 16th century. A time before technology was born, so no fancy cars to drive or awesome guns to shoot. So how did they pass the time in the 16th century? Well, by exploring the world and finding your dad of course! The main characters name is Will one day you fall into a portal that takes you into outer space and there you meet Gaia. He's a creepy floating head. He tells you to go collect some statues and save your dad. So like any other person would do, you listen to the floating head and leave town. You also decide to destroy a plummeting comet that can wipe out mankind while you are at it. You know, just for fun.

Now here comes some spoilers, so if you don't want anything ruined for you stop reading right now!

In the beginning of the game you live with your grandparents because your mom died for whatever reason and your dad "disappeared" about a year ago. You of course like every hero have special powers. You can play the flute. . . Ok, ok I know that's nothing special but you also have some kind of telekinesis and you can move statues by twirling your flute! . . . Ok yeah I know that sounds a little lame too but trust me it gets better. Not much further into the game you get an ability that allows you to turn into this big macho guy named Freedan that wields an awesome sword. You also have another alter ego named Shadow. He is. . . I don't know what he is but he is strong and he can go through floors. You don't get to turn into him until pretty much at the end of the game.

You also have some friends that come along with you pretty much just for the hell of it. Your friends from school, Lance, who is also looking for his father, he disappeared along with your dad. Seth, some super smart boy who wants to learn more about the world and stuff (Too bad he gets eaten by a giant fish right in the beginning of the game). And there's Erik, he's some wimpy kid. I have no clue why he decides to come with you. You also come across a princess, Kara, she decides that she is bored with the princess life and comes along with you. She is your typical princess, spoiled, stubborn, and bitchy like all the other princesses out there but in the end she turns out all nice and sweet and you end up falling in love with her and crap. While you are escaping a dungeon you bump into a flying flower thing that yells at you which is actually yet another companion. Her name is Lilly and she has the power to turn into, you guessed it, a flying flower. She is your buddy that sits in your pocket while you fight evil monsters. Little creepy, but whatever works. She is much like Navi from The Legend of Zelda series but much more useless. Her and Lance end up falling in love and junk too. Last but not least your last companion Neil. He is a long lost cousin of yours. He is an inventor but really sucks at it and I guess he doesn't shower. And those are your companions through out the game. They don't do much for you. They don’t even fight with you. They just keep the story line going as you are fighting for your life in dungeons because that is what's more important. Some of them stay with you until the end of the game and others go off some place else.

On to more important things, the fighting! Yes I know when you are Will you fight with a flute but hey, it's really not that bad. You can also use your flute as a shield by spinning it. Fancy. Through out the game you get other little special powers like sliding into small holes on the wall or if there is no small hole you can just hurl your body into a wall making your own hole! You also get powers when you turn into Freedan like charging your sword and making it explode and stuff.

 Ouch!

You fight your way through dungeons in search for these statues you so desperately seek. Of course all the bosses have them. How unfortunate. While fighting your way through the dungeon you have to kill every single enemy unless you don't want your permanent health, attack, or defense bonus, which trust me, you do. It's actually pretty easy to kill everything along the way unless you miss one guy that is all the way on the other side of the map then it kind of blows. You don't get a real map of the dungeons but you get a map pointing where the enemies and save points are. Most dungeons are pretty easy to find your way through, with the exception of a few of them where you want to tear your hair out or if you don't have any hair curl up in a ball and weep a little.

Like a lot of old games, the story is pretty much one straight line, there is no way to go off course. So you don't have to worry about getting lost anywhere. Even though it isn't a newer game, it is still a challenging game to this day, which I love. I don't want a game so easy that I can breeze through it in 20 minutes with the exception of Star Fox 64 of course.

The one thing that really blows in the game is that the only way to retrieve health while fighting is by eating herbs, but that is not the issue. The issue is similar to the ones in the Resident Evil games you only get so many herbs throughout the game, but at least in Resident Evil you can buy first aid spray . . . nope, not in this game. You can't just buy healing potions or go in search of fairies to eat. You pretty much get what is handed to you, which makes it all the more challenging. But not to worry, it is possible to go through the entire game up until the last two bosses and not use a single herb. . . believe me, I've done it.

But sadly you probably won’t be able to do that on your first try, so keep in mind to save some herbs for the last boss, for he is extremely difficult to fight. You don't fight him as Will or Freedan but as Shadow. Shadow's arm turns into a sword like weapon and when he swings his arm phoenixes shoots out from it. The last boss you fight is the comet. When you get near the end of the game, and after you find out your fathers fate, you get ported to the comet where you fight a giant woman, which kind of looks like something out of the movie Alien, but not as disgusting. Throughout the fight you have to dodge stuff and the boss hits pretty hard too, which is why you want to hoard as many herbs as you can. If you don't have any herbs you might as well restart your game and start over from the very beginning. Honestly 10 years later is when I finally defeated the game. Not just because I had issues with the last boss, but I never really owned the game until a few years ago.

The game play is loads of fun. The story line keeps you interested even if it has a few lovey dovey parts. I’m not going to ruin the whole storyline for you. I will say I think the game is more for the female audience because there is not a ton of action in it and parts of the story is like I said sweet and romantic that it might make some boys puke a little. I'm not saying there is no action to it. There is fighting and killing and not saying that guys like nothing but violence but . . . they do. I will still say boys give the game a shot and girls you will adore it.

Secrets: Through out the game you find these red jewels. The more you collect the more crap you get like a health bonus or an herb or a new special ability. There are 50 all together. When I was young I always wondered what would happen if you find them all. They don't tell you in the game what will happen and the jewels are not that easy to find. So about a year ago I decided to look up all the jewels hiding spots. I got so excited when I found the last one with the anticipation of what's going to happen. You appear in a place called Gem's mansion, it looks kind of cool. As I'm going through it I kill every single thing to see if I get any bonuses. Well I didn't so I think well maybe there's something I get at the end. Then I get to the boss, Solid Arm. He was a bit difficult and a long fight but I did get him down . . . and I didn't get a damn thing. All I got was wasting a few herbs. After he died he said something about Blazer but I had no clue what they were talking about. So I looked it up online to see if that was all there was to it . . . and yes sadly it is. I did find out an interesting story about the boss you fight in Gem's mansion. Apparently the boss was in the game Soul Blazer which is the prequel to Illusion of Gaia which I have yet to play. I guess in Soul Blazer, Blazer defeated Solid Arm and when he did Solid Arm broke into 50 jewels and was scattered around the world. Ah so now all those red jewels makes sense but I still wasn't too thrilled with not even getting an herb from him.