John may be misremembering the matchmaking system before the sos flares. You could search for a room (or create one yourself) and dedicate it to farming whatever you wanted. The flares may be easier and initially faster but come with a bunch of unfortunate drawbacks as
discussed in a thread only recently (basically they kill any form of player interaction or sense of community)
One thing I find ironic though is how the game is praised for being handhold-y and tutorial overkill while Zelda was criticized (and then praised) for the exact opposite development.
btw: in case you're still looking for a 3rd round of wiiware retro active suggestions: Lost Winds (and possibly its sequel) for being not only a launch title but also one of the best looking Wiiware games. The first one is incredibly short but maybe that's an advantage?
I sure hope Greg is right with is Nintendo Free-Online-Play prediction. Even though it's "only" 20 bucks a year, I just hate the idea of paying for online multiplayer.
edit: well... I just listened to the rest of the telethon and... The Terranigma talk was somewhat disheartening, to say the least. Even though I only discovered it in the early 2000 thanks to the magic of emulation, it instantly became my most beloved SNES game - a title it still holds today. I know there's no point but somehow I feel obligated to defend it, or at least refute some of the criticism:
Since I did not play it in english, I cannot comment on the apparently "bad" localization. But since the game was mostly popular in mainland europe, I don't think many people played it in that language anyway. The "misspellings" of certain names are present in other languages, but they seem to be very much deliberate and I don't really get why that would warrant calling it a bad localization.
Also I didn't think you need a guide, at least I didn't. Most NPCs give you very clear hints on what to do - which was somewhat novel at the time when NPCs were just spouting random nonsense. I guess if you go in with that expectation you'll have a hard time. The only thing I can somewhat agree with was the thing with the 4 witches, although I still somehow managed to figure it out back then.
As far as story goes, Dark Gaia doesn't want you to revive the world again to destroy it but to revive it to rule over both. The story in Terranigma takes place millennia after some cataclysmic event where Gaia and the Hero lost to Dark Gaia and Gaia sunk the Oceans in order to protect the world. Dark Gaia wants you to rive it and especially revive its henchmen Beruga so they can finally complete their objective. Most of this stuff is explained when you awaken Beruga. Also some years pass when you are a Baby, you don't grow up in an instant.
But I agree, the game is long overdue for a remake or at least a re-release. I always liked Enix' games more than Square's and It's a bummer that they'd keep making Square-style games while completely abbandoning Enix' more gritty and dark style of story telling.
To James' question: If Terranigma was a modern game, I think it would be like the Xenoblades, at least to me it hit all the same notes like when I played the fist xb. You have a somewhat realistic story with a dark and sadistic twist, the whole thing is a road trip with "dungeons" which aren't necessarily dungeons along the way and some light city/world growth mechanic. You have a very linear story in a non-linear environment with lots of stuff to discover if you stray from the path. Oh... yeah and you're working for the bad guy the whole time and when you finally realize it, you have to be "reborn" to fight him.
