That’s one small step…
-Neil Armstrong
Ok full disclaimer: I am not a prophet. Don’t ask me to wish upon stars for you. I threw out a big net and “predicted” the Zelda Game & Watch and now people wanna pin the new ActRaiser Renaissance on me because of the article I wrote asking what ever happened to Quintet, but I tell you it’s simply not true. I’d like to point out that I used the ActRaiser title screen font for the main image in that article… however, let me assure you that I was just as floored as the most floored individuals who saw that reveal! If anyone, we have the developers, publishers, and suits with their undoubtedly endless meetings on licensing and copyrights to thank for this.
Of course I find it more than a little surprising. Here we were just a few days ago talking about Tomoyoshi Miyazaki and Masaya Hashimoto, their mysterious disappearances, the trail of clues their careers left behind them, whereabouts they might be now, and what that means for Quintet’s legacy. The co-founders of the development studio apparently exiting the industry, unable to be reached, could potentially impede re-releasing these games.
Or so we thought.
ActRaiser, in retrospect, seems like the most obvious choice to spearhead a Quintet renaissance, if we can borrow from the remake’s (hopefully) prophetic moniker. The ActRaiser port for the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console represents the only instance that I can think of where a Quintet game appeared on a modern system. Its publisher is listed as Square Enix. Steam lists the developer as Sonic Powered, a Japanese company with a history of mobile and handheld game development.
Several other Quintet games were published by the Enix of yesteryear, however we should note that Quintet’s trilogy didn’t even make it to Virtual Console. Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia/Time, and Terranigma were nowhere to be found, at least on North American VC for Wii or Wii U. Heck, ActRaiser itself wasn’t even re-released for the Wii U’s Virtual Console. None of these games appeared on the Super Nintendo Classic mini console.
With ActRaiser representing perhaps the final roar of Quintet’s canon on Virtual Console, exclusively Wii’s, what does Actraiser Renaissance bode for the future?
Short answer: I don’t know. But I think there’s hope. Portent or presage, inciting incident, really the best we can do is hope. Seeing ActRaiser brought majestically to life again across multiple platforms with a full remake that evidently reworks a lot of its sim mechanics (and in the mind of this writer, ideally re-balances the difficulty) is a scent of paradise for the retro gamers among us. But of course, we can only want more.
A Quintet HD Collection? A complete remake for each member of the trilogy? A shadow drop for Granstream Saga? The legacy of Quintet is small but it’s an undying ember. It speaks volumes that here we are years later and people are still pining for these games, from online petitions to social media movements to websites and articles like this one. In a mere handful of decades, gaming has given us a rich heritage of culturally significant, emotionally resonate, all-too-human works of art that have explored a wealth of themes, ideas, and forms of storytelling, employed millions, and impacted the lives of many more. It does at least my old calcifying heart some good to know that there are companies, publishers, and developers willing to help keep this heritage alive and accessible in a formal, official presentation as the commercial art they were initially designed to be.
If Square Enix can continue to play ball and the stars keep aligning, maybe the floodgates of this retro renaissance will swing wide open. Here’s hoping once again that Mr. Miyazaki and Mr. Hashimoto are alright and that all the businessy stuff can get sorted out. Just don’t ask me to wave my magic wand!
Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage or Mage Cast.
