Terranigma is one of the best games I played to date, it combines solid gameplay with a great story and RPG elements.
The controls and Gameplay are solid, but nothing to get too excited about. There are dozens of weapons, armors and other items to collect, and lots of riddles to be solved. After you finished the main part of the game (But before you go to find the final boss) you can spend your time doing some of the many sidequests, like helping invent the camera, or buying and refurnish an appartement.The one part of the game I disliked was a boss fight against a certain witch. You did only 1 damage to her if you were under level 23 (Illuminati, anyone?), but afterwards she was a real pushover. The story is where the game really shines, and I'll cover that now.
When the game first starts, the story seems rather lame and stereotypical, but it gets surprisingly deep.
You're Ark, and you live in Crysta, the only village of the Underworld. Some of your buddies want to see what's behind a mysterious locked door, but as soon as they hear a strange voice they leave you on your own.
You find a strange creature, and every villager (Even the Chickens!) is turned to ice. You have to fight your way through 5 towers that get gradually harder. For every tower you complete, one of the continents of the Overworld reappers, and some villagers return to normal. Once all of this is done, the truly great story unfolds. You get sent to the Overworld, but all you find is dry, lifeless wasteland. You must defeat bosses from various dungeons to slowly make the wasteland become a true Utopia. You make the plants, birds, other animals and finally the humans come back to the Overworld.
You are able to talk to any of those, but once the humans are revived, you lose your chance to talk to any animals, but they'll be there to help you.
If you think you're done building a nice world after you revived the humans, you're more than wrong. You'll help build civilisation, and the cottages turn to renaissance-like buildings and finally to futuristic metropoles (New Tokio).
You learn about the balance between darkness and light, and a circle between creating the world and destroying it again. You then try to break the circle by descending down to the Underworld again and defeating Dark Gaia (Devil equivalent) thus destroying the Underworld together with you and dream your last dream.