Thursday, August 28, 2008

On a (Lots of) Hair Trigger.


Square Enix recently announced that they will be bringing The SNES RPG Chrono Trigger to the DS. Now, resounding "FINALLY!" aside, the announcement was met with pretty wholly positive reaction from fans.

In case you don't know, Chrono Trigger was an RPG on the SNES. Now, what makes it different from your Dragon Quests and your Final Fantasies (and you rap music, and your DVD's...) is that it's basically a combination of the two (so really, it's not that different, really), and the only work of the so-called "Dream Team" of the creators of both series, including (but not limited to) Hironobu Sakaguchi from Final Fantasy, and Yuuji Horii on the Enix side. Akira Toriyama handled the art (he drew Dragon Ball Z, guys!), as he did in Dragon Quest. The irony, of course, is that these companies would merge later, but the Dream Team was never reassembled.

I've never played Chrono Trigger (I'm not as old as you think), but so far what's been revealed about this remake makes me kinda skeptical of how much thought Square Enix is putting into it. First of all, it won't be 3-D, which the DS remakes of Final Fantasy III and IV had going for them. However, this actually makes me glad instead of angry (which many fanboys are), as, unless they scale the difficulty for a wider audience (which hasn't been the case with the remakes so far, in fact FF IV was even harder than the SNES version), I'll be able to experience the game mostly unchanged.

Of course, companies seem to think that remakes won't make money unless they pack in extra stuff to get those people who played them already. The new version packs new touch screen controls (ooooooohh!! Maaagical touch screen controls!), and an extra dungeon. The sound quality is also good, from what I've heard. Now, I don't really think that it matters. Sure there are people who will buy it for that reason and that reason alone, but those numbers really pale in comparison to: a) the new kids who got into FF IV from the DS version, and will buy it by the brand alone, and b) the obsessed fanboys who would buy it if the game asked to them code it them-damn-selves. It's not so much that I don't like the new content, (and really, no one should object to new content that you're getting for free), but if the game would come out earlier sans touch screen controls and new dungeon, I would much prefer that.

The game has also been priced and dated. The game will be 39.99 and will come out November 25th. The release doesn't bother me at all, but the price might bother some. But hey, more likely than not, Square is probably targeting the same audience that bought The World Ends With You for 40 dollars, so price really shouldn't be a problem for them. As for the rest of us, we'll just have to cough them up somehow, and enjoy what everyone else says is a timeless classic, or something like that. I'm obviously not old enough to enjoy this.

Peace.

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