Just Jeans
08-19-2008, 03:33 PM
You know, I've always hopped that Chrono Trigger would get the remake treatment. The good news is that the game is coming to the Nintendo DS. The bad news is that it's just a glorified port rather than a ground up rebuild (like Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy IV).
E3 2008: Chrono Trigger Hands-on (http://ds.ign.com/articles/891/891103p1.html)
July 16, 2008 - Apparently, Chrono Trigger is a Very Big Deal Indeed. It's one of the most highly coveted Square RPGs this side of the Final Fantasy series, and when Square Enix revealed that the game would be making the move to the Nintendo DS gamers were both elated that their precious SNES game would return, and crushed that the game wouldn't show up on the Wii Virtual Console.
Chrono Trigger made an appearance at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, and it looks as good as the Super NES game did back more than a decade ago. Aside from a flashy full-motion video animated introduction and some snazzy touch-screen elements, the game's not trying to be much but a revival of the original 16-bit game, right down to the pixel art and 2D tiled worlds.
The Nintendo DS game was fully in English -- not surprisingly since the game's already been localized a couple of times prior, once on the Super NES, and a second time on the original PlayStation. The E3 demo started with the lead character Chrono (or whatever you decide to name him from the start) getting out of bed and heading off to the square to meet his crew who's set up their newest invention: a transporter. Along the way, Chrono meets up with a mysterious girl who ends up getting zapped through a portal after a transporter malfunction. Chrono hops off after her and the adventure begins.
The Nintendo DS version features a straightforward visual conversion, but the controls have been given a tweak or two: you can choose to play the game with traditional D-pad/button controls, or use the stylus on the touch-screen to maneuver the characters on the top-screen. The touch screen will have contextual buttons popping up to make navigating menus easier, but mostly the extra display is for a overview map of the area you're currently in. The DS game has an automapping feature for when you're exploring the monster-infested woods or other areas, drawing up the maze as you uncover it.
The touch screen works pretty well, but it gets a little awkward when you enter battles, as you have to choose your targets via buttons that don't directionally correspond to the enemy in the same way as the targeting system is controlled with directional-pad pushes.
But for the most part, the Nintendo DS game looks to retain much of what made the original Super NES game so awesome. It's tough to get the full experience of an incredibly deep role-playing game at an event such as E3, so we'll be sure to follow this hands-on with a deeper one after the show.
I was looking forward to playing this on the Virtual Console, and have no desire to shell out for a DS to play an amped up port when they could have just as easily ported it to the GBA two years ago. :meh:
E3 2008: Chrono Trigger Hands-on (http://ds.ign.com/articles/891/891103p1.html)
July 16, 2008 - Apparently, Chrono Trigger is a Very Big Deal Indeed. It's one of the most highly coveted Square RPGs this side of the Final Fantasy series, and when Square Enix revealed that the game would be making the move to the Nintendo DS gamers were both elated that their precious SNES game would return, and crushed that the game wouldn't show up on the Wii Virtual Console.
Chrono Trigger made an appearance at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, and it looks as good as the Super NES game did back more than a decade ago. Aside from a flashy full-motion video animated introduction and some snazzy touch-screen elements, the game's not trying to be much but a revival of the original 16-bit game, right down to the pixel art and 2D tiled worlds.
The Nintendo DS game was fully in English -- not surprisingly since the game's already been localized a couple of times prior, once on the Super NES, and a second time on the original PlayStation. The E3 demo started with the lead character Chrono (or whatever you decide to name him from the start) getting out of bed and heading off to the square to meet his crew who's set up their newest invention: a transporter. Along the way, Chrono meets up with a mysterious girl who ends up getting zapped through a portal after a transporter malfunction. Chrono hops off after her and the adventure begins.
The Nintendo DS version features a straightforward visual conversion, but the controls have been given a tweak or two: you can choose to play the game with traditional D-pad/button controls, or use the stylus on the touch-screen to maneuver the characters on the top-screen. The touch screen will have contextual buttons popping up to make navigating menus easier, but mostly the extra display is for a overview map of the area you're currently in. The DS game has an automapping feature for when you're exploring the monster-infested woods or other areas, drawing up the maze as you uncover it.
The touch screen works pretty well, but it gets a little awkward when you enter battles, as you have to choose your targets via buttons that don't directionally correspond to the enemy in the same way as the targeting system is controlled with directional-pad pushes.
But for the most part, the Nintendo DS game looks to retain much of what made the original Super NES game so awesome. It's tough to get the full experience of an incredibly deep role-playing game at an event such as E3, so we'll be sure to follow this hands-on with a deeper one after the show.
I was looking forward to playing this on the Virtual Console, and have no desire to shell out for a DS to play an amped up port when they could have just as easily ported it to the GBA two years ago. :meh: