I AM SETSUNA

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Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
<rya> buy a bad game so they can make more
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=Craze
<rya> buy a bad game so they can make more


Yeah, I want a good game with oldschool appeal and something that modeled itself after Chrono Trigger would ordinarily be an instant purchase for me. But with so many people reporting on the lackluster storyline and other issues, it'll probably be something I won't pick up unless it's on sale.

While I'm sad that poor sales of this means Square Enix prolly won't be making more old-school titles, if they were going to do a piss-poor job of it in the first place, then perhaps they shouldn't be making them anyway.
author=RyaReisender
...

Now Square Enix can just rightfully say "Well, we tried, seems such games are just not popular anymore". It's sad.


Please post more starry-eyed idealism

"People don't like what I do, they must not understand what they want"

Geez.
author=RyaReisender
Sounds to me like you're just not liking the game. Boring characters, really?

You say "Boring characters, really?" but you offer no argument to why that can't be a big problem. Here's the deal, "we wanted a Chrono Trigger inspired game and we got it, but the game was poorly made" is a perfectly valid explanation. If you say you want a chicken for dinner, it's implied that you don't want the chicken horrible over-/undercooked, don't want it together with other ingredients that doesn't work well with chicken and doesn't want it ruined for any other reason. Likewise, when people request a Chrono Trigger like game, it's implied that they want a good Chrono Trigger like game.

Further, game developers have a responsibility to know what they are doing. If someone requests that a game becomes harder, it doesn't mean that any increase of difficulty will make those who made that request happy, there is such thing as overdoing it or making the game difficult for the wrong reasons. Just the same, when people requested a Chrono trigger like game, it did not mean that any Chrono Trigger like game would satisfy them.

What Square Enix can say though is "Well, we tried, seems we don't have what it takes to pull it off anymore".
it's kind of cool to see that not even Square Enix is immune to the 'well, this is retro-themed so we don't have to put as much effort in' trap

the thing about games back then is that, generally speaking, they did the most they could with what they had. making your story or characters intentionally shallow because ~that's how things were back then~ is missing the point, and bad-on-purpose has a much different feeling from bad-by-circumstance.
CAVE_DOG_IS_BACK
On sunny days, I go out walking
1142
i don't think they tried to make the writing or characters intentionally shallow, although they are definitely lazy. I don't feel like games in the snes era were that way, either. They (Setsuna guys) are just bad writers, and were aware of it judging from how self-aggrandizing the development room is.

The game it incompetently attempts to ape plot point and point from is FFX anyway, which is not retro. and the characters have.....other....problems...

aside frome that, the fact that you can beat the game using one move (blowbeat) is a problem. even in chrono trigger, which by no means had a complex battle system, you had to use a different move sometimes!

the world map is also notably bad because everything looks so similar. help im lost on Hoth

author=Craze
<rya> buy a bad game so they can make more

But it's not a bad game.

You say "Boring characters, really?" but you offer no argument to why that can't be a big problem.

I meant that the characters are actually not more boring than the character in Chrono Trigger. Personality depth, character development and uniqueness are all on very similar levels.

I don't even think the game is all that good, if people said the ridiculously high difficulty ruins it for them then I could understand, it ruined it for me too. But complaining about things that are not actually better in Chrono Trigger, just shows that people don't know what they want.

If you took people that want retro games now, then erased their memory of Chrono Trigger and then offered them to buy Chrono Trigger for a similar price, it probably would suffer as much as I Am Setsuna is doing.

Also the developers really put their all into this game, you should at least play it until you can get to the secret developer room, it is almost heart-breaking: "I know the game isn't perfect, but I still love it."
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
Maybe it's been said but do you think it's just because people like us or the generation that played this classic RPGs are just a little spoiled now?
Of course we can still love and marvel at the games that we enjoyed and touched us so long ago (and even now)

For people that haven't played all the classics like us, they might like and enjoy it. Or, the new new generation of gamers wouldn't even give it a second glance with all the titles out these days. Now we are talking real spoiled and coddled.

It's like the schism between Fallout 1 and 2 and then Fallout 3, NV, Fallout 4. Alot of the latter gamers have never played FO 1 and 2 or refuse to because why bother?

I just got off work and kinda lost my train of thought on this, but hopefully it makes enough sense.
It will either apply to older/nostalgic gamers, or lose them completely and then be ignored by the newer/younger generation or be a fresh game for them and possibly something that gets them into the genre to which they have a plethora of games to discover.
I don't know about that, Rya. Some friends and I were talking about the differences between the two games and there's just so much that CT does right that Setsuna failed to, even if it is a much older and dated game.

For one, the characters are actually a LOT better represented in CT than in Setsuna. Even Crono is a better silent protag than Merc, because while he doesn't -say- anything, his character is shown through poses and reactions to things. He doesn't need to talk in order to show character- it's there when he jumps back in shock when something surprising happens, or when he crouches into a fighting stance when an enemy appears. People mistake Crono for having no character, even though he clearly does and it's shown through-out the game.

Hell, all the characters in CT have more character than the ones in Setsuna - from Marle laughing at silly things or yelling at people, to Lucca letting fly with her hammer and posing with her gun. From Frog giving a thumbs up when things go well, to Robo going crazy and bouncing around, to Ayla getting down on all fours to growl at others, to Magus throwing his cloak back over his shoulder. These poses give a huge amount of character to the party, and something that makes Setsuna seem stagnant in comparison. Also, those are aside from the actual interaction and dialogue between the characters, which is pretty well done in CT too.

It's not the most well-written game, sure, but it's head and shoulders over Masked Merc who could have said no to killing a girl especially when given the choice about it, Side-Kick girl who supposedly knows magic enough to subdue Masked Merc but actually doesn't gameplay-wise and is the a-typical friendly overprotector, to the kid who was actually more interesting that any of the other characters but actually didn't have much to say at all beyond just agreeing with everyone, to the guy who has an interesting backstory but who has no actual character beyond 'tragic backstory' to the actual sacrifice the game is named after who is generic mage girl who needs saving all the goddamn time.

Sorry, but really, they're bland and boring in comparison which is a huge pity because they had promise. If the game had actually gotten rid of Merc (or made him a side-character) and had Setsuna (the name of the game guys!) be the lead character, making her choices matter and following what happened to her, it would have been a lot more interesting (though the characters would still have been bland, but at least they would have had an actual character to bounce conversation off instead of Stonewall McMerc).

The charm of CT was completely missing. I know they tried to copy the dynamic between Crono (protector) and Marle (princess who needed protection) but they forgot that Marle actually is more than just a healer who got kidnapped/injured. Marle needed help one time and helped a shit ton of times afterwards. Setsuna 'helped' once at the start and has been basically kidnap/injury fodder ever since. Comparing she and Marle is like comparing, say, Aeris and Rinoa. They're both girls and both magically inclined but their stories and characterisation is completely different.
I was really excited about this game (and still am I guess), but the $40 price tag really turned me off. But I do still plan on buying it because just listening to the soundtrack got me so amped.

I will be pissed if I drop 40 bucks on this and then they release a physical version on disc later on...
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