Unofficial Chrono Trigger Resurrection Impresses

Trinn writes "Planet GameCube has recently reported on a completely unofficial remake of the highly popular Square Enix RPG Chrono Trigger by an independent team, Resurrection Games [their official site is down, here's a mirror of some of the screenshots]. It certainly looks sharp so far. They're even redoing the audio. Their plans are to finish up by Christmas, at which time the PC version will be released for free to the public - 'console versions of the Chrono Trigger Resurrection demo will only be available to official developers with access to GameCube or Xbox development kits.'." Interestingly, this amateur project was formerly in development for the Nintendo 64, all the way back in 2000.

Comments

YES

[n1ywb]

I'm creaming my pants as I type this!

Re:YES

[NanoGator]

"I'm creaming my pants as I type this! "

Oh man, walking into this thread was like walking into a movie theater.

Re:YES

[{8_8}]

You wear clothes at the computer?

Re:only 10 scenes

[n1ywb]

RTFA

Their goal is to recreate ten of the most memorable Chrono Trigger scenes for a Christmas 2004.

The final release will be a complete remake. Visit the developer's web site.

Music

[Reorax]

Luis Martins and David Ying's graphical prowess are accompanied by a fully rearranged soundtrack! Be sure to check out the Chrono Trigger Resurrection media page for a sampling of Mathew Valente's fantastic musicianship.

The sample site is down, but all I have to say is that the new music better be really damn good if they're replacing Mitsuda.

Re:Music

[Afromelonhead]

The music was one of the great attractions for me. I'm not much of an RPG player (AKA I've completed maybe 4 at the most), but the music really drew me into the game. I don't even know where to start with my favorite tracks... there's so many of them! Then there were the wonderful SNES graphics. I look at them today, and I'm still amazed by their punch.

Re:Music

[tuxedobob]

Rearranging, not replacing.

There have been only 2 Chrono's

[UltimaL337Star]

Yet there have been dozens of DBZ game attempts, and none of them have come close to this. This truly looks like how an anime style game should look like. No more simply cell shading or having 2D pictures that always face the camera, those shots of chrono's head look better then a pair of implants fresh from Pamela Anderson's last cosmetic maitnence appointment

Re:There have been only 2 Chrono's

[Soul-Burn666]

Interesting you mention DBZ... The character designer for Chrono Trigger is none other than DBZ's Akira Toriyama.

Re:There have been only 2 Chrono's

[jx100]

There have been 3 games in the "chrono" series. The second game was a little-known text based game known as "Radical Dreamers". It was only accessible through the SNES Satellaview system released in Japan.

link

stating the obvious

[radimvice]

I saw this site earlier today before the /. article was posted (and the site went down), and I have one thing to say: 3d artwork and music does not a playable game make. Might make for an interesting fan demo (especially to appease the masses of Squaresoft fans out there who cream their pants over this kind of stuff), but don't ever expect this to turn into a game worth glancing at. If the people involved had any clue as to what they're doing, they would build the game around emulating the game mechanics first, and layering a framework for building new custom content on top instead of the other way around, much along the lines of what the Zelda Classic project accomplished. But then again, the fact that they've been working on this same idea for four years and have nothing to show for it except for some pretty looking 3d screenshots pretty much speaks for itself.

Re:only 10 scenes

[WOSSquee]

This was mentioned on http://www.planetgamecube.com/ before /. got a hold of it and killed the website, so I checked it out, and in the forums the developer stated that the demo IS the final version, there will not be a complete remake. He also said that he will not be showing it to SquareEnix, but hopefully an executive or someone there picks up these guys to do the whole thing, there's gotta be a ton of money in selling the full version of this.

SHIT YES

[Trejkaz]

Yeah, I'm hoping that Nintendo sit up and notice, and that instead of suing them, they employ the guys to clean it up for a real release.

Re:Don't expect much.

[Trejkaz]

I rather hope they either employ them or buy the code off them, as it will not only benefit all the fans, but it would make more money than any lawsuit could ever muster. Of course a downside to it all is the resulting game would more than likely end up being restricted to one platform.

Re:Call me blasphemous, but...

[Bagels]

If you think the last boss is a "flying hedgehog," you obviously didn't play the game through to completion (you probably just got your ass whupped by attemptiung Lavos far too early). Spoilers ahead: the "hedgehog" is just a shell, there are two further (and much more difficult) bosses within. One looks something like Cell (of DBZ infamy), the other is a bizarre robot/organic hybrid looking thing that you fight against a rather trippy background of warped time/space.

Mitsuda's music is incredible (this game's still considered to have one of the best soundtracks ever, perhaps surpassed only by its sequel, Chrono Cross). And the battles were about far more than just effects - there was some actual strategy involved (particularly nice that you could avoid monsters if you were careful - no more random encounters). Give Chrono Trigger another shot... it very much deserves it.

Capturing the charm

[MMaestro]

I say, good for them! Keep up the good work. But ask much as I say that, I can't accept it as anything more than a 'fan adaptation.'

As good as the graphics as, as accurately copied the text will probably be (four words : Chrno does not talk.), and as much as I will end up playing it (its free), the game won't be able to satisfy fans of the original game. Why? We all know pretty much whats gonna be in it. Theres no Akira Toriyama (the original character designer) working on it. And theres that lack of 2D in there to make us wonder 'what does Chrno really look like? Is Lucca cute behind those glasses? Doesn't Ayla get cold when you're in the Dark Ages?' (For those who don't remember, in the Dark Ages the world was covered in snow except for the *spoiler* which gets destroyed.)

Re:Capturing the charm

[superjaded]

Theres no Akira Toriyama (the original character designer) working on it.

It might be my utter distaste for anything semi-related to DBZ, but there are many reasons I can think of that made me enjoy Chrono Trigger (fun battle system, no random battles, enjoyable characters/story, overall good gfx for its time) but character designs ain't one of 'em.

Hell, if anything, it was more of a detraction for me to look at Chrno and think "it's Goku with red hair" or the fact that both Meryl (Lunch) and Lucca (Bulma) looked like body doubles from DBZ.

Although you may have a point -- the enhanced detail may prove some interesting directional challenges for the crew making this remake. Are they going to be static models? Nothing more than souped up versions of their originals, complete with rudimentary animations to help express the emotion behind their lines? That may have been sufficient during the 16bit era, but it's not anymore.

Or will we see the characters themselve cringe, laugh and cry as the story goes on? Will they make the characters seem like they're over-acting, or will they be so understated it's almost not worth it?

And I just cringe at the thought of a dub of this game. Hopefully they'll err on the side of saving time/money and just go with a voiceless game.

Overall, I can't wait until this is released. Of the RPGs released since the dawn of polygons and the PSX, Xenosaga is really the only RPG that comes close to dethroning CT as my favorite RPG.

Of course, I'm not really an RPG Gamer, so I play RPGs for the story moreso than anything else, so I probably would have been fine with CT as long as its gameplay wasn't annoying and it kept its good story. Xenosaga was the same way -- the story was great but the gameplay just made it that much more enjoyable.

Three Chrono games, not two

[Ayaress]

Radical Dreamers was the second game, Chrono Chross was the third. It was on the Satellaview (sp?), which was a SNES/SFC accessory released in Japan where you could download games. Didn't have much for it. Had a remake of the original Legend of Zelda, and some pretty low-key games.

Radical Dreamers was more interactive fiction than game, but it was definitely part of the Chrono series. It had Serge, Kid, and Lynx from Chrono Chross and Magus from Chrono Trigger.

While on this topic, there's also another Chrono Trigger remake in progress by the same group that translated Radical Dreamers (demiforce.com). No news on that remake except that it has a SourceForge page up and not much else. The page for it on Demiforce's website has been broken since he moved the page. It was intended to be an exact remake, though, and not a fancy looking remake like this one.

Ocarina of Time: 2d

[Anonymous Coward]

instead of 2d->3d, this is 3d->2d, but I think they have a more realistic chance of getting something playable...

http://www.oot2d.com/

Re:only 10 scenes

[A_Wandering_Nomad]

RTFA back at you! In this link 1 of the developers puts the topic to rest. The demo of ten memorable scenes is all that there will be. As mentioned previously there are no plans to show this to any suit type people. http://www.opcoder.com/projects/chrono/forum/Defau lt.asp?sub=show&action=posts&fid=1&tid=301&pid=303