Games

Why remake perfection?

An actual turn-based system for slow idiots like me

Let me explore 1999 AD before Lavos attack. I want to see the cities and get to know their culture before the apocalypse.

Make a different game? Stop remaking shit. Make a new story.

I'm not a 2D purist. Quite the opposite actually. But Chrono Trigger really feels perfect for 2D. Kinda like Golden Sun. Like, you could try. But why?

It's like trying to cook a tender well done steak. Like you can if you want. Some people might say they prefer it that way. But the truth that if you want it tender, you should have just ordered it rare or medium rare.

It would depend on the skill of the team doing it. A lot of people are praising the FF7 remake even though the gameplay is completely different because of not only how it builds upon and unites all the lore that exists, but how it expands it and subverts expections, and it can only do this when it isn't just a remake cash grab.

What I want in a Chrono Trigger remake is rather than asking us, asking the original visionaries that created it what they would want to add into it if they created it today, and to put in the effort into making and ensuring that vision works out.

Well I am surprised no one has mentioned this but:

This is the best possible JRPG to do a retcon/reimagining of as is going on with FF7, but a bit differently.

Time travel!

So, start a new story with new characters, but intermix this with the old cast and story beats resulting in a completely new story that brings back old favorite settings and characters, introduces new ones.

Maybe you change significant plot points of the old story, maybe you don't, maybe you doom the world to some entirely new kind of catastrophe, maybe you get stuck in what would otherwise be called a soft lock but is actually in this world an intentional plot device that just looks like a soft lock but isnt.

Hell, if you /really/ want to go hog wild with this:

Make the new set of characters generally opposed to the original set of characters, have their own method of time travelling, and make it so much of the game is actually about attempting to out-time-travel-wit the others, basically with certain characters attempting to be time demons ala DB Xenoverse and others trying to stop them... all mixed with the narrative possibilities at many points for many characters to switch allegiances, go rogue, or mostly team up.

even moooore possible endings

No I have no clue how you could actually write something this complicated, but the entirety of Kingdom Hearts exists and people tell me somehow that all makes sense, so I am confident a team of competent writers can pull off an absurdly complex multivariate story line.

Preferably don't. But if you had to, perhaps a 3d version using unreal but with the style of the box art.

Chrono Resurrection.

If they make this a full game they can take my money.

I'd like nintendo to not have a single scrap to do with it.

TBH, I feel that widescreen and all the DS content will be sufficient. If it must be in 3D, maybe a Octopath Traveler like 3D Design.

I remember the PS1 version when it came out with the animated cutscenes and loving it as simple, sparse, and incomplete as they were. The game was no different but there were bonus little scenes. That worked for me.

So I would love to see animated renderings based on the actual playthrough doing the things you did and how you did them in the game.

As these remakes and such come out I have been able to reflect on what more I would have wanted back in 1995. And today all I want would be the memory of what my choices were my first playthrough. Or any one after that really. I'd love just about any data at all on them, to get saved somehow.

Show me what the final timeline looks like with all my gameplay choices. Render important scenes with every combination of party member using things they used in the run.

I'd love the shit out of that.

If they absolutely had to remake it, make it the ultimate love letter to fans. Call up Toriyama-san, get him directing artists to make the updated 3D character models, allow players to switch between old and new OSTs, if they're not going to do a complete open world 3D overhaul then allow players to toggle between old and new graphics if it's more of a remaster than a remake, update the motorcycle race so that Johnny doesn't psychically know where you are at all times to bounce you 1000 times, fix some of the endgame stuff with the Black Omen so that it's not just a repetitive dungeon you do 4x, but has more impact on the world.

Dunno, couple of ideas off the top of my head. OG Chrono Trigger still plays so well, the sprites are perfect, the OST is s-tier, and if it's not the best it's easily in the top 3 best 16-bit RPGs.