In the wake of the veritable internet shitstorm that occured when a "leaked' Weekly Famitsu scan and an official-looking countdown site hinted at a Chrono Trigger DS game, Nathan intoduced me to Chrono Trigger: Resurrection, a fan-made, 3D remake, of sorts. It was never intended to be a fully-fledged game, just ten individual scenes strung together. Square Enix shut it down a few years ago, but I'd never heard of the project before last night.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the project -- it's technically impressive, with production values far higher than I what I imagined a few dudes with no budget would be able to pull off, even if there aren't any textures. However, I'm not sure if I can wrap my mind around the character models or art design, apparently inspired by the Toriyama-designed anime cutscenes from the Final Fantasy Chronicles PSOne collection. Something about it seems off, like Chrono is too bulky and beefy.

That being said, I'm anxious to see how Square will "enhance" CT DS. Don't get me wrong, I love Final Fantasy III DS, another classic remake, but the superdeformed characters didn't always translate very well. This, of course, didn't stop me from sinking several hours into the game, nor will it stop me from enjoying Chrono Trigger, should this rumor pan out. I do, however, think that, when trying to adapt classic games for a modern audience, there's a lot to be said for sprites. See Dragon Quest IX (another Square Enix game), Odin Sphere, and Grim Grimoire for examples of beautiful sprite work.



Anyway, back to Resurrection. It's a nifty little project, and it's a shame that it got cancelled. The animation was fluid and the transition into the first combat (around the 8:14 mark) was absolutely seamless, a design choice I wish more RPG developers would make. The little battle intro transition thing is jarring and adds unnecessary time to already long and sometimes tedious games. It is a convenient way to hide loading times, though. Too bad Resurrection's translation was just as bad as the original. I've never seen someone butcher English the way Frog does.

For comparison, here's some footage of the original Chrono Trigger.