Doing and Redoing

I don’t know what to make of remakes. It seems to me that a gaming company that releases a modern remake of an oldie is either doing this to please the fans of the original game, or just because they want to milk the franchise to death. What I cannot decide is whether or not the reason even matters.

 
No doubt that the remake looks amazing. But then again, we all know that the original was great.

With the impending re-release of The Secret of Monkey Island by Lucasarts, I am trying to focus on whether or not I am excited about this release. After all, this was an adventure game that stood above all other adventure games of its time and gave me hours of fun and laughter. And pirates. lots and lots of pirates. So a modern remake of the game with new graphics, music and voice casting must certainly swash my buckles, right? Who cares that Lucasarts are releasing this game really close to Telltale’s own version of Monkey Island that was released 3 days ago? Why should it matter that Lucasarts, who abandoned the adventure games genre years ago in order to focus on releasing tons of Star Wars games is suddenly releasing an adventure, which is a remake of an old favorite? Why would I mind that they are publically saying that they promise to release more adventures only if this new remake sells well?

 
At least Telltale is trying something new.

Well, I don’t know why, but I do mind. It does matter to me. Where Telltale attempted (with more success than not) to recreate the franchise and came up with a brand new Monkey Island adventure, Lucasarts is reusing its old material and is also “holding hostage” its other franchises unless their demands are met. It just feels wrong to me. Its the difference between a company that creates and therefore contributes to the advancement of video games, to a company that recycles for money. Lucasarts used to be the first type of company when it came to adventure games. I really hope that there is at least some soul behind their actions.

Fighting the war AFTER the victory!

Chrono Trigger has a very happy beginning... You visit the millennial fair, celebrating a 400 year-old victory in a war between mankind and the forces of evil yada yada yada.

 

The big difference between this story and others comes later on, when you get to join the very same war, 400 years in the past. In fact, you have a significant role in changing the future and affecting it's outcome (and much much more).

However, the part where I really got into this game was when I first found myself in the future. The far future, about 1000 years into the future.

 

A dystopian future is one of the most common settings in sci-fi movies and games. However, after moving through a happy present time period and another medieval time period, I was shocked to see this future.

Robots? Mutants? Ruins?! It is amazing how powerful these clichés can be when used correctly, and is usually not a very believable future. Chrono Trigger nailed it though, and it was more or less what you would expect it to be. For me it was a real shock to find myself in a dystopian wasteland all of a sudden with no idea of how it came to be, coming from a time of knights and swords. This future is so distant from the “present” that I had no way of seeing it coming, and it fits into the story well. Which goes to show that clichés, when used correctly, are not clichés at all.

I will try to post more about this game, but I cannot promise anything, since I have other things to write about that are more… recent. Here are some more screenshots from later in the game where you get to travel to prehistoric times… things are never dull :)

An eternal story

Time travel. Everybody loves time travel stories. Books, movies and video games have been depicting time travelling since the dawn of time… Um… maybe not. But they existed for a long time. Too bad most of these stories are rubbish. It’s not easy to maintain a coherent storyline with time travelling fucking everything up with changes to the timeline. It’s even harder to maintain a storyline with the added interactivity of a video game. Nevertheless, one game in particular did manage to do exactly that: Chrono Trigger.

 

The game is as old as time itself, so I won’t recap the story, since it has been done so many times before. The reason I’m even writing about it is thanks to the Vintage Game Club, which gave me an excuse to play this lovely game again and relive one of the greatest adventures ever to grace a video game console. So instead, I will try and post my thoughts about the game as I play through it over the next few days or maybe even weeks (It’s THAT epic).

Funny thing is that while many people had played this game for the first time on their SNES (Super Nintendo), I have played it on my PC using a SNES emulator. I have downloaded this game without even knowing what I was about to play. I was (and still kind of is) a huge fan of Square (Square Enix these days) and after finishing the unbelievable Final Fantasy VI, I was looking for any Square game I could lay my hands on. Therefore, Chrono Trigger was a completely random choice. In Israel, gaming took a long time to sink in (it never really did, though), so I have never heard about this game before. Lucky me, huh?

Anyway, as I am once again getting ready to begin my journey through the many places and ages of the world of Chrono Trigger, I’m feeling a bit excited. It has been a long time since I have had a great gaming adventure as deep and as rewarding as this one, and I’m looking forward to share some of my views on it.