DS Daily: Chrono Torture

by JC Fletcher { Nov 29th 2008 at 10:30AM }

This one's for our PALs: you've had to wait 13 years for Chrono Trigger. Now it looks like it might finally come out in February. Maybe. Or later. Really, we don't know.

But faced with the tantalizing possibility of finally playing the classic RPG, can you wait? Or have you already broken down and just imported the thing, like Chris did? The temptation must be overwhelming, especially since there's basically no downside. The costs would probably come out about even!

Gallery: Chrono Trigger

[wallpaper available at chronotrigger.jp]

Tags: chrono-trigger, europe, remake, rpg, square-enix

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Lycoris @ Nov 29th 2008 10:35AM

I've not given in yet but I must say that it is one I've put on my Christmas list and mentioned to my family. Several times.

Bowser Rogozhin @ Nov 29th 2008 10:49AM

No, I'm not buying it at all. Squaresoft need to realise that forever mining the past will not lead to a prosperous future. People will associate the company with 90s nostalgia, in the same way some look fondly at Dawson's Creek or something; it was cool then, but now it looks awfully hackneyed, bordering on redundant. The great ideas are exhausted and Squaresoft realise this, but are constant rehashes the answer?

They've now become a drunken behemoth, gobbling up the likes of Taito, stalking Tecmo, but that won't stop the rot. It just means that awesome series like the Legend of Kage will be ignored, further more so.

I really hope Chrono Trigger bombs.

Josh @ Nov 29th 2008 12:18PM

You know, I kind of agree. Chrono Trigger DS is about the most blatant instance of price gouging I've seen this generation. *Forty dollars* for a direct port of an SNES game. Forty dollars! They had the audacity to add the Square-Enix tax to a game that has been finished for 13 years!

Oh yeah, but it has a new ending!

Come on.

Shoyz @ Nov 29th 2008 12:29PM

Even if they're re-do's, you can at least know when you buy it that it's going to be a -quality- re-do, and personally, I'd rather play a ton of re-do's than a ton of the other crap that gets released on the DS constantly (:

The Fatass of Kickassness @ Nov 29th 2008 5:26PM

"you can at least know when you buy it that it's going to be a -quality- re-do"

You mean like Final Fantasy III and IV were?

Oh wait

Once again I find myself agreeing with Bowser. Is this the fuckin' Twilight Zone or something? I feel weird.

aj @ Nov 29th 2008 10:08PM

I agree, but to a point.

It's not nostalgia if you've never played these games before. When these games were out on the SNES, I was a kid with no income and no SNES. So I'm happy that Squarenix is re-releasing the games that I want to play and that eeeeeveryone just loves without me having to pay some obscene price on the secondary market for a game that may or may not work.

Screw it, for 40$ I get a game I have never played that comes with a product warantee should it break.

So keep re-releasing the games, Squarenix, just make sure to make NEW games. People appreciate it when you try new IP. Kingdom Hearts was a risk. The World Ends With You was a risk. Balance the risks with the sure hits, and you're aces.

And if you don't want to pay 40$ for the game, then DON'T. It's easy.

dears @ Nov 29th 2008 11:26AM

-Bowser Rogozhin

lmao! it's not going to bomb, stupid. it's going to sale like fucking hot cakes! lol! an besides, i would much rather play this game over the overhyped and overpriced gray/brown hd trash that gets released today. (including mirror's edge, yes i know it has colors)

RupeeClock @ Nov 29th 2008 11:48AM

I'll be blunt, a great deal of Europeans have probably already downloaded the game...

I'm importing it, this game is worth it entirely.

'sides, show Squaresoft some support and actually buy it, I hear they have a rough time on the DS because of the R4.

http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-zvy-71-ba-49-en-84-j-70-2x6y.html

wiinterfang @ Nov 30th 2008 5:11PM

Well if their games weren't so unnecessary expensive that might had change.

Anthony @ Nov 29th 2008 1:31PM

I already own it. I bought it when it came out last tuesday. People keep forgetting that there is a younger group of gamers that may want to play a game they never got the chance to. I never owned an NES. You call it price gouging. For me its a chance to play a classic. I wouldn't mind paying 20 bucks for 'Citizen Kane' on dvd or blu-ray in order to see a classic film, why not pay 40 bucks to experience a masterpiece for the first time with modern technology? If you don't want to play it again. don't buy it. Is Square forcing you to buy this game? No. So quit bitching and live and let live.

Mert @ Nov 29th 2008 1:44PM

WIN

JBGUY2K @ Nov 29th 2008 3:31PM

Words of wisdome, this guy has.

Arashikou @ Nov 29th 2008 4:30PM

Amen to that. I'm glad to hear you're finally getting a chance to play it. Hopefully it lives up to the tales others have told you of it.

Another case where these re-releases are useful is someone like me. I know I have my old SNES and cartridge around here somewhere, but damned if I can remember where or guarantee how usable they are after a few years in storage. My wife grew up in a strictly Sega household, so - horror of horrors - she never got to play the original. $40 is more than worth it to be able to give her a version that I know hasn't died of dust accumulation and - bonus - she can play on the go. (Also bonus, she gets to hear Mitsuda's incomprable soundtrack for the first time through headphones!)

automagv @ Nov 29th 2008 8:29PM

I never played it when it came out. In fact, I never got into turn based japanese rpg's at all. However, after playing Mass Effect and Fallout 3, I decided to give an old school rpg a try just to see if i'd like it with my new perspective on rpg's. Everyone raves about this one, and I have a DS, so there was no effort required. I've gotta say, I see why everyone makes a big deal out of this game. I usually avoid sword and sorcery type of games but this one may just change my whole outlook on rpg's. I might even give a Final Fantasy a shot one day. If Chrono Trigger never came out on the DS, I would never have played it. I probably would continue to avoid turn based jrpg's altogether.

Monodi @ Nov 29th 2008 9:57PM

Tony has covered my thoughts about the Virtual Console, the NES Classic collection, and the GBA remakes for SNES classics in one paragraph.

I was born in early 1991, I witnessed the SNES and was the first console I played (the first console I owned was the Nintendo64, what an amazing thing), but I never managed to own one. I bought myself Super Mario World for GBA last year and aside from being a game I already played and cleared in teh past, I am glad I finally have it on my own.

I still can't afford Chrono Trigger but I want it because I never had the chance to have it myself. Of course, I have downloaded it before on a SNES emulator along many other titles but its not the fucking same (and I am still stuck in some part right after you learn to wield magic)

I think us gamers need to adapt to the idea that we are not the only generation of gamers anymore, we are growing up fastly and in some mind blowing way that you realize it was 10 years ago when your favorite game was released (my case Pokemon and Ocarina of Time)
There are new gamers and they have the right to play brilliant titles like these.

I am still waiting for you EarthBound. God damn it.

Ibinixer @ Nov 29th 2008 3:39PM

The first time I played this was on the snes of the z variety. I'm playing it again now on the ds, in Europe and without importing, like a magician. You can say for shame all you want, but $40 = �50, and it'll probably be more like �50 when it comes out here in Ireland, almost 14 years late. It's nice to have it on the ds and it's an awesome game that everyone should play, I just don't think that SE deserve this extortionate price for it. Also, a new ending is nice and all, but the arena thing? Blow me. Or they could have polished up the graphics which are not going to be endearing to new generations discovering this game for the first time. They were flogging a dead horse, it didn't get the treatment it deserved for a re release and when it is finally released in Europe it will probably have been downloaded by everyone with the cop on that a cyclo ds costs a fiver more than a square enix game.

None of this should reflect on the awesomeness of this game though, for it is awesome on a scale that will probably have me failing my impending college exams staying up all night playing this instead of studying. I can't wait for cybernator ds so that I can pirate that too.

Bannock @ Nov 29th 2008 5:25PM

$40 you say?
Heh. The average console game in America is what, $50 to $60, yeah? (correct me if I'm wrong)
Where I am, we pay $120 per game. DS games are, on average, about $70.
So yeah, it's actually cheaper to import everything.

Monodi @ Nov 29th 2008 10:02PM

Do you live in Brazil or anywhere on Latin America by any chance? I live in Mexico and I am really tired of the bullshit taxes to buy games here.

I am not going to pay $400 for a damn Nintendo Wii. Much less $900 for a PS3

aj @ Nov 30th 2008 6:52AM

I was curious about prices in Mexico....I live in Canada, and we pay US prices, which means that when the loonie is low (like it usually is) we pay a lot more than we should. Nintendo of Canada exists (it's offices are in Vancouver! Western Canada > Eastern Canada). So why are Canadians paying in US dollars for games?

Why is Mexico paying in US dollars? Is there a Nintendo of Mexico?

Mert @ Nov 30th 2008 7:06AM

Where I live, almost every DS game costs $80, and I had to pay ~$350 for my DS lite. Damn America and your low electronics prices.

Ibinixer @ Dec 1st 2008 7:11AM

Actually, that should read �40 = $50, not the other way around. I'm sound like that.

Dante G @ Dec 1st 2008 11:24AM

@AJ

I live in Mexico. We pay in pesos for our games here. He was using dollars, I think, so that everyone could understand the high prices we have to pay here. There once was a Nintendo of Mexico, but I think it disappeared a long time ago. The games we buy here are imports as far as I know.

This weekend I went to a shopping mall and saw a poster of the new raving rabbids tv party game. The game costs 900 pesos, which translates to 66 bucks. On the bright side, some games drop prices sooner here in Mexico. I was able to buy Fire Emblem Wii for 365 pesos ($27) and and Battalion Wars 2 for 300 ($22). And those prices always include taxes.

Bannock @ Dec 1st 2008 7:26PM

Actually, I'm not from Mexico, though I have been there, and have some friends there.
I live in a small tucked out of the way place, and I'm using dollors because that's how much they'd be if Americans were paying the same amount we have to.

Tim @ Nov 29th 2008 8:50PM

Pardon the insanity, but I think I'll wait (up to two years) for Chrono Trigger to drop its price from $39.99 to $19.99.

That's how I got the REAL FFIII, and in the near future, Front Mission.

Sora @ Nov 29th 2008 10:37PM

Are people high or something, this game is not all that the graphic sucks battle system sucks, just because keep spreading that classic propaganda, does not make this game a great game, they did improve the graphics of the game play, I'm a young generation gamer, to me graphic matters, and they have a monster a ds rpg's that are ten times better this game, i was 7 when I when I got my super nintendo, even then the game was like 70 dollars. if you was to waste your money fine go ahead, but don't go around saying this is the best game ever because it's not.

Anthony @ Nov 30th 2008 1:12AM

Have you played it? If not, you have no credibility in this conversation.

aj @ Nov 30th 2008 6:57AM

If graphics are the chief concern of yours, why are you playing the DS to begin with? I would think you would be reading one of the console fanboy pages.

Sora @ Nov 30th 2008 1:17PM

yeah, I've played it, and how the hell are going to compare, the world ends with you with chrono trigger, and not every games on ds looks like chrono trigger, games that have the same graphic as chrono trigger which basically has super nintendo graphic, play a certain amount of on ds then you can talk to me

Anthony @ Nov 30th 2008 1:06AM

Wow! I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone in this! Thanks for the positive comments everybody! :D

Mert @ Nov 30th 2008 7:09AM

I think most people here don't realize that this is not a port. The engine was rewritten, music updated, the only thing that hasn't changed are the sprites. Thank evolution.

chibi_wings @ Nov 30th 2008 8:17PM

and the script has a new translation.....or so it seems to me, I swear some of the dialogue is different ^^;;

Flagg @ Dec 1st 2008 2:49AM

Havent really anticipated this title because first time i heard about this one when it was annouced to ds. Now i'm just waiting to get my importred copy on christmas.

Kimiko @ Dec 1st 2008 12:24PM

Yes, the Squeenix tax is bad, but I never bought the original, only played it on ZSNES. I think it's worth buying once.

And I wouldn't buy the European edition even if it was released at the same time as the N-American edition. Games are much more expensive here. Squeenix games go for �45-�50 here, while they're only $35-$40 over there. Add to that the favorable exchange rate ($1.00≈�0.78), and even the shipping costs don't matter. The only possible spoiler is if customs intercepts your package for taxes because then you end up paying the European price.