Text/GameForce
The operation of "fried cold rice" has long been agreed in the industry, as long as the fry is fragrant, manufacturers can sell more money, players are willing to buy it, this wave is a win-win - but not all game companies can be like the big brother Capcom, fried cold rice to a new height.
Recently, a fried cold rice work has attracted the attention of players, that is, Square's "Chrono Cross" launched on the PS console, after more than twenty years, it has once appeared in front of players again, but this once full score game has attracted bad reviews, insincere innovative content and poor running performance, which have disappointed former fans. In this issue, we will review the ins and outs of the classic masterpiece "Through Time and Space".
First of all, starting from the previous game, in March 1995, many excellent producers of Japanese RPG games decided to join forces to create a boutique, and finally brought together Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama, Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda and other industry elites, and launched chrono Trigger (Wheel of Time) on the Nintendo 16-bit host SFC, only 4MB of cassette capacity, players can experience many characters through time and space wonderful story content, regardless of gameplay, graphics, music have been highly evaluated The SFC version sold 2.31 million copies, and many years later, the NDS replica also had 1.34 million copies, ranking 13th in IGN's "100 Best Games of All Time" in 2015, and its milestone value can be seen.
Time to November 1999, Square ported "Wheel of Time" to the PS console, this version added the original animation produced by Akira Toriyama and Toei, as well as some of the tidbits after the clearance, in addition to the SFC version is almost no different, and later some players found that if the PS disc Chinese copied to the computer, change the file suffix can be directly run with the SFC simulator, this simple port obviously can not meet the requirements of the player.
Two weeks later, the sequel "Through Time and Space" finally arrived, the PS at the end of 1999 and the SFC at the end of 1995 are very similar, are hardware functions to the extreme, the peak of the number and quality of works, in many big-name games, "Through Time and Space" is not very dazzling, and even many players are not optimistic about this work, the reason is very simple, lost the aura of many big stars in the previous game, the only continuation is the BGM composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, but after the release of the game, people ushered in some unexpected surprises.
The game's graphics have been substantially improved on the new generation of consoles, although the popularity of Akira Toriyama is no longer a human design, but with the help of a significantly improved hardware function, to bring players a new visual experience, the traditional top-down view 2D screen in the previous game, obviously has fallen behind the trend. "Through Time and Space" uses a 2D + 3D mixed picture form, the use of 3D polygon pre-rendering to create a fixed perspective of the 2D background, the characters and battle scenes use a full 3D polygon real-time calculus, this mode in Square's previous "Final Fantasy 7", "Final Fantasy 8" these two super masterpieces, has been widely recognized by users, in the 3D polygon processing and picture resolution can not completely replace the 2D plane PS era, this production method is more refined than the actual effect of the full 3D picture.
Compared with the Science Fiction style of the Final Fantasy series, the style and color of this game are closer to reality, and players are exposed to beautiful scenery such as sunshine, sea, and sand at the beginning of the game, and exquisite scenes with various environmental sound effects make people have an immersive feeling. The real-scale human setting replaces the big head of the previous game, the male protagonist Serge and the female protagonist Kid, and Claude Alice in "Final Fantasy 7" are quite similar, plus more than forty major characters of different races, together constitute the grand world of the game, in addition, for an RPG, the cutscene CG animation is naturally not absent, and the capacity of 2CD is not the most in the PS console, but it is also a masterpiece.
The reason why the previous work "Wheel of Time and Space" can become a classic, the innovative "crossing" story is one of the important factors that attract players, "Wheel of Time and Space", the protagonist adventures and changes history in different eras of the same world, and in the sequel "Through Time and Space", it evolved into multiple parallel timelines and multiple parallel spaces, this concept seems difficult to understand at that time, but for players who are now familiar with Marvel Films, it is actually "multiverse", if the plot is simply summarized, That is, the male protagonist Serge began a journey across time and space to save himself who died in the parallel world, and I was confused when I played it at the time, but then I read the magazine raiders and gradually understood, and quickly immersed myself in the story world after restarting the game. Players need to switch back and forth between worlds to recruit party members, obtain items, and advance the story, most of the characters in any one world have counterparts in another world, players also have to search for items or places found in only one world, and events in one dimension sometimes affect another.
Although the grand multiverse requires in-depth understanding, "Travel through Time" as a Japanese RPG still inherits the tradition of simple and easy to use, players can walk, take a boat, etc., move on the world map, and enter specific places such as towns and dungeons, you can talk to many NPCs, get quests, solve puzzles, and discover treasures. Throughout the game, most of the time the player is in a very relaxed state, there is no such heavy burden as saving the world to continue civilization, there is no need to manage all kinds of complicated data, you have enough energy to explore the various details of the world, such as various hidden treasures in the scene, as well as local customs, etc. For those newcomers who are new to traditional RPGs, "Traveling Through Time" is a very suitable entry work.
The game's combat system inherits the previous game "Wheel of Time and Space", there is no "stepping on the mine" rule that many players can not understand and crazy, all enemies are visible to the naked eye in the screen, attack or avoid by you, the battle still uses the traditional turn-based system, the menu shows unlimited time, the player has enough time to think, and there is no time limit like some improved gameplay, the time limit must make decisions, the difficulty of the battle is not large, even if there is no experience, you can easily pass the level, as long as you remember to save a few more files in the middle.
The magic system of this game is very distinctive, using a variety of elements design, just like the materials in Final Fantasy 7, players can buy from the store, can also be found in the treasure chests scattered throughout the world, magic needs to be equipped on the character's unique skill tree-like grid system, as the character upgrades, the character can be equipped with more powerful magic. There are six elements in the game, represented in very intuitive colors: red for fire and lava, blue for water and ice, green for wind and plants, yellow for lightning and earth, white for light and the universe, and black for darkness and gravity. Each character has a talent element that gives extra power to magic, as well as an effect bonus if the same color of elemental magic is used continuously in battle.
Another feature of Time Travel is the endurance system, at the beginning of the battle, each character has 7 endurance, when the character attacks or uses the element, the endurance will be reduced according to the effectiveness of the attack, and when other characters and enemies perform actions in battle, the endurance will slowly recover, the character with less than 1 point of physical strength must wait to be unable to act, if you use a huge amount of elemental magic, you can also make the character's endurance become negative, and the character must wait longer than usual to recover.
There is no experience point design in the game, the character growth adopts a "stage", the character can increase the value through battle, but after reaching a certain level, it will reach the ceiling, and it is necessary to defeat a specific boss to "break through the limit" to continue to grow. Players can equip characters with weapons, armor, helmets, and accessories, consumable elements can be used to restore health or heal state illness after battle, and certain accessories can be equipped to provide special effects in battle, such as power seals that boost attack power. Items and equipment can be purchased or found on field maps, usually in treasure chests, unlike elements, weapons and armor cannot be purchased, and players must obtain basic materials such as metal, bones, etc., which can then be handed over to a blacksmith to forge, and also need to pay a processing fee, and unwanted equipment can be broken down into materials.
This game has a rich story content, it is difficult for players to appreciate all at once, so the game has added a "new game +" function, players can inherit the record of the level of the level, learned technology, equipment and items to keep, and the money obtained and some special items related to the story to be regained, the game has a total of 12 endings can be experienced, so that players have enough motivation to repeat the game.
After the release of "Through Time and Space", it achieved global sales of 1.86 million sets, of which only 690,000 sets were in Japan, the game achieved unexpected success in Europe and the United States, and the well-known media GameSpot gave a 10-point full score evaluation, and then for a long time the game was not transplanted to other platforms, and the players' evaluations were also polarized, becoming a controversial work in the history of games.
Now the game has finally launched a high-definition remake on Steam and the three major consoles, the screen has been high-definition processing, the text UI has also produced a new version, but the actual running effect has not been significantly improved, PS simulator traces can be seen everywhere, compared with the previous "Wheel of Time" replica version, this new version is obviously lack of sincerity, for those more than twenty years of old fans, the disappointment is indescribable, through the comments to express anger and dissatisfaction with the manufacturer, it is normal.
The only highlight of this time is probably the additional RADIUC DREAMERS, an adventure game similar to an audio novel with text and fixed pictures as the main content, telling the story of the spin-off of Wheel of Time. The game was first launched on the SFC console in 1996, but instead of releasing a standalone cartridge, it provided exclusive content in the form of networking through Nintendo's unique satellite receiver peripheral, BS-X, which was played by very few people in the past, and this time it was included in a separate form, giving players the opportunity to perfect the story of "Wheel of Time".
Putting aside the remake version that lacks new content, "Through Time and Space" can be said to be one of the original exclusive masterpieces of the PS console, after more than twenty years, its exquisite ideas are still worth remembering, calm down to throw out distractions, experience the charm of the game, and enjoy the unique fun of our players.
-END-