Oh man, this would be interesting if they actually moved to Apple.
Massively Multiplayer: Gaming In The New Millennium
- Thread starter RySenkari
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Oh man, this would be interesting if they actually moved to Apple.
I don't think he meant full switch (and I couldn't see that happening anyway ITTL), but rather release games for SEGApple in addition to Sontendo rather than be exclusive to any one system.
That would still make sense, basically just what they did IRL then but with SEGApple as well? I'm assuming they pretty much did the same thing IRL, otherwise I wouldn't have FFXV for the Xbox One.
You could say it would give Square a second bite of the Apple
Yes I know I'm terrible.
Yes I know I'm terrible.
Fall 2008 (Part 11) - Yu Suzuki, Moving On?
Psystriker
Psystriker is a beat-em-up/RPG developed by Sega's AM2 team for the Apple iTwin. Directed by Yu Suzuki, it's his second iTwin game after Virtua Fighter 6, though he had much more involvement in this game. The game plays somewhat like Virtua Quest, in that players control a single protagonist and battle enemies in a sort of Virtua Fighter-esque combat system. Battle transitions are seamless, there's no separate combat screen, so the game plays a lot more like an action RPG than Virtua Quest did. While the combat gameplay is reminiscent of a brawler, the game itself is reminiscent of Shenmue in its pacing: it's a largely open world title, taking place around a central hub, with new locations opening up on the perimeter as the player completes more of the story. Enemies level up with the player, so as you collect power-ups and gain experience, you'll naturally encounter more robust enemies with better AI. The protagonist is Mikata, a young man who has been gifted with telekinetic powers. Mikata is able to utilize both physical attacks and special "psy" attacks that require utilizing a special psy meter which builds up as he damages enemies. The psy attacks operate a lot like projectile attacks in a typical fighting game, though Mikata can also heal or buff himself or his companion. Mikata can have one companion in battle with him, with up to six to choose from. Mikata's companions are gradually recruited throughout the game, with five gained through the main story and one optional companion gained via a side quest later on. Like in Shenmue, Mikata can have jobs outside of the game's main storyline, and these jobs can earn the player experience, money, items, and sometimes even permanent power-ups. These jobs are somewhat more streamlined and less mundane than they were in Shenmue, designed not to take up so much of the player's time and designed to be both fun and rewarding. The game also has a "quick jump" system in which the player can warp between landmarks in the city, eliminating the need to travel quite so far and allowing for a quicker, less boring experience. Psystriker features good graphics for the iTwin, especially in the game's character models and combat animation, though the game won't exactly "wow" players compared to some of the other games on the console. The voice cast largely consists of unknowns, though the voice acting is generally regarded as acceptable, with a few silly lines here and there but nothing too terrible for the most part. In general, players consider the Japanese cast, which consists mostly of well-known seiyuu, to be far superior to the English dub, and there is an option for Japanese voices with English subtitles, which many of the game's most devoted fans utilize.
The plot sees Mikata start out as a delivery boy, and we can already see that he has some control over his psychic abilities as he lives his life in the city of Okutsoba, where much of the game takes place. He has a girlfriend, Shiko, who doesn't become a companion but who does play a major role in the game's storyline. Mikata is on a delivery route one day when he takes a job from a shady character named Toba, to deliver a shipment of boxes to a pier across town. Mikata delivers the shipment, but things go south after the intended recipient is ambushed and killed by a group of thugs who also seek to take out Mikata, forcing him to use his psychic powers to escape. This sets off a series of events in which nearly every criminal gang in the city is after Mikata, and he is forced to enlist the help of an old man who helps him to channel his powers. The old man, who is sort of a humorous character (like Master Roshi, he's a bit of a pervert, frequently attempting to catch the game's female characters in compromising situations and also keeping a stash of dirty magazines at hand), teaches Mikata numerous skills throughout the game, and calls Mikata the "Hammer Of Destiny", who is fated to wipe out crime and corruption in the city. Mikata teams up with various companions, including a reformed gangster wannabe, a mysterious ninja woman, and a talking dog possessed by the spirit of a dead World War II soldier, and together, they battle the gangs in the city. Some of the gangs turn out to have their own psychic warriors who have powers similar to Mikata's and who pose the biggest threat to him throughout the game. The game's primary antagonist is Jikan, the head of the Yakuza in Okutsoba, who has found a way to kill psychically-gifted individuals and take their powers. Jikan seeks to kill Mikata, whose powers are the most formidable of all, and if he does so, he'll be absolutely unstoppable, able to commit crimes in Japan with complete impunity. The game essentially builds up to Mikata's grand showdown with Jikan, with Jikan committing a number of truly dastardly deeds throughout the game in order to encourage the player to take him down. There's no huge twists, Jikan remains the primary villain throughout, and at the end of the main story, he and Mikata do indeed engage in a truly epic final boss fight in which both of them pull out all the stops to win. Mikata defeats Jikan and is successful in ridding the city of crime, and settles down for a nice vacation with Shiko.
Psystriker is much better received in Japan than in the States. In Japan, it achieves excellent reviews, including a 38/40 from Famitsu, and sales are outstanding as well, becoming one of the best selling iTwin games of 2008. It's much more moderately received in the States, with reviews from American critics averaging in the high 7s/low 8s. It also gets a lot less hype, translating into mediocre sales. Apple considered the game to be a tough sell in the West, despite Yu Suzuki's reputation and the success of Shenmue, and it wasn't really positioned as one of the big holiday games in the States (that honor went to Commander Keen: Billy's Brave Odyssey). Still, Psystriker did decently in the West, becoming one of the best selling new games of December 2008, and despite not being a Shenmue-level hit, Psystriker is still considered a success.
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Yu Suzuki Reportedly "Disillusioned With Apple", Possibly Leaving?
An interview with Yu Suzuki in the latest issue of Famitsu magazine revealed that the legendary creator of the Virtua Fighter and Shenmue series is upset with how Sega's former developers are being treated by Apple leadership. Suzuki expressed disappointment that Apple's focus seems to be on "younger" developers, particularly developers based in the West, and that some of Sega's old guard are being "ignored". During the development of Psystriker, Suzuki claimed that resources were being focused on other projects, and that he didn't always have the help that he'd always gotten when Sega was in charge.
This potentially troublesome news comes on the heels of the release of Psystriker, a brand new beat 'em up game from Suzuki that was said to be "ignored" by Apple in the West, with more attention focused on the game's Japanese launch earlier this year. Psystriker was a chart topper in Japan, and it has yet to be seen how the game will perform here. Our recent review of Psystriker did criticize the game's less detailed environments, but also praised the game's fighting system and protagonist, awarding the game a 9/10 overall. We did note that the game didn't seem to be as highly budgeted as some of Suzuki's other projects, but that overall, it didn't detract from the gameplay. Still, Suzuki's criticisms of Apple's leadership have been shared by some of Sega's other Japanese staff in various interviews and comments over the past several years, with numerous former Sega employees voluntarily leaving the company for other companies such as Capcom and Squaresoft. Still, most of Sega's core development teams, particularly Sonic Team, remain intact, so Suzuki's criticisms, while troubling, aren't shared by all of his fellow developers in Japan. While Suzuki didn't state a desire to leave the company outright, rumors are swirling that he may indeed be preparing his exit, especially if rumors are true that Apple doesn't intend to bring back the Shenmue series on the iTwin. Suzuki's departure would be a major blow for the company's Japanese division, and would mean serious changes for the Virtua Fighter series, though Suzuki's involvement in that franchise has also diminished in recent years.
-from a December 1, 2008 article on Games Over Matter
Psystriker is a beat-em-up/RPG developed by Sega's AM2 team for the Apple iTwin. Directed by Yu Suzuki, it's his second iTwin game after Virtua Fighter 6, though he had much more involvement in this game. The game plays somewhat like Virtua Quest, in that players control a single protagonist and battle enemies in a sort of Virtua Fighter-esque combat system. Battle transitions are seamless, there's no separate combat screen, so the game plays a lot more like an action RPG than Virtua Quest did. While the combat gameplay is reminiscent of a brawler, the game itself is reminiscent of Shenmue in its pacing: it's a largely open world title, taking place around a central hub, with new locations opening up on the perimeter as the player completes more of the story. Enemies level up with the player, so as you collect power-ups and gain experience, you'll naturally encounter more robust enemies with better AI. The protagonist is Mikata, a young man who has been gifted with telekinetic powers. Mikata is able to utilize both physical attacks and special "psy" attacks that require utilizing a special psy meter which builds up as he damages enemies. The psy attacks operate a lot like projectile attacks in a typical fighting game, though Mikata can also heal or buff himself or his companion. Mikata can have one companion in battle with him, with up to six to choose from. Mikata's companions are gradually recruited throughout the game, with five gained through the main story and one optional companion gained via a side quest later on. Like in Shenmue, Mikata can have jobs outside of the game's main storyline, and these jobs can earn the player experience, money, items, and sometimes even permanent power-ups. These jobs are somewhat more streamlined and less mundane than they were in Shenmue, designed not to take up so much of the player's time and designed to be both fun and rewarding. The game also has a "quick jump" system in which the player can warp between landmarks in the city, eliminating the need to travel quite so far and allowing for a quicker, less boring experience. Psystriker features good graphics for the iTwin, especially in the game's character models and combat animation, though the game won't exactly "wow" players compared to some of the other games on the console. The voice cast largely consists of unknowns, though the voice acting is generally regarded as acceptable, with a few silly lines here and there but nothing too terrible for the most part. In general, players consider the Japanese cast, which consists mostly of well-known seiyuu, to be far superior to the English dub, and there is an option for Japanese voices with English subtitles, which many of the game's most devoted fans utilize.
The plot sees Mikata start out as a delivery boy, and we can already see that he has some control over his psychic abilities as he lives his life in the city of Okutsoba, where much of the game takes place. He has a girlfriend, Shiko, who doesn't become a companion but who does play a major role in the game's storyline. Mikata is on a delivery route one day when he takes a job from a shady character named Toba, to deliver a shipment of boxes to a pier across town. Mikata delivers the shipment, but things go south after the intended recipient is ambushed and killed by a group of thugs who also seek to take out Mikata, forcing him to use his psychic powers to escape. This sets off a series of events in which nearly every criminal gang in the city is after Mikata, and he is forced to enlist the help of an old man who helps him to channel his powers. The old man, who is sort of a humorous character (like Master Roshi, he's a bit of a pervert, frequently attempting to catch the game's female characters in compromising situations and also keeping a stash of dirty magazines at hand), teaches Mikata numerous skills throughout the game, and calls Mikata the "Hammer Of Destiny", who is fated to wipe out crime and corruption in the city. Mikata teams up with various companions, including a reformed gangster wannabe, a mysterious ninja woman, and a talking dog possessed by the spirit of a dead World War II soldier, and together, they battle the gangs in the city. Some of the gangs turn out to have their own psychic warriors who have powers similar to Mikata's and who pose the biggest threat to him throughout the game. The game's primary antagonist is Jikan, the head of the Yakuza in Okutsoba, who has found a way to kill psychically-gifted individuals and take their powers. Jikan seeks to kill Mikata, whose powers are the most formidable of all, and if he does so, he'll be absolutely unstoppable, able to commit crimes in Japan with complete impunity. The game essentially builds up to Mikata's grand showdown with Jikan, with Jikan committing a number of truly dastardly deeds throughout the game in order to encourage the player to take him down. There's no huge twists, Jikan remains the primary villain throughout, and at the end of the main story, he and Mikata do indeed engage in a truly epic final boss fight in which both of them pull out all the stops to win. Mikata defeats Jikan and is successful in ridding the city of crime, and settles down for a nice vacation with Shiko.
Psystriker is much better received in Japan than in the States. In Japan, it achieves excellent reviews, including a 38/40 from Famitsu, and sales are outstanding as well, becoming one of the best selling iTwin games of 2008. It's much more moderately received in the States, with reviews from American critics averaging in the high 7s/low 8s. It also gets a lot less hype, translating into mediocre sales. Apple considered the game to be a tough sell in the West, despite Yu Suzuki's reputation and the success of Shenmue, and it wasn't really positioned as one of the big holiday games in the States (that honor went to Commander Keen: Billy's Brave Odyssey). Still, Psystriker did decently in the West, becoming one of the best selling new games of December 2008, and despite not being a Shenmue-level hit, Psystriker is still considered a success.
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Yu Suzuki Reportedly "Disillusioned With Apple", Possibly Leaving?
An interview with Yu Suzuki in the latest issue of Famitsu magazine revealed that the legendary creator of the Virtua Fighter and Shenmue series is upset with how Sega's former developers are being treated by Apple leadership. Suzuki expressed disappointment that Apple's focus seems to be on "younger" developers, particularly developers based in the West, and that some of Sega's old guard are being "ignored". During the development of Psystriker, Suzuki claimed that resources were being focused on other projects, and that he didn't always have the help that he'd always gotten when Sega was in charge.
This potentially troublesome news comes on the heels of the release of Psystriker, a brand new beat 'em up game from Suzuki that was said to be "ignored" by Apple in the West, with more attention focused on the game's Japanese launch earlier this year. Psystriker was a chart topper in Japan, and it has yet to be seen how the game will perform here. Our recent review of Psystriker did criticize the game's less detailed environments, but also praised the game's fighting system and protagonist, awarding the game a 9/10 overall. We did note that the game didn't seem to be as highly budgeted as some of Suzuki's other projects, but that overall, it didn't detract from the gameplay. Still, Suzuki's criticisms of Apple's leadership have been shared by some of Sega's other Japanese staff in various interviews and comments over the past several years, with numerous former Sega employees voluntarily leaving the company for other companies such as Capcom and Squaresoft. Still, most of Sega's core development teams, particularly Sonic Team, remain intact, so Suzuki's criticisms, while troubling, aren't shared by all of his fellow developers in Japan. While Suzuki didn't state a desire to leave the company outright, rumors are swirling that he may indeed be preparing his exit, especially if rumors are true that Apple doesn't intend to bring back the Shenmue series on the iTwin. Suzuki's departure would be a major blow for the company's Japanese division, and would mean serious changes for the Virtua Fighter series, though Suzuki's involvement in that franchise has also diminished in recent years.
-from a December 1, 2008 article on Games Over Matter
You fellas can just let me know when my Norfolk Southern steam ideas can be posted.
Fall 2008 (Part 12) - Chrono Break
Chrono Break
Chrono Break is a JRPG developed by Squaresoft for the Nintendo Sapphire. It's the third game in the extremely popular Chrono series that focuses on characters traveling through time and space to defeat cosmic entities of incredible power. Chrono Break has been in development by Squaresoft for the past three years, ever since the company received the first of the Nintendo Sapphire development kits back in 2005. The game brings back much of the original Chrono Trigger "Dream Team", including Yoshinori Kitase, Masato Kato, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Akira Toriyama. Indeed, Chrono Break features even more of the original team than Chrono Infinite did, and attempts to bring back memories for the player of the original game, though the plot itself focuses on traversal through alternate dimensions than it does on time travel. The game itself plays much like the previous two games, with a party of three (out of nine characters total, eight mandatory and one optional) traveling in an overworld area that connects dungeons, towns, and other landmarks. In some ways, the game can be compared visually to modern TTL games such as I Am Setsuna, with beautiful high definition environments and visuals. The game's combat is a turn-based/action hybrid that features automatic character movement in conjunction with real-time attacks. These attacks can be timed to create combination attacks, while the player can stop combat at any time to utilize techs or items. Combination attacks are no longer automatic, but depend on timing windows that occur during combat. This creates a battle system that looks in some ways like OTL's Final Fantasy XIII, with fast-paced combat that almost resembles an interactive cutscene. Characters are dynamic in their movement and frequently talk in battle, both to their allies and to their enemies, while enemies (at least those with the ability to speak) respond in kind. Chrono Break features environmental specific abilities unique to each character, that can enable certain perks, whether they be accessing secret areas, finding hidden treasure, or giving temporary statistical bonuses. The game's menus are somewhat of a throwback to the original Chrono Trigger, with similar icons and character portraits, though characters are now able to equip up to three accessories a piece, along with a weapon and a piece of armor. Character accessories play an important role in strategy, character composition, and even certain combo techs, and finding, refining, and building them is a very important part of the game's overall strategy. The accessory system is also quite similar to the one in OTL's Final Fantasy XIII (a lot of the people who worked on that game IOTL also work on Chrono Break ITTL, with the rest of them working on TTL's Final Fantasy XII).
Chrono Break has a total of nine playable characters. They are, in order of when they permanently join the party:
Shard: The game's primary protagonist, Shard is a young man from a beachside village somewhat similar to Termina in OTL's Chrono Cross. One day, Shard encounters a mysterious rift portal, through which he can briefly see thousands of time streams. He is pulled into the portal, beginning his adventure. Shard wields a thin sword and, like previous Chrono protagonists, does not speak in-game.
Ovo: A rotund, high-spirited dwarf, Ovo is the first hero Shard teams up with on his journey, and serves as somewhat of a mentor to Shard on his adventure. He wields a steam-powered mallet. He's voiced by Christopher Sabat.
Millennia: A mysterious, purple-haired woman, Millennia has the ability to travel through time all on her own, but she can't always control it. She's a fairly archetypical "tsundere" character, but this is largely to hide her own fear at losing control of her abilities. Millennia is voiced by Amanda Winn Lee.
Cade: Cade is a cocky spaceship pilot very similar to Han Solo. He wields a laser pistol in combat and gets extremely frustrated when technology isn't readily available to him. He's voiced by Matt Mercer.
Lisbeth: Shard's childhood friend, Lisbeth is a frail, somewhat sickly girl who witnesses Shard being pulled into the portal and tries to find a way to help him. Lisbeth ends up being the key to a lot of the different mysteries in Chrono Break, though her importance to repairing space and time isn't learned until a good portion of the way through the game. Lisbeth is voiced by Caroline Macey.
Zuriel: Zuriel is a mysterious being, an angel of pure light who transforms into an angel of darkness at certain occasions in the story. Said to be an Arbiter of Time, Zuriel is at times both friend and foe, and is connected to a godlike being said to be the cause of the game's events. Zuriel is voiced by Steven Yeun.
Gylla: Gylla is a woman who has the body of a fish, transformed by a mysterious curse similar to Frog's affliction from the original Chrono Trigger. Unlike Frog, she doesn't blame anyone but herself for her transformation, though over the course of the story, the party will come to learn why she was transformed. She's voiced by Veronica Taylor.
Atropos: Atropos is a cyborg woman and the only character related to a previous Chrono series character, the original Atropos from Chrono Trigger. However, unlike that Atropos, which was a pink robot similar to Robo, Chrono Break's Atropos is much more human-like in appearance, taking the appearance of a cyborg and almost able to pass for human. She also only vaguely mentions the events of the original game and is implied to only contain partial memories from the original Atropos while being her own independent being. She's voiced by Evetta Muradasilova.
Trest: Trest is an a cocky assassin character who starts out as an antagonist and remains a frequent thorn in the heroes' sides for about two thirds of the game. It's possible, but difficult, to recruit him, but if you do, he can combo very well with most of the heroes, and unlocks a couple of fun and informative sidequests. He's voiced by James Arnold Taylor.
Chrono Break deals in both time and space, and takes place in a series of heavily anachronistic environments that appear as if two or more time periods have been smashed together. This enables strange things such as steampunk cavemen and medieval space fortresses, and things only get stranger as the game progresses and the "break" referenced in the game's title becomes apparent. Chrono Break, along with Final Fantasy XII in 2009, are Squaresoft's two massive projects during the first part of the Sapphire's lifespan. As such, the game's production values are exceptional, with some of the best graphics yet seen on the console, better than any of the OTL Final Fantasy XIII games. Despite the graphical fidelity, the game's artistic aesthetic is more toward the fantastical, but the game blends realism and fantasy extremely well, giving it a highly realistic storybook look and giving it a warm, adventurous tone. The game's overall mood is positive but gradually drifting toward melancholy as the game works up toward its emotional ending. Yasunori Mitsuda was doing double duty at the time, as the primary composer for Chrono Break while also contributing toward Final Fantasy XII. As such, he attempted to differentiate the musical feel of both games, to where Chrono Break would have a more "intimate" feel while Final Fantasy XII would have a more "epic, sweeping" feel. While there are similarities between the soundtracks of both titles, he largely succeeded in giving each game its own unique signature feel. Chrono Break is easily Squaresoft's biggest project since their Wave Final Fantasy titles, and is widely seen as being a game that would set the tone for the rest of their titles on the Sapphire.
The game begins by introducing the player to Shard and his childhood friend Lisbeth, and the life they share together in the village of Nexus. Nexus is a quiet, seaside village, and not much happens there, but everything changes after a routine expedition to gather fish. Shard walks up to the cliff overlooking the village, and a rift opens in space and time, pulling him in. He winds up in a strange land of dinosaurs and cave people, but the cave people use steam power to hunt and carry out their daily lives, and they've constructed a great cliffside village. Shard is introduced to Ovo, and together the two venture off to hunt down a raptor. They're attacked by warriors from a rival tribe, but "saved" by the arrival of Millennia through a space portal. The three of them are captured by the rival tribe, much to Millennia's fury, but Ovo is able to save them by building a contraption that helps them escape. The three get separated for a while, and Shard travels alone with Millennia, and then with Ovo. Some early story beats are established here, such as the speculated reason for the existence of space portals (a rift in the time stream caused by angelic creatures known as the Arbiters), and Trest and Zuriel also make their first appearances. Eventually, Shard and Millennia encounter Cade, and Millennia and Cade despise each other at first (but eventually are established as a couple). Shard also is given the chance to revisit his village, which has been destroyed by the Arbiters, but Lisbeth is mysteriously found alive, and joins the party. She's extremely weak, but for a time, the party consists only of Shard, Ovo, and Lisbeth, as the three of them wander through a gothic-style castle laid waste to by the Arbiters. The castle is in the middle of a large, modern city, but the party is unable to reach the city, and no one in the city can see the party. Cade and Millennia are in the city itself, and find a way into the castle during a crucial boss fight in which Shard, Ovo, and Lisbeth are nearly killed by one of the Arbiters. When the castle is breached, a massive gate of destruction opens up above the city, causing havoc. Shard and his friends barely escape, and are pulled into a realm called the End of the Universe, a somewhat barren realm similar to Chrono Trigger's End Of Time. They are met by an elderly woman named Nora, who explains to them that spatial rifts are opening up everywhere and that dimensions are being fused together in an event known as the Chrono Break, a result of another multiverse being repaired and its dark energy leeching off into this one (it's implied that when the Darkness Beyond Time was destroyed in Chrono Infinite, that all the darkness from that dimension started leaking into the Chrono Break dimension). Nora states that in order to save the dimension, the Grand Arbiter must take all of the latent darkness into himself, but this would require self-sacrifice, and the Grand Arbiter believes that such a sacrifice would cause anarchy, and that it would be better to rule over a broken dimension than let chaos reign over an intact one. Shard and his friends are tasked with seeking out an Arbiter and attempting to get the Grand Arbiter to see reason. They seek out Zuriel, and after a brief mission, Zuriel is recruited to the team, having become disillusioned with the acts of his fellow Arbiters. This kicks off a story sequence in which three more broken dimensions are discovered and in which the heroes try to repair each one. Gylla is recruited in one of them, and all the while, the heroes have to deal with Trest, who claims that his own dimension is just fine and that the heroes need to stop what they're doing. In a climactic story event, Atropos appears, while it's revealed that the Arbiters are trying to repair the dimensional breaks, not cause them, and that the Grand Arbiter is incapable of making such a sacrifice to save the worlds, which is why the Arbiters are trying to repair the dimensions themselves.
This revelation causes Zuriel to turn on the party and the party to get separated, and Shard, Ovo, Millennia, and Atropos end up in Trest's dimension, which has become a massive factory plane, a mesh of construction facilities from different timelines, including an ancient stone forge, an Industrial Revolution-era factory, and a futuristic energy forging facility, amongst other more subtle elements. Atropos seems to know a great deal about the factory dimension, and it turns out that it's being run by a Mother Brain-like figure who controls pretty much everything. Trest, in fact, sees the being like his own mother, even though he knows it's an artificial program. Escaping is pretty much all the heroes can do, and after fighting a massive mechanical boss, they manage to get away. Shard wants to find Lisbeth, but before that can happen, the party winds up in a strange Roman casino dimension, sort of a riff on "Caesars Palace" but much darker, run by an insane Emperor. Gylla and Cade are trapped here in various bad circumstances, and the party has to find and help them, get information on Lisbeth, and defeat the Emperor, all the while dealing with Zuriel, who has made a deal with the Emperor of the dimension to find the heroes and stop them. After the heroes accomplish their goals there (The Emperor is defeated but Zuriel escapes), Shard learns that Lisbeth has been taken back to Trest's factory dimension and must make a daring raid on the facility HQ to save her. This mission is another massive story climax where Zuriel returns to the heroes for good, Trest is defeated (and possibly killed depending on whether or not the player enabled him to be able to join the party later) and a LOT of information is learned about Lisbeth and Atropos. Lisbeth, as it turns out, is the Anomaly, the cause of the dimensional rifts that the player has encountered throughout the game. The Arbiters were unaware of this, but Lisbeth's analysis by the factory HQ computer shows that she was in fact created in the death throes of the Darkness Beyond Time, a being of light to balance out the darkness, but because she was cast into a dimension that has never known such darkness, the darkness sought her out in an attempt to create that balance. Lisbeth is the one who must absorb the darkness into herself, but at the cost of her own life. Lisbeth has absorbed a massive amount of darkness already and is comatose, and the Arbiters wish to take her to the place where the darkness is gathering to finish the job. The party refuses to let anything happen to her, and returns to Nora for advice. Nora tells them that they must create another Chrono Trigger, clone Lisbeth, and use it to absorb the darkness instead. Atropos tells them of an area where that can be done, and the party visits a place very much like Death Peak from the original game, but combined with a number of environments from other timelines, creating a strange anachronistic mountain. The Lisbeth clone is created, and takes all the darkness into itself, closing all the dimensional rifts and saving the original Lisbeth. However, the darkness refuses to die, and after another cataclysmic event in which the Realm of the Arbiters is completely destroyed, the party is scattered once more. Shard and Lisbeth wake up back in their intact village. Everyone has been brought back to life, but the village itself is isolated in the universe, an island drifting on the sea of space and time. At this point, there's about one fourth of the game remaining, and Shard must once again reunite the party: first, Ovo and Gylla, then Atropos and Zuriel, and finally, Millennia and Cade. During these missions, the increasingly sad fate of the game's realms is made apparent. Severed from the time stream, with only a few ways to bridge the dimensional gaps, the various realms have been totally cut off from one another, and darkness and despair are seeping into the minds of the people. Once the party is reunited, they learn that the only way to bring the dimensions together is by entering the hole in space and time that was once the Arbiters' Realm and is now a growing vortex of darkness, said to be the new Darkness Beyond Time.
It's important to mention that during this phase of the game, its primary antagonist has made his presence known. During her first encounter with the heroes, Nora mentioned her old mentor, a scholar named Remus, who is said to have been a frail but brilliant student of dimensional travel. Remus, in fact, is said to have studied under the original Three Gurus from Chrono Trigger, Malchior, Gaspar, and Balthasar, and somehow found a way to travel to this dimension. A few faint signs of Remus' presence are seen across the dimensions throughout the game. However, upon learning of Lavos' powers, Remus became power hungry, much in the same way that Queen Zeal did. Convinced by his hubris that he could control Lavos, he traveled through the dimensional breach created by the collapse of the Darkness Beyond Time, unwittingly allowing a small piece of the darkness to slip through with him. He took on Nora as a pupil, using her gifts to augment his own power. He also came in contact with the Arbiters, and subtly manipulated them as well. He's the one who caused Lisbeth to be born, and it was the darkness Remus brought through the portal that necessitated her very existence. It's Remus who causes the fall of the Realm of the Arbiters, and he's the one who personally strikes down their leader (who was originally teased to be the final boss of the game but is killed about 3/4ths of the way through). As Shard and Lisbeth begin their quest to reunite the heroes, Remus finally makes a few physical appearances, at first trying to manipulate the heroes to cease their quest, but then finally creating creatures to attack them. Nora is torn between helping the heroes and remaining loyal to her mentor, but she at last helps to strike down Remus at the cost of her own life in a cinematic sequence late in the final dungeon. Finally, it's revealed that the Lisbeth who's been with Shard ever since their trip to Death Peak isn't the original Lisbeth, but is instead the clone: the original Lisbeth sacrificed herself, realizing that the clone couldn't absorb the darkness on its own. The clone itself has a finite life force, and has only survived because of the lingering emotions experience toward Lisbeth from her companions and friends. Though heartbroken, the party vows to press on. They engage in a final showdown with Remus, only for Remus to be interrupted by the arrival of Lavos, reborn through the coalescence of so much darkness. While it appears that Remus will be overwhelmed by Lavos, the party realizes to their horror that Remus has discovered a way to control the cosmic horror, and sets it against the heroes. They defeat it, but only just barely, and Remus reveals to them that he has gained true dominion over time and space. He tears another dimensional hole, revealing the peaceful dimension seen in Chrono Trigger and Chrono Infinite, and threatens to destroy it as well. However, the Lisbeth clone, despite horrific pain, is able to throw herself into the portal, using her own energy to seal it for good and cutting off Remus' power to manipulate dimensional tears. Remus, now trapped in this dimension, vows to transform it into an eternal hellscape. Lisbeth tearfully asks him why, and he just smirks and says "because I can." Remus reveals himself to be omniscient, and claims that all living creatures are pathetic beings and that he has seen their pasts and futures and that knowing everything has made him realize the futility of existence. His omniscience also prevents the party from damaging him, and it appears hopeless until Millennia realizes that her own time manipulation powers lie outside of Remus' own. In fact, her powers were a failsafe granted to her by Nora, who had been secretly mentored by Balthasar who knew that Remus was about to turn. Nora wasn't able to complete her work, but through the encouragement of her friends, Millennia has been able to master her powers on her own. While she can't destroy Remus' omniscience completely, she can make him unable to see a small window into the immediate future, which allows the party to attack him. This begins the next phase of the final boss battle, in which the party must battle Remus. Killing Remus, however, unleashes the darkness itself, which coalesces into a being of incredible power, the Eternity Devourer. After the Eternity Devourer is defeated, the darkness is weakened, but not destroyed. The Lisbeth clone must, in its final act, absorb this last bit of darkness into herself. The Lisbeth clone then asks the party to let her rest, and Shard and Millennia cast one final spell together, enabling the Lisbeth clone to sleep beyond the flow of time. The dimensional rifts begin to repair themselves, and the party must return to their own dimensions, becoming separated from one another. The ending shows the party members and their surviving allies in their own repaired time streams, moving on with their lives. It's a mostly happy ending with a bittersweet tone, but the after-credits scene does show one hopeful moment: Millennia retains her time warping powers, and the first person she visits is Cade, but it's implied that the two of them will find a way to reunite the others as well.
Chrono Break is one of the Sapphire's most hyped games of 2008. It's released in Japan in September 2008, and in North America on November 11, 2008, with a European release on November 14th. It's a massive hit in all three territories, selling more than 500,000 copies in its first week of release in Japan and more than 300,000 copies in its first week in North America. Though it's not a Final Fantasy-level blockbuster, it definitely meets sales expectations and is considered one of Squaresoft's most successful launches ever. Reviews are quite kind to the game, averaging in the low 9s in North America and somewhat higher in Japan, with a 38/40 in Famitsu. Curiously, it's the lowest rated amongst the three Chrono games, which shows just how critically and popularly beloved the series is. Most of the praise for the game centers around its sprawling quest, epic storyline, and incredible graphics and music, while slightly criticizing the characters themselves for not being as memorable as the ones in the first two Chrono games. Though Chrono Break isn't the best RPG of all time, it's definitely a contender for one of the best RPGs of the year.
Chrono Break is a JRPG developed by Squaresoft for the Nintendo Sapphire. It's the third game in the extremely popular Chrono series that focuses on characters traveling through time and space to defeat cosmic entities of incredible power. Chrono Break has been in development by Squaresoft for the past three years, ever since the company received the first of the Nintendo Sapphire development kits back in 2005. The game brings back much of the original Chrono Trigger "Dream Team", including Yoshinori Kitase, Masato Kato, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Akira Toriyama. Indeed, Chrono Break features even more of the original team than Chrono Infinite did, and attempts to bring back memories for the player of the original game, though the plot itself focuses on traversal through alternate dimensions than it does on time travel. The game itself plays much like the previous two games, with a party of three (out of nine characters total, eight mandatory and one optional) traveling in an overworld area that connects dungeons, towns, and other landmarks. In some ways, the game can be compared visually to modern TTL games such as I Am Setsuna, with beautiful high definition environments and visuals. The game's combat is a turn-based/action hybrid that features automatic character movement in conjunction with real-time attacks. These attacks can be timed to create combination attacks, while the player can stop combat at any time to utilize techs or items. Combination attacks are no longer automatic, but depend on timing windows that occur during combat. This creates a battle system that looks in some ways like OTL's Final Fantasy XIII, with fast-paced combat that almost resembles an interactive cutscene. Characters are dynamic in their movement and frequently talk in battle, both to their allies and to their enemies, while enemies (at least those with the ability to speak) respond in kind. Chrono Break features environmental specific abilities unique to each character, that can enable certain perks, whether they be accessing secret areas, finding hidden treasure, or giving temporary statistical bonuses. The game's menus are somewhat of a throwback to the original Chrono Trigger, with similar icons and character portraits, though characters are now able to equip up to three accessories a piece, along with a weapon and a piece of armor. Character accessories play an important role in strategy, character composition, and even certain combo techs, and finding, refining, and building them is a very important part of the game's overall strategy. The accessory system is also quite similar to the one in OTL's Final Fantasy XIII (a lot of the people who worked on that game IOTL also work on Chrono Break ITTL, with the rest of them working on TTL's Final Fantasy XII).
Chrono Break has a total of nine playable characters. They are, in order of when they permanently join the party:
Shard: The game's primary protagonist, Shard is a young man from a beachside village somewhat similar to Termina in OTL's Chrono Cross. One day, Shard encounters a mysterious rift portal, through which he can briefly see thousands of time streams. He is pulled into the portal, beginning his adventure. Shard wields a thin sword and, like previous Chrono protagonists, does not speak in-game.
Ovo: A rotund, high-spirited dwarf, Ovo is the first hero Shard teams up with on his journey, and serves as somewhat of a mentor to Shard on his adventure. He wields a steam-powered mallet. He's voiced by Christopher Sabat.
Millennia: A mysterious, purple-haired woman, Millennia has the ability to travel through time all on her own, but she can't always control it. She's a fairly archetypical "tsundere" character, but this is largely to hide her own fear at losing control of her abilities. Millennia is voiced by Amanda Winn Lee.
Cade: Cade is a cocky spaceship pilot very similar to Han Solo. He wields a laser pistol in combat and gets extremely frustrated when technology isn't readily available to him. He's voiced by Matt Mercer.
Lisbeth: Shard's childhood friend, Lisbeth is a frail, somewhat sickly girl who witnesses Shard being pulled into the portal and tries to find a way to help him. Lisbeth ends up being the key to a lot of the different mysteries in Chrono Break, though her importance to repairing space and time isn't learned until a good portion of the way through the game. Lisbeth is voiced by Caroline Macey.
Zuriel: Zuriel is a mysterious being, an angel of pure light who transforms into an angel of darkness at certain occasions in the story. Said to be an Arbiter of Time, Zuriel is at times both friend and foe, and is connected to a godlike being said to be the cause of the game's events. Zuriel is voiced by Steven Yeun.
Gylla: Gylla is a woman who has the body of a fish, transformed by a mysterious curse similar to Frog's affliction from the original Chrono Trigger. Unlike Frog, she doesn't blame anyone but herself for her transformation, though over the course of the story, the party will come to learn why she was transformed. She's voiced by Veronica Taylor.
Atropos: Atropos is a cyborg woman and the only character related to a previous Chrono series character, the original Atropos from Chrono Trigger. However, unlike that Atropos, which was a pink robot similar to Robo, Chrono Break's Atropos is much more human-like in appearance, taking the appearance of a cyborg and almost able to pass for human. She also only vaguely mentions the events of the original game and is implied to only contain partial memories from the original Atropos while being her own independent being. She's voiced by Evetta Muradasilova.
Trest: Trest is an a cocky assassin character who starts out as an antagonist and remains a frequent thorn in the heroes' sides for about two thirds of the game. It's possible, but difficult, to recruit him, but if you do, he can combo very well with most of the heroes, and unlocks a couple of fun and informative sidequests. He's voiced by James Arnold Taylor.
Chrono Break deals in both time and space, and takes place in a series of heavily anachronistic environments that appear as if two or more time periods have been smashed together. This enables strange things such as steampunk cavemen and medieval space fortresses, and things only get stranger as the game progresses and the "break" referenced in the game's title becomes apparent. Chrono Break, along with Final Fantasy XII in 2009, are Squaresoft's two massive projects during the first part of the Sapphire's lifespan. As such, the game's production values are exceptional, with some of the best graphics yet seen on the console, better than any of the OTL Final Fantasy XIII games. Despite the graphical fidelity, the game's artistic aesthetic is more toward the fantastical, but the game blends realism and fantasy extremely well, giving it a highly realistic storybook look and giving it a warm, adventurous tone. The game's overall mood is positive but gradually drifting toward melancholy as the game works up toward its emotional ending. Yasunori Mitsuda was doing double duty at the time, as the primary composer for Chrono Break while also contributing toward Final Fantasy XII. As such, he attempted to differentiate the musical feel of both games, to where Chrono Break would have a more "intimate" feel while Final Fantasy XII would have a more "epic, sweeping" feel. While there are similarities between the soundtracks of both titles, he largely succeeded in giving each game its own unique signature feel. Chrono Break is easily Squaresoft's biggest project since their Wave Final Fantasy titles, and is widely seen as being a game that would set the tone for the rest of their titles on the Sapphire.
The game begins by introducing the player to Shard and his childhood friend Lisbeth, and the life they share together in the village of Nexus. Nexus is a quiet, seaside village, and not much happens there, but everything changes after a routine expedition to gather fish. Shard walks up to the cliff overlooking the village, and a rift opens in space and time, pulling him in. He winds up in a strange land of dinosaurs and cave people, but the cave people use steam power to hunt and carry out their daily lives, and they've constructed a great cliffside village. Shard is introduced to Ovo, and together the two venture off to hunt down a raptor. They're attacked by warriors from a rival tribe, but "saved" by the arrival of Millennia through a space portal. The three of them are captured by the rival tribe, much to Millennia's fury, but Ovo is able to save them by building a contraption that helps them escape. The three get separated for a while, and Shard travels alone with Millennia, and then with Ovo. Some early story beats are established here, such as the speculated reason for the existence of space portals (a rift in the time stream caused by angelic creatures known as the Arbiters), and Trest and Zuriel also make their first appearances. Eventually, Shard and Millennia encounter Cade, and Millennia and Cade despise each other at first (but eventually are established as a couple). Shard also is given the chance to revisit his village, which has been destroyed by the Arbiters, but Lisbeth is mysteriously found alive, and joins the party. She's extremely weak, but for a time, the party consists only of Shard, Ovo, and Lisbeth, as the three of them wander through a gothic-style castle laid waste to by the Arbiters. The castle is in the middle of a large, modern city, but the party is unable to reach the city, and no one in the city can see the party. Cade and Millennia are in the city itself, and find a way into the castle during a crucial boss fight in which Shard, Ovo, and Lisbeth are nearly killed by one of the Arbiters. When the castle is breached, a massive gate of destruction opens up above the city, causing havoc. Shard and his friends barely escape, and are pulled into a realm called the End of the Universe, a somewhat barren realm similar to Chrono Trigger's End Of Time. They are met by an elderly woman named Nora, who explains to them that spatial rifts are opening up everywhere and that dimensions are being fused together in an event known as the Chrono Break, a result of another multiverse being repaired and its dark energy leeching off into this one (it's implied that when the Darkness Beyond Time was destroyed in Chrono Infinite, that all the darkness from that dimension started leaking into the Chrono Break dimension). Nora states that in order to save the dimension, the Grand Arbiter must take all of the latent darkness into himself, but this would require self-sacrifice, and the Grand Arbiter believes that such a sacrifice would cause anarchy, and that it would be better to rule over a broken dimension than let chaos reign over an intact one. Shard and his friends are tasked with seeking out an Arbiter and attempting to get the Grand Arbiter to see reason. They seek out Zuriel, and after a brief mission, Zuriel is recruited to the team, having become disillusioned with the acts of his fellow Arbiters. This kicks off a story sequence in which three more broken dimensions are discovered and in which the heroes try to repair each one. Gylla is recruited in one of them, and all the while, the heroes have to deal with Trest, who claims that his own dimension is just fine and that the heroes need to stop what they're doing. In a climactic story event, Atropos appears, while it's revealed that the Arbiters are trying to repair the dimensional breaks, not cause them, and that the Grand Arbiter is incapable of making such a sacrifice to save the worlds, which is why the Arbiters are trying to repair the dimensions themselves.
This revelation causes Zuriel to turn on the party and the party to get separated, and Shard, Ovo, Millennia, and Atropos end up in Trest's dimension, which has become a massive factory plane, a mesh of construction facilities from different timelines, including an ancient stone forge, an Industrial Revolution-era factory, and a futuristic energy forging facility, amongst other more subtle elements. Atropos seems to know a great deal about the factory dimension, and it turns out that it's being run by a Mother Brain-like figure who controls pretty much everything. Trest, in fact, sees the being like his own mother, even though he knows it's an artificial program. Escaping is pretty much all the heroes can do, and after fighting a massive mechanical boss, they manage to get away. Shard wants to find Lisbeth, but before that can happen, the party winds up in a strange Roman casino dimension, sort of a riff on "Caesars Palace" but much darker, run by an insane Emperor. Gylla and Cade are trapped here in various bad circumstances, and the party has to find and help them, get information on Lisbeth, and defeat the Emperor, all the while dealing with Zuriel, who has made a deal with the Emperor of the dimension to find the heroes and stop them. After the heroes accomplish their goals there (The Emperor is defeated but Zuriel escapes), Shard learns that Lisbeth has been taken back to Trest's factory dimension and must make a daring raid on the facility HQ to save her. This mission is another massive story climax where Zuriel returns to the heroes for good, Trest is defeated (and possibly killed depending on whether or not the player enabled him to be able to join the party later) and a LOT of information is learned about Lisbeth and Atropos. Lisbeth, as it turns out, is the Anomaly, the cause of the dimensional rifts that the player has encountered throughout the game. The Arbiters were unaware of this, but Lisbeth's analysis by the factory HQ computer shows that she was in fact created in the death throes of the Darkness Beyond Time, a being of light to balance out the darkness, but because she was cast into a dimension that has never known such darkness, the darkness sought her out in an attempt to create that balance. Lisbeth is the one who must absorb the darkness into herself, but at the cost of her own life. Lisbeth has absorbed a massive amount of darkness already and is comatose, and the Arbiters wish to take her to the place where the darkness is gathering to finish the job. The party refuses to let anything happen to her, and returns to Nora for advice. Nora tells them that they must create another Chrono Trigger, clone Lisbeth, and use it to absorb the darkness instead. Atropos tells them of an area where that can be done, and the party visits a place very much like Death Peak from the original game, but combined with a number of environments from other timelines, creating a strange anachronistic mountain. The Lisbeth clone is created, and takes all the darkness into itself, closing all the dimensional rifts and saving the original Lisbeth. However, the darkness refuses to die, and after another cataclysmic event in which the Realm of the Arbiters is completely destroyed, the party is scattered once more. Shard and Lisbeth wake up back in their intact village. Everyone has been brought back to life, but the village itself is isolated in the universe, an island drifting on the sea of space and time. At this point, there's about one fourth of the game remaining, and Shard must once again reunite the party: first, Ovo and Gylla, then Atropos and Zuriel, and finally, Millennia and Cade. During these missions, the increasingly sad fate of the game's realms is made apparent. Severed from the time stream, with only a few ways to bridge the dimensional gaps, the various realms have been totally cut off from one another, and darkness and despair are seeping into the minds of the people. Once the party is reunited, they learn that the only way to bring the dimensions together is by entering the hole in space and time that was once the Arbiters' Realm and is now a growing vortex of darkness, said to be the new Darkness Beyond Time.
It's important to mention that during this phase of the game, its primary antagonist has made his presence known. During her first encounter with the heroes, Nora mentioned her old mentor, a scholar named Remus, who is said to have been a frail but brilliant student of dimensional travel. Remus, in fact, is said to have studied under the original Three Gurus from Chrono Trigger, Malchior, Gaspar, and Balthasar, and somehow found a way to travel to this dimension. A few faint signs of Remus' presence are seen across the dimensions throughout the game. However, upon learning of Lavos' powers, Remus became power hungry, much in the same way that Queen Zeal did. Convinced by his hubris that he could control Lavos, he traveled through the dimensional breach created by the collapse of the Darkness Beyond Time, unwittingly allowing a small piece of the darkness to slip through with him. He took on Nora as a pupil, using her gifts to augment his own power. He also came in contact with the Arbiters, and subtly manipulated them as well. He's the one who caused Lisbeth to be born, and it was the darkness Remus brought through the portal that necessitated her very existence. It's Remus who causes the fall of the Realm of the Arbiters, and he's the one who personally strikes down their leader (who was originally teased to be the final boss of the game but is killed about 3/4ths of the way through). As Shard and Lisbeth begin their quest to reunite the heroes, Remus finally makes a few physical appearances, at first trying to manipulate the heroes to cease their quest, but then finally creating creatures to attack them. Nora is torn between helping the heroes and remaining loyal to her mentor, but she at last helps to strike down Remus at the cost of her own life in a cinematic sequence late in the final dungeon. Finally, it's revealed that the Lisbeth who's been with Shard ever since their trip to Death Peak isn't the original Lisbeth, but is instead the clone: the original Lisbeth sacrificed herself, realizing that the clone couldn't absorb the darkness on its own. The clone itself has a finite life force, and has only survived because of the lingering emotions experience toward Lisbeth from her companions and friends. Though heartbroken, the party vows to press on. They engage in a final showdown with Remus, only for Remus to be interrupted by the arrival of Lavos, reborn through the coalescence of so much darkness. While it appears that Remus will be overwhelmed by Lavos, the party realizes to their horror that Remus has discovered a way to control the cosmic horror, and sets it against the heroes. They defeat it, but only just barely, and Remus reveals to them that he has gained true dominion over time and space. He tears another dimensional hole, revealing the peaceful dimension seen in Chrono Trigger and Chrono Infinite, and threatens to destroy it as well. However, the Lisbeth clone, despite horrific pain, is able to throw herself into the portal, using her own energy to seal it for good and cutting off Remus' power to manipulate dimensional tears. Remus, now trapped in this dimension, vows to transform it into an eternal hellscape. Lisbeth tearfully asks him why, and he just smirks and says "because I can." Remus reveals himself to be omniscient, and claims that all living creatures are pathetic beings and that he has seen their pasts and futures and that knowing everything has made him realize the futility of existence. His omniscience also prevents the party from damaging him, and it appears hopeless until Millennia realizes that her own time manipulation powers lie outside of Remus' own. In fact, her powers were a failsafe granted to her by Nora, who had been secretly mentored by Balthasar who knew that Remus was about to turn. Nora wasn't able to complete her work, but through the encouragement of her friends, Millennia has been able to master her powers on her own. While she can't destroy Remus' omniscience completely, she can make him unable to see a small window into the immediate future, which allows the party to attack him. This begins the next phase of the final boss battle, in which the party must battle Remus. Killing Remus, however, unleashes the darkness itself, which coalesces into a being of incredible power, the Eternity Devourer. After the Eternity Devourer is defeated, the darkness is weakened, but not destroyed. The Lisbeth clone must, in its final act, absorb this last bit of darkness into herself. The Lisbeth clone then asks the party to let her rest, and Shard and Millennia cast one final spell together, enabling the Lisbeth clone to sleep beyond the flow of time. The dimensional rifts begin to repair themselves, and the party must return to their own dimensions, becoming separated from one another. The ending shows the party members and their surviving allies in their own repaired time streams, moving on with their lives. It's a mostly happy ending with a bittersweet tone, but the after-credits scene does show one hopeful moment: Millennia retains her time warping powers, and the first person she visits is Cade, but it's implied that the two of them will find a way to reunite the others as well.
Chrono Break is one of the Sapphire's most hyped games of 2008. It's released in Japan in September 2008, and in North America on November 11, 2008, with a European release on November 14th. It's a massive hit in all three territories, selling more than 500,000 copies in its first week of release in Japan and more than 300,000 copies in its first week in North America. Though it's not a Final Fantasy-level blockbuster, it definitely meets sales expectations and is considered one of Squaresoft's most successful launches ever. Reviews are quite kind to the game, averaging in the low 9s in North America and somewhat higher in Japan, with a 38/40 in Famitsu. Curiously, it's the lowest rated amongst the three Chrono games, which shows just how critically and popularly beloved the series is. Most of the praise for the game centers around its sprawling quest, epic storyline, and incredible graphics and music, while slightly criticizing the characters themselves for not being as memorable as the ones in the first two Chrono games. Though Chrono Break isn't the best RPG of all time, it's definitely a contender for one of the best RPGs of the year.
Aw man, we get not one, but two great sequels to Chrono Trigger ITTL.
Why can't OTL be so lucky? Why does Square Enix hate the franchise?
Why can't OTL be so lucky? Why does Square Enix hate the franchise?
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
Brings off some Chrono Cross vibes every now and then, but without it being underrated. It's why we can't have nice things here.
Made me LOL. I mean Nomura loves those zippers on character artwork.
Fall 2008 (Part 13) - The Power Of Three
Three Mile Island
Three Mile Island is a psychological horror game for the Apple iTwin, and the third game in the popular Three Mile Island series of horror games, which had two of the Sega Katana's best selling games, making it Apple's pre-eminent exclusive horror series. It continues where the previous two games left off, taking place 17 years after the events of 2006's Return To Three Mile Island, and featuring Violet "Vi" Alvarez, who was introduced in that game, as the primary protagonist. Like the previous two titles, Three Mile Island focuses mostly on psychological horror, and doesn't feature much in the way of combat. This is especially true for the third game, which features no permanent equippable weapons and relies entirely on context-based attacks to defend one's self from threats. The game features a great deal of stealth and exploration, while attempting to scare the player through subtle tension and horrific sights. This is an approach taken by 2006's critically acclaimed The Lobotomized, which Three Mile Island's producers admit taking a lot of influence from. Three Mile Island features a traditional control scheme, but makes heavy use of optional motion controls for all sorts of context-based movements, and the controllers will shake as the player moves from room to room. The controllers also utilize a special optional attachment that can detect the player's heartbeat, and will ramp up tension accordingly when the player's heart rate goes up. This special mode, called "Heartbeat" mode, is one of the most heavily promoted aspects of the game, and a version of the game is sold with the pulse measuring controller attachments for an extra $20. The player has both a health meter and a radiation meter: absorb too much radiation, and Violet will suffer ill effects, similar to the radiation effects in the Fallout series. The controller can simulate a "pins and needles" radiation feeling by buzzing in high radiation areas, adding another aspect of realism and fear to the game. Radiation plays a heavier role in this game than it does in previous games in the series: Violet's access to certain areas will be prevented by too much radiation, and she'll either have to find protection, find a way to rid the area of radiation, or plow through it and risk damaging her health in order to proceed forward. Unlike in previous games in which there were multiple protagonists traveling together, in Three Mile Island Violet spends much of her time alone, and the feeling of solitude is palpable, though she'll talk to herself at times during certain sequences, especially when the player's heart rate goes up (another reason to use the heartbeat controller attachments, for the optional extra dialogue). Often during the game, the player will be given a complex series of actions to perform while something is happening, either something having to do with the radiation levels or something having to do with a nearby enemy, and these moments, carefully utilized throughout, also help to ramp up the tension of the game. Despite these context based moments, there are no real QTE moments in the game, as the producers felt that those types of moments would reduce the slow building tension. Three Mile Island features some of the most detailed and realistic graphics of any iTwin game to date, and a cast filled with talented voice actors. Though most of them are fairly unknown, there are a few famous voices, most notably Carla Gugino as the voice of Violet (the actress who played her in Return To Three Mile Island was not cast this time around). Three Mile Island was actually changed somewhat from the producers' original vision: originally, the game was not set to take place near the Three Mile Island facility at all, and instead was to take place in an unnamed government nuclear waste dumping site. However, after the release and success of The Lobotomized, the developers were inspired to revisit Three Mile Island one last time to complete Violet's story.
The game takes place in an alternate reality where the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 was the worst nuclear disaster ever, irradiating most of Pennsylvania and creating a mutated radioactive wasteland in the area around the facility. By 2008, most of the area has been cleaned up, but the original facility remained sealed up by the government after a number of incidents there. Violet Alvarez, who was a teenage hacker in Return To Three Mile Island, which takes place in 1991, is now a college professor in her early 30s, teaching computer engineering. She is a very "fun" professor and dearly loves her students, and she helps pay for a group of her favorite students to take a vacation. However, the group of students has mysteriously disappeared. One day, Violet gets a phone call from a creepy stranger who claims to have kidnapped them, and demands that Violet return to the Three Mile Island facility if she wants to see them alive again. Violet doesn't go to the police, but does contact one old friend (who is implied to be Eamon Ruddels from Return To Three Mile Island, as Eric and Carly disappeared ten years before). Violet then goes to the facility, which is still surrounded with a massive containment dome, but the hidden doors, which are supposed to only able to be opened by the president, are all opened for her. She makes her way in and discovers mutated creatures everywhere she turns. She has no way to fight the creatures, and must navigate via a series of instructions given to her by the kidnapper. As Violet goes through the facility, avoiding death at every turn, we get short flashbacks of Violet with her students, introducing us to each of them (there are six in all, three men and three women). Eventually, we learn that Violet's students are being experimented on at the facility with all sorts of radioactive equipment, and Violet has to try and free them. She fails to save the first two she comes across, but she's able to save the third, a girl named Shelby, and escorts her through the facility, trying to find the other three. It's at this point that Violet comes face to face with the kidnapper, and to her horror, it's Eric, the protagonist of the first two games. Eric has gone insane after the death of his wife Carly due to a mysterious ailment caused by her exposure to radiation. Eric hopes to bring Carly back by using radiation to stimulate her brain in such a way that she can be revived, and has her frozen corpse in the deepest part of the facility. Violet pleads with Eric to cease all of this, but he instead tries to capture Violet, needing her hacking expertise to break one last lock in the facility. Eric sets another of Violet's kidnapped students, who has been brainwashed with radiation, on Violet and Shelby. Violet eventually allows herself to be captured so that Shelby can get away. Violet is forced to watch as the last two students are subjected to a horrific radiation experiment, which Eric promises will only get worse if she doesn't help him with the final facility lock. Violet manages to break free and she saves one of the students, a boy named Brad, but the other student is killed. Violet is badly injured in her escape attempt, while Brad and the brainwashed student fight each other and fall into another room. Violet is forced to crawl out of the room and she tries to find somewhere safe, but is pursued by another creature, and screams as it seems to have her trapped in a room. Meanwhile, the player's perspective switches to Shelby, who stumbles through the facility in the dark, fleeing other creatures before finally bumping into Ruddels, who has come to help Violet out. Ruddels then helps Brad by killing the brainwashed student, and Ruddels tells Shelby and Brad to leave, showing them a path out before coming after Violet. The player's perspective then returns to Violet, who has somehow killed the creature that had her trapped, and then must fix her own wounds before staggering to safety, taunted by Eric over the intercom. She finds Ruddels, and the two make their way to Carly's frozen corpse. Ruddels wants to destroy the corpse to possibly snap Eric out of his delusions, but Violet can't bring herself to do so, having cared about Carly like a mother. Ruddles insists on destroying the corpse, and Violet attacks him, nearly killing him before realizing that she's going insane as well, and that her insanity and Eric's are similar. Violet realizes what has to be done, and she tries to get Ruddels to leave the facility, but he refuses. Fortunately, Shelby and Brad never left: they went back to save Violet, and Violet instead tells them to get Ruddels out of the facility and then lock her and Eric inside. They do so, very reluctantly, and Violet begins looking for Eric, but first she unlocks the door in the facility. She realizes that inside the deepest parts of the facility is a way to use radiation to stimulate a dead human brain, bringing a corpse back from the dead. Violet is astonished that Eric was right about everything, but also realizes that he's still gone completely insane and that she has to stop him. Violet plays a cat and mouse game with Eric, finally cornering him in the room with Carly's corpse. She seals the two of them in the room as creatures bang on the door outside. Violet will help Eric use the procedure to bring back Carly, but the three of them will never leave that room. They use the procedure, and Carly is brought back, much to her horror. She reveals that she used the procedure to bring back Eric before and he went insane, so she killed herself out of grief. The two ask Violet to kill them, but before she can, they both mutate into hideous radioactive creatures and attack, forcing Violet to kill them both using only the objects she can find in the room. It's a very brief, harrowing, and intense "final boss" fight, and by the time Violet is finished, she's badly hurt again and consumed with grief while the creatures continue to bang on the door. They burst in, but then Ruddels, heavily armed with a machine gun, bursts in through the back wall and kills all the creatures surging into the room. Violet passes out and Ruddels grabs her and rushes her to safety, just before the military bombs the facility into oblivion. Violet awakens in the hospital with Ruddels, Shelby, and Brad at her side. She's suffering from intense radiation poisoning and dozens of wounds, but the doctors say she'll pull through. She tells Ruddels that she wishes he'd just left her back there, as she fears she'll go insane like Eric and Carly did, but a government scientist assures her that because she wasn't brought back to life, the insanity she felt was only temporary, not permanent, and that it'll be safe for her to interact with others after a short period of observation. After Violet seems to calm down, there's a scene of Ruddels and the scientist talking about Violet and how she was brought back to life by the procedure, but because she wasn't dead for more than an hour, she shouldn't suffer from the insanity, and Ruddels promises the scientist that if Violet ever does go insane, he'll put her down himself. The camera pans one last time over the bombed out Three Mile Island facility, and then the credits roll.
Three Mile Island is released on December 2, 2008 for the Apple iTwin. The game's critical reception is quite good, with critics praising the game's graphical presentation, though the game's challenge level is a problem for some reviewers. It's largely seen as living up to the considerable hype, and it becomes the top selling new game of December 2008, proving to be a mature holiday hit for the iTwin and another game for mature players that raises the system's profile considerably against its competition. It's considered along with Resident Evil 5 to be one of the top horror games of the year, and its optional motion controls and heartbeat-based gameplay set a new standard for immersion. While not a Game of the Year contender, even just among iTwin titles (Panzer Dragoon Zeta and Billy's Brave Odyssey are the top two games in that regard), it's one of the most popular games to date for the iTwin, and sends the trilogy off on a good note. This time, the series' developers will send off the Three Mile Island setting for good, and would instead begin a spiritual successor series to the original, that would feature the series' beloved gameplay and carry over some plot threads while establishing a new setting and brand new characters.
Three Mile Island is a psychological horror game for the Apple iTwin, and the third game in the popular Three Mile Island series of horror games, which had two of the Sega Katana's best selling games, making it Apple's pre-eminent exclusive horror series. It continues where the previous two games left off, taking place 17 years after the events of 2006's Return To Three Mile Island, and featuring Violet "Vi" Alvarez, who was introduced in that game, as the primary protagonist. Like the previous two titles, Three Mile Island focuses mostly on psychological horror, and doesn't feature much in the way of combat. This is especially true for the third game, which features no permanent equippable weapons and relies entirely on context-based attacks to defend one's self from threats. The game features a great deal of stealth and exploration, while attempting to scare the player through subtle tension and horrific sights. This is an approach taken by 2006's critically acclaimed The Lobotomized, which Three Mile Island's producers admit taking a lot of influence from. Three Mile Island features a traditional control scheme, but makes heavy use of optional motion controls for all sorts of context-based movements, and the controllers will shake as the player moves from room to room. The controllers also utilize a special optional attachment that can detect the player's heartbeat, and will ramp up tension accordingly when the player's heart rate goes up. This special mode, called "Heartbeat" mode, is one of the most heavily promoted aspects of the game, and a version of the game is sold with the pulse measuring controller attachments for an extra $20. The player has both a health meter and a radiation meter: absorb too much radiation, and Violet will suffer ill effects, similar to the radiation effects in the Fallout series. The controller can simulate a "pins and needles" radiation feeling by buzzing in high radiation areas, adding another aspect of realism and fear to the game. Radiation plays a heavier role in this game than it does in previous games in the series: Violet's access to certain areas will be prevented by too much radiation, and she'll either have to find protection, find a way to rid the area of radiation, or plow through it and risk damaging her health in order to proceed forward. Unlike in previous games in which there were multiple protagonists traveling together, in Three Mile Island Violet spends much of her time alone, and the feeling of solitude is palpable, though she'll talk to herself at times during certain sequences, especially when the player's heart rate goes up (another reason to use the heartbeat controller attachments, for the optional extra dialogue). Often during the game, the player will be given a complex series of actions to perform while something is happening, either something having to do with the radiation levels or something having to do with a nearby enemy, and these moments, carefully utilized throughout, also help to ramp up the tension of the game. Despite these context based moments, there are no real QTE moments in the game, as the producers felt that those types of moments would reduce the slow building tension. Three Mile Island features some of the most detailed and realistic graphics of any iTwin game to date, and a cast filled with talented voice actors. Though most of them are fairly unknown, there are a few famous voices, most notably Carla Gugino as the voice of Violet (the actress who played her in Return To Three Mile Island was not cast this time around). Three Mile Island was actually changed somewhat from the producers' original vision: originally, the game was not set to take place near the Three Mile Island facility at all, and instead was to take place in an unnamed government nuclear waste dumping site. However, after the release and success of The Lobotomized, the developers were inspired to revisit Three Mile Island one last time to complete Violet's story.
The game takes place in an alternate reality where the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 was the worst nuclear disaster ever, irradiating most of Pennsylvania and creating a mutated radioactive wasteland in the area around the facility. By 2008, most of the area has been cleaned up, but the original facility remained sealed up by the government after a number of incidents there. Violet Alvarez, who was a teenage hacker in Return To Three Mile Island, which takes place in 1991, is now a college professor in her early 30s, teaching computer engineering. She is a very "fun" professor and dearly loves her students, and she helps pay for a group of her favorite students to take a vacation. However, the group of students has mysteriously disappeared. One day, Violet gets a phone call from a creepy stranger who claims to have kidnapped them, and demands that Violet return to the Three Mile Island facility if she wants to see them alive again. Violet doesn't go to the police, but does contact one old friend (who is implied to be Eamon Ruddels from Return To Three Mile Island, as Eric and Carly disappeared ten years before). Violet then goes to the facility, which is still surrounded with a massive containment dome, but the hidden doors, which are supposed to only able to be opened by the president, are all opened for her. She makes her way in and discovers mutated creatures everywhere she turns. She has no way to fight the creatures, and must navigate via a series of instructions given to her by the kidnapper. As Violet goes through the facility, avoiding death at every turn, we get short flashbacks of Violet with her students, introducing us to each of them (there are six in all, three men and three women). Eventually, we learn that Violet's students are being experimented on at the facility with all sorts of radioactive equipment, and Violet has to try and free them. She fails to save the first two she comes across, but she's able to save the third, a girl named Shelby, and escorts her through the facility, trying to find the other three. It's at this point that Violet comes face to face with the kidnapper, and to her horror, it's Eric, the protagonist of the first two games. Eric has gone insane after the death of his wife Carly due to a mysterious ailment caused by her exposure to radiation. Eric hopes to bring Carly back by using radiation to stimulate her brain in such a way that she can be revived, and has her frozen corpse in the deepest part of the facility. Violet pleads with Eric to cease all of this, but he instead tries to capture Violet, needing her hacking expertise to break one last lock in the facility. Eric sets another of Violet's kidnapped students, who has been brainwashed with radiation, on Violet and Shelby. Violet eventually allows herself to be captured so that Shelby can get away. Violet is forced to watch as the last two students are subjected to a horrific radiation experiment, which Eric promises will only get worse if she doesn't help him with the final facility lock. Violet manages to break free and she saves one of the students, a boy named Brad, but the other student is killed. Violet is badly injured in her escape attempt, while Brad and the brainwashed student fight each other and fall into another room. Violet is forced to crawl out of the room and she tries to find somewhere safe, but is pursued by another creature, and screams as it seems to have her trapped in a room. Meanwhile, the player's perspective switches to Shelby, who stumbles through the facility in the dark, fleeing other creatures before finally bumping into Ruddels, who has come to help Violet out. Ruddels then helps Brad by killing the brainwashed student, and Ruddels tells Shelby and Brad to leave, showing them a path out before coming after Violet. The player's perspective then returns to Violet, who has somehow killed the creature that had her trapped, and then must fix her own wounds before staggering to safety, taunted by Eric over the intercom. She finds Ruddels, and the two make their way to Carly's frozen corpse. Ruddels wants to destroy the corpse to possibly snap Eric out of his delusions, but Violet can't bring herself to do so, having cared about Carly like a mother. Ruddles insists on destroying the corpse, and Violet attacks him, nearly killing him before realizing that she's going insane as well, and that her insanity and Eric's are similar. Violet realizes what has to be done, and she tries to get Ruddels to leave the facility, but he refuses. Fortunately, Shelby and Brad never left: they went back to save Violet, and Violet instead tells them to get Ruddels out of the facility and then lock her and Eric inside. They do so, very reluctantly, and Violet begins looking for Eric, but first she unlocks the door in the facility. She realizes that inside the deepest parts of the facility is a way to use radiation to stimulate a dead human brain, bringing a corpse back from the dead. Violet is astonished that Eric was right about everything, but also realizes that he's still gone completely insane and that she has to stop him. Violet plays a cat and mouse game with Eric, finally cornering him in the room with Carly's corpse. She seals the two of them in the room as creatures bang on the door outside. Violet will help Eric use the procedure to bring back Carly, but the three of them will never leave that room. They use the procedure, and Carly is brought back, much to her horror. She reveals that she used the procedure to bring back Eric before and he went insane, so she killed herself out of grief. The two ask Violet to kill them, but before she can, they both mutate into hideous radioactive creatures and attack, forcing Violet to kill them both using only the objects she can find in the room. It's a very brief, harrowing, and intense "final boss" fight, and by the time Violet is finished, she's badly hurt again and consumed with grief while the creatures continue to bang on the door. They burst in, but then Ruddels, heavily armed with a machine gun, bursts in through the back wall and kills all the creatures surging into the room. Violet passes out and Ruddels grabs her and rushes her to safety, just before the military bombs the facility into oblivion. Violet awakens in the hospital with Ruddels, Shelby, and Brad at her side. She's suffering from intense radiation poisoning and dozens of wounds, but the doctors say she'll pull through. She tells Ruddels that she wishes he'd just left her back there, as she fears she'll go insane like Eric and Carly did, but a government scientist assures her that because she wasn't brought back to life, the insanity she felt was only temporary, not permanent, and that it'll be safe for her to interact with others after a short period of observation. After Violet seems to calm down, there's a scene of Ruddels and the scientist talking about Violet and how she was brought back to life by the procedure, but because she wasn't dead for more than an hour, she shouldn't suffer from the insanity, and Ruddels promises the scientist that if Violet ever does go insane, he'll put her down himself. The camera pans one last time over the bombed out Three Mile Island facility, and then the credits roll.
Three Mile Island is released on December 2, 2008 for the Apple iTwin. The game's critical reception is quite good, with critics praising the game's graphical presentation, though the game's challenge level is a problem for some reviewers. It's largely seen as living up to the considerable hype, and it becomes the top selling new game of December 2008, proving to be a mature holiday hit for the iTwin and another game for mature players that raises the system's profile considerably against its competition. It's considered along with Resident Evil 5 to be one of the top horror games of the year, and its optional motion controls and heartbeat-based gameplay set a new standard for immersion. While not a Game of the Year contender, even just among iTwin titles (Panzer Dragoon Zeta and Billy's Brave Odyssey are the top two games in that regard), it's one of the most popular games to date for the iTwin, and sends the trilogy off on a good note. This time, the series' developers will send off the Three Mile Island setting for good, and would instead begin a spiritual successor series to the original, that would feature the series' beloved gameplay and carry over some plot threads while establishing a new setting and brand new characters.
So SEGABits just posted this on Youtube, did it still happen ITTL and was it hosted by GAME TV?:
That is pre game TV but if somethng similar that could have been the Seed for GameTV ITTL
Oooh, good find! I've never seen this but this is definitely the closest thing in OTL to what TTL GameTV might've been like.
ITTL, the seed for GameTV was planted with the growing prominence of mature games like SNES-CD Mortal Kombat and Snatcher, so they've been pondering video game-based programming for a while. Ted Crosley and Alex Stansfield both did some game related stuff for MTV in 1993, just some very brief segments on MTV News, so I could imagine them hosting something like this show. So.... yes, "Rock The Rock" does happen ITTL, airing in April 1994. Ted Crosley is the main host, while Alex Stansfield does a brief interview segment with some of the contestants. GameTV fans see it almost like a "proto" version of the show, though Ted and Alex don't interact with each other during this program.
Also, interesting to see who the hosts were for the OTL version! I imagine Bill Bellamy and Daisy Fuentes are still a part of the TTL version, Bill Bellamy co-hosting with Ted and Daisy Fuentes sharing the small interview segments with Alex. I can imagine Bill Bellamy being in the running for a host spot on GameTV TTL, but producers decide against him because he's a bit too old and not enough of a gamer. I don't see Daisy Fuentes even being auditioned ITTL. Both probably are still doing about what they did ITTL, and I could see Daisy Fuentes still marrying Richard Marx in 2015 ITTL (which is one of my favorite celebrity couples, just so random and yet so cute)
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Hopefully the success of games like the Three Mile Island series would prevent the Video Game Industry from arbitrarily declaring survival horror games “dead” like they did in OTL.
So, it's fall 2008. We're a few months into the That Guy With the Glasses era of internet reviewing. How's the start of the site looking?
Especially since, judging by the Space Jam review ITTL being dated to December of 2007, NC started earlier ITTL.
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