Chrono Trigger gets a surprise Steam release (but it kind of stinks)

[Shawn Knight]

Square Enix on Tuesday surprised the gaming community with the unexpected arrival of Chrono Trigger on Steam. Unfortunately, any excitement surrounding the launch quickly turned sour as gamers realized exactly what they were dealing with.

Square Enix in announcing the new version said it includes two extra dungeons, updated graphics and sound, updated controls and a new auto-save feature. What’s more, those who purchase the game before April 2 will receive a handful of digital bonus material including wallpapers in various sizes and a medley of music to download.

A quick look at Chrono Trigger’s listing on Steam, however, reveals a sea of negative reviews.

Most gamers seem irritated by the fact that this is a port of the mobile (Android and iOS) version of the game, not the original Super Nintendo version Square put out in 1995. As for the updated graphics and sound, well… that’s not really accurate according to Steam reviewers and tech / gaming site editors. Virtually everyone is complaining about how bad the game looks on PC – from the clunky UI and blurry sprites to the atrocious text fonts and touch-first controls… it’s just, bad.

If you’re considering giving Chrono Trigger a try on the PC, be sure to do your homework first. Check out the trailer, examine the screenshots and read the reviews. Diehard fans will probably love it either way but boy does it seem as if Square Enix dropped the ball here.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/73476-chrono-trigger-gets-surprise-steam-release-but-kind.html

 

[m4a4]

I don't give money to companies that put out piss poor portable ports.

I'd rather get an emulator working.

 

[psycros]

Ah, Square-Enix, you never cease to disappoint.

*Fires up emulator*

 

[Jibberish18]

I don't give money to companies that put out piss poor portable ports.

I'd rather get an emulator working.

https://buildbot.libretro.com/.web/

 

[Scshadow]

Sounds like the same treatment the rest of the SNES Square RPGs got on Steam. I honestly don't know how these ports get so stupid. I purchased FFVI on steam cause it was a childhood favorite. After 2 years I finally picked it up again and beat it because I've never played the bonus dungeons. I don't know how you can remove quality of life features and be okay with pushing that product out. No manual sort of inventory. No page down button. You want to buy 99 items? You can't do anything but hold up as it increments up by one and that takes at least 20 secs. Auto sort doesn't consistently sort items in the same order. When you equip a relic or a piece of equipment, instead of backing out the cursor automatically it stays like the game expects you to equip something else immediately in the same slot. I don't know how many times I went to equip a 2nd relic just to accidentally remove the relic I put in the first slot. A turbo mode that doesn't actually speed up animation but screws you by being impossible to disable between and at the beginning of battles. No ATB bar was hard to get used to. I feel like a controller was a must for me because battle menuing felt unsatisfying with a keyboard and only barely acceptable with a controller. Game itself was okay. Sprites honestly don't have the same character as the originals but it was basically the same game otherwise. But I ask myself why. Like put the game in front of a single person, let them play for 10 mins and the extremely simple issues are so glaringly obvious. Its like they intentionally make these games suck because I feel you would almost have to go out of your way to create issues. The sprites is a prime example of that. they tried too hard to blur the edges of the sprites under some misguided notion that we expected, or even thought we got, a high fidelity graphics game. Instead it just looks so subpar. Honestly, I can't say if feels like the people working on these ports are fans of the game they are updating. I can only imagine just how apathetic the studio of these ports feel towards their projects.

 

[OutlawCecil]

Whyyyyyyyy do they do this?! I guess we'll have to keep playing the original game in our emulators for free. Gah!