How to Not Mess Up a Remake

"What's old is new again."

It's a statement that comes up a lot and for obvious reasons - remakes are easy money.  Simply by the flow of time, you have people who just aren't exposed to certain things the first time around and it's just easy enough to repackage those things and sell them brand-new to the folks who just haven't experienced them as well as the people who have and want to see what the 'new' experience is like.  We've seen a lot of the remake and remaster situation this generation because we've reached a point where a -lot- of people haven't been around for as long as we have, or at least not been in it as some of us have, which just means it's easy to capitalize on.  Well, easier since, well, remaking/remastering a game is honestly a very simple process.  Yet...some companies just seem to completely miss the point.  So here's a nice little refresher course on how to properly make a remake.

If you change something big, try to make it optional - Yes, everyone knows the whole point of giving a game a remake is giving it another go while not making it a wholly different game, but that doesn't mean you should change -everything- about it.  Or if you do, then it's a good idea to leave the original there as well to give new and old alike an idea of just -what- you changed and be able to quantify just how much work you put into it.  Dragon Fantasy Book I (which I still need to review >_<) was absolutely wonderful about this, in that the guy remade the map assets and music from scratch to make it better looking and sounding, -but- they also included an option to turn it back to 'retro' to see how the game was in its original state.  (they also patched in the ability to pick between retro visuals and sounds if you were so inclined)  Compare this to, oh say, Chrono Trigger DS wherein Squeenix completely and totally changed the script without including the original.  Also the new script was terrible, thus making it all the more groan-worthy that there wasn't an option to not stomach it.

For the love of God, don't make it worse - This one should be the most goddamn obvious of them all, but it's hilariously sadly one of the ones that gets tripped over the most.  If a game ran like X on this platform, it's just....just a given that you can figure out -some- way to make it run like at LEAST X if not X+1 on more advanced platforms.  Since everything is more advanced now than what you're remaking at the moment.  If you can't, then don't fucking do it.  The more recent examples have been the Jak and Daxter HD Collection on Vita and the infamous Silent Hill HD Collection debacle, but those aren't the only ones.  Hell, it'd take a while to name all the worst ones.  But one of the particularly bad ones, I think, is Squeenix's handling of Final Fantasy Tactics:  The War of the Lions which was a remake of Final Fantasy Tactics.  While I personally didn't have too much of an issue with it, there were many, many folks who complained of some slow-down that happened during magic casting and the like.  It's a valid complaint.  Where it gets egregious is when that slowdown is still there in the next port of it (on the iPhone) and is also still there in the next next port (on the iPad) when that port came six months later.  Did fucking nobody QA this damn thing at any point?

Realize what it is you're doing and market it appropriately - Remakes and remasters can be really, really exciting since you're basically getting new fans while also allowing old fans to relive the fun of whatever it is you're remaking.  But a remake/remaster is never, ever, ever going to be, on the whole, more exciting than a new iteration of the particular game or series.  (Yes, even THAT remake that will never happen, shut up)  So never forget that.  Promoting the announcement of your remake for days, even weeks leading up to said announcement is just the height of cruelty and is completely unnecessary.  I doubt I need to remind everyone about the whole The World Ends With You debacle.  A week-long countdown site for an iOS remake that wasn't even a universal app.  Who in the actual fuck thought that was a good idea?

Give the most complete game you can - If your game released and then you did something else with it, tweaked it, added DLC (which obviously isn't a thing -yet- but will be in future remakes) or whatever, include that shit.  Different regions get different versions of a game meaning some regions don't get -everything- of a game.  So if you're remaking/remastering that game, make every version standard as the version that had the most content.  Never, ever, ever, ever, ever even consider the notion of selling these extra bits of content additionally, squash any rumor that's saying you're thinking about doing it, or at least let people know you're giving them the whole game when somebody fucking asks you about it since that also gives you a chance to explain your strategy.  Because, you know, we always assume you actually have one, being that a remaster/remake is still a release.

I hope this handy little guide helps anyone who is thinking about releasing a remake or remaster of a game in the future.  It's a complicated thing, I know, but it's rewarding and valuable if you put in the right effort.  But if you're repeatedly making big mistakes in your remakes or remasters, then perhaps you should consider either not making those mistakes or not constantly torturing your fans with shitty remakes and remasters.  Of course, it's not like there's any company that is fairly consistent in releasing bad remakes and remasters, right?

this post is very tongue-in-cheek and I am very proud of it

Storms and Fried Routers and Chrono Trigger DS Rants

So, as I warned might have happened on my Twitter the other night, the storm that we had was a rather nasty one.  It was pretty obvious that we were going to lose power and I unplugged things that I worried weren't safe, whereas things that I thought would be safe, I kept plugged in.  However, when the power went out and there was a rather loud 'Pop' noise, it was clear that when the power came back, something would reveal itself as a casualty.  The next day, when it came back, the problem ended up being the wireless router.  It was fried.  Like, plugging it in resulted in just the number "4" port lighting up as a light would come on during a horror movie - that practiced, tell-tale flickering that means something is either struggling to light, or simply struggling to -not- turn off.  On the cusp of life, you could say, but it was safe to also say that such a sign means the router is no longer going to work for its intended purpose; that of supplying internet.  So I have a new one set up (I won't be sharing what it is because I don't need the purchase criticized or praised; it's bought and set-up, not worrying about it anymore) and I presume it works, since before me is my Vita with a fully loaded up youtube video of Moto - BoA, but we shall see if it lasts, since it was almost -too- easy.

These outages are getting fairly taxing, as I'm sure you all realize, being as much affected by them as I am, but there's not a whole lot I can do against them.  The upside is that generally when they happen, either the downtime means that enough news is brought up in the meanwhile, or that I, without internet, am forced to do -something- that I can then talk about.  As you might infer from the above picture and the title, I am totally up for talking about Chrono Trigger DS which I picked up, much as I did the last time there was an outage and in my playings this time, I have made it to one of the two big things that was added to the DS port, and it is very clearly the single thing that pretty much everyone agrees shouldn't have been added in.  Or at least, I'm assuming everyone agrees because the Lost Sanctum, what I'm talking about, is unequivocally, universally terrible in design and execution and is a blight on gaming as a whole, not to mention the otherwise great game (and good, not great, port of it).  This is probably where you think I'm kidding.  The next few paragraphs is where I'm going to convince you otherwise.

As always, I'm going to blatantly talk about Chrono Trigger and Cross while throwing out plot points like candy in a parade, so if you're not into that, look away.  So, the Lost Sanctum is a place that exists not only in the Pre-Historic age (noted as 65,000,000 BC), but also in the Middle Ages (noted as 600 AD), denoting a 65,000,600 years worth of difference.  This is, unsurprisingly, important to remember since I specifically brought it up.  However, despite the two gates (they are gates, as in Time/Space gates on the map, so it's not like it's a finite, existing place in the world) being in those two eras (and no others, further denoting it as a non-finite place in the world of Chrono Trigger itself) it's only done so as a convenient excuse to have to time-traveling an excessive amount of times to accomplish goals, and Pre-History and the Middle Ages are pretty much the two places lacking the most reasons to visit.  (Antiquity, or 12,000 BC, should be on that list, but, well, the Kingdom of Zeal portion and the whole Lavos blowing errthang up kind of nixes any reason to consider the place for things.)

Regardless, as I have inferred, the time periods have little to do with it since I'm of a mind that the two Lost Sanctums aren't really 65,000,600 years apart.  There are various reasons for this, of which I will eventually cover, but the one prime among them is the fact that I am pretty sure that the Lost Sanctum is -supposed- to be Dinopolis in its early days (both times), which is pretty much based solely on the fact that Dinopolis is a place that existed where only Reptites lived (as they do in Lost Sanctum) and the port job just -loved- adding in superfluous things to tie it closer to Chrono Cross.  Having you do menial tasks for the folks who would end up getting transported into the proper timeline and trying to destroy the world with dragons sort of fits the bill.  And yes, that is a plot point from Chrono Cross:  'Time', in an attempt to bring balance to the world, brought in Dinopolis, a civilization of dinosaurs that never grew up technologically to counteract Humans using super-technology to accidentally time travel a super-advanced scientific facility that harbored FATE, a machine that controlled the world in Illuminatti-esque ways or something.  Because Dinopolis had Dragon Gods that stood absolutely no chance against FATE.  Try not to think of it too hard.

One of the strengths of Chrono Trigger is the fact that it uses on-screen monsters so that you can, in theory, skip most battles if that is your thing.  And when you're doing menial fetch quests, you generally like to just get from Point A to Point B with as little resistance as possible, since you just want to get it done.  Of course, one of the failings of the Lost Sanctum is that it takes this tenant and just kind of throws it out the window, in that the detection boxes or the forced battle boxes, cover entire paths.  In layman's terms, it simply means that the places surrounding the Lost Sanctum proper (as in, the cave where the Reptites live) all have at least a few forced battles per screen.  They're not even difficult battles, and some of them are simply insulting, like one of the Fetch Quest Mountain screens features a battle with an enemy called a Jadewing.  A single Jadewing.  You have to use magic to kill it.  It goes out with a single Dark Bomb if you're rockin' Magus, and likely goes out with a single magic attack from anyone else because it's a pissant enemy.  Those forced battles are both way, of course, since going up the mountain necessitates that you come back down it, obviously.

So honestly, if it were just a matter of getting requests from all the reptites, going out, doing them, suffering the forced battles and coming back to be done with them, it would be bad enough, right?  Some poor design decisions, assuredly, but nothing too dire.  That is why it doesn't end there.  Only one reptite thinks of a task for you at a time, meaning that you'll have to do them all pretty much in succession.  There is -some- overlap, as I have three requests, so to speak, open at the moment, but just to get to a place where I could technically do those three requests, I had to do another request that is an utter abomination in design and is pretty much what governs all of my anger at the port at this moment.  This, coincidentally, also reinforces my "This is not 65,000,600 years apart" theory, which kind of helps, but it also just makes everything another degree of stupid.  Simply because my position that it's not that far apart is -purely- conjecture, whereas one would assume that it is to be considered that otherwise.

One of the things that happens in the Pre-History Lost Sanctum is that one of the Reptites says "I need something from the top of the mountain, but a Nu is guarding the bottom of it".  So you go and beat the Nu and then go get the thing from the top of the mountain because the guardian was just -a- reason not to go, not -the- reason.  The Nu, after you beat it, says it's going to train for your next encounter, which I'm sure you can't guess where it happens.  So, for various reasons, you'll need to go to the 600 AD Lost Sanctum to go up the same mountain and when you do, the Nu is at the bottom because Nus live for several millions of years and challenges you to a fight if you make it to the top of the mountain.  You need to get to the top of the mountain anyway.  So he runs off and you head towards the top of the mountain.  There is a problem, however, as the first rope ladder you encounter has broken in the middle which is entirely a possible thing that has happened after sixty five million years.  Or, presumably, the Nu broke it because he is a dick.  You have to, of course, approach the ladder close enough so that your characters can stop and confirm that the ladder is indeed broken, instead of just turning around after seeing it is broken.

This is still sort of non-offensive at this point.  One of the reptites has gone on and on about ladders so you think he is an expert on them.  So you go to him and he's like "Well, there's some sturdy vines in the glade to the south."  The glade, in 600 AD, is what you have to pass through to get to Fetch Quest mountain.  In Pre-History, it's a swamp.  I'm sure this is how nature works.  So you get the sturdy vines which are in fact vines and not....you know...something else.  Something that could presumably be more sturdy than vines which are just vegetation which is known to rot away and such.  Especially over the course of sixty-five million years, if that's what they really expect us to believe.  (By the way, if that's what we really are to believe, then that Nu has been training for that sixty five million years and yet you are expected to beat him?)  So you think "Well, I have these vines, so I need to take them to the ladder guy" right?  Wrong.  If you take them to him, he will not acknowledge them whatsoever.  And you will probably be confused.

What you have to do is go back to the broken ladder to confirm that it is, indeed, still broken and to realize that there is no way you can hang the new ladder vines, since if you could hang them, you wouldn't need them.  You -need- to trigger this event.  It's literally like two lines of dialogue if that, but it's one of those event flags.  So you have to take these vines, once again going through all the forced battles all through this entire journey of going to this point on the mountain, through the glade and swamp, and go back to pre-history to go through the swamp again to the point where the ladder is broken....so you can move a foot to the left and drop the vines which make a carbon copy rope ladder.  Which is supposed to survive the apparent Sixty Five Million years between events.  And of course, it -does-, since once you go back to 600 AD -again- and go through the glade -again- to get to the mountain -again-, there is the vine ladder that looks like a rope ladder right next to the broken rope ladder that actually is a rope ladder.  And to top it all off, when you go up the vine ladder that looks like a rope ladder absolutely nobody remarks on it.

I'm not sure I've effectively quantified just how poorly this all is executed and, indeed, designed, but I like to believe that I have.  Ten Trips to a single area in a mountain for what is honestly just one request (beating a Nu's ass twice over the span of, again, apparently Sixty Five Million years) with at least two forced battles each way, I think, hammers the point in a little more effectively than I could hope to do otherwise, but it still doesn't really cover the soul-crushing tedium that is generated by the Lost Sanctum.  This is just -one portion- of the entire thing that was apparently so good that Squeenix thought it was just a fabulous idea to throw into this otherwise half-baked port of a great game.  "Oh, but Mogs, it's purely optional!"  Yeah, so is like everything else at endgame which is when this unlocks.  Getting ultimate weapons, going through the Black Omen, reviving the main character of the fucking game is all optional.  They're not entirely banal, superfluous and terrible though.  Still, if a selling point of an enhanced port is the 'enhanced' portions of it, as in the stuff that was not there originally, or the stuff that is changed, I would suggest that it's a little less optional than those things, even, since this is supposed to be the stuff that makes veterans of the game want to buy it.  So that poses the question:  Who the -hell- would want this?

Power Up!

There's no real reason for this picture aside from the whole power theme of the first couple paragraphs.

So!  As you may or may not know, people on the east side of the States have been getting hit pretty hard with some pretty rough storms lately causing massive power outages and the like.  That is what's been up with me since, uh, Friday.  It was not fun.  It continues to be not fun because it's still hot as hell despite the fact that we actually have power and thus Air Conditioning again, and it will remain not fun because it's still friggin storming like every day.  It will continue to do that for a while, so some disruptions in Kupowered is still possible and if at all possible, I will actually forewarn of them this time.  Of course, the only reason I didn't this last time was because the Meteorologists with their fantastic weather machines that cost more money than most small businesses earn yearly didn't really predict that the storms would unfold as they did.  And they're like "Oh, how could we have ever expected it to be this bad?", to which I just have to kind of scoff at.  Because I don't know, it's kind of your fucking job.

Anyways, no power and also no internet kind of puts a damper on maintaining a thing which requires both power and the internet to run, hence why there was another one of these unplanned hiatuses (which is apparently a word, according to spell-check) that sucks.  It has also left me with kind of a clusterfuck of issues considering there was a ton of news in my absence and I am also sort of rusty after the whole not writing for six days thing.  Since for some reason I am just not as good writing things physically as I am with typing them.  That is....kind of an issue that I have never really considered too much since I -have- been able to write things physically before, it's just a little easier to lose what I'm going for.  Also it's almost never an issue unless it's a -big- issue which, well, if it's a situation wherein it's a big issue, it's a bit too late anyways.  Oh well, something else to think of in the future.

Anyways, living without power aside from the assist of a generator simply there to power a little TV with local channels available is about as interesting as it sounds in that it's not interesting at all.  Passing the time in the extreme heat was something of a challenge since it seemed to crawl by and my hobbies didn't really facilitate an expedition of the flow of time whatsoever in feel.  Putting together jigsaw puzzles, doing sudoku puzzles or simply watching TV shows that I don't like (aside from a few that I -do- like now, like The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson because it's awesome) made me feel like....well, that I wasn't actually myself, really.  Granted, I -like- doing all those things, but not because there simply isn't anything else to do.  The only Mogs-like thing I found myself doing was using the DS Lite's battery of the Gods to replay Chrono Trigger DS as my other DS games are all....well, a bit played out.  No less than Chrono Trigger, of which you all know my fondness for, but at least CT is one of those 'timeless' (no pun intended) things that I can play pretty much whenever thanks to my attachment to it.

Well, to the original, at least.  As you all may or may not know, my fondness for the Chrono Trigger DS port is well documented and playing it again basically cements that.  I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why anything that went into this port actually happened.  The new script, the new gameplay sections, such as they are in the loose sense of the word, none of it really makes sense in any shape or form.  The staple answer, of course, is simply "Money", but I have to question the validity of that when it was A.) simply an enhanced port of a well-liked SNES-era JRPG (making it more or less just a 'Cult hit' almost by definition) and B.) the same price (or more) as every Pokemon and Mario game on the shelves.  You know, the games that actually sell, thereby making it easy to have that price-point.  There is no reasoning, no actual logic (not even flawed logic) to have expected that Chrono Trigger DS, at the $40 pricepoint it was introduced at (and remained for....quite a while) would sell anywhere above moderately at best.

So if not money, then, what?  Brand loyalty?  One could assume that the intention of Chrono Trigger DS was an attempt to gauge the popularity of the franchise to see if it was further exploitable or something that was simply better left alone.  If that's your aim then, for the above mentioned reasons, it was a rather poor attempt, which suggests that that....might not have been the goal either.  It was certainly -a- goal, I should say, since Shinji Hashimoto, Senior Vice President of Squeenix or something was quoted as saying "If people want a sequel, they should buy more!" meaning that Chrono projects were certainly on a board somewhere, but only half-heartedly at best.  It almost seems as if it was an in-joke for the company; someone put down a bet that said a Chrono Trigger revisit would sell gang-busters and, if it did, they could build on that with even more unnecessary revisits and remakes and sequels that don't make any sense whatsoever.  Clearly he was wrong in that, as apparently everyone -but- him expected, and the end result is 2008 being the last time we've seen anything out of the franchise, both since then and likely indefinitely.

Which, for my part, all I can say to that is good.  If Chrono Cross and even the DS port of the game is any indication, Chrono Trigger is simply bigger than the sum of its parts.  It's lightning in a bottle and Squeenix has no idea what to do with it, if in fact, anything -can- be done with it at all.  I understand that I'm extremely biased in this, and it simply seems that the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia are clouding my perceptions, but for my money, Chrono Trigger in its original form is simply a level of quality that Cross, the DS port and even Radical Dreamers simply cannot compare to.  And it's not for any one particular reason, but, as I said, because it is just greater than all of its components.  The story isn't spectacular, the characters aren't as wonderfully developed as we've seen can be done, and the gameplay of it is, well, archaic -now-, considering how things have simply grown.  But it has a quality to it that simply cannot be harnessed to be placed into other things bearing the same moniker.  So I would surmise that anything new to be entered into the Chrono franchise would simply not be able to carry that, even if it was made by the Square of old.  Simply because the Square of old tried already and failed on most levels.  But we'll never really know for sure, as all we have is the original, the port, and the sequels (is it plural if one is a really really big re-imaging of the other?) will likely be the only things we have as evidence to either side.

For a Moment, the Internet Had Hope

A domain was recently registered by Squeenix for something called "Chrono Bind" which had the internet going into overdrive at the connection of Squeenix and the word "Chrono".  Surely it was the long-awaited threequel for the Chrono series that would come by and right all the wrongs in the world and such.  But, no such luck, as Chrono Bind is simply a card game for FFXIII-2 which, I'll grant it is terribly named.  It's not even a trading card game, so far as I can tell, just some sort of Casino card game as it's described as here.  It is, by all means, simply ignorable aside from the fact that it gave the internet hope for such a short time to anyone reading Siliconera.

The thing that gets me, and I might be biased in this, is that I don't get where this blind faith comes from.  Any news of a new Chrono game possibility is met with universally positive out-pour, despite the last attempts at a sequel and a re-release were just poor.  It is Well Documented that I have issues with both games, and for that assortment of reasons, I just don't see a third Chrono game being a 'worthy' game in the series.  It might be a good game by its own standards (which people who really like Chrono Cross, but don't want to argue about it being a true sequel say (it's not.)) and if that much happens, it'll be magical, but they're clearly so far removed from the thought process that worked with Trigger to come back.  Simply because one of Trigger's many, many successes was it's simplicity which, considering the generalization of Squeenix stories since Final Fantasy VII (if not earlier), likely isn't coming back.

I guess the logical step to take here would be to suggest my idea for a third game in the series, to show off just how little faith I have in them to make it happen, but I just don't have an idea.  The way Cross has its tendrils steeped into Trigger's story all of it happening basically entirely at the end is not only fairly all-encompassing, but terribly done, so to move forward, you would have to try and find some way to justify that out.  I guess the way you'd want to go is to take the idea put forth with the previous games and run with it, going full-on spiritual sequel rather than trying to pretend it's an actual continuation of Cross' and/or Trigger's storyline.  Spoilers for both games are coming below, so if you care, haven't been spoiled on either somehow, or just plain don't like spoiling, move along.

The basic principle put forth towards the middle or end of Chrono Trigger is that Lavos isn't just a single entity, but it's implied that it is one of its kind, and its kind launches to worlds, sucks them dry of energy, spawn more of it, and those in turn carry out the same life-cycle.  In fact, towards the end of Trigger, you fight some Lavos Spawn that look, essentially, like really tiny version of him, so it's no surprise that this is a thing that happens.  So if it's established that this is not a single incident, work with that!  Pick a new world that can be as similar or different from Trigger's wold (since Cross' world is technically the same world, there's just suddenly tropical islands thanks to a computer program, no I'm not joking) as they want, and have a Lavos Spawn be living in it, or even hit it while technology is advanced, rather than when man was new to the planet.  It would be interesting to see if they could try and figure out a timeline that put an even more futuristic world into the forefront than Trigger's 1999 and 2300, which were inaccessible and ruined respectively.

If you absolutely, positively have to ham-fist a direct connection to Trigger and Cross, then I don't friggin' know what to tell you.  Cross' theme is, roughly, "You saved the world, but it's fucked anyway", showing off how bad things happened regardless of the fact that there wasn't an entity eating the world from inside except there still was because it didn't die when it was killed.  Or it did die and just got better thanks to the magical princess it ate at 12,000 B.C.  Who colored her hair blonde in the 14,000 or so years she was part of Lavos except she was part of him for time eternal or something, since Lavos in its newly not-dead form existed outside of time because it was eating time.  So anyone who was connected, realistically, with Lavos from Trigger is either dead or dying by the time Cross takes place and I don't even know what happens with that after Lavos is destroyed again because the whole theme was there's two separate timelines that were existing side-by-side.  (Except there were a lot more than two, as was revealed by the fact that there was a timeline where Serge already won and was shacking up with Kid or something, you know what, I don't know anymore.)

Not having a direct connection to Trigger and Cross means, essentially, that they have to think of a way to make it work without being a direct retread of Trigger, which is why I suggested the Lavos Spawn hit while the world is matured, rather than young, so they can research it and such to find out its terrible secrets while time and existence itself starts wrecking itself from the inside out.  Or something.  I can't really go too far in-depth with my idea since it's never going to happen as well as the fact that there's just so much terrible that I can't pick it all off to present something uniformly good.  Though I suppose now, after all that, I can see why people have a little hope for a third Chrono game as, the idea I came up with was literally on the fly and I wouldn't mind playing that after describing it.  I really wouldn't mind it, especially if they merged the two gimmicks from Trigger and Cross and had Time Travel and Alternate Dimensions.  Also a space ship instead of a plain airship because fuuuuutuuuuurreeeee.

Music! Chrono Trigger Edition, Part 2

It's been a while since the last time I wrote about the music in Chrono Trigger which is, honestly, kind of a mistake.  The last time I talked about it, I only covered a small portion of it when, really, Chrono Trigger is one of those games that you could basically throw out any of the songs from it and have a fan.  Since there's no other news going on lately, because why would there be any news going on for me to write about, I think now is the perfect time to really go into another portion of the music.  Though really, there's never a bad time to reflect on Chrono Trigger's soundtrack.

The first song I want to showcase is one of the more upbeat tracks from the game.  Which is a little odd since it comes from a character who's in a ruined world.  Or, rather, a ruined future, which is thanks to the driving force behind the entire game, of course.  Robo's Theme has gotten a lot of attention for being what it is, as well as the strange similarity it bears with "Never Gonna Give You Up", a song you've no doubt heard in the last three years because of the internet sensation that was the Rickroll.  There's comparison/overlay videos out there and it hilariously does match up, but I'm not going to link one of those here.  You can find it on your own, I'm sure.  I have -faith- in you in this.

It helps that it's one of the related videos at the end of the song, of course.  At least, of this time of writing it, it is, since who knows what wacky shennanigans Youtube is going to pull in the future, rendering said things like this useless.  Regardless, it's not as in your face upbeat as some of the other tracks, but it's very optimistic sounding, which honestly fits Robo.  Not that I would say any of the songs -don't- fit their purpose, really, since that would just be untruthful.  Also a bit silly since it's blatantly obvious.  Still, Robo's theme was one of the songs that, while it wasn't in my 'favorites', it was always something I was glad to hear and it remains as much to this day.

In keeping of the theme with personal...uh, themes, next up is one of the ones that you might not want to hear, despite it sounding equally nice.  Lavos' theme carries a lot of different feelings and emotions with it, at least in what it tries to evoke, and that is once again quite fitting.  This is generally the theme you hear when Lavos shows up and the world looks a bit screwed - in fact, when he's in the process of wrecking the world of the future, this is what you hear.  Similarly, when you have to face him the first time (I believe), this plays, if only to remind you that Lavos is not something to be messed with which is, unfortunately, what you do right away.  Because you're the main character, of course.

Lavos' theme is one of those classic songs that I would just absolutely love to hear redone with actual instruments and/or a full-out orchestral arrangement.  I think the main 'dramatic' pieces of it would sound absolutely divine as violins personally, but maybe there is an even better instrument for them.  I just feel that, despite sounding good as it is, the chiptunes possibly don't convey the full range of things that the song tries to put out there.  Back then, imagination was good enough to elevate things but now that we have the ability and the resources to actually instill the full range of impact intended, but now it just isn't flying.  That isn't to say that I don't think Chiptunes fill the bill, music-wise, but that that using a full orchestra could bring this song in particular to a whole new level.

For the last song, I'm going to go with a little dual-purpose selection.  While it is still a personal theme as the rest of this post as been, it also serves as a nice contrast to the first Chrono Trigger Music post.  Since I ended the last one with Magus' theme, it only fits that I end this one with Frog's theme, with them being blood rivals and all.  Frog is one of the fan-favorite characters of the game thanks to a combination of his Sword skills, his 'unique' accent (that was taken away by CTDS's retranslation) and his backstory which is both intense and fairly tragic at the same time.  For his time, I think he was a fairly well-realized character as well, as he was quite fleshed out; in fact, you're practically handed his life story over the course of the main story and eventually the optional content towards the end.

It's a very regal sounding theme, yet also carries a very strong feel of determination.  Possibly one of the best moments of the entire game is when this song kicks in for the event prior to 'storming' Magus' castle.  'Storming' typed as it is because it's a little hard to storm a castle with three people.  (Since Chrono Trigger was one of the few games that at least tried to explain a party limit.)  I won't spoil that moment for you, but suffice to say it's one of the earliest examples I remember of my love for "Artifact" weapons.  It's mostly for game/story purposes nowadays obviously, but I think even now I'm always looking for another weapon that matches the standard of that one, and only a few have come close.

So there's another swath of Chrono Trigger's music laid bare for your enjoyment.  It won't be the last time I do this, I imagine, since I love the soundtrack and I've shown that I am willing to do many installments of this to really show off the variety and the goodness that is there.  Until next time, here's to game music, both classic and modern for being awesome in all sorts of ways.

Music! Chrono Trigger Edition, Part 2

It's been a rough day.  I won't bore you with the details, but I just haven't been a happy camper all day, and when I sat down about half an hour ago, finally, to write a blogpost, I was so frustrated that I didn't know what to put out here.  And while I don't really have a lot to say tonight, I do have a lot to express, I should say.  I would like to express to you that music always helps.  And, in light of Chrono Trigger getting an ESRB rating for PS3/PSP again, hey, perfect timing to share one of my favorite soundtracks to a game ever.  I'm sure you all remember the last installment, of course.

I think I'll begin this one with the song that was ultimately edged out last time by two of the other songs.  While it's not my favorite, I will go out on record saying that I think it's one of the best examples of a "mood song" on the soundtrack as a whole, and that it completely, totally captures the essence of the character it represents.  Of course, I'm talking about "Frog's Theme".



It's an astounding blend of something regal, something driven, and something slightly tragic all in one and I just can't stress enough how fitting it ends up being.

This next song isn't quite as important, but it's just as fun to listen to.  I don't really know what it is about it, honestly; maybe just the complexity of the song considering how fast it is, or how upbeat it is.  Either way, it's a fun song, this "Bike Chase" is.



This next song is one of the many songs the game plays when shit goes down, as shit happens to go down quite often in Chrono Trigger world.  And to this day, whenever I'm in a fairly bad way or a time constrained situation, this comes on in my head, which makes things more enjoyable, but doesn't guarantee it works out all the time unfortunately.  It's the aptly named "A Shot of Crisis".



And the last song I'm going to use is a fairly hard one to use.  Not because it's not a great song, because it is, but it retroactively kind of carries the 'taint' of Chrono Cross (which, after reading a Screenshot Let's Play of the game just recently, I'm convinced people only tell themselves they like the game because the music is good.  Seriously, Chrono Cross is awful.) given how the sequel chooses to use some characters from the first game.  I apologize for this very slight spoiler, but it's a little hard to -not- preface it somehow.  The song in question is "Schala's Theme".



It's wonderfully airy and beautiful sounding, isn't it?  Every time I hear the songs from the game, I get to appreciate them more and more.  Sigh, good times.

More Chrono Trigger Stuff

 So while we all found out last month that the second best version of Chrono Trigger will be playable on the PS3 and PSP at the tentative date of 'Sometime', which is now, 'Sometime in the future' given the PSN outage, it was only earlier this month that we found out the Top Best version of Chrono Trigger was heading to the Virtual Console.  I hadn't mentioned it before now, but hey, there it is.  And it's release date is less 'Sometime' and more 'Monday, May 16th.'.

That's a lot of links.

Anyway, as for most of my posts about Chrono Trigger, I feel the need to do a little explaining.  I'm not usually much of a gaming snob in the least, so for me to say that one version of a game is great and another is poor because of some of the content in it, is a little out of my way.  But we all have that one game or so that we just can't help but be picky about.  I'm sure for a lot of people, that game would be Final Fantasy 7, for others, possibly Ico (Given that there were a ton of people on the edge of their seats to find out whether the version of Ico included in the Ico/SotC Collection would be the NA or PAL Version.  It's PAL, btw.) or some other game.  We just can't help it.  These games were formative games in relations to our enjoyment or our actually stepping into this hobby.  So we want everything to be perfect for when they're inevitably retouched for the unknowing masses of a later age.

But regardless, the version of Chrono Trigger that will go up on the Wii's Virtual Console will be the classic SNES version, untouched by the new age, and fit for the highest nostalgia-factor for those of us who would know the feeling.  If you've got a Wii, got some space and some Wii Points, and you like good things, well, this is a no-brainer.

It's Way Too Hot, You Guys.

Like, it is so hot.  You don't even know.  This is the time where I hate not having a fan, because, well, it is very goddamn hot and a fan would help.  I mean, I have a tiny one, but I don't have a plug for it, and it doesn't do a lot anyway.  Like, it's just a little better than those handheld ones.  I need a fan that will make my whole room like, 62 degrees.  Which sounds a lot like an air conditioner, which I don't have!  Of course.

Minecraft storms are 80% cooler than real-life storms.  FACT.

The downside of this heat in Spring is also that Spring can't just be hot.  No, it has to be a constant battle of Hot fronts and Cold Fronts taking their turn flying over head just to make everyone miserable.  Which means storms.  Which means I may be missing a post or two this week.  Just, y'know, throwing that out there as a warning.  If you find yourself going through Kupowered Withdrawals because of this, just, y'know, read my Chrono Trigger DS Posts.  "But Mogs, I already read those!"  Well, read them again.  But no, seriously, I worked pretty hard on those, so if you would read them, it would be appreciated.

This heat is also pretty much interfering with a good bit of my gaming.  I did dig out a PS2 over the weekend and start up Romance of the Three Kingdoms X again, and had some pretty good times with it.  But I'm too paranoid to turn on my PS3 since I don't want it to explode before the PSN comes back up.  Whenever that is.  Because damnit, I got the Trophy for Answering all of the questions in DW7 which rendered all of my other work completely useless.  Of course.  The guy never did get back to me, by the way.  There's the update on that.  Anyways, the point is, I don't want the PS3 to explode because then I can't synch my trophies and then we're going to have what is known as a problem.

But the PS2 doesn't need nearly as much fussing over it, as far as I'm concerned, so this is a good thing.  I might head over to Nobunaga's Ambition here soon on that, or I might power through a few PS2 games I've actually never played.  Or, y'know, play some old favorites.  I'll let everyone know what happens with that.  Or I might jump back into heavy portable gaming.  I have been playing Castlevania:  Dawn of Sorrow again for reasons I myself can't discern, as I don't even really like the game.  And Valkyria Chronicles 2 does remain unbeaten still.

All I know is that I'm still hot, cranky, tired and hungry.  So, this is probably a good place to stop.

Music! Chrono Trigger Edition

In light of me thoroughly ripping Chrono Trigger DS apart, for the fact that there's a bunch of new stuff that doesn't belong there (Which really makes me sound xenophobic when I say it like that, but oh well), I figured there should be something here to reassure everyone that the base game is well enough still that you should pick up whatever version you can if you haven't already.  Just....don't hold the DS version against the original.

Anyways, I figured, what better way to do that than by highlighting one of the game's strengths:  The Music?  So here we are.  This first theme is basically the first song you'll hear in the game, though not the exact version.  It's, unsurprisingly, the main theme of the game.



(Sidenote:  Apparently something is borked with linking to videos in posts, so I had to embed instead.)

Next is a tune that you won't hear until....well, basically the end of the game, but I enjoy it nonetheless.



It really gives a sense of forboding, I think, which given the area you're in (this is the post with as few spoilers as possible) is pretty apt.

This next song is the battle theme you'll hear when you know shit has just gotten real.  And I think that shows well enough in the music itself.



And this final song is my personal favorite tune from the game.  Mostly because Magus is my favorite character from the game.  Yet, this song is what elevated him so high.  So it's some kind of cylindrical situation where everything is awesome.



Honestly, picking music from a game hasn't been so hard since Nier, as both soundtracks are just fantastic from start to finish.  So you'd do yourself well to find a good playlist of them all out there and give a listen for yourself.  But this is a good start, I would imagine.

What Went Wrong - Chrono Trigger DS Part 2

When we last left you, I had just got finished explaining how the new script, new playable areas, and the new story accompanying them all sucked.  And boy did they.  Once again, I'll put up the warning here, that this post, especially this post, will be filled with spoilers from both Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, so be warned before you read.

So, to start, I have to explain something so I can explain something else, so I can resume making my point.  Sigh.  The hard part about this is that I'm writing this to people who either A)  Have played both games (or the majority of both, at least), or B)  Don't care about spoilers, so either way, it seems like a lot of unnecessary typing, but oh well.  This is therapeutic, and for all the A people out there, hopefully I can reinforce opinions or even sway them.

Now, I guess the point I'll start at here is just how important Schala becomes to the entire, overall story of both games.  Schala, for all intents and purposes, honestly doesn't matter much if you just play Chrono Trigger.  She's a tragic character, as she basically exists to be the ultimate, tortured martyr.  In the Kingdom of Zeal, when her mother, appropriately named Queen Zeal, starts going crazy because of the influence Lavos has over the world to those with magical ability, Schala is tasked with using her ability to keep a machine going that actually taps into Lavos' energy.  Which...for a kingdom of knowledge and power, isn't really a smart move.  But influence of the all-powerful, blah blah, whatever.

Anyways, Schala's sob story continues as she tries to fight against her mother, sort of, but being a pacifist, or something, kind of ruins that.  So she just gets dragged along as the plan gets more and more dangerous and they decide to move the machine closer to Lavos to get moooooreeee powerrrr.  And eventually when shit gets real, she's the one who ends up taking the fall, leaving one to imagine that she just got eaten by Lavos or died or something.  The end.

But this is where Cross comes in.  I'm not going to beat around the bush here.  The girl pictured above is Kid, the second main character of Chrono Cross, and no matter what she looks like, she's actually a clone of Schala.  She's actually a clone of Schala.  A daughter-clone no less.  You see, when Schala is left with Lavos, she actually gets absorbed by him, rather than just being lunch.  And when Crono and Co. defeated Lavos, instead of, well, dying, he instead turns into the Boss of Chrono Cross, the Time Devourer.  Somehow.

When Serge, the main character of Cross, dies as a child (which is what sets Cross' events into motion by creating an alternate universe in which, well, he doesn't die), the Time Devourer, or more aptly, the part that is Schala, births the child-clone that is Kid six years prior to him dying, as a means to give Serge an ally to stop himself from dying.  I.....yeah.  Let's just move on now.

The point is, Schala's role extends just like that to not only Trigger in ways that actually show up more than not now, but creates that bridge that is supposed to make us all go, "Oh, hey, it is a sequel, totally and completely!"  But, of course, this is all gripes pointed towards Chrono Cross, which, as I have established, has very little to do with Chrono Trigger.  (Snap!)

So where am I going with all this?  I'm going to the all-new boss that leads to the all new ending exclusive to the DS version of Chrono Trigger.  After you clear the Time Vortex areas (meaning you have to sit through that scene with Dalton) a new sparkle will open up at The End of Time, and the old man will warn you to stay the hell away, because this dude ain't messing around.  So when you inevitably go, "Pshaw, you're old, what do you know" and warp there, guess who the new boss is?

The Dream Devourer.  An early form of, wait for it, the Time Devourer.

You know, the thing responsible for Chrono Cross and.....you know what, just forget it.  Obviously, we've established that Lavos just doesn't die.  Since when he did die, he just got better.  Italics.  Anyways.  For what happens here, I'm just going to post, verbatim, the private message I sent to somebody on Penny Arcade when they asked me about what happened in the new ending right after I'd gotten it.

Essentially, to get the new ending, you have to go through all three "Time Vortex"es which are new dungeons that take existing palettes and throw them together in sequences of five. Then there's a couple new areas (one or two 'zones') with Uber-gear, and then a Boss fight of Crono, Marle, or Lucca clone.

Oh, and Dalton. Yeah, you fight Dalton right before the Crono clone in 1000 A.D. When you win, he basically says "I'm so mad, I'm going to go to Porre and raise an army to Destroy Guardia! That'll learn ya!" So he's a cheap plot device, basically.

So after the TVs, you go to the End of Time and Gaspar goes "Oh, hey, so the bucket leads to somewhere new, and it's pretty dangerous." So when you select the bucket, you have the option of going to Time's Eclipse, where you fight the Time Devourer (Dun dun dun) which is a Red Lavos with Schala on top.

When you get there, Magus is there (Future Magus, basically, so he's there even if you have Magus. Or....even if you 'killed' Magus) and goes, "I'm from the future after Lavos was destroyed, and I'm here to face the greater evil, you don't need to get in my way." So, you can follow him and watch as he gets his ass handed to him by the Time Devourer, then you engage in battle.

The Time Devourer is pretty rough, even with uber-gear. But he's entirely beatable.

Once you beat him, Magus comes back and Schala goes "I've become so terrible, I have to send you people away from this place." So the party gets teleported away. And Magus goes, "Schala, I have to save you, wahwahemo" and Schala goes "You can't save me, Janus, you've done all you can do and now you just have to make a new life for yourself, abloo ablooemo" and Magus goes "Noooooooooo emo" and gets teleported away.

Then there's a black screen and Magus goes "So my efforts were useless. Fine then, I'll do something else, whatever. Not like I needed a driving force in my life. Maybe I'll just wait til I DIE" And then he's in a forest and goes, "Oh no, I've lost my memory! But I remember that I was trying to find somebody! Even though I don't know anything at this point, I will search for this person!" and then walks off.

END OF GAME.

I'll admit, the fact that it was called the Dream Devourer escaped me, as before tonight, I thought it was the Time Devourer.  But....technically, it is, so fuck semantics.  But that is the new ending.  I don't think I can explain it anymore than that.  So I'm just going to leave it at that.

This is why Chrono Trigger DS is not the definitive version of the game.

As Promised: What Went Wrong - Chrono Trigger DS Part 1

I would like to state two things at the very forefront here before I get started.  The first being that Chrono Trigger is one of my all-time favorite games, with the second being that said fact might leave me a bit biased to the changes in the DS version.  Might.  I would like to think that my opinions here are based on, well, common sense, but I am all for admitting that that might not be the case.  And I would also like to point out that this post will be heavily spoiler-laden for Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross both by nature, since some of the flaws have to do with the lack of connection between the two games, and Squeenix desperately trying to change that.

It's hard to pick where to start, honestly, as stepping into the mire of the Cross and Trigger mixed story is something akin to....something that I can't quite think of.  It's not pleasant, I assure you, and it's confusing and distracting all at the same time.  Or maybe I'm just bad at analogies.  Regardless, I guess the most important mis-step that Chrono Trigger DS takes is the added story that is supposed to bridge CC and CT together more cohesively, especially since it fails almost categorically.  But the first thing one is likely to notice as different and in a bad way would likely be the new script.

While most of the script changes are harmless at worst, some of the changes seem decidedly bad, and others just disjointed and short-sighted.  The most obvious example is Frog who, in the original, spoke with the only Olde English accent to be found in the game.  While out of place, especially in a setting where that accent would be expected, yet nowhere to be found, you could always chalk it up to the fact that he is cursed to be a walking frogman.  Who knew if it was part of that or not, aside from the cutscenes in the game focusing on Glenn's backstory.

Yet, in the new version of the game, rather than flowering up the entire 600 A.D. script portion, they gave Frog the same accent as everyone else.  Which, alright, it's fine, maybe they just didn't want to do era-specific accents, that's okay.  Except they kept the pre-historic accents.  Not only that, but they made them a touch bit worse, I'd say!  I guess it's a bit of a nit-pick, but like I said, it's a bit short-sighted, and gives the impression that they approached the script in parts, rather than a whole.  Definitely not the choice I would have made, at least.

But likely the most annoying part of the new script would be 600 A.D.-centric as well, if just focused in a different area.  For the unfamiliar, there's a war in the 600 A.D. era between the regular humans and the monsters of the time, lead by Magus, a powerful warlock, and his top three generals, Ozzie, Flea, and Slash.  (No, not making that up.)  Admittedly, the war isn't too focused on, besides a few parts, but there is a rather great section of the game where the party confronts Magus to take him down.  Since that's what the rag-tag band of heroes is wont to do.

While Magus is a fairly uncommon word, it's not that hard to check out what it means and get why he's referred to as such.  Mainly because he is a fucking warlock.  But Squeenix, in their infinite wisdom decided that 'Magus' wasn't a cool enough title for a warmongering, all-powerful wizard and decided to change his title in the remake.  The new title?  'The Fiendlord'.  Which....I guess is explanatory enough in itself as well, and it's not like he's not referred to as Magus at all, but we're entering Saturday Morning Cartoon territory with that, here.  I just can't take anything seriously in any sense when I'm plotting and/or training to take down someone who unironically walks around calling himself 'The Fiendlord'.

The next issue, which is easy enough to address quickly, is the fact that every new gameplay addition is completely and totally arbitrary.  The pictured above is the monster arena where you can train a monster to, I guess, fight other people's monsters.  Of course, you can only set a routine thing once a day, and there's absolutely no joy, no reward, or anything in doing so, unless you have someone constantly around you who is also interested in this incredibly poorly-thought-out mechanic.  I lost interest quite quickly, and can't rightly figure out how one wouldn't, but am prepared to invoke the 'Different strokes' clause on that.

Moreover, that would be the least offensive part of the new additions.  The Lost Sanctum, which is often called "Fetch-Quest Mountain", is exactly what the fan-given moniker would suggest.  I believe the total count of times you have to go up and down the entire mountain, which includes at least five mandatory fights with each up and down set, is twenty-two times.  It's something around there, that's for sure.  And that's if you do everything right the first time.  Which you might not, of course.

The last new area, the Dimensional Vortex, proves to be the most frustrating for myself, even though it's fairly alright in concept and includes nice new equipment that severely trumps everything else you can get in the game, including the ultimate weapons.  (I believe.  Again, this is mostly from what's etched in my brain and won't leave)  Honestly, it would likely be 'fine' if it weren't for the story bits they tried to shoe-horn into CT DS to make that bridge I keep referring to.

But, of course, to explain that, I have to explain a few other things first and make this all complicated.  I'll try to make it as easy as possible, though.  Basically, the premise of Chrono Cross, at least the backstory part of it, and why it's totally a sequel to Chrono Trigger despite not being set in the same world, having a completely different world map, carrying over none of the characters in ways that matter, etc., is that at some point, after Crono and Co. smashed Lavos and stopped the world from being destroyed, someone in Porre, the podunk town at the entire opposite end of the continent Guardia (The sovereign nation of....the world, I guess?), flipped their shit and invaded Guardia.  And won.  Why?  Just because.  Or maybe they had guns or something.  Because of course, the ruling kingdom of the fucking world wouldn't have any or anything like that.  That's sort of the catalyst of why Cross's world is so fucked up and desolate, as far as I can figure.

So, really, you just have to kind of assume it was just someone, since it's not really explained in the original (obviously) or Cross.  Well, Chrono Trigger DS sure fixes that!  Pictured above is Dalton, doubled over in pain after Crono and Co. whooped on him rather simply.  Now, remember when I mentioned Saturday Morning Cartoon villainy?  That's what Dalton is.  Even in the original, regrettably, he just wasn't a good character, and was mostly there for comedy relief, since he only showed up when shit just got real.  Anyways, you ruin his shit every time you come across him, and he essentially chokes on his own stupidity.  His last appearance, for example, has him getting pulled into a portal he himself opened up, sent off to who-knows-where.

So, after you finish the Dimensional Vortex in 1000 A.D. (which is the 'main' era, as it's where the main three characters came from), GUESS WHO WALKS UP.  If you guessed anyone not completely stupid and not put there in the most ham-fisted way ever, you would be incorrect.  Dalton walks up, fuming that Crono and Co. has made his life hell, took him from his own time and dumped him here into a world he doesn't know or understand, and swears vengeance.  Very loudly.  Saying , verbatim, "But don't you dare think this is settled!  Just you wait, Crono!  I'll raise the greatest army the world has ever seen in Porre, and use it to wipe your pitiful little kingdom off the map!"

Now, I have said "Offensively stupid" a few times in this post, and you may have been thinking, "Oh, he's exaggerating for humor, no way it could be that bad".  But let me break this down for you.  Dalton is from 12,000 B.C., which is the time between 600 A.D. and the Prehistoric era, where the effects of Lavos falling to the earth are still quite apparent, and the world had entered an age where the people were split between two places, depending on their magical ability.  Those without suffered in the cold, whereas all those who could use magic got to live in the wonderful, decadent kingdom of Zeal.  Dalton was there, of course, and then he wasn't because he got himself sucked into a black hole.

A black hole that apparently sent him 13,000 years into the future, dumping him in a time where he knew nothing, couldn't know anything, stranding him from everything he knew.  And yet, he managed to not only find out that it was Crono's time, find out the ruling kingdom (which, admittedly isn't that hard), find out Crono's involvement with the ruling kingdom, which wasn't exactly broadcast, travel to Porre, decide he could raise an army there, get back to the site of the Dimensional Vortex area, and wait for Crono and Co. to stumble across it.  And then, when he is defeated, again, we're supposed to believe that he does actually go back to Porre, raise this army, spur them into rebellion, and then win.

If that is not offensively stupid, I don't know what is.

I'll cover more in the next part.  Because yes.  There is more.  The only reason I'm cutting it off here is because next post will likely have to include me airing my complaints about Chrono Cross's ending, especially considering the new ending in Chrono Trigger DS.  Which will take a lot of time to write out and more to re-research and such.

Quick Note - Storms suck, Chrono Trigger DS sucks

So, because it's going to storm, well, all weekend, I just wanted to drop a note here saying that this weekend's posts may be erratic and/or short, since if I get on, it'll likely be to post something quickly, do a few other internet-y things, and then get off to watch movies or play portable games to sustain my bad sleeping habits without the aid of something that I'm worried about shorting out with a storm.

But there is something I wanted to talk about, not at length at this time, but at least as a preamble for a future post.  The second-best version of Chrono Trigger will be on PS3/PSP as a PSOne classic.  Though it's not stated directly, let's look at the obvious.  It was rated by the ESRB for PS3 and PSP, and there's a version of the game in the PSOne bundle, Final Fantasy Chronicles.  Same page now?  Alright.  We're good then.

Now, a lot of people will tell you that the PSOne version of the game is the worst of the three because all it does is introduce a smattering of FMV cutscenes that amount to about five minutes combined, and loading times.  I, however, as a guy that played Chrono Trigger about 30 times on the SNES as a child and several other times since, will tell you that what it introduces is far less damning than what Chrono Trigger DS introduces:  A new, but worse-off script, superfluous 'multiplayer', arbitrary extra dungeons, and a new boss with a new ending dumber than half of Chrono Cross.

Because, well, that's the problem with Chrono Trigger DS.  Squeenix made both games, heard everyone yelling "THIS ISN'T A SEQUEL" and decided, "HEY.  LET'S MAKE SURE NOBODY CAN REFUTE THAT IT'S A SEQUEL." and proceeded to do so in the most ham-fisted way possible.  Obviously the new boss and ending is supposed to, well, provide a bridge between the two games (as well as a couple other things they added, which were also completely unnecessary and terribly executed).  It fails miserably because it creates a paradox in itself, if memory serves, and is just completely and totally stupid.

I hate painting with broad strokes here, which is exactly what I'm doing by saying, "THIS IS STUPID" and then not elaborating, as I am wont to do, but I assure you, this will all be explained in possibly gratuitous detail at some point in the future.  For now, suffice to say that loading times > Stupid, Superfluous and Ham-fisted nonsense.  Not to mention loading times won't likely be all that bad, considering it's a DL.  Anyone played FFIX on PSP?  For an example, I would use that to gauge whether or not it would be a problem.  I haven't, because I wasn't a fan of IX, but, same deal I imagine.