Chrono Trigger On PC Needs Help
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- Опубликовано: 7 мар 2018
- Fans are super not happy with Square Enix's recent release of their undisputedly classic video game Chrono Trigger on PC. In a statement on the game's Steam store page, Square Enix said they have heard players' complaints and are looking into making amends. I say we should brace ourselves for the distinct possibility that they're going to do the least work possible to make the game look only slightly better. Here's a realistic video delving into the typography and text window color of the game. Okay, that makes this video sound like homework for a graphic design class. I promise there's some fun in here, too.
For more of the latest stuff that game-likers like you and me were born caring about, check out kotaku.com.
If you're my mom, or if you for some reason just want to watch my videos, wow, there's a playlist for that, right here: • Videos By Tim Rogers 
Игры
Hello! If you enjoyed this video, I am also doing a series in which I compare the English translation of Final Fantasy VII to the Japanese original. So far I've done nine episodes, and they're all even longer than this video!!
ruclips.net/p/PLsiJPoHlPqEEA07AKMQ2Hm2oRLiGkR_uJ
As a graphic designer, I can tell you that I did this once, and what happened was that they LOVED the hideous design. I learned a valuable lesson that day. VERY VALUABLE.
Take the money and run?
Basically... and I never count on clients having good taste. In fact, I've learned that 9 times out of 10 they prefer the one you like the least. YUp
Isn't the irony of this that more clients may be interested in hiring you, but other creative artists might be less likely to want to work with you on grounds that you sold out and sacrificed your artistic integrity?
What a conundrum.
There's artistic integrity and then there's times when clients just don't want to hear it. You can't make someone have good taste. That being said, I'm always happy with designs I present now because of this situation.
@@irriadin actually, the fact that you assume you have good taste, yet when you stop 'having' good taste, in your opinion, you're successful. Rather then face the hard truth that you are superior to others, you double down and say that people are idiots and that you're still amazing. Interesting.
It's not a matter that you sold out, it's honestly the fact that you're an arrogent asshole who thinks you know better then others. Humility would serve you better then your current attitude, as you're not taking the time to learn why the choice you dind't like was preferred by your clients, and instead, you're on a path that will lead you to believe that you can do no wrong, AND that you can be lazy. Thus, you're on a course that will lead you to failure.
"Smartphones are going to be competing with the sun, until the human race is the dust of a memory, in whatever sleeping giant is dreaming us." - Tim Rogers 2017
This sentence literally made me fall in love with this dude.
I am no Kotaku fan, but hell i am a Tim Rogers fan from now on!
As someone who has designed a T-shirt once or twice I can tell you that pixels are everything. Without pixels the universe would cease to exist. The only thing smaller than an atom are the pixels that make up that atom.
What? No. What?
The universe is made up of voxels. Pixels are the 2-Dimensional counterpart to voxels.
WTF
Can confirm.
Mei Ousei, _yes,_ long live me!!!
As an artist, I often give clients *exactly* what they ask for, in the hopes that they'll see how unfortunate it looks. 90% of the time, they can be convinced to go in an aesthetically better direction. The other 10%? Not so much...
WHY WOULD THEY CHANGE THE LINE JURASSIC RHYTHM?!!
"Jurassic" is a slur that offends people from the prehistoric era, obviously.
I am assuming they didn't want people to think, "Wtf is "Jurassic mean?" because they are incapable of googling the word...
Stupid ass Squaresoft
Because it is a reference to the Prehistoric era that you later go to. Which isn't called the Jurassic era.
Nibernator
Blame Square Enix, not the original devs at Squaresoft.
Why change any lines for that matter? It's more work, and everyone bitched about it. Obviously it was as waste of money and time on their part.
Stop making videos, Tim Rogers. I can't afford to fall in love with you any deeper.
They actually did a decent job of cleaning up the issues actually. Only real problem remaining is the fact they don’t let you disable the health/Atd gauges from underneath the player characters in combat.
I played it on my crt monitor on “original” graphics and the pixel art looked accurate. There was no sign of this horrible font or menus as far as I can tell. No sign of bilinear filtering/ pixel blue unless you choose the “HD” graphics settings.
My god I just doubled checked and they did add a drop shadow to the text in the pc version, also a subtle gradient. Cheers.
WIDESCREEN VIDEO GAMES WITH PIXEL ART FOREVER
Now can we PLEASE get ROCKSTAR GAMES and REMEDY to PATCH THEIR FREAKIN PC GAMES from the PS1 and PS2/ORIGINAL XBOX GENERATIONS since some of them haven’t received an update for such a long time that they no longer work properly on Modern PCs and some of them still don’t have that Controller Support that the more modern PC GAMES from the PS3/XBOX 360 and PS4/XBOX ONE generations do?
The first thing you nitpicked, about the drums and the title, at first I had no idea what you were on about, but once I saw it, it's actually a little heartbreaking that, like you said, the very first important moment of the game is off.
A port of a port is no longer a video game. It merely a trace of a video game. It is a simulacrum of a video game.
Rico Sanchez twice removed from its Super Nintendo form.
😞
like homeopathy!
You're a symbol crumb.
champion lemon lime Lol
roguecactus7 this pc port makes it thrice removed, dont forget the (flawless) DS remake that added content!
🎤🤖
They call me Gato 🎵
I roll massive joints 🎵
Light one up 🎵
And earn 15 Stoner Points 🎵
pixel girl haha nooice
pixel girl If you had made this comment yesterday it would have been perfect.
Pudding Cup Nation, QUICK! To the Epoch! ruclips.net/video/g-s-VQBoUdc/видео.html
Thank You
They call me Gato I have a massive stash. If you don't buy it now there's going to be a video game crash!
Legit, Tim Rogers is the hero we need...
no
Deserve?
Reported.
This was really well written and delivered.
I'm incredibly sad about the poor quality of Square PC ports. These are the games I grew up with, and I can't experience them in an acceptable way except in their original formats.
I feel bad for whoever was put in charge of crapping out this port.
maybe that's why they rounded the edges...
what in god's name is wrong with the tiles, anyway? they're like... smoothed, but not into each other. you can see a weird optical illusion of a grid in there. it's nasty.
I think that's an effect of graphics stretching... I think.
its an effect uf using a down ressed version. The mobile port has it to. They changed the res DOWN for the mobile port, and because of it, nothing lines up. has nothing to do with widescreen.
I play the snes version on emulator on widescreen (streched) and its flawless. The issue is seriously because the base port they used is fucked
To me it looks like the graphics were scaled up using something like a hq2x/hq3x filter commonly found in emulators. At least that's the feeling I get looking at the sprites' outlines.
These kinds of scaling algorithms take adjacent pixels into account in an attempt to retain the shapes in the original pixel art when scaling up, giving a sharper (or sometimes smoother, anti-aliased) look where other more traditional algorithms like bilinear scaling would just make things blurry.
But instead of applying the filter on the whole screen post-rendering like emulators do, they put it on all their assets first, then render the scaled-up tiles individually. Hence the "seams" between them.
But that's just a hunch. In any case, it looks hilariously bad!
Yeah, basically they ran a filter over all the background tiles in the game without any attention to how they line up, meaning that they have noticeable border when placed in the world.
Slime Bucket they didn't downres anything. The Super Nintendo has a resolution between 256x224 and 512x448 depending on if you were willing to sacrifice colors and layers (the vast majority of games did not want the trade off and ran at 256x224 to use the full feature set of the console).
Even the highest resolution (which only got you 4 colors and 2 layers iirc) was lower the phone resolution from 8 years ago.
This kind of crap is why I refuse to buy games when they're new. I let all the other suckers find all the kinks and yell at the devs about them. Plenty of other non-mobile ports to play on Steam.
I feel if they're going to intentionally give us a garbage version, we should go play an emulation of the original. Don't wanna give me the real version? I'll just go get it myself, then I'll be up a good game, and you'll be out the money I would have happily paid you if you hadn't been the very definition of half the problems in the AAA gaming industry!
Hey, the phone/tablet version of FF Tactics is good. (I used a tablet, and you can change the button size)
The problem isn't that it's a bad game, the problem is it's a game designed for mobile being run on a PC. On mobile it's not nearly as bad because it was designed with that in mind, essentially just copy pasting it over to steam doesn't work because what might work on a mobile device just looks plain ugly on a PC.
If they still using "Jurassic Rhythm", everyone will recognise the tune of Jurassic Park theme.
Tim Rogers, please just make your own youtube channel. I'd subscribe, I'd put BIG money towards a patreon, buy Tim Rogers shirts, please. You're too good for Kotaku.
On the flipside, he might be able to change Kotaku for the better.
Admittedly, it's unlikely that there will be an influx of people like him so that a significant change will occur, let alone reach a revolution in the higher up positions.
he did
Hey, I'm from the future, he did and it's "EPIC."
A long ass time ago my friend and I hooked up a NES to a 70" Mitsubishi plasma TV and played Metal Gear 1 on it. The pixels were fucking HUGE! And we loved it!! Seriously that day cemented my disgust of masks & filters that blur pixel art, I want my games to be sharp as a tack, not making me wonder if I need to clean my eyeballs.
OH my Gawd! How can 1 video be so insightful yet SO HILARIOUS at the SAME TIME?!?!? I don't know but you did it. You DID it. Subscribed!!!!
It's almost weird to see a mainstream gaming site put in effort on content that is actually related to videogames these days. Good on you, Kotaku!
True. I was shocked when I realized it was Kotaku halfway the video. It has the passionate value of an amateur production.
yeah i make sure to bring my passionate amateurishness with me wherever i go
Get this man a raise, Kotaku! This is a written endorsement from an anonymous RUclipsr!
Is it just me? or does it seem like they actually used this as a reference for the update?
Square Enix has no idea what a shovel knight is.
Tim Rogers did you just call the text 'heroic ruggedness'?
But you're still hungry.
but the future refused to change
I do some graphic design; yeah you’re not wrong. Also, I just binged almost everything with a Tim Rogers VO; love the writing and editing, man.
I can't tell if Tim Rogers is an angry human on downers or an angry robot on uppers.
He's an angry something on something, that's for sure.
Good video, good job Tim.
What's the song at 12:20?
What are you doing at Kotaku Tim? Start your own analysis channel! :D
he needs money for food
You got what you asked for
From what i can remember, on the SNES version, one of the buttons could actually switch the text box to the top of the screen and vice-versa. I just can't remember which button was...
i think it was Y
"No major app on your phone has a black background" ha ha god i wish
Got me a good ol' Windows Phone
wow owned
WOW those tiles are bad. It’s really distracting.
Seeing the screenshots side-by-side made me realize they added a contrast filter in addition to the crappy pixel interpolation in the new version. I was wondering why it made my eyes hurt to look at the new one.
Also amusing how when you spoke about the text boxes being smaller to make more of the world visible, it showed that they cropped some of the top and bottom of the screen to make it fit the wider screen, thus showing less of the world when the text box was missing.
Well said. Tbh they could have emulated the SNES or PS1 version had no issues. I hope SE sort out this version but I doubt it. A wide-screen version would be amazing tbf. The games a masterpiece
All the Menubuttons are so big because the mobile version was a port of the NDS Version, which had touch controls. So this is a port (to PC) of a port (to mobile phone) of a port (to NDS). A true Frankenstein's Monster of gaming history!
the health bars are from the DS port which the mobile port is based on. the battle menu was on the bottom screen so as to leave the top screen free of any HUD clutter. there was an option to turn the health bars off though..
Tim Rogers, this video made me instantly want to seek out your content cuz you speak with a rhythm and cadence that is delightful, yet has ASMR qualities of dreaminess. Alas, all you do are videos for Kotaku... This will have to do for now.
I'm just thankful to be playing this on my 3DS, now that's an awesome version.
Finally someone who respects the DS version of Chrono Trigger
Love the whole video! First time (I think? Didn't notice the authors' names but the voice does sound familiar).
Cool voice too
The great thing about Tim videos is that he can speak from life experience about design and development. Designers 100% do the, "Okay, but it will look bad..." thing. I like to joke that that's what got us the N64 controller. Am I joking, though?
Tim - you're awesome.
Small request : Can you make the videos louder? :)
*Oh, prehistoric rhythm ♪*
*Jurassic ♪ rhythm ♪*
The most charismatic man on Earth that gives a flying f about old games.
kotaku?? seriously they made this..well..You sir have talent! "this gradient is HOT"
0:48 No, you got it wrong: The pc version is a port of the mobile version, yeah. But it doesn't end there: The mobile version is a port from the Nintendo DS version, is this one is a port from the original SNES version. So we're four levels deep in our port-ception..
meat grinder handle turners
the text boxes could be swapped positions by pressing Y. Ted Woosley jacked up the original translation (see Frog's entire script from him, completely off base. No one else from his time period talks like that, it makes no damn sense)
I commend the hard work Tim put into this. No wonder he's going to die not-hungry.
birthday shout out to Tim Rogers, not cause it's his birthday, but about the birthday date thing on Steam
This is what happens when someone catches Deadpool, ties him up, and forces him to read this game stuff without cussing and by being less colorful but still being as honest as possible. He has to do it or they will shoot the Unicorn, burn it, and toss it in a wood chipper.
I am a graphic designer and I most definitely do this. And they barely ever wanna change it back to the good version....
What’s funny is that lifebar below the character wasn’t even in the mobile port it’s the one thing that was developed for the pc port
Thanks @108 for saving Chrono Trigger pendulum
Being a graphic designer and creating things for clients who have no faith in our experience and would rather direct us in their own misguided direction is literally 95% of the job. It's difficult sneaking in the good stuff, but we definitely try. 🙃
That's what you get with a portport.
09:25 Nice Lovecraft/Cthulhu reference there, lmao
This is the best video I've seen on a while. Good job!
How to fix the game...
Play it on the SNES.
I guess since I already have the mobile version there's no need to get the PC one. I still have hope it will be remastered like Secret of Mana (except I hope they have the character's mouths actually moving when they speak).
I like this narrator! Great job on the production of this video. Too bad about Chrono Trigger, it was a privilege to play such a masterpiece as a kid upon release... Nothing but good memories.
I love your videos. "Look at these huge honkin buttons" lol
They wanted a quick buck
Chee Rpgg Could've just put the snes version on steam for a quicker buck and had overwhelming positive reviews.
Even an emulator wrapper thingie would have been better.
Uh... the proper name for that font is Chicago. It's been on Macs for years, and as you already know, isn't exclusive to Chrono Trigger.
However, it's nice to know everything about mobile port making.
OMG REALLY??? a square port that sucks??? wow this is unheard of, that has never happened before. oh gee square i hope you wont make this a trend
also tim you're great i love your content thanks for all your work
The DS port of chrono trigger was really good...
pentagonofpeople Because they didn’t touch a thing. They modernized frog’s speech a little which is questionable but aside from that it’s 1:1 with the Super Nintendo and PS1 versions
Captain Coolguy They changed a lot of the text, including changing names of enemies and races, and added an extra ending. There were some significant changes, but it worked out for the better and didn't ruin the game.
The same can not be said about this PC port.
Saint Nick I mean, some text really isn’t what I’d call major. Without textual changes it’d be a straight copy/paste
Quality weird fiction selection, Tim.
you literally pointed out everything and more of what I've been complaining about. Liked and subscribed
And all this because not enough people bought the DS port... which was a great port, but they hardly did any PR for it. Man, I just want more of the chrono series. Cross has still not come officially to erope yet!
its gotten better since this video.
Loved the narration. I feel like it has a Stampy quality that... y'know, Stampy would have knocked out of the park.
"Hi, I'm professional video game expert Tim Rogers," lol, nice
Poor Chrono, oh how you've been wronged
Quality video! Kotaku needs more of you
yea...I guess it depends on places, but my place, bosses don't care about designs, and they just ask us to change something. No matter how many times we explain that it's a bad idea. :(
SNES,Emulater or DS is the only way to play this game in that order as of now. If not the hard copy (SNES),then the Emulater and if not the Emulater then the DS. Seeing this made me CRY!!!!
more like a GREATient
I did enjoy the absurdity of this video, but I also couldn't play my PC version at all because (regardless of keyboard/mouse or controller), my character would always just rush left as if a button was depressed. Couldn't change key bindings or have any other button functionality except "esc" which brought up a joystick on screen that I couldn't manipulate.
So I bought it for my DS and lost myself to the nostalgia that way. Now if only Xenogears would get any kind of re-release at all....
Xenogears was a game of Epic proportions. Have searched a great many times to see if I can find anything. I have found slight rumors that it is a possibility. We know how rumors are though. Xenosaga is also in the rumor mill to be remastered (and possibly remade in some ways..I mean Xeno 2 combat...oi...). So it would most definitely be nice to see the games, with updated graphics and maybe even previously removed content. Would love to have them extend the game where it becomes mostly story. We can dream. I mean they did actually put the Xenogears itself as a special fight in World of Final Fantasy. Who's to say that isn't them seeing how much hype it might cause.
Maybe it's one of those things where Square is waiting "for the right time" or "right graphics". Who knows...but yes, we can dream.
This video is Sublime!
Thank you. Man, I've had quite the laugh for literally its entire running time.
damn now this guy is my favorite guy
SUCH a huge amount amount of ppl would pay any money to see this game back !!! Me personally I would like to play this game as a remade with now day tech, keeping the sa.e scent of the game...
i finish the game on my android a few years ago. there is a part where you need to climb a mountain but you need to be precise or you'll fall of but your using a touch d-pad.
This is so great I'm hoping someone will upload it to Steam
Did you look at the Nintendo DS port?
For me, they don't even have to make it widescreen. Just give me a direct port of the SNES or PS1 version with steam achievements.
i think the health bar is ok
*if i die in my sleep next week, start by investigating graphic designers*
Jakob Dorof Eh, I like it. Most JRPGs have a health bar for a reason. It gives instant visual recognition your health is low if you arent paying attention to the awkward hud off the side of the screen. See any ATLUS game since SMT 3, and their generally renowned as being some of the best turn based designers out there.
Yeah the health bar is kind of a nice touch, too bad this one looks kinda ugly imo.
Funny! Subscribed
I came into this video expecting disappointment, and I was pleasantly surprised. Tim, you're too good for Kotaku.
This personality and speech style reminds me of Mr Plinkett from Red Letter Media!
that dreadful day where you agree with kotaku. GG for life.
I enjoyed the DS and playstation version the best mainly cause they added animated cutscenes but SNES I will never forget is where this epic adventure started.
They didn't remove the Mobile Joysticks, you can use It clicking on top of your computer screen X_X
Isn't it a port of a port, of a port, of a port, of an SNES game?
1. SNES - The only version worth playing.
2. Playstation - Added the FMV anime cut scenes.
3. Nintendo DS - Added the crummy new dungeons and the new ending.
4. Mobile - Added the mobile UI crap.
5. Steam - Added the soul-crushing disappointment.
How are the FMV cutscenes a dealbreaker that make the game not worth playing? Or the (COMPLETELY OPTIONAL) extra content in the DS version?
The new translation in the DS version onward could be a dealbreaker for some. Though I don't know why folks think "Y'all got whacked 'cuz you're weak" is something Magus would say, or how they can stomach Frog's entirely incorrect old-timey English.
The problem with the psx version is the good awful load times. I thought everyone knew about that?
@@julesmcgrules3860 load times suck, but you get used to them over time...
Jules McGrules We’re mostly on emulators where load times are reduced.
PS2 on Fast load speed settings fixes it
Did you know that a lot of the final fantasy games have been ported to android? I had no idea I could play ff7 on my tablet!
this video? ~I LOVE IT~
I bought the game on mobile and I couldn't play very far because of the horrible controls and UI. But they recently (like January/February) updated the game and it's MUCH better. Like 100% better. I can finally finish the game again!
Honestly the pixel art of the original game was perfect. Tim, you have exactly the right idea on how to fix this port. It would seem that it would take even less effort to do that anyways...
they didn't show more of the world with the widescreen, they just stretched the pixels.
I'm not a fan of sacrificing aspect ratio for widescreen.
I first played Chrono Trigger on the PS1. Apparently that is now the second worst version. Then I regot it on the DS. DS version looks great, plays great, the text box is I think slightly smaller, the combat icons are on the bottom screen - and so are the menu icons, but you could play the entire game without using the touchpad at all! I don't really know about localization text changes, but the DS version had an extra ending, and extra quests! And they were good. Not bad. Ok the monster training thing was kinda stupid, but, most importantly - it gave us more post game content - and A GOOD WEAPON FOR MARLE!
So, Square-Enix probably want to streamline their classics into one version. And since the Japanese market mainly games on the go, they prefer handheld and mobile games. So, I'm sure to them, it makes sense to put the "Mobile" or new version of Chrono Trigger on every other platform (whose sales figures in the West will pale in comparison to the Japanese mobile market). Also, I'm guessing that the current popular style of games in Japan are smoother, which explains why all of the new versions of their classics have new art or filters. They're catering to their core market. I, personally, first played CT on my iPhone when the original app came out. It was okay. The UI didn't bother me, the pixels actually looked good on it, and I enjoyed it. It only lacked a quick save option, which seems important for gaming on the go. BUT, they added that in the new app with the latest update. And, since I'm not playing the game with nostalgia goggles on, I'm still enjoying it. Even more so now. I understand wanting an option to play it as it was originally designed, which should take the least effort on their part... but I'm at least thankful that this new version doesn't bug me a bit. I'm just thankful that it'll still be around so I can someday share it with my son... if they put it on the PS4 like they did with FFIX.
the phone port is fine for a phone port. The point of the video was that they used the phone port as the base for the PC port, even though the phone port had several design decisions that were driven by the realities of mobile phone limitations. As those realities don't apply to PCs, the same decisions are no longer optimal...
TLDR: PCs are used inside and often without touchscreens, like the SNES and PS. PCs are rarely used outside like mobile phones...
An SNES emulator for Android and the SNES rom and you're golden. It runs nicely.
I don't know what drug addled haze this piece was written in, but I must have more.