Video game re-releases and remasters are a good thing, broadly speaking. If we’re going to acknowledge games as an art form, it’s important that older works should remain available for newcomers to the medium to discover. This is why I’m impressed with Microsoft’s efforts to ensure their older titles are backwards compatible and enhanced on their newer hardware, and why it’s important Sony took the time to remake Shadow of the Colossus. The most vital thing of all is that these older games are treated with respect when they’re recreated for newer audiences. This is the problem with the latest PC release of Square Enix’s Chrono Trigger, one repeated from their PC and mobile ports of Final Fantasy 5 and 6. Video game fans and Final Fantasy fans are notoriously fickle to begin with, but the change of opinion around Chrono Trigger on PC was whiplash-fast, one of the quickest about-face turns I’ve ever seen en masse. For a brief time Square Enix were heroes, but it didn’t last for long. “It’s an ugly, inferior way to experience one of the greatest games of all time.” It’s perhaps best demonstrated in the tweets of indie developer Fred Wood, who excitedly tweeted ‘WHAT’ alongside a screenshot of the game’s announcement within four minutes of the game appearing on the Steam store. By minute seven he’d purchased it, but by minute ten he was reporting his first doubts. On minute twelve, the penny painfully drops: “This looks like someone’s first attempt at… [Read full story]
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