I Am Setsuna - New JRPG inspired by Chrono Trigger

[ZGoten]

What the hell!? Why is there no thread for this game, yet?

Anyway, most of you have probably heard of I Am Setsuna by now. If not, I'll give you the quick rundown. It's a Japanese role-playing game by Square Enix's new in-house studio Tokyo RPG Factory. The game is inspired by Chrono Trigger and features classic quasi-turn-based combat. I believe it was first announced at Tokyo Game Show last year as "Project Setsuna", but it's come a long way since then. It launches today on Steam, PS4 and PSVita and can be bought for 40 bucks.

The game is getting pretty positive reviews so far. It's currently sitting at a 79 average at GameRankings (just in case anyone cares about that still nowadays), which is about what Lost Odyssey and The Last Story averaged. I absolutely loved those games. According to the reviews, the pros seem to be the lovely piano-heavy soundtrack, the emotional story and the fleshed out combat. Negatives are apparently the short play-time of about 20 to 25 hours and the impression that it feels a bit too much of an homage to earlier titles.

Here's the E3 2016 trailer:

If you ask me, I Am Setsuna looks and sounds absolutely gorgeous. If you've played the game or are planning to get it, post your comments or questsion here. I'll definitely be getting it.

[ninjastarforcex]

new trend nowadays
"inspired by *insert any old 64 games* please buy"
the game itself is really overpriced and incredibly short without any extra stuff for an rpg

[ZGoten]

The game is not overpriced at all. 40 bucks is a great price for 20 to 25 quality hours.

[ninjastarforcex]

Originally Posted by ZGoten

The game is not overpriced at all. 40 bucks is a great price for 20 to 25 quality hours.

you don't know whether you can call those short jrpg duration a quality hours, especially if you compare this to countless jrpg with long 'quality hours'

[ZGoten]

You're right, I don't know at this point, but I'll find out soon enough, and if the game is fun for those 25 hours I'll have no issues at all having payed 40€.

[ninjastarforcex]

Originally Posted by ZGoten

You're right, I don't know at this point, but I'll find out soon enough, and if the game is fun for those 25 hours I'll have no issues at all having payed 40€.

it won't reach 25

[ZGoten]

That's fine, it doesn't have to.

[xxsummer]

Hmm...sounds interesting. 25 hours isn't very long for a JRPG, especially one priding itself on being akin to the classic Chrono Trigger, but just from the E3 trailer there's something so charming and old school about it that I feel I ought to give it a try! The graphics are certainly reminiscent of something from the N64 Era, which is nice to see.

I'll probably have to wait for the price to go down however. 40 euros is a lot, and when it comes to NZ, land of high prices abound, it'll probably end up being 120, I s2g. xD And for a rather short JRPG, that is on the high end of the spectrum.

[shadow1296]

you guys do know that chrono trigger is only 15 hours (17 if you do everything) long right, people have bee talking about the length, but its actually longer than chrono trigger, the game its trying to live up to

[Ultragunner]

one thing that I really appreciate from this game is that it actually can runs at 60fls, bot a big deal to some but it is commendable for a non-AAA debut game from a new japanese developer

[Kafriel]

Originally Posted by shadow1296

you guys do know that chrono trigger is only 15 hours (17 if you do everything) long right, people have bee talking about the length, but its actually longer than chrono trigger, the game its trying to live up to

CT had 14 different endings and you'd have to play at least twice up to the final dungeon to get them all. I'm at 25 hours with 1 long and 2 short runs atm and I actually knew the game beforehand, still haven't finished it all. I imagine it would be 100% complete at 34 hours or so, which is more than enough for me.

First off, keep in mind that there are games like ZoE which, although not RPGs, lasted a whole TWO HOURS and its sequel was extended to about ten hours. Then there's games like Xenogears, FF, DQ, Tales, etc. which can last anywhere from 40 to 220 hours, but how many of them are as enjoyable as the first 30? Prime examples would be the FFX arena and pretty much any DQ game, where grinding is absolutely necessary in order to make progress. IMO this takes a lot of the fun out of the game, because you're pretty much stuck doing something menial in order to see what lies beyond certain boundaries.

In contrast, games like FF8, Persona, Shadow hearts, etc. gave a player enough tools/power to explore the entirety of the game without having to waste time grinding or backtracking, the second greatest way to waste time. The worst way was IIRC in Xenogears, where you had to spend 70 in-game hours in order to ferment grapes into wine, which you would then give to an NPC. Who thinks like that!?

Anyway, to get back on topic, this looks like a very good game and if €40 is a lot for the content it offers, you can always wait until it is on sale to purchase.

[shadow1296]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

CT had 14 different endings and you'd have to play at least twice up to the final dungeon to get them all. I'm at 25 hours with 1 long and 2 short runs atm and I actually knew the game beforehand, still haven't finished it all. I imagine it would be 100% complete at 34 hours or so, which is more than enough for me.

First off, keep in mind that there are games like ZoE which, although not RPGs, lasted a whole TWO HOURS and its sequel was extended to about ten hours. Then there's games like Xenogears, FF, DQ, Tales, etc. which can last anywhere from 40 to 220 hours, but how many of them are as enjoyable as the first 30? Prime examples would be the FFX arena and pretty much any DQ game, where grinding is absolutely necessary in order to make progress. IMO this takes a lot of the fun out of the game, because you're pretty much stuck doing something menial in order to see what lies beyond certain boundaries.

In contrast, games like FF8, Persona, Shadow hearts, etc. gave a player enough tools/power to explore the entirety of the game without having to waste time grinding or backtracking, the second greatest way to waste time. The worst way was IIRC in Xenogears, where you had to spend 70 in-game hours in order to ferment grapes into wine, which you would then give to an NPC. Who thinks like that!?

Anyway, to get back on topic, this looks like a very good game and if €40 is a lot for the content it offers, you can always wait until it is on sale to purchase.

one playthrough is 15 hours, 17 if you do a complete playthrough in that one playthrough, one playthrough in setsuna is 25, doing more playthroughs to get other endings do not factor into the hours of that first playthrough if you did that you would half to factor in other games that required multiple playthroughs to get the other endings and as far as i can tell this game just came out this week we don't know if their are in fact other endings( unless the players of the japanese versio would care to enlighten us if there is or is not) the rest of your post still stands

[Kafriel]

Lavos was an hour-long fight, so I'd subtract 3 hours from my current run along with the opening scenes. Still, that's 22 hours on me, with all of the game items, accessories and final weapons obtained, as well as a couple secret dungeons (a dino cave and a tech facility IIRC).

I don't know about different endings on this game, although it would be nice to have some...not too many though.

[ZGoten]

Two of my favorite games of all time are JRPG's that are only 20 to 25 hours: The Last Story and Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. See, Kafriel touched on something interesting. The reason I prefer shorter albums is because there's less filler on them and every song tends to have more identity. It's a similar concept with games.

[ninjastarforcex]

except CT has tons of replay value and this game has 0

[shadow1296]

Originally Posted by ninjastarforcex

except CT has tons of replay value and this game has 0

How do you know that? Or are you just making a assumption based on the length. The game came out in english yesterday, so unless you have played the Japanese and know that this game does not have multiple endings, which given that it is trying to emulate CT with a silent protagonist you ca chose dialogue for one ca assume that there is, you can't really say this game has no replay value because judging from your posts you are refusing to by this game because of the length so you haven't played it one can assume

[Tong]

Originally Posted by shadow1296

you guys do know that chrono trigger is only 15 hours (17 if you do everything) long right, people have bee talking about the length, but its actually longer than chrono trigger, the game its trying to live up to

First playthrough, still had sidequests to do, about to fight the final boss:


It maaaay be 15 hours if you're aiming for the worst ending possible.

[shadow1296]

Originally Posted by Tong

First playthrough, still had sidequests to do, about to fight the final boss:


It maaaay be 15 hours if you're aiming for the worst ending possible.

if you mean the one where chrono is still dead. yeah still got him back in under 18, with the character sidequests done, and beat the game

[ZGoten]

The whole replay value argument is irrelevant. First of all, any game that's fun has intrinsic replay value. Secondly, even if Setsuna doesn't offer replay value beyond that, the value you're getting out of it is perfectly fine. In fact it exceeds most other games out there. The Last Story was 20 hours, I've only played it once, and it's my favorite JRPG from last gen.

[Kismet-chan]

Originally Posted by ninjastarforcex

except CT has tons of replay value and this game has 0

You seem to be making a LOT of assumptions about this game without even having played it. If you don't like the premise of it, then fine -- you just don't like it. But to say it's definitely going to be x or y without having touched it makes you look, at the VERY least, like an extremely untrustworthy source of information.

Considering the average length of MOST games nowadays (regardless of what genre they are), if this game ends up being just 15 hours long and most or all of it is decent? That, in itself, is an achievement.

Also, a game having or lacking replay value does not automatically make it good or bad. There are plenty of fantastic games that don't need to be replayed, and there are plenty of terrible games that give objective incentives for players to experience it multiple times.