RYAREISENDER'S PROFILE

I'd say it copies Chrono Trigger almost to perfection. Sure the story isn't about time travel and the whole game is a snowy region so it lacks the high variety that Chrono Trigger had, but it still has hundreds of Chrono Trigger references up to cutscenes that could totally be CT cutscenes, just reskinned.

The battle system is also an almost exact copy up to the same skill names and combos and the fact that every single monster has a unique behavior pattern that requires to apply some tactic.

Where the game fails, however, is everything where it tried to do something new.

But let's take a look at each aspect one by one.

Story - The story has everything you need in your average JRPG. There's nothing ground breaking, but it is also nothing boring. It keeps you going, it has its good moments, it has no logic errors. Even though many complain about the game being too short, I want to note that it's not shorter than Chrono Trigger. I think 30 hours is actually the perfect RPG length. I Am Setsuna does not offer a New Game+, but after a certain point in the game you can revisit all previous locations again for additional rewards, new monsters and bosses, which actually gives you quite some optional endgame content.

Graphics - Graphics are pretty beautiful. The characters don't have any feet, but most of the time your walking in snow, so you won't see it. It also has a nice graphical effect that moves the snow to the sides when you walk through it. The downside is that since the whole game plays in snow you really only have very few sceneries: Snowy forest/village/mountain, ice dungeon, ruins. That's it, nothing else in the game. Luckily, it's still acceptable given the game's length.

Music - Now the game really made me miss the CT OST. I found myself humming the CT battle theme instead of listening to the actualy battle theme pretty often. The I Am Setstuna OST isn't bad, but it's so calm and the only songs with a notable melody stole that melody straight from CT. Yeah they really even partially copied the songs right from CT and just changed a note here and there, so it isn't 100% identical. Most of the time however, the OST is too calm and slow for me to actually really love it. I'd still say it's good.

Gameplay - Now here I can talk about a lot. The gameplay is mostly copied straight from Chrono Trigger, so I'll focus on the things that are different.

1. Spells / Combos / Spritnites
In I Am Setsuna, each 2-character combination has 3 combos and each 3-character combination has 1 combo. That makes up for significantly more combos than Chrono Trigger had (remember, you needed Crono or Magus for combos). Each character can also learn slightly more spells than in CT. And the spells and combos have more unique effects. They don't only vary in damage and AoE and element, they also have tons of special properties on them (especially status changes are pretty big in I Am Setsuna).
That sounds all great, right? It would be if it wasn't for the spritnite system. In Chrono Trigger you simply learned the skills by leveling up or getting far enough in the story. In I Am Setsuna you have to "craft" sprinites and equip them to have the spell available.
The problem with having to equip spells is that it makes it super hard to even get combos at all. UI options that would make it more comfortable like "Equip all sprinites needed for this combo" are completely missing. There's no visual information on what other characters and sprinites you need. The only thing you can do it open the compendium, which is HUGE and find the section that lists the combos. Here you can see which sprinites combos are needed. You can write those down on a piece of paper and then use that info to equip the right sprinites.
But since you want to switch characters around you have to do this OFTEN. Turning I Am Setsuna into a game where 50% of the playtime is menu browsing.
One thing they didn't copy from Chrono Trigger very well is the AoE effects. In Chrono Trigger you could always see in red which monsters the skills and combos would hit. In I Am Setsuna you don't see that, you have to guess which monsters will be hit.

2. Kill system and crafting spritnites
So I mentioned you need to craft sprinites. There is another system closely connected to that, the kill system. In I Am Setsuna, monsters drop different items depending on how you kill them. There is a different item for Over Kill, Exact Kill, Fire Kill, Water Kill, Light Kill, Shadow Kill, Time Kill, Debuff Kill, Momentum Kill and Link Kill. So whenever you encounter a new monster, you will want to kill with all those kill types so you get all the items. Because if you are missing out on an item, it means you can't get a certain spritnite which also means you will miss out on skills and potential combos. There are also support sprinites that basically work like accessoires, which can sometimes be mandatory to defeat a certain enemy.
While the kill system is mostly not that annoying if you concentrate on it (you can get several kills at once, just debuff the enemy and then use a multi-elemental combo and you already can get 5+ kills on a single monsters, exact kills are really the most annoying to get), it still means having to switch around characters and sprinites often even during a dungeon and that means even more menu browsing.
The system is not purely bad, however, and with I Am Setsuna's balance issues, it's actually kind of mandatory to have, because otherwise you'll just stick with a certain party and sprinites combo for the whole game and instant win every single non-boss encounter (because there are some all-hitting combos that can kill pretty much every normal monster in one hit). So you could say that the kill system helps keeping the combat interesting. It's really mostly the menu browsing between combat that ruins the fun.

3. Difficulty and balance
I Am Setsuna is a hard game. Much much harder than Chrono Trigger (which really is a pretty easy game). In Chrono Trigger, you had to find out the right tactics to win a battle, but you could learn the right tactic during combat. In I Am Setsuna a single wrongly used spell basically means instant death. The damage of all monsters is huge, up to the point where they can one-hit kill one of your characters. In I Am Setsuna you survive either by casting a combo that can instantly wipe the monsters without them getting a turn or equipping support sprinites and casting defensive skills to ensure you don't get wiped until your next turn. Boss battles are even more brutal, because they take very long, so the option to one-hit kill the boss doesn't exist. You often end up mostly casting heal and defensive skills only to get some damage in occasionally, making many boss battles drag on for very long. Also since you can't change Sprinites or Characters during battle, you often might just run into a battle that can't be won at all with your current sprinite and character setup. More often than not, the first attempt against a boss is just to see what skills he uses, then you have to let yourself getting killed (no soft reset available) and only then you can start to seriously tackle the challenge by putting the right characters and sprinites into your party.
Usually I like myself some challenge, so it isn't a problem for me most of the time, but there's one more thing: Dungeons have no save points except in front of the boss and some of the later dungeons can very well be 2 hours long. And those 2 hours are not just clearing the dungeon, to 50% or more it's menu browsing. Switching characters and sprinites so can get all the kill types. And imagine you worked hard the past hour to get all the kills, then get into a normal battle and realize your class and sprinites combination can't win this battle. You will die, game over screen. Restart from scratch, get all kills again, do all the menu browsing again. It can be really frustrating.
There are a bunch of unfair boss moments too where you can actually get permanently stuck (like a character member being force switched into your group without giving you the chance to change the sprinites the character has equipped, so you better had him prepared with the right sprinites 10 hours ago when he left the party).
So the game can be really frustrating at times, but most of the time the combat is fun. The lack of budget is noticable as each dungeon only has 2-3 different monsters, but they really worked hard and combined those monster types in so many different ways that it really ends up with no same encounter twice (it's like they read my guide on how to make encounters interesting when you don't have the resources to draw many monster sprites). Also each monster has a unique behavior pattern, Chrono Trigger style. Unfortunately you won't even get to see those behavior patterns most of the time as it's kill them before they can act usually. Though you will at least have to apply tactics on those "they kill you if you kill them" enemy types. And there are a bunch of unwinnable battles where you actually have to use an item to "run" (seriously, don't forget to bring fogstones).


Conclusion: I found the game pretty fun and was really happy to finally play another game that really felt like Chrono Trigger. It's mostly well designed and copies all the good stuff from Chrono Trigger almost to perfection. However a few of the "new" features the game brings can lead to quite some frustration.

I'd say if you really love Chrono Trigger, you will still forgive this game's issues and love it anyway. But if you are the type that doesn't think Chrono Trigger was the best JRPG ever made, it's likely you won't like I Am Setsuna all that much.

I'd rate the game 8/10 (or 4 stars in RMN terms).

I'm playing I Am Setsuna. Finally a good Chrono Trigger clone, woohoo.

SaGaFrontier's growth system is pretty brilliant. I mentioned it earlier too (calling it Akitoshi Kawazu design). But you need to be a real good game designer so you don't make players stuck with it. In SGF it's actually pretty hard to get stuck because your growth also increases when enemies are stronger than you, so it auto-balances itself. Also there is some ceiling to monster tiers so if you get stuck you can simply grind for 10 hours and then you can beat even the highest tier, so that still works out. Also the stories in SGF are all pretty short and have good replay value, so even restarting completely is not as harsh here as in most other JRPGs.

If the game isn't from Akitoshi Kawazu, I usually avoid games that have a monster growth with your level system. Too many bad experiences. In FFXIII for example I tried to use all the characters available, but you can't switch out Squall, so I was pretty fast at a point where Squall reached level 99, but the other characters were still like level 60 and I was not very far into the story yet so I didn't have any good draws. The bosses just became impossible to beat at this point (because monster level only depends on Squall's level not on the average party level and stats).

Really can't recommend it to indie developers unless they really know what they are doing.

Monster level up with you is probably the worst system I've seen so far. The main reason I hate FFVIII so much next to the awful drawing system.

I can accept it when game progression makes stronger monsters spawn in old regions, though. But same monster should always be similar as strong.

Yea, I can get that, for sure. It's why I like the idea of giving players, say, an easier-to-use weapon set or skill combo as a backup.

That's not grinding or an easy way to overcome the boss, though. That's just for skillful players that enjoy trying out different combinations. It's not a good replacement for grinding.

Typical XP for me for sure, because I like the possibility to grind if I'm stuck.

Adaptive XP often has the problem that there is a limit to the grinding so you eventually won't get significant XP anymore. It also feels less like progress because the numbers never increase.

Challenge system is horrible, I avoid games that don't allow me to grind at all. And such a system makes it easy to mess up your build and be stuck forever. Worst progression system ever.

Only money... really doesn't matter, it's the same as typical XP just differently implemented. I'd need to write more about that in general so see below.

No upgrade system is also bad because it doesn't allow grinding, but at least it doesn't allow you to mess up your build either, so it's still better than the challenge system.

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So now let me put some words on the progression systems. Generally I will have the requirement that grinding is possible, but how that works is quite flexible and no matter how you do it, you do need to do it good so it works. When leveling up e.g. just changes monster damage from 1000 to 999, then it's almost as bad as no upgrade system.

In conclusion the first important part is that grinding needs to be possible, but it also needs to be meaningful. Losing at a boss and then go grinding for a few minutes, then going back to the boss should have a noticable effect.

BUT you have to be careful here. This works perfectly for linear games, but if you make an open world game, you'd rather have your character progress slowly, so the game doesn't end up ridiculously easy for players that like to explore all the places. In those games, if you lose at a boss, grinding a few minutes and then trying again isn't your only option. You can actually go into a completely different dungeon and clear that first and then return. In those cases it's perfectly fine when you need hours to gain noticable benefits from leveling.

As for XP vs Money... it really doesn't make a difference, except when you rely on money, there need to be sufficient options and well designed shops in the game. If you just reach a new dungeon and are instantly able to buy all the best gear which your money, then it's really bad because there can't be any progression. If there is always more expensive stuff available and it's basically impossible to reach a point where you have everything, then it's more interesting. Sure you might need to leave the dungeon again when you are stuck at the boss, return to the last down, buy new stuff from the money you got in the meantime and then return, but in the end when you finally beat the boss it feels good. All the effort paid off. Usually this also requires good dungeon design though. The dungeons need to have a "wide" design rather than a "deep" design, as in many possible paths but once you know the correct one it's pretty short, so returning to town doesn't turn into an ordeal and you might even find new paths on your second way through.

All of this should be kept in mind.

Finally, there isn't only the option of XP vs Money. You are indie, unlike the big developers you aren't forced to copy an old formula. You can take risks. So create your own leveling system. There are tons of more interesting systems. Akitoshi Kawazu's "characters automatically get stronger in the style you play them" is for example a lot more interesting and flows much better. You could also imagine that you get XP but you don't level up directly for it, but instead can buy feats or stat increases or similar from it. Or something like a grid system where you can move a step on a board that gives you a new benefit every some XP gained. Or something completely new that hasn't been seen in any RPG yet. I like it when it actually fits to the RPG itself. Like when you RPG is about elements, then it's interesting when the progression system itself also is based on elements. Like when you use fire skills then the stats and abilities associated with that element increase. There are unlimited possibilities really and I'd like to see more games that still allow grinding, but still use a system other than the traditional XP to gain levels.

And even if XP to gain levels is set in stone, there are still many factors that can make the implementation better. For example a game that actually shows me the stat increases it already more interesting than a game that just says "Level Up". Even better when the stat increases are seemingly random and only show one after another like "HP+22 (click) ATK+2 (click) DEF+1". This seems like a minor detail, but it really creates some excitement with each click. The Shining Force and the Lufia series implemented this particularly well.

That is all I wanted say about this topic.