I Am Setsuna, Part One
Jul. 25th, 2016 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI'm about two hours (10%) into I Am Setsuna, which was purposefully designed to feel very much like Chrono Trigger. The battle system is snappy, and the writing is competent.
The scenery is all snow all the time, which has been dampening my enjoyment (so to speak). The snow is pretty but unrelenting, and there are no lighting or physics effects of the sort that made the sand in Journey so interesting and dynamic. The piano music that serves as the score is also pretty but unrelenting, and I ended up turning the in-game slider for the BGM almost all the way down. The voice acting is embarrassing, so I turned it off.
Setsuna is basically Yuna, a "sacrifice" who has been sent out from her village to appease "the monsters." She will give her life in "the Lost Lands," and that will for some reason keep everyone else in the world safe. Setsuna is accompanied by a Rikku character and an Auron character (the references are obvious), and the player-protagonist is not so much Crono as he is Squall. So mercenary, much angst.
It's fun to play the game while I'm playing it, but I never really feel compelled to pick it up. To be honest, the strongest feeling I've had toward I Am Setsuna is nostalgia for Final Fantasy X. I never thought I'd prefer Tidus to... anyone, really... but so far I Am Setsuna feels merely derivative and doesn't add anything new or interesting to the genre.
The scenery is all snow all the time, which has been dampening my enjoyment (so to speak). The snow is pretty but unrelenting, and there are no lighting or physics effects of the sort that made the sand in Journey so interesting and dynamic. The piano music that serves as the score is also pretty but unrelenting, and I ended up turning the in-game slider for the BGM almost all the way down. The voice acting is embarrassing, so I turned it off.
Setsuna is basically Yuna, a "sacrifice" who has been sent out from her village to appease "the monsters." She will give her life in "the Lost Lands," and that will for some reason keep everyone else in the world safe. Setsuna is accompanied by a Rikku character and an Auron character (the references are obvious), and the player-protagonist is not so much Crono as he is Squall. So mercenary, much angst.
It's fun to play the game while I'm playing it, but I never really feel compelled to pick it up. To be honest, the strongest feeling I've had toward I Am Setsuna is nostalgia for Final Fantasy X. I never thought I'd prefer Tidus to... anyone, really... but so far I Am Setsuna feels merely derivative and doesn't add anything new or interesting to the genre.
no subject
Date: 2016-07-25 10:16 pm (UTC)I watched the trailer for I Am Setsuna when the game released. It looked nostalgic in a good way, but this isn't really the kind of nostalgia I am looking for. Putting it on my "wait for sale" list... :/
(also, if there is one female trope that I just nopity nope nope, it is the noble female sacrifice trope, in all of its flavors, but that is my own personal problem/issue)
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Date: 2016-08-04 01:06 pm (UTC)Then again, it may be that I have trouble managing my expectations. I thought I Am Setsuna was going to be Chrono Trigger on the PS4, but I also thought Star Trek Beyond was going to be The Wire in space, and look how that turned out. So the problem may just be me.
Also...
if there is one female trope that I just nopity nope nope, it is the noble female sacrifice trope, in all of its flavors
I want to print this out, screenprint it on a t-shirt, and wear it every day for the rest of my life.
no subject
Date: 2016-08-06 05:08 am (UTC)I liked how the NSES and PS1 JRPGs usually made a point of having all sorts of different settings and square's games were always full of pretty.
...sigh...