A Remake We’d Actually Like: Fallout Developers Would Like to Do Chrono Trigger

Besides having a name like a powerful dwarven warrior, CEO of Obsidian Entertainment Feargus Urquhart possesses the kind of legendary geek cred we peasants can only aspire to: Not only did he establish famed game company Black Isle Studios, which developed such revered games as Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate II, Fallout 2, and Planescape: Torment, but since then he has also been responsible for Knights of the Old Republic II and the upcoming Fallout: New Vegas.

So when a master gamesmith says he likes a game, you know it’s worth something. In an interview with Siliconera, Urquhart and lead designer Nathan Chapman spoke about how Square Enix tasked Obsidian with Dungeon Siege 3 after purchasing the property from Gas Powered Games. But the more important tidbit at hand: When asked which other franchise from Square Enix they’d be interested in working on, they named the watershed JRPG Chrono Trigger. Please let this happen.

At first, Urquhart joked that he’d like to remake Chocobo Racing, before providing this answer: “If I could come across everything that I played I would have to go with Chrono Trigger. I think Chrono Trigger was one I really enjoyed.”

What would they change about the game? Urquhart identified the difficulty of how JRPGs have deeply ingrained tropes: “It’s tough because a lot of the Japanese RPGs have very specific functions for everything. There is very specific item progression, very specific class progression, very specific everything.” Chapman suggested “obvious answers like dialogue trees and all of that good stuff,” pointing out that “the seeds are there for that kind of development.”

Indeed, Chapman said they chose the much-loved game because of its similarities with generally more open-ended Western RPGs, citing multiple endings based on combat with the purple baddie Lavos at multiple times during the game.

Finally, Urquhart praised the unique environment of Japanese RPGs, which often seem to sit indistinctly between cyberpunk and magical fantasy: “I think it would be fun to take the setting of a Japanese RPG, which is a weird mix of fantasy and sci-fi mashed together and make a Western RPG out of that. I think that would be cool. I mean it’s kind of Star Wars, that’s kind of what Star Wars is a fantasy in space. I think that would be interesting.”

A potential future for Obsidian? Perhaps, but just as I long for the 2D 16-bit days of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, so do I long for the isometric days of Planescape: Torment and Baldur’s Gate II. Both of these things are gone, and I wonder if getting excited about a remake of Chrono Trigger would be the same thing as claiming Dragon Age is a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate II. It’s good, but not that golden age kind of good.

Still, it’s something I’d drop money for in a heartbeat to play.

(via The Escapist; title image adapted from Destructoid)