Review - I am setsuna/いけにえと雪のセツナ

Welcome to the Bilinguist. Today, I'll be talking about I Am Setsuna, or Ikenie to Yuki no Setsuna. Also known previously as Project SETSUNA. Now, this game garnered a bit of attention before release, claiming to be the spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger. Which is kind of a big claim for anyone to live up to, even Squeenix themselves. YMMV, but I considered Chrono Trigger to be one of the best JRPGs of all time, and, well, I still do. CT had incredible visuals and music, an easy but deep battle system, a bunch of minigames and multiple endings that all had their own unique story branches. To say that the game is held as the holy grail in many people's hearts is probably not inaccurate. So, how does Setsuna hold up? Let's check out the visuals first. The aesthetic is, simply put, beautiful. The overworld is handdrawn and despite being covered entirely in ice and snow, manages to fit unique locations in a lot of places. And perhaps most uniquely, I don't think I've ever seen an RPG dedicated to one single setting. You know, there's usually your green plains, your lava cave, your ice cave, your ancient ruins, and so on and so forth. For the entire world to be covered in snow and ice, and still have enough variation within the setting is actually somewhat impressive. Now that said, if you're hoping to see something other than just snow and ice or ancient ruins, you're going to be disappointed. The entire world is covered in the stuff. Also, you leave footprints while walking, and jumping around and dashing in battle also displaces a lot of snow. How cool is that? Likewise, the characters are also varied and perhaps quite uncharacteristically for a JRPG, dressed appropriately for the world they live in. Except for maybe one person, but there's a story behind that. Moving on, let's talk about the music. The first thing you're going to notice, perhaps, is the fact that the entire soundtrack is performed on the piano with the occasional percussion. That includes the battle tracks, the world, every single track performed on the piano. The composer, Tomoki Miyoshi, may be recognizable to you, if you've played Soul Calibur V or listened to the Steins Gate orchestral soundtrack. Personally, I don't think I've ever seen a JRPG soundtrack stick to one main instrument entirely, and for better or worse, Setsuna's soundtrack is truly unique for this alone. A lot of the tracks are incredible, and have invaded my music playlist for several months now. That said, the decision to use a piano track for battles is... well, it's going to divide opinions, at the very least. I mean... imagine it this way: you know how most Final Fantasy games have piano and orchestral arrangements for their soundtracks? Now imagine if you were forced to play the entire game with the piano arrangement songs. It's going to be a new experience for a while, but it's going to catch up to you sooner or later, and you're going to find yourself missing the original songs. I would know, since I've tried doing this exact same thing a long time ago. Now, that said, Setsuna is not a long game. It does not last long enough for the soundtrack to truly wear itself thin, and for its duration, the piano soundtrack is... well, great. It's great. But if you asked me, does the music live up to Chrono Trigger's? Well... no. Not really. I mean, it sure as hell is unique, but it's not quite as... memorable in the same way I felt when I first heard Magus' theme, or fighting Lavos. Now, let's talk about the heart of the game - the battle system. According to the developer themselves, the system is based on Active Time Battle 2.0, which is of course, Chrono Trigger. That said, it's actually more like Chrono Trigger with a hint of Bravely Default and FF8. What do I mean by that? Well, from Chrono Trigger, we've got the combination techniques, where party members equipping a certain quartz can combine their spells into a more powerful spell. During battles, attacking or simply not issuing commands after the ATB gauge is full will fill the Setsuna gauge. Once a star or Setsuna point is available, pressing square during an attack will trigger additional effects. Depending on the spell or attack used, these effects can be game-changing, such as removing all status effects, or healing the party, or even making it impossible for the enemy to move at all. If you've seen the trailers for the game, you probably already know how much the game tries to allude itself to Chrono Trigger, down to showing off Cross Slash as the first combination attack you can do in the game. In fact, the amount of combinations available in the game is staggering, I think I counted over 40 combinations per character. Obviously, there are overlaps, hence the name, combinations. I'd say, the battle system is reminiscent of the older games while trying its own spin, putting emphasis on killing enemies in unique ways instead of simply going for the fastest kill. What do I mean by that? Well, spells can only be used when you equip certain quartzes, which can only be obtained by getting materials from monsters. To get said materials, you need to kill the monsters in a specific pattern, for example, fire damage on the killing blow would grant a fire kill, and the monster will drop whatever is attributed to a fire kill. Likewise, the weapon upgrade system allows you to pick and choose whatever weapon you want to use for endgame. For example, while it's possible to get some unique swords only near the end, you can make your starting sword a viable endgame weapon, as it will have similar stats after upgrading to the maximum threshold. Overall, the battle system is actually quite refined in its design and despite the classic system, the ideas that were put forth to make it modern are well thought out and makes the experience a very strong one. However, there are unfortunately one or two flaws. For one, haste makes it incredibly difficult to get an idea of what to do next. The battle speed near endgame becomes frustratingly fast because the enemies are much faster and you're forced to use haste to counter that. And when you're facing the special enemies, some of which are harder than the normal last boss, it becomes a giant messy flurry and hoping that enemies don't freeze or confuse your party before you can apply immunity. The second flaw I suppose, is actually the opposite end of the speed spectrum. With a certain quartz combination and the haste spell, you can effectively make it impossible for the enemy to move until they die. This combination can trivialize even the secret last boss, which would normally be the toughest fight in the entire game, equivalent to instantly killing New Game Lavos. I suppose what I want to say is, haste broke everything. There needs to be a battle speed setting, and haste balanced a bit better. Something to look out for if there's a sequel. I guess that brings us to the last part, the story and everything else. The story is actually quite dark, despite the white world, and takes itself seriously. There are no minigames or fun spots to speak of outside of the developer room (yes there's one), and throughout the game, a sense of despair and dread hangs over the entire world. The theme of the game also blends itself into the visuals quite well, with a running theme of sadness that's quite appropriately accompanied by the soundtrack. The game is... like an old JRPG. But one that is so focused on taking itself seriously that its world is completely devoid of sidetracky things to do. In fact, I can describe my entire journey in Setsuna as follows: kill things, story, kill things, story, grind levels, story, kill things, get airship, kill secret bosses, kill last boss, kill secret last boss. There was almost no sidetracking until I got the airship, and that only happens right before the last dungeon opens up. Setsuna is a JRPG that leads you from point A to point B and outside of backtracking once or twice, doesn't need you to look back, or look sideways. In my opinion at least, that's perhaps taking the old school JRPG design to an extreme that I think actually detracts from the game. Even after finishing the game, there was nothing left to do. There's no New Game+, and continuing after the save puts you back at the save spot before the last boss. Although it's not actually something of a requirement, you'd expect a game that compares itself to Chrono Trigger to at least give some siginificance to clearing the game in different ways or times. But I guess that's more my bias and expectation. Overall, I think the game wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it was actually quite good. Above average, if you will. But would I compare it to Chrono Trigger? Not really, no. But it is a game with a beautiful soundtrack, a deep but fast battle system, great thematic visuals and a story you can get behind. For its asking price of 40 dollars, I'd say it's not a bad choice to consider if you're looking to scratch a JRPG itch. Hopefully, this review has been of help to you. My name's Xhinryu, thanks for watching.