Latest news with #ChronoTrigger
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How to watch Summer Game Fest's kickoff stream
It's almost that time of year again. Summer Game Fest starts on June 6. The annual kickoff stream begins at 5PM ET on that date. Yeah, we know. The time isn't ideal for folks with regular jobs, but we'll be in Los Angeles to cover the event in person, so you can just hit up the site for updates. The best way to watch this is likely via the YouTube stream. After all, the event is being hosted at the YouTube Theater. There will also be a Twitch stream for the YouTube-averse. The organizers, including host Geoff Keighley, are promising "spectacular new video game announcements, surprises and reveals." I like all three of those things. We don't know that much about what games will be discussed during the two-hour event, but we aren't going in totally blind. The stream will feature a new look at Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, which is a nifty-looking Soulslike action RPG. The open-world MMORPG Chrono Odyssey (no relation to ChronoTrigger) is also making an appearance. There's also the Kojima of it all. This event is taking place just a couple of weeks before we get our hands on the long-anticipated Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. The legendary game creator will be on-hand to discuss the title during a dedicated event on June 8, but maybe he'll pop up at the kickoff to give viewers a peek at whatever else he's been working on. However, the kickoff stream is just the beginning. The weekend is host to the Day of the Devs showcase, the Devolver Direct, Wholesome Direct and really so much more.
Newsweek
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
INTERVIEW: Nikki Jay Escaped a Cult — Now She's Making a Game About It
Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors Quantum Witch developer Nikki Jay grew up in a cult. It was a heavily religious environment, with strict rules and harsh teachings. Most medical assistance was shunned, and there were constant lectures about the end of the world, how she was never good enough, and that God was going to kill her and all her loved ones in horrible ways. Nothing was more abhorrent to the cult, though, than the concept of homosexuality, and that was a problem for Nikki, who realised she was attracted to women at a young age. "I knew that I liked girls from the age of 8," Nikki tells me. "I distinctly remember, at the end of term at school, teachers brought in Labyrinth for us to watch. I saw Jennifer Connelly, and I saw David Bowie, and I knew who I preferred." The religious group's disposition on homosexuality, combined with its total ban on outside interaction – friends outside of the group were considered to be "controlled by the devil" – and limitations on LGBT+ discussion in public life in the UK throughout the 80's and 90's, meant that Nikki was isolated and alone. Her escape throughout these difficult times was video games, where she fell in love with games like Chrono Trigger, which offered her something new: an opportunity to choose her own path. "I remember playing through Chrono Trigger for the first time, and I've got a choice," Nikki recalls. "I can be enemies with this guy or be friends with him. And the ending is different, my party is different, my abilities are different depending on that choice. I love that so much." That feeling of choice is something that Nikki's tried to capture in her own game, Quantum Witch, which is in the final stages of development now. Quantum Witch is a narrative adventure game with light platforming elements, and it's one of the most choice-heavy games I've ever seen. Everything you do – or just as importantly, everything you choose not to do – has an impact on the story, the options available to you later, and the ending. In Nikki's own words, she's probably gone a little overboard with it — there are five endings to the main story, four endings to one of the game's chapters, and at least two endings for each NPC in the game. A screenshot from Quantum Witch showing main character Ren talking to an ensnared woman and declaring there must be another way. A screenshot from Quantum Witch showing main character Ren talking to an ensnared woman and declaring there must be another way. Nikki Jay These choices come up in every aspect of the game, and shape your journey through the world Nikki created. "A choice you made early in the game will color the choices that you have available to you later in the game, because the choices you make not only affect the story, they affect the character development of the main character," Nikki explains. "By choosing to go with the flow with a certain group, that means she's going to have less confrontational options available to her going forwards — fewer options in one way, but more options in another. "It's incredibly complex, but from a player point of view, you can play it and go, 'oh, that was the story, I got my story' and it's not really until you look at the achievements and go 'but I only got half the achievements,' and then you might talk to a friend who goes 'well, that's not the story I got.'" It's all made possible by a custom scripting language – and a lot of spreadsheets – that Nikki made herself. Initially, development on Quantum Witch started in Javascript, but after the realization that it would unnecessarily lock her out of a potential console release in the future, she decided to make the switch to the C programming language. The only problem was that she didn't actually know C, so she gave herself two weeks to learn it, and another week to implement her custom scripting language, dubbed Witch Script. It turns simple text scripts into game material, effectively allowing her to implement and change content at a rapid pace. After our conversation, Nikki realized there were a few changes she wanted to make, adding a few more choices for players to pick, and it was implemented in just a few minutes. The heavy focus on choice, and the comedic lens through which it's presented, is in part a coping mechanism for Nikki. Growing up, she didn't have a lot of choice, and while she was technically free to leave, it came at a big cost. It's something she's poked fun at in Quantum Witch, where a cult-like group allows main character Ren to leave after a meeting — but only by pushing through the "Fine Mesh of Separation," a metal net that would effectively kill anyone attempting to leave. This, Nikki says, is essentially a comedic twist on what it was like when she left. She was free to leave the group, but it meant giving up her life as she knew it. "If you leave, you give up your life, it was a big part of that group," Nikki says. "When I left, I lost my entire social structure, because you're not allowed friends outside of the group. And if you leave, you are completely shunned. So no friends, I ended up homeless because I had no support structure. "So I thought I'd make a silly joke about it. You can leave anytime you want, and you're totally free to leave... by being pushed through this fine metal mesh — but it's your choice to do that. If I didn't laugh about it, I would just cry about it, so that's how I cope." These days, she's in a much better place. She has a job and a family, a lovely wife and child, and she's had the opportunity to make Quantum Witch, in the hopes that others can connect with her experiences and know that they're not alone. She's put her heart and soul into this game, and it shows — it's not the prettiest game I've ever played, and mechanically might be a bit on the simple side, but it's earnest and full of personality, in a way that so few games are after they've been sanded down for commercial interest. Despite that, Nikki is very aware that it won't be for everyone, and she'll probably get backlash and abuse for it. Social media has emboldened some of the worst parts of society to push back against anything featuring queer characters and experiences, labeling them "woke," and that often comes with a lot of hatred directed at the developers behind these games. Women get the worst of it, and queer women especially so, but Nikki isn't letting that stop her from sharing her experiences. "I'm fine if there's a lot of people who hate the game, and I know that there will be," she admits. "But I know that there'll be an audience that goes 'yeah, I see myself in this' and love it. I'm not taking anything away by making this game, I'm expanding the audience of games. "Simply existing as a female game dev is an act of defiance. We're told 'stop messing about in our games, go make your own games,' so we did and they said 'no, don't make games like that, you're doing it wrong.' We're here, we're in this space. If you don't like what we do, it's not for you." Quantum Witch is still a few weeks out from releasing. Nikki is hard at work polishing it and tying up any loose ends, and provided there aren't any snags along the way, it's scheduled to be released on Steam on June 24, 2025. What happens after it releases is anyone's guess – Nikki says she'd love it to do well and get the opportunity to do a sequel – but actually finishing a game is a success in itself, and she's days away from doing exactly that. Nikki says she's not very good at promotion – in part because she struggles to talk about herself and her creations after years of being told not to – but she encourages everyone to wishlist Quantum Witch on Steam and give it a go when it's released. Having played a small slice of the game's opening, I think there's a lot to love, and anyone who's been through difficult experiences like Nikki has will find a lot that resonates with them. "A lot of the issues I had, which are represented in the story, were about being told that anything you do is not worth boasting about. If you said that you've done something good, that's prideful and boastful, and you mustn't do that, because all glory must go to God," Nikki explains. "So it's really difficult for me to say 'please go and tell everyone that Quantum Witch is extremely exciting and wonderful, and you must go wishlist it now,' because there's still that oppression there saying 'you're not allowed to do that.' "But if people like games where they start off in a living, breathing world, not really told what to do but to go discover the story, and the way you discover it will actually shape the story, and when you play through it again you get a different story, and it's extremely queer. If that appeals to people, please go wishlist it."
Metro
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Original Chrono Trigger supervisor wants to ‘look into' a remake
Square Enix isn't remaking Chrono Trigger right now, but the game's original supervisor has been turned onto the idea by fans. Last weekend, fans of retro Japanese role-playing games were whipped into a frenzy when word spread of Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii inadvertently confirming that a remake of 1995 classic Chrono Trigger was in development, during a panel at Napoli Comicon in Italy. However, this was soon followed by claims that Horii's comments were mistranslated and eventually it turned out that he never even mentioned Chrono Trigger at all. In an unexpected plot twist though, Horii was so taken by fan interest in the concept that he's now convinced it could be a thing that's actually worth doing. For context, Yuji Horii was part of the 'dream team' responsible for Chrono Trigger's creation, alongside Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and the late Akira Toriyama, Dragon Quest's character designer and creator of Dragon Ball. Horii served as a supervisor on the project and with the game celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the fan interest in a remake has convinced him to start looking into it. 'It's been a long time. Yeah, I want to do something,' said Horii when asked about the anniversary in an interview with Spanish outlet Gamereactor, which spoke with him directly at the Napoli Comicon event. 'I'm getting a lot of requests for a Chrono Trigger remake as well, so I'm starting to look into it,' Horii added, while also mentioning how Dragon Quest 3 saw a remake last year, with similar remakes for the first two games coming later this year. Although Gamereactor states that any Chrono Trigger remake would likely sport the HD-2D style visuals seen in those Dragon Quest remakes, this seems to be their own assumption and not necessarily something Horii himself said. It's a safe assumption to make though, considering how popular the HD-2D style is. Recreating the game in 3D would be hugely expensive and probably not something that would happen, which is presumably why Square Enix only remastered the considerably less well known PS1 sequel Chrono Cross. Chrono Trigger remains one of the best Japanese role-players of all time and an HD-2D remake would strike a good balance between modernising it and retaining its old school charms, at least in terms of visuals. There was some hope that a remake had already entered development when, back in March, Square Enix marked Chrono Trigger's anniversary by saying it would be launching 'various projects that go beyond the world of the game over the next year.' More Trending If we take Horii's words at face value, it sounds like work never began, so it's still a mystery what these projects actually were. At the very least, Chrono Trigger is overdue an updated re-release. While you can easily acquire the game on PC and mobile devices, it is unavailable on modern consoles. Despite the reverence with which it is held today the original SNES game was never originally released in Europe. The first time it was available outside Japan and North America was a DS version, with a small amount of new content, in 2008. It was re-released through the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console and the PlayStation Network, but the former has long since been shut down and the game was delisted from the latter after a few years. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Possible Final Fantasy 9 remake announcement linked to Switch 2 reveal MORE: Sea Of Stars review – Chrono Triggered MORE: This video game saved me after my family kicked me out for being gay
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Square Enix remembers that Chrono Trigger exists, announcing various new projects as it celebrates the Dragon Ball, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Quest royalty behind the cult JRPG
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Chrono Trigger is 30 years old today, and Square Enix is celebrating with a tease that "various projects that go beyond the world of the game" are launching over the next year "to express our gratitude" to everyone who has played the beloved JRPG so far. The news comes from Square Enix's socials, where the company asks you to sit tight and "please look forward" to more information as it comes over the next year. "Today marks the 30th anniversary of the release of "Chrono Trigger" in 1995," a tweet reads. "This timeless masterpiece that transcends generations and is still talked about today was born from a dream project by Yuji Horii of 'Dragon Quest,' Akira Toriyama of 'Dragon Ball,' and Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of 'Final Fantasy.' "As we mark the 30th anniversary, we will be launching various projects that go beyond the world of the game over the next year to express our gratitude to everyone who has played Chrono Trigger so far." We'll have to wait and see what those plans look like in full, though it has been revealed that the Square Enix Music Channel on YouTube is hosting a special livestream spotlighting Chrono Trigger's soundtrack on March 14. Maybe that's the gist of what we'll get in the future, maybe not. Me? A way to play Chrono Trigger beyond PC would be lovely. The PC port has improved over time following a rocky launch, but the option to play the beloved JRPG on the PS5 or Nintendo Switch would be dandy, just like we can with follow-up Chrono Cross. Final Fantasy 7 concept artist Yoshitaka Amano's new gallery exhibit summarizes everything I love about the Square Enix games, even though he might have stood me up.
