Chrono Trigger on Virtual Console the Exception, Not the Rule - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 24 May 2011 / 6,050 Views
RPG fans rejoice! Chrono Trigger has again descended from the pixelated clouds of gaming heaven to bestow upon you the best that the 16-bit era had to offer!
Less fancifully, come Friday Chrono Trigger will come to the Wii’s Virtual Console in Europe, making it available across the world’s gaming regions. You can almost hear the collective nerdgasm of the game’s many fans. It doesn’t matter if they’ve already played the game. It doesn’t matter if they probably own the DS port or even a copy of the original SNES game. What matters is that it’s coming out on yet another platform, giving them an excuse to buy and play it again.
It’s pretty cool I guess. Certainly more noteworthy than Square Enix releasing yet another remake of Final Fantasy IV, but honestly isn’t it a little late? It’s not as if this is early in the Wii’s life span. Are we really supposed to rejoice about a game (albeit a classic) finally making it the Virtual Console after five years when it should have been available much sooner? In fact, at this point I’m still left to wonder where a whole ton of my favorite old games are. No Battletanx? No Rogue Squadron? Are we ever going to see any of the Fire Emblems that never made it to the United States (even as they rest comfortably available in Japan)?
The answer is no and I don’t understand why. Okay, maybe I do to an extent. Licensing issues can be a royal pain and that’s likely limited the releases to a point. But to the point they’re at now? Not bloody likely.
Back in the long lost days of 2006 you could go so far as to say that the Virtual Console was a big selling point for the Wii. The idea that you could, for a few mere dollars, play picture perfect versions of your yesteryear favorites was downright incredible. When my wife and I actually managed to get our hands on a Wii, I spent more time with the Virtual Console games than I did with new Wii titles. Super Castlevania IV, Ninja Gaiden, Final Fantasy, Mario Kart, Ogre Battle; the Virtual Console was like all of the past’s best consoles rolled into one easy to access package.
I’m sure I’m not the only fan that adored the service. The Virtual Console was often the only reason I would ever brush the dust off of my Wii. Even so, Nintendo has by and large abandoned it. Where a regular stream of games used to come on a weekly basis, they quickly slowed to a trickle. Lately it’s been like Nintendo’s squeezing the faucet shut, allowing only the occasional drop to slip through.
Contrast that to Microsoft and Sony who have continually bolstered their offerings of downloadable content both retro and otherwise. Just in recent months we’ve seen a bevy of PlayStation classics make it to the PSN and while many don’t carry quite the same weight as some of the older offerings on the Virtual Console, at least they seem to be picking up steam rather than tapering off. This isn’t even mentioning the bevy of PC digital distributors like Steam and Good Old Games.
One is left to puzzle as to why when digital distribution is becoming the new big thing that Nintendo’s seems intent on doing less and less to take advantage of it. Are they pulling another Nintendo 64; sticking dogmatically to cartridges as the rest of the world switched to discs? Are they just being lazy and failing to pursue potential sources of revenue on account of the fact that their current systems still spit money like a malfunction ATM? More to the point, what could the arguable handling of the Virtual Console mean for the 3DS? An eventual selection of downloadable retro handheld titles has been promised, but what will that amount to? Should we harbor some hope for the future? Can we expect more of what we’ve arguably seen from Nintendo in the past five years? Namely, taking the easiest route to the quickest payout?
Disclaimer: This article is the work of one writer and does not necessarily represent the views of gamrFeed or VGChartz.
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@jumping WTH are you from? Parasite Eve & Xenogears came out weeks ago, i should know I have them both. i'll concede to the Mana part im sure i was thinking about Legent of Mana
@oniyide - last I checked, Xenogears and Parasite Eve have not yet been released on the PSN; Vagrant Story (which I have) came out two years ago, and while Secret of Mana DID "say hi", it was on VIRTUAL CONSOLE and not the PSN.
@vyseland some just love to give their money away to companies they love, like they are going to benifit in the long run. Or maybe some dont wanna spend extra money on the better DS/GBA versions
@JUMPIN Xenogears, Parasite Eve, vagrant story, secret of mana all say hi. FACT PSN has been getting more classic support than WiiWare for the year so far, even with the store being off for a month
FACT: The Virtual Console has seen releases of Final Fantasy III (FF6) and now Chrono Trigger. Either one of these alone trumps everything released in the PSX Classics this year on PSN; we got both.
These are the two definitive versions of the game, all other Ports and remakes have been inferior to these releases due to excessive load times, bad sprite animations and sizes, bad music/sound quality, weird additions (like the ill-placed cutscenes in PSX/DS, and poor new scenarios in Chrono Trigger DS) etc...
Honestly, why would anyone buy this? The game is available in many other formats, and even for free in certain illicit HD PC-oriented formats...for years and years now. How about a real Chrono sequel for PS3? Oh I forgot, SE no long has the capability of making endearing games.
I'm actually quite curious to see how far Nintendo will go to push downloadable titles in their next home console. I can see them taking a page from Microsoft's book, but I wonder if they'll go a little further, and how.
Off-topic: I hope all WiiWare titles become readily available for download on the new console as well, like (the eventual) DSiware games being available for purchase on 3DS. There are some damn fine games for the service that need as much exposure as they can get.
hate all you want but this guy is right, VC has fallen hard and its quite pathetic. I hope that the whole sabotage VC for WiiWare was not true, especially considering that the games on WIiWare are sad.
Why release it on the Wii, when there is hardly anyone to care anymore?
How about Chrono Trigger on Live or PSN instead
I don't know, DLC might damage the industry more than help it it sticks to that. So, there was a remake for this game not long ago, and that's probably the reason it wasn't released for the Virtual Console before.
If Chrono Trigger is an exception to the rule, then what about FF6 releasing a couple of months ago?
Battletanx and Rogue Squadron won't be coming to the VC because they suck, quite frankly, and nobody cares. The real travesty is that the original Contra is still unavailable along with the Megadrive version of Hard Corps.
The VC died about 3 years ago. It went from releasing 3 new games per week to releasing one a week, if any at all. If you really want to enjoy classic games, buying the carts is the only real way to ensure you get them all.
The author is right in this article. I used to be really excited to see what the VC was going to release during the first year or two that I had my Wii. Now, I hardly notice because the VC has died down CONSIDERABLY, and Nintendo seems to only be putting out crap titles on VC that I've never even heard of whenever they do finally get around to releasing something. Now, I love Chrono Trigger, but the Wii is too late in its years for me to want to buy it on there, cause I'd rather wait for it to be released on a console I know I'll have around for a while to come. I've waited this long for Chrono Trigger to come back, I can wait a while longer.
Yeah...
Love the part about the brushing the dust off the console, so clever and I've never heard that before.
