Radical Dreamers Edition – Remake of a Classic – PlayStation.Blog

Hello everyone – this is Koichiro Sakamoto, Producer of Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition. I’m excited to announce that a new remake of this classic RPG is coming tomorrow on PlayStation 4!

In addition to the original adventure, the new release includes a number of additional features, including a never-before-released Western: Dreamers – Le Trésor Interdit.

Working on this remake has been a true effort of love for both me and the team, but you may be wondering, “how exactly do you remake a game as beloved as Chrono Cross ?” To celebrate the game’s release, I thought it would be interesting to give you some insight into how it all comes together.

Master the remaster

Some gamers might expect that creating a remastered version is simply a case of taking a game from one system and porting it to another – but it’s much harder than that! I have worked on a number of remaster projects and they are often very challenging.

For example, the original PlayStation games – especially late-time games like Chrono Cross – really took the hardware to its full potential. The developers used their technical knowledge and skills to overcome the barriers that the hardware presented to them, which made it difficult to break down that piece of code and analyze what it was. really doing.

At least it’s usually easier to port original PlayStation games than PlayStation 2 titles (the chip inside the PS2 is really unique and hard to emulate well), but we faced an additional challenge when refers to Chrono Cross, because the game program and graphics data are not kept in their complete form.

That means that during development, it is not possible to recreate the original version of the game on multiple platforms. We had to rummage through the data that was kept and play through the original game ourselves to figure out what was missing and restore it.

That requires a huge amount of effort from all the companies involved in the development process.

However, there are of course some upsides to it, too, including the fact that Chrono Cross has always been a great game – so replaying it is actually quite enjoyable.

Scars of time

Another major technical challenge we faced in Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition came from the static backgrounds used in the game.

To give a little history lesson: when the original PlayStation first came out, it was very exciting for a lot of developers. Many of us imagined that they could now use polygons to create more realistic worlds – but we soon discovered that there were many obstacles to overcome.

Not only are there limitations of the hardware itself, but there are also serious load time issues. Therefore, there must often be a balance between 2D and 3D elements.

Take for example a game like Final Fantasy VII, which has a 2D background. I think that if you try to create them in 3D, then have the characters in 3D and a movable camera, that simply couldn’t be done with the original PlayStation hardware.

At the same time, just the old-fashioned 2D background won’t look like an evolution from the previous generation of consoles.

As a result, what we did back then was create a 3D image, then take a still image. By using a static image for the background and moving the polygonal characters around, we were able to depict depth and create the feeling of a 3D space. It’s a compromise between the realism that people want and what we can realistically achieve with hardware.

This is an approach that the developers of Chrono Cross also took, but unfortunately, like many games of the time, the pre-render native 3D data is no longer available – and it’s a problem.

Static shock

What we had to do with this Chrono Cross remaster was to bring each existing pre-rendered image to the highest resolution possible. We then upscaled that and manually built on some of them at an even higher resolution.

It is a very difficult task. We’ve used AI to help sharpen images, but that’s far from perfect – everything still requires manual processes or “human touch” to make sure it all looks right.

The wallpaper you see in the final release is the result of a lot of effort from the team – for which I am very grateful to them.

Strengthen the battles

While the Chrono Cross remake is a huge undertaking, it’s also a hugely enjoyable one – especially given the ability to add extra features.

For previous remakes I’ve worked on, such as Final Fantasy VIII Remastered, we’ve implemented features like invincibility, time acceleration, and the ability to turn off random encounters . These games have become popular with players – especially those who don’t want to spend a lot of time playing the games and who want to play the games again after they’ve finished them.

In the same spirit, we’ve added some great new combat-enhancing features that make the game even more convenient to play. You can now auto-fight, turn off enemy encounters, change the pace of the match in the first place – and there’s even a Battle Boost option that makes battles even easier.

The last one is an interesting one to develop as it raises a lot of questions about the balance of the game and whether these new features make it too easy.

Battle Boost does make the game easier – that’s the bottom line – but we wanted to make sure it didn’t make it feel unappealing either. In previous remakes, we included an invincibility mode, but for Chrono Cross we implemented a system where enemy attack has a very high chance of missing.

That way, fighting becomes easier, but still requires player involvement.