Hmmm... don't agree with your "lack of talent" critique of anime. They're different styles of art. That's like discrediting Picasso because his masterpieces weren't realistically proportioned. However, I share your desire for realistic-looking characters. But I think Final Fantasy 8 is adhering too close to reality for the needs of the characters in Chrono Trigger. In Final Fantasy 10 the graphics were better, but there was more creativity and thus room for less realistic characters, such as Frog and Robo.

Aside from the character designs, I'm really hoping for much more expanded environments. The environments were great on SNES, so the standards are high, but I'd love to see places like Zeal and the Dino Lair in 3-D. If they do the environments well, in terms of detail especially, I'll be happy.

Then there's the storyline. I thought there were a few things about CT's storyline that could have been expanded, the tension between Nadia and her father, for example. I would like to see a clearer transition from the Nadia who simply runs away from the castle to the fair to the Nadia who denounces her father completely. The love interest between Crono and Nadia also was less obvious, mainly (I've been told) because of cultural differences between the two main audiences, Japan and America. Now that Square is doing translations with cultural differences in mind, I think this can be done much better in the remake.

Basically, I'd be happy if Square just goes all out in all fields of the remake. I am of the opinion that Square isn't lazy when it makes games, so I think this is likely.

And Jake, just so you're not the only one, I'm also curious to see how hot Nadia's gonna look in 3-d. That's not the reason I bought the game way back when, but it was a plus to game play, I'll admit that.

Guys, this is unrelated, but I just had an idea. I was looking through Gamespy for any coverage on the game tournament they had about a year and a half ago. I don't know if you guys were involved, but Chrono Trigger was in it and had a huge following against FFVII. I was thinking, if we could think of some way to make Gamespy to see it as worth their while to inform those thousands of fans of our petition, we'd get a rapid surge of signatures. Then I remembered that when you set up an account for a gaming site, oftentimes they ask you about your gaming interests. So if we then make other gaming sites see it as worth their while to inform all users interested in RPGs of the petition, we'll have an even larger surge. The only issue is getting the sites to cooperate.

Any ideas?

Also, now that we're doing them ourselves, are we sure that we want to use those specific images to make the sigs? There are a lot on that site I gave, we may want to consider deciding for ourselves which ones to use, rather than using the ones Nate picked out.

I found the first two pictures on this site. They're a bit scaled down, but the resolution looks high, so we might be able to make them work. Tell me, why is it again that we don't have the originals used to make the sigs?

http://www.icybrian.com/games/chronotrigger/remake.php

I can't save the pictures in pro format, only in regular photoshop format, which they exist in on the site. I can give them to you in jpeg format though. Is it cool if I just host them here on imageshack, or you want me to email them to you?

I'd love to, but there's a certain level of authenticity in the first paragraph of my critique. I don't have photoshop... and I don't know how to remove the text without removing the background picture. I was able to export them into jpeg form though. Perhaps one of you can do something with it. Still interested?

Ok, I see where the confusion lies. We're talking about two different things. I'm talking about the signature images, for the forums. Mine, for example, is a picture of Janus in Zeal, which is evident below. In the Chrono Trigger Sigs of the Downloads page, there are signatures that say "Insert Name Here Supports Chrono Trigger." I'm worried that we'll have a lot of fans who wont know how to insert their name.

Users who have no experience with photoshop or other such programs wont know how to do that, and probably wont even have the programs with which to do it anyway. And yes, the intelligence of our world has declined to that point. Why do you think you get points on the SATs for writing your name in the right spot?

A critique:

The support signatures are biased against fans who know how to insert their name into a signature. While it isn't really a hard thing to do, a lot of Chrono Trigger fans who participate in the forums might not know anything about that. I think it would be a good idea to make versions of the signatures that say "I Support The Chrono Trigger Petition." That way we will continue our trend of being accommodating to all Chrono Trigger fans, a trend I very much agree with.

Also, I think it may be a good idea to put our website url on the signatures somewhere, so that anyone who is using them is essentially providing publicity for the site and a link to the site. This way Chrono fans who see the signatures but don't initially care enough to ask about them will still be able to check the site out. The easiness that a product seems to be attained in an advertisement is parallel with the effectiveness of the advertisement of that product. Therefore, if we make it easier to obtain information about the petition, we will get more signatures.


Also, I think that if we just change Stoney's information to "Title and Credit Glutton" we won't have to deal with adding his duties anymore.

Nevermind.

It will be cheaper for Square to remake Chrono Trigger for a new system than for them to pay a staff of writers to come up with a story, characters, dialogue, a new (probably) battle system and everything else that would need to be put together for the game. Therefore, a petition asking for a remake of Chrono Trigger has a greater chance of being positively answered than a petition with an equal amount of signatures asking for a sequel. They are showing the same demand for two products, but one product would cost them less for what would most likely be the same response from fans. Once Square remakes Chrono Trigger, however, they will see the overwhelmingly positive response of the demographic and will then understand that money can be made from continuing the series, making a sequel seem much more desirable for them. It makes sense, then, to hit them first with a petition asking for Chrono Trigger, for afterwards we would most likely end up getting a sequel without even asking for it.

I was getting at two things. The first was, as you guessed, that leaving the petition in English is fine. The second is that we should not assume that we are beyond the eyes of Square, and should conduct ourselves accordingly.

Two items:

1. Chrono Trigger is in English. Anyone able to play the game and understand it well enough to sign the petition honestly should have no trouble understanding the site and petition.

2. I think it's unrealistic to assume Square won't know about our progress and actions, especially as publicity of the petition spreads. All they need to do is check one site that has a mention of the petition on it and they'll know what to look for.

For the record, I wholeheartedly agree with Stoney about the music choice.

No, you don't need to be a subscriber. You need to own a Gamecube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS or any of their games and know the serial number/key for it. That's it. Right now if you register three products (like those above) you get three issues trial of Nintendo Power for free. I'm not sure what it normally costs, but Insiders get it for $12 a year. It's probably the same price regardless, but free s*** is free s***.

We've got time to think of places to advertise. No rush. While there shouldn't be anything such as "bad publicity," we should run all our ideas past the group to avoid any incidents or complications.

I follow you Apoc, and am aware of such concerns. I think if we are careful, we can afford the risks.

Jake... why is there no privacy policy in the Privacy Policy section? It seems more fitting to just call that section "Legal."

Vash- You an insider too?

Anyway, my computer is fixed now, and seeing as I'm not in New Orleans I don't really have a social life, so I can help again if there's anything that needs to be done.

I'm an Insider at the Official Nintendo forums, when the time comes I can start something up there. We should see if we can get some publicity from Gamespy too. Anyplace where communities of people talk about games could turn into goldmines. All it really takes is one devoted Chrono fan to see it to pass it on to all the other devoted fans he knows and we have a chain reaction.

I don't think it was necessary to reprimand the guy so strongly for taking so long, but I also don't think it was as big of a deal as you all made it out to be. The word choice was poor and the letter could have been structured a little better, but as this isn't a completely professional atmosphere, it wasn't entirely unacceptable. I would have done it differently myself, but it's not that big of a deal. As we can see, he didn't seem to get too offended or defensive about it, he just read it for the message that it was obviously sending. No big deal. (However, I WILL have to take "drastic action" if you ever write to Square like that, Stoney.)

Sorry I've been gone so long (again), turns out my computer got messed up in the evacuation from the hurricane, and had to be shipped away. It should be back soon, but I might not be able to read your posts or reply to them for another half of a week.

Have we reached a conclusion on the "Imagine" section of the site? As usual, Stoney and I agree and think the game reference should be more vague. Anyone else?

It's good, but your third sentence of the "Imagine" section will not be read as positively by those who disliked the Lord of the Rings game as those who liked the game. I find the same problem with it as I found with the original petition you wrote, it was biased by the fans' other gaming tastes.
I don't think we need to use a specific game to create the analogy. Mentioning another game takes the focus away from Chrono Trigger, the reason we're all here. Not to mention the fact that it relates Chrono Trigger to Lord of the Rings, a match up for which I think there is no comparison. Is there a way we can communicate the same idea without being specific? Maybe asking the audience to imagine playing their favorite game from the latest generation of systems on an Atari 2600? Something like that?


On a different note, I think it's important that we are sure to dedicate a section of the site to answering the fans' questions and allowing them to contact us if they have any further questions. Is your guy putting that in?