I think the name is obvious. Time Break. As in Chrono Break, but without the copyright or intellectual property attached to it.
And yeah, it's pretty much gender-reversed CT but whatever it sounds cool.
Ahahahahaa! I love it! LET'S DO THAT!
Also,
Time Break is a neat idea! We could even go the Latin-Dutch combo:
Tempus Breken! Why? Because it springs to mind "Tekken" so Tekken lovers would also give it a go for no reason whatsoever.
Brilliant ideas so far, Bekkler! Love the mash-ups. Though I'd like a bit of difference here: The Prince of Water-elemental Healing can now Kick-Box Bare-Fisted, Muay Thai style if we don't have pre-historic settings (no need to rip-off the original CT). Why? Because Water doesn't need a weapon; when concentrated, it can tear the CRAP out of even a metal armor. The Red-Headed Swordswoman could wield Double-Blades (when "upgraded" later in the game) or Shield (Default), whose primary element is Fire, signifying Passion, Love, Hate, Anger, and Destruction (and this time, it's the DAMSEL that saves the Prince from Distress, not the other way around). Tobias? He'd be the Electric type (and hence the Light-Bulb, which he totally didn't invent).
If we've got a Robo equivalent here, I know precisely the story here: In the future, Vacuum Cleaners have their own intelligence and sentience, but they're just as programmable as a human brain. The "newer models" have a Nazi-esq superiority complex, ending up bullying a previous Prototype model, which goes to the dumpster. That's when Tobias and his invention-stealing trait comes in; somehow, he begins to sympathize with that vacuum cleaner. Somehow, he develops
empathy. He wonders how heartless even humanity can be, despite the Gods they've become, that they barely care for what they create (Read: Endangered species, anyone? Lesser creatures?). I mean,
has no one ever read Lifehacker in the future to realize that even the most out-dated toolsets can be re-engineered into something more efficient than the model via MacGyver-style creativity?
That brings me to Tobias Edison idea. I've always thought of him as some sort of a love-child between Lucca and Magus. In other words, I'd think he'd be the
Big Bad of the Middle-Arc of the story, just as Magus was. When the player comes to the Future, everyone knows that Tobias is a notorious invention-thief, and is probably ripping time apart for his own agenda, which is why the Government wants to support you to bring him down. However, after you beat Magus / Tobias, this is what happens:
Create a Time Rip? Fools! I merely SUMMONED a Time Rip!
...wait, that actually means the same thing, isn't it?
Basically, Tobias did what he did, not because he was evil, but probably had a Hypothetical Sister to save (aka, a Freudian Excuse).
Which reminds me, something I needed to be honest to everyone here:
Tobias Edison is actually an existing character of my Real-Life Fan-Fiction in High Fantasy universe, a short-story I made elsewhere once. The story's protagonist is actually Oli Einstein, who discovers the laws of relativity and goes into a time-travelling adventure, and making companions such as Ivan Newton and Tobias Edison, eventually confronting the
Big Bad by the name Nick Tesla (the REAL Magus of the story). The team then traverses through Tesla's creepy castle, and beat him... only to find out that Tesla wasn't the real villain. The villain was Edison all along, who used Einstein and Newton to steal Tesla's greatest inventions, and create trouble in Time and Space. Einstein, Newton and Tesla must now time-space travel to fix what's broken, by forming an Avengers team through Time, ranging from Archimedes and Da Vinci to the modern DeGrasse Tyson and Kaku. And they go all in a Sciencey adventures across Space-Time.
(Yes, you can guess I was fan-girling all the while writing that silly story) I was hoping to one-day turn that into a full-fledged game. I just don't have the opportunity yet. XD
Where Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest had several iterations and something of a mythology built up, Chrono Trigger had no precursor and thus its architecture was literally an amalgam of what the developers thought would be cool and mesh well.
Speaking of cultural influences....
I think most would agree that CT was inspired by the Linearity of Time Travel that was prevalent at the time the game was made. Basically, the people assumed that, "time is a strict progression of cause to effect", even though it might have been a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff. This assumption is what brought us CT, which only had a linear perspective of Time. However, when Cross was in the making, what inspired the story and gameplay was the Schrödinger’s Cat theory, where changing time doesn't re-write it, but actually "splits" Reality in two (hence the different worlds in CC). Hence, Cross retconned the idea, which indirectly also points that the Ruined Future in CT timeline
isn't actually erased, but still there; rather, Crono and co created a newer, more prosperous reality for themselves.
But these days we have better perception of Time (and Space-Time / Universe) itself, and the most modern and culturally significant ideas
come from String Theory and other latest developments. So I'd say, rather than taking inspiration from CT, we could dig deeper into the source itself, and
String Membranes and such latest stuff would be the best place to start, as it gives us both Time and Dimensions in a simpler format.
I'd encourage everyone here to watch Michio Kaku's documentary series called "Time" -- all four episodes,
starting with Daytime.
The mind of God (aka Universe) may be Cosmic Music, resonating throughout eleven dimensions in hyperspace.
...Which essentially makes Music Composers such as Yasunori Mitsuda equally important for making the CT / CC feel.
Anywho, the reason I suggested Platformer was because -- as I was born in the Third World -- I grew up playing nothing more than NES while everyone in the First World had already moved on to Playstation (and even
then we couldn't even afford a duplicate, Chinese bootlegged NES console with multi-game cartridges, but my parents somehow managed it). Suffice it to say,
games such as Kickmaster and the like would engross me for hours on end. Nintendo and such companies pulled off master-pieces at such times and played dangerously. Despite the limitations of game-design and gameplay, or any good technological advancements in art, they stuck to simpler means of production and
still create compelling games.
Case-point for Kickmaster: Story is simple enough, where the Protagonist's older brother dies in combat, and he's seeking revenge against the Magical Forces that threaten his kingdom with Super Taekwando Kicks that Chuck Norris couldn't have done better. But it wasn't the story that engrossed you, but what
added to the story in the first place -- Atmosphere. We
became the protagonists, and felt his conflict through every stage, so almost every area we passed we were scared to know what was out there, and that itself brought a sense of adventure. Magic was
strange,
mysterious and
scary. Even though not a word was spoken on-screen, somehow
we knew what the story was about, and how it was proceeding, with each boss we encountered. (Not to mention the best soundtracks the game had, especially the Boss stages which scared the crap out of me)
If we are to make a game, then we need to do what Kickmaster, Shadow of the Ninja, and even Contra Force (and heck, even Angry Birds) did it correctly. But we don't have to go the Platformer route. However, there's no doubt that it was the
Platformer idea that actually gave a worldly feeling to those games -- Kickmaster and KAGE (Shadow of the Ninja) portrayed travelling worlds infested by demonic and magical armies, while Contra Force took us to Anti-Terrorism battlefields from Warehouses to Ships to Cities to
On-Top-of-A-Freaking-Aeroplane.
Chrono Trigger and Cross did that correctly too, but only via Bird's Eye perspective with RPG. No matter what platform we use, we just gotta keep the world in mind.
And lastly, as for the gameplay genre, I don't see anything but RPG working for this concept. A side-scroller might work as a game with Chrono characters, but nobody is going to play it and think "man this makes me feel like I felt when I played Chrono Trigger/Cross the first time".
When utunnels
(the GOD of Game Engines and hacks, such as OpenBOR) and I were
working on a Platformer / Beat-em Up version of Radical Dreamers, we had one idea in common: To relive the Chrono experience in a brand-new way, rather than rehashing the same-old. What did RD and CC have in common? They were completely different games, with entirely different means of playing, to the original CT, and still somehow carried the same "feeling of adventure". We took that core concept and put it on Radical Dreamers FZ, and make sure the players would have no choice but to say, "man this makes me feel like I felt when I played Chrono Trigger/Cross/Radical Dreamers the first time", with one difference: RD is now FUNNY, LIGHT-HEARTED and ACTION PACKED as CT was.
The reason the project never got off ground was mainly because lack of artists on our team (mainly Sprite-Artists), hence why I'm pushing for a more 3D game because I know I can do the models, and we'll just need another modeller for Stage / Area assets. In either case, I'm looking forward to recreating the old RDFZ game into an original now (commercially) as I still have the previous project assets, including all the hard-work utunnels did before.
Steampunk is always good!
Heck, Steampunk could be our new Zeal!
