I Am Setsuna

After brushing up on my RPG experiences from Final Fantasy XV and successfully beating it without cringing enough to quit on a Square Enix game, I decided to tackle even more RPGs. The closest one I could think of, was the one that was closely advertised along with Final Fantasy XV, I Am Setsuna. There are a lot of indie RPGs created with RPG Maker nowadays. Most of them use rehashed combat and upgrade systems used in 90s RPGs. I Am Setsuna used the exact combat system from Chrono Trigger. It might spark nostalgia within me, but I only played Chrono Trigger a year ago, so I was happy to explore that system again.

I Am Setsuna starts us off with a very melancholic, gloomy and empty feeling into the depths of a perpetual winter setting where our silent mercenary of a main character ventures forth into an island with one mission: To kill a certain someone without questioning his mission. I was caught off guard by the premise of I am Setsuna way more than I imagined. I had played other indie RPGs beforehand and have given up an hour into most of them, but not this game. I was drawn into it and got curious by what it could offer. I loved the presentation and was perplexed by my initial assumption of it being a colorful and happy experience. On the surface with its advertising and screenshots, it might look like that but in its depth, it is quite bland in every shape and form. I still give the developers credit for making a worthwhile experience.

Given that the game takes place practically in an ice age, most of the environments are white and bland. Indoor dungeons are all icy, dark and gloomy. I believe that is intentional and matches the mood of the story and the game's feel. Your main character embarks on a journey to kill someone. When he finally meets that someone, he finds out she comes from a religious group that must go on a pilgrimage to a place called The Last Lands, only to be offered as a sacrifice. Surely the setup is not original, but I was glad it was not predictable at least for me. You can imagine how being in the main character's shoes, you are stuck in a moral dilemma and if you were to have a choice in the matter you'd experiment. Not here, though. Dialogue choices are merely trivial, offering an opinion on the matter at hand and only changes a few lines of dialogue. There are no forks in the story and the ending is the same, as far as I am aware (I have not beaten the game yet). They worked well on the characters for a simple and short RPG. I can tell this is not a grand game to take over 50 hours, but its beautiful in its own way and I enjoy its aesthetics and it makes it stand out as much as I recall Child of Light was.

If you've played Chrono Trigger before, you'd be more than happy and familiar to get yourself in the realm of I am Setsuna. The combat might be a bit different with its momentum system, where each character has an SP bar (circle next to HP and MP) where it fills up if the character attacks or receives damage or even some time passes if the ATB gauge is left untouched. Shortly after, you have to time your action button correctly to enter momentum mode, where it adds special bonuses to either your attacks or defenses. Your cure could heal status ailments in momentum mode for example and your attacks could cause status effects. Your slow spell will cast haste on yourself and so on. Anyone who is familiar with Final Fantasy and Square Enix RPGs will most likely enjoy this game's combat.

 We move on to the tech system that is as much as snatched from Chrono Trigger where you can perform combos with other characters if they match the hidden combo list as you can see X-Strike on the previous image. The pacing in combat is fast but at times I felt my characters were too overpowered that as soon as I entered a fight, it ended already. They also used an upgrade system similar to the materia system, where you could have action commands attached on your equipment or support commands or even passive skills. I believe what made me somewhat bored of the game are surprisingly the enemy on the field simply because when you approach them from behind, you get your SP bar filled by one point along with your ATB gauge to full, and thats more than enough to obliterate 6 enemies using an AoE attack. That makes me believe that I really only enjoyed boss fights more because it is when I was able to use my mind and have strategies to kill them. Then again, they don' have much strategies other than them having high HP or defense.

There is a balance when I look at I Am Setsuna in its aesthetics and gameplay. Its elements are all recognizable and wonderful to experience and invest myself in them. However, its sad to say it might just be easily forgettable in a while. The soundtrack, as beautiful as it is and as dreamy a lot of tracks are, are not very memorable outside of the game itself. Dungeons are very straightforward, and there are no optional areas in the world map. However, when you go through your entire playthrough, you will have the same experience you went through in Chrono Trigger, where you can see locked chests in all towns/dungeons that will most likely be unlocked after you beat the game once. Frankly, I don't believe it is worth it and if I didn't do it in Chrono Trigger, I wont do it here. The game did a great job of capturing its intended feel but there are some design flaws in it that I cant ignore both in combat and writing. It is still a great RPG to look at and ultimately I can describe it as a successful project. I Am Setsuna is available on the PS4 and Steam. I've been Ahmed Jadaa, and see you on my next review.