Most slots can accept either one of the two, but certain slots only support a single type, so careful management of characters and their Techs is vital. As characters level up and new accessories are equipped on them, slots will open up allowing them to equip one of two types of Techs: Command Techs, which are basically any command used in battle outside of standard attacks or item usage, and Support Techs, which apply passive buffs to a character. New techniques are acquired via the use of Spritnite, which is almost identical to the Materia system. It sounds like a small tweak, but in practice, it saw me being increasingly mindful of SP above all else in most encounters, as smart usage of it can really turn the tide of any fight. Some skills might get a simple attack buff, while others might heal party members, or increase the duration of a buff, or even fill up the ATB gauge allowing a character to act again almost instantly. If a party member has SP, they will flash at the start of their attack animation, hitting a button at the right time allows one point of SP to be consumed and augment their move. In addition to the ATB system, as time passes, characters will build up SP. That all said, despite how well 'Trigger' has aged, 'Setsuna' isn't content to just copy a template and leave it at that, so it places its own small tweaks that dramatically change up the flow of combat. Everything, from the combat system that adds a position-based twist to standard ATB fights, to the combo techniques that allows party members to use two different attacks at the same time to form entirely unique skills, to the way encounters take place entirely at set points in each dungeon, feels directly like a mechanic from that game. For all intents and purposes, in terms of gameplay, this is the truest sequel we've ever gotten to that renowned classic. To put it bluntly, if you love 'Chrono Trigger', you should absolutely buy this game. This is by no means a revolutionary game, but it's possibly one of the most charming little RPGs I've played in a long while, and I can't help but adore it all. What 'Shadow Complex' was to 'Super Metroid' when it released, 'Setsuna' is to 'Chrono Trigger', the kind of game that asks why we don't get more games like that these days and sets out to just make its own interpretation of those ideas. Instead, what we have here is a very quietly lovely game, the kind of thing that rises above feeling like cynical cashgrab reliant on nostalgia, but a sweet, understated game built with a genuine reverence for its forebears. For all the pomp and circumstance surrounding 'I Am Setsuna', all the talk of how it's bringing back the "glory days of JRPGs", the final product isn't reflective of that level of pretense in the slightest, and that's entirely a positive.
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