I believe that if we talk aboutWhen talking about Japanese role-playing games themed around "time travel," most players would first think ofChrono Trigger, released by SQUARE in 1995—because its influence is truly immense, so large that even if you haven't actually played it, you must have heard somewhere its enthusiastic fans hail it as"one of the greatest video games in history."
Of course, even from today's perspective, such praise is not excessive. Not only because it adopted high production standards rare in the Japanese market at the time, but also because it assembled a dream team that is legendary today, including industry legends like Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama, Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu, and Masato Kato. With the full collaboration of these industry giants, Chrono Trigger reached peak levels in character development, graphics, battle systems, game music, and script structure.
What's most amazing is the game's shaping and connection of different eras and cultures—When the protagonist does something in the past, the future world changes accordingly. The bold and challenging theme of "time travel" is vividly portrayed in the game.
Not long ago,MARVELOUS officially announced its new role-playing game, "Eternal Anima"(ETERNAL ANIMA). Interestingly, this completely originalThis JRPG also uses "time travel" as its story theme. If you dig deeper into its development team, you'll find a name—Development Director Katsuhisa Higuchi.
Players familiar with SQUARE will naturally recognize him—Katsuhisa Higuchi was also one of the developers of Chrono Trigger back then. Besides being a professional programmer, he is the type of developer who likes to deeply participate in system design, even playing a crucial role in designing the game's battle systems at one point, which was quite rare in the industry at that time. In addition to Chrono Trigger, Katsuhisa Higuchi participated inHe designed battle systems for numerous classic JRPGs such as "Final Fantasy" and "Xenogears," making him an indispensable figure in the history of Japanese role-playing games. The battle systems he designs are often meticulous and well-thought-out.
More importantly, from Chrono Trigger to Eternal Anima, this itself constitutes a wonderful relationship of legacy.
Therefore, taking advantage of this new release opportunity, we were fortunate enough to contactOn the MARVELOUS side, we conducted a brief interview with two key figures of this game: Producer Makoto Shiota and Development Director Katsuhisa Higuchi, hoping to gain more useful information from them.
Below is the original text of this interview:
Q: First, could you share the inspiration behind this game's development? Why choose to release such a game today?
Shiota: This all dates back more than five years.
At that time, I wanted to create a new Japanese-style role-playing game, so I prepared a proposal. Mr. Higuchi agreed with this idea, marking the starting point for the development of this game.
At that time, it was during the pandemic. Tokyo was under lockdown, and most people were working remotely. For us, however, this turned out to be a perfect opportunity to calmly organize our planning. Mr. Higuchi has beeninvolved in JRPG production since the 8-bit era, with 40 years of experience, he is a hero in my heart. Therefore, I feel very honored to start this project with him.
Q: When mentioning "time travel" in JRPGs, many players first think of Chrono Trigger due to its significant place in JRPG history. Since this game also involves traveling to the past to change the future, what unique approaches will it take in depicting "time travel" stories?
Shiota:Chrono Trigger is a representative work where Mr. Higuchi served as the main programmer. In Eternal Anima, we hope to depict humanity's"Legacy." As the core theme of this work, "legacy" will not only be reflected in the storyline but also conveyed to players through the game systems.
Q: In this game, to what extent will players' changes to history affect the future? Additionally, what kind of freedom will players have regarding time travel in the game? For example, can we travel freely whenever we want?
Higuchi:In the game, the protagonist's party will travel to a continent in the past that was once destroyed, saving it from the crisis of sinking.
And when you return to the present, you'll be surprised to find that the continent didn't sink but continued to exist. The partners who once fought alongside you now have descendants living on that land, who will become your new companions.
Although the modern era still faces problems unique to this age, time travel itself cannot be repeated or done back and forth. This is partly to avoid contradictions caused by time paradoxes, and partly to allow players to more deeply feelthe spirit of "legacy."
Q: We noticed that the character design in this game is very unique, which may be largely related to the personal style of its designer, Max Berthelot. Why did this game choose him to handle the character design for a pure-blooded JRPG?
Higuchi:The art director,Max Berthelot is a French artist who loves Japanese culture and JRPGs so much that he moved directly to Japan. You can deeply feel this passion in his works—he is an excellent creator. Attracted by his unique brushwork and use of color, I proactively reached out to invite him to collaborate.
Q: From the demo content, this game doesn't seem "lavish" in resource investment, yet the battle experience has considerable depth. How did the team make trade-offs with limited development resources? What content not shown in the demo will the full version bring (such as more eras, countries, or characters)?
Higuchi:Personally, I believe that aWhether a JRPG is fun depends 70-80% on its battle system. Since I myself started as a battle programmer, "predicting future battles" is a part I poured a lot of effort into and value highly.
Therefore, to allow players to intuitively understand the rules while playing, we particularly focused onmaking the UI interface clear and easy to understand. Regarding the worldview, so far, we have only revealed "Ambris," the first continent players visit, but the four continents in the game each have distinctly different features, and the characters encountered there are quite diverse. Please look forward to further announcements.
Q: What impressed me most during the demo was the protagonist Wade's "Mind Reading," which allows players to directly predict enemy actions and even see attack results before acting. How did this mechanism originally come about? And how was it integrated with the timeline system?
Higuchi:Since the storyline incorporates"changing the past," I came up with the idea of adding "changing the future" to battles, which became the design契机 (inspiration). When integrating timeline elements into battle rules, to make the visual effects clearer, we introduced an action timeline, allowing players to clearly see the order of each character's actions and plan subsequent moves based on this.
Q: Unlike traditional command-based RPGs that rely on uncertainty to create tension in battles, this game deliberately avoids uncertainty in combat, allowing enemy actions and results to be predicted. Given that results can be foreseen, how do you balance strategic depth and game difficulty? How will this game let players experience the fun of battle?
Higuchi: The reason for excluding randomness is to allow players to fight entirely based on their own thinking. By removing random elements, victories won't rely on luck, nor will defeats be due to bad fortune. Every battle is the result of one's own choices, giving players a more convincing sense of achievement.
This game offers multiple difficulty levels for players to choose from. On standard difficulty, mob battles can be handled without overthinking, but we have carefully adjusted the balance.Boss battles will be difficult to win without a well-planned strategy. Additionally—rest assured, the game includes a high-difficulty mode that requires deep thought like solving a chess puzzle, as well as a Story Mode for players who just want to purely enjoy the plot.
Q: Like many other titles, this game adopts a BP resource accumulation design. However, unlike many similar games that directly link BP to turn counts, it binds BP to the actions taken by characters. What was the reasoning behind this? Also, which commands help players accumulate BP faster?
Higuchi:The most unique design of the BP system is that BP can be accumulated through "Defense." In most JRPGs on the market, defense is often an unpopular command that players don't actively use. However, in this game, players can know in advance which character is about to be attacked by "predicting the future," making "defense" crucial. Defense not only reduces damage but also accumulates BP, allowing players to be more flexible in tactical arrangements and strategically utilize defense.
Q: Besides the protagonist inheriting predecessors' abilities by picking up weapons in the field, in what other aspects will this game reflect "legacy," an important theme of the Eternal Anima story?
Higuchi:Indeed, the core theme explored in this work is precisely"Legacy."
And the protagonist's special ability,"Mind Reading" is a symbol of legacy: whether it's inheriting the abilities of past heroes or passing down the will and emotions of ancestors to descendants, players can contemplate "what is human wisdom" and "the meaning of passing the torch" at every level of the game.
Q: Finally, does the development team have any message for Chinese players?
Shiota:Since the official announcement of this game, we have received manyenthusiastic feedback from JRPG players in China. Seeing so many like-minded players is truly encouraging and gives us more confidence. We sincerely hope to witness and enjoy the journey of Eternal Anima setting sail together with everyone. Please continue to support and guide us!