See, when we get a port of something like Chrono Trigger to the DS, and we don't see much in the way of changes to gameplay or story outside of a translation clean-up, that works for me, because the game is literally an old game, something created before now that certainly has some aspects that feel dated, but at the same time the game was innovative and exciting for the time period it was created in. It was a landmark title for its time, not just some run of the mill RPG released in the 90's (and there were plenty of those!). Black Sigil, on the other hand, is a game that's been in production for a few years, is seeing it's first release now, in 2009, and while it does a great job of looking and feeling like a 16 bit RPG, it's also not that fun to play, like a lot of 16 bit RPG's nowadays.

If I'm not mistaken, the developers have said they were looking at Square's Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger titles as inspiration, but everything I see in the game seems to come from the Chrono Trigger realm, outside of the random battle encounters. They've said they didn't take pre-existing sprites, and a few quick comparisons can confirm this, but at the same time they hew really, REALLY close to the material they're trying to emulate. Certain animations, walking styles, and battle mechanics are identical to Chrono Trigger, right down to abilities that combine magic from two characters and takes away from both of their MP pools. So yeah, you can definitely see the Chrono Trigger influence here.

Part of the reason the game doesn't work so well is due to the story. The idea is that the main character lives in a kingdom populated by magic users, to the point where someone that doesn't use magic is looked upon with suspicion, mostly due to a deadly war that broke out by a bad guy who wasn't a magic user and so on. Of course, your character can't use magic either, and you're tied into those previous events somehow. Your adopted father wants to bring the magic out of you, and through a series of quests he tries to do this, before realizing that you need to be banished to keep the fear of the people at bay. You're joined by your outgoing and rebellious adopted sister, and the story kicks off by tossing you into what would appear to be an alternate dimension or world of some kind where the opposite is held true about magic users. It's certainly not the most unique sounding RPG plot, but then again most JRPG's do tend to follow a certain set of rules and story similarities. The problem lies with the dialogue, characters, and overall pacing of the game, which is slow and very tedious at first, and doesn't seem to pick up the more and more you get into it.

The main character isn't a silent protagonist, and is surprisingly upbeat considering how bad his overall situation seems to be, which is certainly refreshing from the emokids we get slammed with in most RPG's nowadays. However, his undying optimism doesn't have much of a basis to it, like when his father sends him on a quest that was obviously designed to kill him, he decides that his adopted father was just trying to bring the magic out of him. It's not that the boy is a little slow more so than he's really that positive in his overall outlook, but since the history of kid is revealed so slowly, it's hard to figure out why he'd be that optimistic in the first place, and it ends up making him look pretty simple. To be honest, his sister is a far more interesting character, but she comes and goes for a bit in the first few hours of the game, and I'm not sure a lot of players are going to be willing to stick through it for that long to start seeing some of the more interesting party members pop-up.

Also, the sheer amount of random battles you get into are going to put just about anyone off, especially as you start to get into the caves and dungeons, which are somewhat confusing to navigate your first time through. I didn't find them completely perplexing, but I hate the idea of missing chests and hidden items, and I was constantly weighing my need to find things against how many damn fights I was going to be forced into fighting. Every 8 to 10 steps seemed to result in an encounter, and this is even worse when you're at the overworld map and you can't speed up your character's walking at all. Most of the fights aren't particularly hard, and the combat ends up being the same scenario over and over again for each area you'll visit, with about three or four enemy variations and beginning battle set-ups to experience. You'll get all of them out of the way after a couple fights, and going against the same set of enemies over and over again, every 20 or so seconds is enough to grate on anyone's nerves, whether you love the whole old-school aspect of it or not.

Boss battles are definitely better, and certain fights will require a bit of strategy and proper use of abilities, along with the ability to actually move your character on the battlefield in place of using a turn to fight or heal. The movement thing could have been far more interesting and useful than what was implemented, but at least it's something new that does come into play here and there. Of course, certain fights will require you to move because you're blocking in a character at the outset of a fight. Early on once you get to the new world you'll come across a random encounter fight that has Kairu at the top between two pillars, and Aurora right in front of him. The problem is that Kairu is a close range fighter, and you have to move Aurora every single time to allow Kairu the ability to attack, taking up your first turn with Aurora. It's a dumb placement for basic fights, and annoying to have to fix every time you get into a fight with that set-up. I could see that popping up in a surprise or back attack scenario, but for a basic fight it seemed like the game was arbitrarily punishing me for something.

Everything else works ok though, the menu screen isn't confusing, you can easily see what equipment upgrades bought at shops will work for certain characters and what stats they'll improve, you can save anywhere on the overworld and at certain spots in dungeons, along with locations that will instantly heal your characters before most boss fights. The game seems a little difficult at first, mostly because experience and gold gains are slow coming after every fight, but most encounters won't cause you a lot of damage. The only difficulty comes from the sheer number of fights you'll participate in before being allowed a save or rest, so you'll always need to keep a number of healing supplies in your inventory.

So graphically the game looks fine, and definitely in tune with the time period it's trying to emulate, and even the soundtrack is decent, with a few memorable tracks tossed in, but nothing that's on par with the best of Chrono Trigger or FFIV-VI. It's the gameplay that keeps things a chore, and the problems almost entirely stem from the encounter rate and the dungeon design. If you're not opposed to punishing RPG's, then I suppose you'll get by my issues with Black Sigil without much of a problem, but I can't spend the time or willpower with a game that gives me such little advancement every time I sit down to play it, especially on a handheld console. I don't feel like it's portable friendly, and while I'd give Chrono Trigger a pass on that because it's a port, Black Sigil has always been in development as a handheld game of some kind, but the end result doesn't feel like it. If you're itching to give it a try, certainly rent before you buy if possible, because I can't see the game appealing to a large audience, and it certainly isn't on the same level as the games it tries so hard to emulate.

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