ANOTHER EDEN

The first time I surfed through Another Eden’s pastel landscapes, I felt like I’d fallen into a secret sequel to Chrono Trigger, the kind Square Enix would deny exists while quietly handing Masato Kato a pen and nodding furiously. It’s a full-fledged solo JRPG with time travel, high-stakes drama, and frogs in armor. So yeah: Chrono Trigger, again. But on your phone. And with a cat.

This mobile-to-PC transplant boasts a story penned by Chrono’s own Kato and a sweeping score courtesy of Xenogears composer Yasunori Mitsuda. That creative pedigree carries the experience surprisingly far. It has layers, past, present, and future, and jumps between them with style. You’ll start in a sleepy village, chase a kidnapped sister across centuries, and gradually stitch together a plot about fate, time, and what it means to change both. It’s like if you jammed Final Fantasy VI into a Nintendo DS cartridge, then left it to ferment inside a smartphone.

Combat is turn-based and surprisingly tactical: you swap characters between the front and back row mid-fight, like you’re running a fantasy deli counter. It’s a neat idea, even if the skill trees feel more like skill sidewalks, linear, narrow, and padded with extra clicks. The battles move briskly, but they rarely evolve beyond their early mechanics. The deeper I got, the more I wished the combat aged up with the story.

Now, about that gacha. Another Eden is one, technically, but it wears that fact like a disguise it forgot it was still wearing. Characters can be pulled at random, but the system is relaxed, and the game throws enough free heroes at you to keep a solid roster without spending a dime. Still, it’s frustratingly coy about its monetization. Just tell us you sell random anime sword teens and move on.

Even with its baggage, Another Eden succeeds at moments of sincere wonder. The sprite art sings. The music soars. And every once in a while, it actually feels like you’ve uncovered a lost SNES gem that someone hid in your phone.

It’s not timeless, but it sure is time-consuming. And sometimes, that’s enough.