“Perfect
Future, Furthest Past”
Developer: Kelikan
Genre: RPG
Platform: RM2K3
Status: Demo
Length: One hour gameplay and dialogue
Best Feature: Graphics
Worst Feature: Sheer inanity
Recommended: No
A lot of things came to mind when I played
“Perfect Future, Furthest Past”. Most of those thoughts
began with “This”, and ended with “Sucks”, with little in
between, save for the occasional “Really” for good measure.
Now, that said, PFFP is an awful work, mostly plagiarized
from Chrono Trigger in manners beyond obscene. Let’s put
on some heavy gloves and take a closer look.
STORY: 1/20
A good solid “1” is appropriate here, as there really is
no story to game. It begins with Flare, whoever that is,
going to rescue his friend Mari from the evil ECHO Corporation.
ECHO imprisoned her for owning a firearm, so I think there’s
supposed to be some implication of injustice or something
like that- I wasn’t really paying attention. The rest of
the game is absent-minded in every sense of the word, as
the game goes from some sort of Chrono Trigger time-traveling
epic to medieval vagrancy as the characters randomly decide
that being in middle ages means that they must break things
at a nearby castle… Or something. The demo ends (blissfully),
while the characters are trying to defile the castle, when
all of the sudden a mysterious woman appears, only to say
“Oh, I must be in a time where we haven’t met” and then
disappears. Honest. It’s that bad!
CHARACTERS: 1/15
Once again, blatant rip-offs of Chrono Trigger characters.
Flare is Chrono, with a queer name and the ability to speak.
Mari is Lucca in every sense, as she’s a scientific genius
who uses firearms and a hammer, and, according to one part
in the game, “knows the lord of underworld”. Truly confusing.
But the inanity did not stop there! That’s right, it gets
worse. How? The next character you meet, and thankfully
the last, is Toad. Not a similar character, but Chrono Trigger’s
Toad. Character set, skills, name, everything. Thankfully,
there are no more characters, save for some sort of villains,
but we never get the chance to even decide if they’re actually
villainous.
POLITICS: 1/10
Per usual, politics are lacking from this game. The stereotypical
“Evil government/corporation/kingdom with sinister motives”
plays the sole role of government in the world.
MUSIC
AND SOUND: 3/10
 Dozens of
tracks we’ve already heard before. Lots of tracks from other
RPGs, especially, fancy that, Chrono Trigger! As though
it weren’t bad enough, it even has the audacity to throw
in a few tracks off the RTP. However, I can’t punish the
game to my full capacity, as the music wasn’t a chore to
listen to; it’s just nothing at all new. Allow me to take
a moment to point out that there are other places on the
internet to get MIDIs than from VG Music.
GRAPHICS: 4/8
This is the games “Best Feature” much in the sense that
insanity is the best feature of syphilis. The graphics are
not atrocious like the rest of the game, and the battle
animations actually do show a bit of work, although once
again, they were stolen from Chrono Trigger. The game also
features a specialized message system, which seems to be
for no other purpose than aesthetics, but it does what it’s
supposed to. While nothing is particularly eye catching,
there’s nothing ugly either, so that’s a start. Too bad
it’s also the end.
SYSTEMS: 2/9
Wow! Another custom menu system that’s required to go through
before accessing the main menu. How woefully inconvenient!
Not only is it annoying, the custom menu also has to be
the most useless one I’ve come across yet- All it does is
access a page telling you what skills you’ve learnt and
what you will learn. I fail to see how that couldn’t simply
be implemented through an item in your inventory. The game
also features a short lock picking mini-annoyance. I would
call it a game, but it’s not. You simply hit “Up” several
times for three tumblers and then you win… if you can call
it winning.
GAMEPLAY:
3/15
You would be hard pressed to find another RM2K game that
cuts your work out for you
more that PFFP, because it is not humanly impossible to
make a mistake or otherwise lose the game. The dungeons
are almost completely linear lines, your enemies do an average
of five damage at most while you cleave them down with one
hit, and even the story holds your hand all the way through…
Namely because it doesn’t stay with one concept long enough
for you to lose track of it. Anyways, there’s nothing remotely
stimulating about the gamplay, it’s just “there” for lack
of a better term. The developer also did nothing with the
battle system. While the game is RM2K3, the battles were
slightly more interesting than RM2K, but proportionally
it was a difference of note.
(SUB-CATEGORY: DIFFICULTY: 1/5
As stated above, the game is so easy that it single-handedly
proves the existence of God and that Flare and his friends
are his chosen warriors against… whatever it is that’s evil.
I honestly can’t recall ever playing a game this simplistically
undemanding. On the plus side, were you ever required to
beat this game for the safe return of a loved one, you could
expect to have your family back in an afternoon.
(SUB-CATEGORY: FUN: 1/5
I do believe it would be safe to say that everyone would
have more fun bronzing their genitals than playing PFFP,
as at least with the prior you walk away with shiny junk,
rather than a forcefully emptied stomach.
OVERALL: 17/97 (18%):
To say that “Perfect Future, Furthest Past” is the worst
game I’ve ever played would be wrong; because that would
mean that it’s a game. In reality, it’s little more than
an insult to our intelligence, as though the clearly devious
Kelikan believes that his writing prowess can cover up his
blatant Chrono Trigger rip-off. But much like everything
else he tried, it fails, and horribly at that.
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