Chroma Quaternion (Nintendo Switch) Review

Setting a world with four distinct seasons provides excellent opportunity to decorate each region in that particular season's colours, and even more exciting are the petals/leaves/snow that continually fall when in the relevant areas. The plot even goes through the regions in order from Spring to Winter. Ark starts off in the spring area initially alone with Foure, until he gets tangled up with the Spring Kingdom's gullible, yet kind princess, Eara. Thankfully her maid Evaile is more astute, although she has an off the charts determination with keeping her ward safe and develops an equally scary obsession with how fluffy Foure is. Accompanied by his distinctly weird-in-a-good way companions is troublesome for Ark, but being with royalty proves to be an advantage most of the time, in terms of being able to get close to other regions' rulers.

It can be sweet how childlike Foure and Eara act around certain puzzles that need solving in dungeons, but when the occasion calls for it, Eara digs deep into soul and acts with fair regal authority that all royals should have. Along their journeying they end up meeting two young girls cared for by their uncle, who have unharnessed powers that influence people. Randomly seeing a singer in concert, the twins decide to become singers themselves, and periodically appear wherever Ara goes. Without giving too much away the twins sometimes help Ara when he gets in a tricky situation, and are sometimes a great hindrance; they become a key element of the story with several shocking revelations.

Travelling to various destinations happens on the world map, with lots of battles in anywhere that is not a settlement. There are both basic attacks and special attacks; storing up energy throughout the longer battles can enable special attack from a deity to be unleashed which is useful when it comes to boss battles, although on the easiest difficulty setting even bosses are not too difficult to defeat without combo chaining. Part of why Chorma Quarternion is so incredible is related to the moves in battle, or more accurately the jobs that the party members hold. Further on in the story each ally can have and equip more than one job which has different styles of attacks and healing moves.

A job has to be equipped to use any moves learnt; but the truly fun part which may just be a cosmetic feature but brings such joy and fun to every single fight is that characters change outfits to suit their current job. Some are cute like Eara's Coney Princess role which has her dressed like a chinchilla, others are stereotypical like Ark's Exorcist Knight role like a traditional knight in armour. Higher difficulties may need specific skills in battle, but on easy mode it is entirely possible to put characters in roles based on whatever costume they look best in. As the characters level up in their roles they learn new skills.

Unlocking jobs requires visiting a shrine maiden, having enough money, and also special orbs. Upgrading an already unlocked job requires the job to be a specific level, so acquiring jobs isn't a fast action, but the reward of discovering a new outfit and its related moves is worth it. A couple of jobs only occur when certain side quests are triggered, with only one playthrough it is not certain if these side quests are able to be missed out. Great thought was clearly put into which jobs were created and why they are necessary for each character. There are some unusual ones that at first glance don't seem as if they should belong with that character, but the story works the need for the job into the story progression in such a clever and often amusing way. Why else would Foure need to transform into a box?

Dungeons follow the standard format for most KEMCO games with invisible walls to pass through and various treasure to find, all with an appropriate theme depending which region they are in. There is paid DLC which multiplies experience, role points, and damage points, but all these are not essential. Every real-world day there is a roulette wheel that can be spun three times to win various items including season stones, a special form of currency needing to craft items in the in-game store that can be accessed from the menu at any time and is unrelated to town stores, or to buy certain items not available to purchase in any other store. However, if only available weapons from treasure chests and shops are wanted to be used, the season stone store can be ignored.

There is a lot to be said for making certain game elements non-compulsory - it allows those who want to focus on the story to play it and not concern themselves in getting too involved in battle mechanics, yet those who want that extra challenge can have it by finding and using the best equipment and figuring out the best battle sequences. Enemies have their weakness displayed in battle allowing for fine-tuning attack types.