At Unite 2017 Tokyo, a special panel was held about how the Unity-based I Am Setsuna was brought to Switch. The talk was highlighted by the appearance of Usuke Kumagai from Tokyo RPG Factory. Yuichiro Kitao and Tomoyuki Kurino from Gem Drops were present as well. Gem Drops was involved with programming, graphics and planning support, and the localized version for the Switch version of I Am Setsuna.

To begin, the team heard that Nintendo’s new hardware – known as NX at the time – supported Unity. In order to accumulate know-how on methods of the hardware, the process began of porting I Am Setsuna to Switch.

It was planned early on to release I Am Setsuna within a month from Switch’s hardware launch. By Fall 2016, Unity’s optimization progressed. Error messages that previously appeared with I Am Setsuna began to be resolved. Then by the end of fall last year, the team was finished with pre-submission to Nintendo. It seems I Am Setuna was the first title to enter this process.

The timeline continues with early winter towards the end of last year. A meeting with Unity was suddenly held, and it was decided that I Am Setsuna would end up becoming a title aimed for Switch’s launch. Nintendo asked for the developers to finish the master version that year if possible.

One slide touched on why the team was able to successfully release I Am Setsuna for Switch’s launch:

– Unity was used

– It was already a multiplatform title (worked on Steam version after PlayStation versions)

– There were no online or versus features

– The title was not requiring high workload (stress / load on the hardware)

– Made good use of a forum from the Nintendo Developer Portal

And finally, one other slide regarding the difficulty of porting existing projects to Switch:

– Need to match the characteristics of the hardware

– Have to get a good grasp on the specs (develop it while paying attention to where the frame rate changes)

– Setting various aspects such as the app’s icon, languages, etc. are said to be very simple

– Good compatibility for titles that have or planned to have multi-platform support on home and portable consoles

I Am Setsuna successfully made it to Switch for launch back in March. The RPG added a free Temporal Battle Arena update last month, allowing you to take on other players’ parties.

Source

I really wanted to like this game... but the combat mechanics wherent explained well, the paceing faultered abit near end (too easy, to suddenly hard), then you grind it out, and game boss is too easy.

Story didnt feel like it was finished either, it just abrubtly finished. Also either ending doesnt really do much.
They where aiming to make a Chrono Trigger like game, but it just doesnt reach the height of it.

"The RPG added a free Temporal Battle Arena update last month, allowing you to take on other players’ parties."
Hmm... intresting. But dont plan on replaying it anytime soon.

I still have to finish it. It just stopped being fun near the end. Maybe it would've been more enjoyable with a less complicated and convoluted ability system.

3/4ths of the game your like "okay, I can see where this is going".

the last 4th, your like.... why didnt it ever go anywhere? why was there a paceing change, and such a quick conclusion?

You get the coolest character in the game, just before the last boss... and your like.. why? its a rushed ending, and the writeing wasnt great.

The combat mechanices feel like you never get enough time to fiddle enough with it. And if you grinded more, it would be endlessly easy (it already was for most of the game).

It just missed on alot of small things, abit off... so it doesnt ever really get close to being what Chrono trigger/cross was.

The Euro version's localization was complete bullshit. They left lots of leftover Japanese shit. Very sloppy.

@JRPGfan

I'm in the same boat. I have it on PS4, I'm right near the end and I have no desire to finish it. I liked the idea behind the game, but the game itself seemed to be going through the motions. The game was never really that fun. I was hoping it would grab me at some point but it just seemed like a chore.

This game was so short and easy. Everything dies in 1 hit with the same move and the story isnt even good. One of a few games i regret buying at full price.

It looks fun so I may get this game when I get a Switch

Its kinda short... you ll have finished it within a weekend, and probably wont ever feel like replaying it.

Id just get it whereever its cheapest tbh.

Also Id recammend you get something like "Legend of Heroes : Trails in the sky"  game 1,2,3 instead (around 50 euro total).