Seven variations on a genre, a conceptual gambit with parallels in literature - B.S. Johnson's The Unfortunates, or Chris Ware's Building Stories - but executed in a way that feels wholly unique to video games. The narrative is broadly the same each time - an outsider must work with others to overcome an overriding threat - so the game becomes "what is the game?" The worst chapters are where either the gameplay goals are too convoluted to grasp easily (Near Future) or too simple to get much out of (Present Day); the best, conversely, present a straightforward scenario and then skew it with a unique gameplay hook. Pastiche is key to player understanding: it's easy to grasp, for instance, the Wild West's Sergio Leone / Magnificent Seven scenario, but making the player's tendency to explore space for items in an RPG instead mandatory and time-sensitive lends it striking urgency. Imperial China offers what seems to be an appealing reverse on progression, placing you in the shoes of a tutor who lends his three disciples EXP by fighting them, only to pull the rug out with the sudden consequences of favouring a certain party member. And Prehistoric, hilariously, does away with dialogue altogether, relying entirely on animations and cutscene blocking to impart information. The best of the bunch is the Distant Future chapter, which removes combat and instead presents a survival horror scenario where "progression" is almost abstracted, dependent again on exploring space - a beautifully designed spaceship - and then complicating the player's relationship to the space with the sudden introduction of an external threat, similar to Alien: Isolation. The last two chapters are a slog, as the narrative novelty becomes exhausted and the focus goes back to combat - but this excellent remaster reveals an ambitious and exciting game that is well ahead of its time, and perhaps more deserving of the reputation that its successor, Chrono Trigger, has since cultivated.