Chrono Trigger (1995)

After a long hiatus, I have gone back to Chrono Trigger and finished it. I'll have to mull over my thoughts on it for a bit before I settle on a review score, but I'll go ahead and share my main takeaway from the game as a whole:

Anyone who calls Chrono Trigger the GOAT and then goes on to make fun of anime -- even once... ... ...is a HYPOCRITE!!! lol

Because this is literally just Anime: The Game, made by a bunch of anime fanatics, as much as 1995 technology could possibly allow for.

Also, it's the only game I know of that rick rolls you, which is an automatic star in my book.

Wow, how has this taken me almost 20 years to try?!

I am loving the music, characters are interesting, story is solid, and the gameplay is good.

If I have one complaint its that the magic and tech system seems relatively basic, but I do like that our access to abilities changes depending who combos with who.

Overall really enjoying this first play through and I hear there are multiple endings?!

I recently started playing this obscure hidden little underrated gem -- the DS version, to be specific. (Pretty sure it's basically the same as the SNES original? But the second screen seems nice for having all the stats and menus in.)

Jokes aside, I always find it interesting to jump into an extremely-beloved classic and see if it hooks me as well as it hooked everyone else back in the day. So far I'm finding it a solid enough romp, but I think I need to put in a lot more hours before I can say much of anything conclusive. One thing I will say though is I'm pretty surprised by just how... cute... this game is? It's very cute, which I wasn't expecting since I've never once heard it called that. It feels like a Saturday morning cartoon (which would've aired right after a Dragon Ball series, I'm sure).

The whole 1000-year kingdom anniversary festival it starts with is a clever and fun little way to set things up for a time travel adventure, and I especially like the payoff later with the court room interrogation, which is apparently affected by some of your actions at the festival. (And how well you can remember certain events that transpired there.)

So, the first 16hrs or so of this game were pretty fun. But now that I've hit the completely wide-open-world part at the end (which is the absolute worst part of any JRPG --- fight me), I was pretty stumped at what exactly I needed to do next.

So, I glanced at a walkthrough for clues, and holy cow are the steps to trigger some of these optional side missions completely obtuse and nonsensical!

"Make sure you have these three specific characters in your party, and have these specific items equipped. Then stand on one foot and bark at the moon. Now go to a specific random spot on the map, and throw your 3DS at your cat IRL. Don't have a cat? You're out of luck. Buy some cat food, and throw your 3DS into the bag.... etc, etc..."

I own both the original SNES cartridge and the playstation version (which comes with FF4), and have finished both. On my first time through the game I experimented with all the characters and by the time of the final battle with Lavos I was using Chrono, Marle and Magus. I did go into new game+ and played around with some of the alternate endings. I did not bother with most and looked them up online.

Some years later I went through the playstation version and decided from the start to use Marle and Frog as my dream team. Hard to remember how many secrets I got the first time but I know I did everything on the playstation. I did not recruit Magus this time and did not go into newgame+.

Chrono is level 52 and outfitted with: rainbow sword, safe helm, nova armor and frenzy band (for frequent counter attacks)

Marle is outfitted with: siren, virgil helm, prism dress and gold stud

Frog is outfitted with: Masamune, haste helm, nova armor and prismspecs

Chrono Trigger is one of my all time favourite games with stellar gameplay, story and characters. It vies with A Link to the Past for all time best SNES game (it is so close that I cannot pick which one is better) and takes the spot of best Squaresoft game, even ahead of every single Final Fantasy.

I typed almost exclusively in old english online from the 90s into the 2000s, mostly due to Frog and Cyan and was often compared to the two. In fact Frog is one of my all time favourite video game characters and his theme song is my personal anthem.

Started it once more, this time I'm in for the trip

The game holds up so well, battles are fast and dynamic. The scenarios are fun, the art is vibrant and the music is stellar. So far so good.

I've only ever heard good things about this game so I'm wondering how it's going to keep getting better. I'm also wondering how the battle system and character progression will evolve.

Using techniques that hit in an area is so cool and feels so natural. Kinda makes me wonder why I didn't find more RPGs that experimented with this.