Chrono Trigger (1995)

I started playing after listening to a Retronauts podcast about Final Fantasy and getting a desire to play something like those- and the first third of this was exactly what I wanted. The second third was fine but then it dragged on and on and I almost didn't finish. Probably I shouldn't have played the mobile version but I had a copy of that available already.

The boss fights that are just the right challenge were the best, where the right tactics can be discovered mid-fight after the party takes some serious damage but isn't wiped out immediately.

Prior to having the internet, I spent untold hours, replaying -every- possible ending over and over and over again, determined that somewhere, in some time, I could find Schala.

And then Chrono Cross came out. Fucking mystery solved.

Still, this is the apex of 16-bit JRPGs. There's zero excess in this game—it's exceptional in pretty much every way a game could be at that time, and hold up so well even today.

As with Chrono Cross, my capsule thoughts here are based on a podcast about Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. Link for the CT discussion at the end.

Still yearly appointment playing, Chrono Trigger holds up almost as well now as it did when my local Blockbuster -finally- had a copy available for me to rent.

CT's legacy may not be very potent in terms of what it changed for RPGs overall, but it holds up as an example of doing basic things extremely well. Combat requires spatial awareness for skills that have varying ranges and effects. That ties into the central idea of time always moving forward whether it's in the battles or in wonderfully subtle ways communicated at the Millennial Fair.

What's fascinating about CT's translation is how pessimistic (and, for my money, thematically appropriate) the original SNES' translation is. Azala goes from saying we have no future to begging Ayla to take care of the planet before his species says goodbye. This goes to show the execution of CT, its gradual escalation of deity-like powers combined with tragic complex characters like Magus or Robo fits my generation as well as the next.

Shame about the terrible Steam port, but word around the block is that's improving so people can experience the streamlined excellence for the first time.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/15443103

Chrono Trigger is an experience unlike any other JRPG. It’s hard to pin it down in a few words why though. But to attempt to sum it up, every single facet of the game is simple and easy to understand but there’s layers of depth and quality beneath that surface of simplicity.

Chrono Trigger stars a young silent protagonist named Chrono. The game starts the player hanging out at a fair where you meet a girl your age named Marle and you tour the fair until your pal Lucca’s time machine accidentally sends your new friend back in time! By starting the player out trying to rescue a friend from sudden danger it gives the player urgency and motivation to begin an adventure. Its once you travel into different times that you learn that Lavos destroys the world in the future and you and your party decide that only you can save the world from Lavos. The premise is simple enough, and does a good job of maintaining a strong focus throughout. Anytime the characters make decisions or travel to a new time period it has a clear link back to defeating Lavos. You don’t travel back in time to recruit a new party member, you travel because you know that’s when Lavos arrived on earth and you just happen to bump into a party member along the way. This focus keeps the plot concise and to the point giving the player a clear goal, something to motivate us and drive us. The story keeps you excited with twists and turns, betrayals and loss, all without becoming bloated or confused. Along the way the story makes it clear that there are consequences for the actions of that player. Help the lady kill a monster and plant some seeds in 300 A.D. and in 1000 A.D. there will be a fullblown forest. Steal that old man’s food, and when on trial your character may be brought into question. The game may be for the most part light-hearted, but between player choice and some particularly emotionally charged scenes, isn’t afraid to touch on some more intense themes and ideas. These consequences play throughout the game as the player travels to the future, the cretaceous, the ice age, as well as your standard fantasy setting. Oh and also GIANT FLYING SKY ISLANDS! Each of these locations comes with not only characters unique to the time period, but enemies as well. Robots in the future, dinosaurs in the past, magic enhanced warriors during the magical renaissance, no enemy feels out of place or strange.

Keeping in line with simplicity, our characters are a mute protagonist, an inventor, a princess, a frog, a robot, and a cave-woman. These characters are easy to get behind and understand at first, but as we journey along with them each becomes fleshed out and interesting. Frog’s tragic past, Lucca’s guilt and drive to invent, Ayla’s convictions, and Robo’s struggle for identity and purpose all are explored as we progress, without ever moving us too far from Lavos. The side characters and NPCs can also come with a surprising amount of depth and intrigue. Is Magus just the Fiend Lord bent on destruction or is there more? Most fiends look on humans with scorn, but a few will acknowledge their compatriots prejudices and grow past them. Whether it’s a chef and his commander brother, a greedy father and his broken family, nearly every NPC feels like a person not just an information dispensary, making the world feel very lived in and encouraging the player to talk to everyone. These characters are easy to understand and relate to but interesting to explore, and no one comes out the same as they went in. Another key factor in making the party characters mean something to the player is their usefulness in combat. Most JRPGs have a few set parties that work, with little party deviation available and there are almost always one or two useless characters. But due to Chrono Trigger’s excellent balancing, level up system, and dual techs, nearly every party combination is a different, viable, and most important of all fun combat option. You want to make a girl power party? Go for it. Maybe you want the nonhumans to hang out, or to make a Chrono love triangle. All these combinations play vastly differently, have their own strengths and weaknesses and work in combat. This encourages the player to use different characters and experiment and makes them attached to the characters, not only through story dialog, but because of their usefulness in gameplay. Its actually a challenge picking a party as you hate leaving any of these super great characters out. But the game even further facilitates the characters.

See as you approach the end of the story in most JRPGs a few side quests pop up to collect rare items or fight giant bosses, but they have no weight to the story or relevance to the characters. Chrono Trigger’s side quests not only provide with you exp and some sweet items but also impact the characters. Yes you are collecting the rainbow shard, but along the way Marle repairs her relationship with her father. Clearing out the Proto Dome in the future will net you a tough boss fight and some cool gear and will also force Robo to confront his family and deal with his free will. The side quests mean something, and contain some of the most emotional moments of the game. These are still optional of course, but instead of feeling like something you need to do to get that 100%, it becomes something you want to do to better understand and experience the story and the characters in it. Of course you wouldn’t care about the side quests if gameplay wasn’t fun. Fortunately Chrono Trigger takes a simple twist on turn-based combat that makes it a much more exciting endeavor. It takes time before you and enemy characters can make movements so you don’t have all day to contemplate movement which gives combat a sense of urgency. On top of this instead of stationary units, enemy units and characters will move around on the screen during combat. This allows both players and enemies to utilize abilities or techs that target certain areas. Some techs will target enemies in a line or in an aoe around certain characters. This coupled with the dual techs (which I’ll gush on later) means that strategy is simple to understand but can be used inventively. And the bosses force the player to use this system to the fullest. Oh hey this boss’ hands are horizontal to his body maybe an attack that hits in a line could be helpful. And the best way to take advantage of unit layout is with Dual and Triple Techs. As characters level up each character gains unique abilities called Techs. Once your movement meter fills up you can Attack, use an Item or use one of these solo Techs. However, certain moves can be combined with other characters to form more devastating or unique attacks, and if you wait for their movement meter to fill up you can combine your moves to great effect. Every character in the game has visually and mechanically different techs with every other character in the game further encouraging experimentation and party mix up. Some party combinations and techs are better suited for certain bosses, but most characters have enough variety to where the player isn’t forced to use certain party combinations, but is instead encouraged via gameplay to explore as they see fit. The game also does an excellent job of making the bosses challenging and unique, but teaching you their mechanics. Say you attack the big Robot while its orbitars are still alive, and he hits back with a huge counterattack. It does enough damage to discourage you but not enough to one shot you, leading the player to try attacking the orbitars instead.

The game has little to no grinding, and backtracking is very minimal and always feels fluid from a story perspective, not like a way to pad gameplay time, which is made clearer by the fact that Chrono Trigger is one of the shortest JRPGs at about 20ish hours depending on your play style. The game expertly paces enemies and exp so that as you reach each boss fight you are equipped enough to be challenged by the boss, but as long as you strategize a bit you can win. The time travel mechanic is also done simply but as mentioned above, has consequences on the world around you. Before Undertale, before Mass Effect, the world of Chrono Trigger shaped itself based on the player’s actions. There are special chests you can find that if you open them in the year 300 it will be empty in the year 1000. But say instead you go to 1000 and open it first then you can go back to 300 and get two copies of the item. It doesn’t overclutter itself with crafting systems or a complex upgrade system so that an 8-year old can play it but adults can craft their own experience. And even as you beat the final boss and the credits roll the game isn’t over. Chrono Trigger has about a dozen dramatically different endings, and depending on actions you take can result in any one of them. The game also makes it incredibly easy for you to access these endings by giving you New Game+, where you start the game over, but with the experience and items from your previous playthrough. This gives the game an almost unprecedented amount of replayablility.

Most JRPGs also give the player these little minigames that they can choose to do, but that don’t really mean anything but can be a nice distraction. Chrono Trigger’s minigames play into the story and are useful to the player even later in the game then when they are introduced.

The sprites are impressively detailed and have aged surprisingly well thanks in large part to the visual design. Akira Toriyama’s style and character design gives the game a unique look and gels impressively even as the characters travel to different times. Environments not only look good, but since enemies are visible on the overworld there is no awkward transition into random battles. This connects the environments and the enemies in them, giving the player a greater sense of traversing an actual world rather than a plain where monsters hide in pocket dimensions. Characters lack the edge or ridiculous over-design usually associated with JRPGs and instead are simpler focusing more on staying power than simply being eye-catching. No ridiculous weaponry or outfits with 3000 belt buckles, the designs maintain consistency with the time period and remain iconic without becoming a joke. And the battle effects are detailed and feel incredibly powerful and fun to look at and use. But from an art aspect the game is ONLY stellar. The music on the other hand, is god-tier. There are hours of unique tracks, each crafted so beautifully, it’s something you need to hear to truly understand. Yearnings of the Wind is my favorite, an eerie lilting tune that plays when you first travel back in time. It instills a sense of mystery in the unknown to go with the players intrigue. And the music continues to do this throughout with intense battle themes, sweeping overworld anthems, and somber melodies for the stories more poignant moments.

It’s like I said at the beginning every part of the game contributes to a simple overall product with mountains of quality and fun. Chrono Trigger may be old enough to drink but has only aged like a fine wine. Like nothing that came before it and there has been nothing quite like it since (even its own mediocre sequel) Chrono Trigger is undeniably the best game of 1995 and arguably the greatest game ever made. Please if you can the game is available on the SNES, PS3, Wii, mobile devices, emulators, and the DS. I recommend a console version if you can as the mobile controls are a bit jank, but the experience is still there. And Chrono Trigger is an experience you do not want to miss.

I liked the battle system, using MP for combos with your party. I also like the lack of random battles! So nice. Not a fan of ATB system, though never have been. I like traditional turn based systems better.

Regarding story—there’s some fun writing in the characters, though I’m 1/3 through and I can’t say the story has me hooked. There’s some really poor/lack of signposting for what to do next, and I’m constantly having to check guides, which isn’t a great sign imo. Though, that is an issue with JRPGs from that era in general.

Altogether, not a lot of insentive for me to keep going.

“‘Artistic value’ or ‘quality’ in a work of art is not merely a matter of personal opinion but to a high degree a matter of common agreement among artistically sensitive and trained observers and to a high degree objectively traceable.” -Jakob Rosenberg

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Exaggeration is an indulgence of the internet age.

No one could incriminate today’s pundits, pulpits, and politicians with understatement, and that bleeds down from the speeches, the journalism and the entertainment that we digest to the content we create to the little things we say to one another in passing conversation to even the minutiae of so-called “social” media in tweets and comments. Yes, this exists even in the gaming community. That’s why we hear so often the favored phrase: “[game title here] is the greatest game of all time!”

What does this actually mean, “greatest game of all time”? Of course, we as human beings with our complex social behaviors and idioms can’t actually mean that the game we’re talking about is literally the best, the most perfect, technically, emotionally, mechanically, visually, objectively perfect game in existence out of all the other games which have been produced. Can we? Faced with that kind of black and white absolutism, the intimidation of the claim to perfection, a lot of us would probably back away from such a statement and recant. Many of us might, in a dismissive panic, believe it’s not even possible for a video game (or any piece of entertainment or art) to be factually perfect.

I won’t say “Well then why do we use the phrase ‘greatest of all time’” because we speak in these exaggerations frequently. It’s not hard to see how stretching the truth a little and overstating our case can earn us greater social status (if the stretch is believable or if we’re trying to be witty) and inflate the importance of our opinions. A little luscious adjective goes a long way. It’s not that we’re being intentionally insincere. It’s just how our modern communication works and our strong feelings on subjects slips us easily into the mode of hyperbole, though no matter how many times we use the word “literally” to describe our vexations to death, it is ultimately embellishment. Lump this together with figures of speech, sarcasm, irony, metaphor, referential jokes, purple prose, outright deception and it’s no wonder we hardly understand each other in any literal sense.

Full disclosure, I recognize I’m bad at this. I speak in hyperbolic statements because I have strong opinions and feelings about nearly everything. I’ve been criticized (hopefully lovingly) by friends for disliking too many things, but the things I do like I’ll guard like a dragon hoarding its dwarven gold. Because of this, I’ve been forced to make the attempt to develop reasoning and arguing skills as best I can so to be able to “win” as many conversations as possible. It is, I admit, inherently selfish and often petty. I’ve verbally brutalized my way through many a discussion but I am, contrary to popular belief, only human. Less an excuse than a diagnosis. In all seriousness, it’s something I’m attempting to work on: both being kinder in conversation and drawing less from the bottomless pit of hyperbole.

If this hyperbole accounts for all of our most grandiose statements, then this article is already over, if indeed there cannot truly be an objectively greatest game of all time (GOAT), if we only make those claims about “favorites” we have strong feelings for. However, for those brave (or naive) souls who continue to stick to their guns claiming that there can be a GOAT, somewhere out there in the vast history of gaming that’s still being written, then there comes a hurdle. Two of them, actually.

Two problems present themselves like gauntlets which must be thrown down, and they are hype and nostalgia.

Click here for the full review... https://thewellredmage.com/2017/11/17/chrono-trigger/

People have been waxing poetic about this game on the internet since the days of dial-up, so I’ll get right to the point: Chrono Trigger is an all-around great RPG that combines the best of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.

Most RPGs that I’ve played and loved have been a mixed bag of components (story, battle system, world design, etc) in which a few of these elements have been the amazing shining stars that make the game great, while the other parts just get the job done in the background. For example, the Witcher games have a really engaging plot and setting with fairly mediocre combat distributed throughout. What makes playing Chrono Trigger such a fascinating experience is that while no one aspect of it is mind-blowing, every component of it is high-quality and comes together to form an exceptionally well-rounded package.

From a gameplay standpoint, there are a couple of welcome upgrades compared to other SNES RPGs. First and foremost is the use of on-screen enemies rather than random encounters. It is really nice to be able to clear a room completely of enemies and then be able to explore it uninterrupted. The fact that these battles happen on the main game screen rather than a separate battle screen helps make the transition between exploration and combat much more fluid. As for the battle system itself, I was initially somewhat underwhelmed by it, but over the course of the game it expanded in interesting ways and I ultimately came to really appreciate it. The “Tech” system makes party composition very important since each character's abilities interact with others differently. This had the effect of making a given set of three characters really feel like an interdependent team rather than just three individuals performing their own specialized jobs. The use of elemental weaknesses also had a little bit more depth than the traditional “use the water spell against the fire boss” trope, which was definitely appreciated. I was also glad to see that the difficulty curve remained fairly smooth and consistent throughout the entire game. Generally, every time I hit a wall with a boss, the solution was to revise my strategy rather than just grind: this is a sign of a well-balanced game. Outside of combat, progressing through the game is a fairly linear affair, but that’s perfectly fine as it helps maintain the pacing of the game. The only gameplay element that wasn’t particularly strong was the mini-games. The challenges that involved racing, timing, or precise character movement were often unwelcome obstacles to proceeding through the game that didn’t play all that well, especially on a touch-screen, and even with a proper controller weren’t particularly fun. Thankfully these sequences are few and far between.

In addition to the gameplay, Chrono Trigger is also well-rounded artistically. As I mentioned in my preview, the graphics and music are a great display of the SNES's technical capabilities and continued to impress for the entire duration of the game. The overall plot of Chrono Trigger is fairly straight-forward by modern game standards, but I'm sure it would have really stood out back in the 16-bit era. Narratively, where Chrono Trigger really succeeds is in the individual character moments. The combination of distinct character animations and strong writing during character interactions and backstory scenes really does a lot to give personality to each member of the party. In my experience, the best RPGs and fantasy/sci-fi stories make the party of characters feel like a quirky slightly dysfunction family, and Chrono Trigger absolutely nails that feeling. However, sometimes this presented a dilemma for me as only characters that are active party members get to speak during most cutscenes. Thus I was often torn between selecting party members based on combat strategy verse picking the characters I most wanted to contribute to the dialog. I realize that the game is probably set up this way for replay value purposes, but for my play-through, it meant that some of the less vocal characters like Ayla and Robo often ended up getting sidelined even though they were fun to use in battle.

After all these years, it feels really good to have finally experienced this classic game and to see first-hand why Chrono Trigger is so lauded by RPG fans. With this "gaming shame" crossed off my list, I'm definitely curious to look into more recent Chrono Trigger inspired games like I Am Setsuna and Cosmic Star Heroine, as well as the Chrono Trigger semi-sequel, Chrono Cross. That being said, this is a shaping up to be a busy year for games. Between new releases, my backlog, and the remaining items on the gaming shames list (which will be getting expanded soon), it's going to be tough to fit it all in.

PSA:
As I have mentioned in previous Chrono Trigger posts, I strongly discourage buying the Android version of this game. While it played fine for the first several hours, I eventually encountered unavoidable game-breaking bugs and had to switch to a different version of the game in order to continue. Thus I recommend looking into either the original SNES game (which is also available on the Wii virtual console) or the Nintendo DS version.

For more content like this, check out my blog, Tales from the Backlog .

Chrono Trigger is often mentioned as one of the greatest games of all time. Originally released in 1995 for the SNES, today it's available on the DS and through online stores. It's a turn-based RPG with a plot involving time-travel.

To begin, the game sports exceptional visuals and sound. The sprites and animations are well designed and the audio is enjoyable and memorable.

The game features a battle system that is similar to other RPGs with some changes. There are no random encounters, instead enemies are visible such that they could be avoided. When an enemy is encountered the battle takes place right on the area map rather than transitioning to the traditional generic battle area, the characters just jump apart and draw their weapons. This allows battles to more quickly and feel more together with the rest of the game. The battles are active time-based, meaning that characters can act at different rates depending on their speed stat similar to FFIV-IX. Unique to Chrono Trigger, during battles enemies have a tendency to move around slightly thereby altering their distance and orientation from each character. The player can utilize this by waiting for opportunities to damage multiple enemies, keep distance to avoid counterattacks or wait for back attacks. While the enemies are moving like this the characters only move in and out during their attacks, but it never feels like your characters are stuck in place.

All of the characters have the same battle commands: attack, "tech/combo" and items. We're all familiar with the attack and item commands but the detail of the tech/combo command is unique to Chrono Trigger. Each character has a few techs and magic that can be used in exchange for MP and different characters can use techs and magic together to perform combo techs. This opens up many more options in battle as each character has several combo techs with each other character although they require both characters turns and consume much more MP, so you'll really need to spare them. All in all, the battle system is very fluid and enjoyable.

There are seven playable characters in Chrono Trigger, the main character Chrono (silent), a runaway princess named Marle, a super-scientist named Lucca, a robot from the future called "Robo", a brave knight from the middle ages cursed into a frog, aptly named "Frog", a tough village chief from prehistory named Ayla and another sort-of hidden character. These characters are very unique and their appearances and actions make them feel like they really do come from different eras. Even in battle where they have identical commands they feel unique, Chrono has good offense, Marle has support techs and magic, Lucca has offensive techs and magic, Robo has offensive and support techs without magic, Frog has good offense with support magic and Ayla has good offense without magic. Some of these characters become very likeable as their pasts are revealed, however the main character is not memorable. I believe he was designed to represent the player, since he doesn't talk or really express anything throughout the story.

The game's story has been rightfully praised as interesting without being complex. In short, Chrono, Marle and Lucca discover that their world will be destroyed in the future, so they travel through time to prevent this from happening. They travel to the future, to prehistory and between, in a very clear and concise way that feels very mature, especially for an SNES game. The story is able to progress in this straightforward manners because it's not overcharged with characters. Once they join your party, most characters don't have any more essential dialogue,that mostly comes from NPCs. The story has many great moments, such as time-travelling to an era where technology is highly advanced only to find that it's actually the past and repairing a legendary sword by gathering ancient materials. The story uses time-travel in a way that is straightforward but never juvenile.

In Chrono Trigger the player gets the usual RPG treatment: inventory to manage, techs to master, areas to explore, quests to complete and plenty of battles, all within a manageable amount of dialogue. What sets this game above others isn't any one of those elements, but that all of them are done very well often in a very straightforward way.The inventory is very basic,each character has their own type of weapon (Katana, Bow, Gun, Robotic Arm, Sword) but shares helmets, armour and accessories. Until nearing the end of the game there isn't really a choice with helmets and armour, but there are always many very useful accessories to choose between, some can boost stats, enable counterattacks, reveal enemy HP and have other effects. The system for learning new techs and magic is also simple, this requires gaining TP by defeating enemies, which is definitely more generous than a system that requires a certain number of uses of lower-level techs. Combo techs are learned quickly by using characters together and they never feel withheld. Aside from the main quest their are also many sidequests which also utilize the time-travel mechanism very well. These includes quests like speaking to peoples ancestors and revisting dungeons in a different eras. These quests further show how well the time-travel is used in this game.

Like most RPGs, battles can become very repetitive, players could just use offensive abilities as quickly as possible until enemies are defeated, then use healing abilities after battle and repeat. Chrono Trigger makes an attempt to resist this formula, since bosses and many standard enemies have behaviours that really punish this sort of playing. Bosses often have multiple independent parts, powerful counterattacks or near-invincibility until they begin charging up a move. Several types of standard enemies are practically immune to physical damage and punish certain magic with counterattacks. These behaviours can sometimes result in bosses and enemies that drag on for longer than you would expect, but these behaviours also add a freshness to an otherwise familiar battle system.

I officially beat this for the first time ever today. I started back in December of 2011, and got all the way to the point where you're ready to go fight Lavos. For some reason I put it down, and never came back to it.

Fast forward to December of 2014, and I decided to put the game to bed. I picked up a walkthrough just to remember where the hell I was. I got a couple of sidequests done, and went and beat Lavos. He/it ended up being pretty easy, and now I'm debating whether I should hop back in and do some new game plus. Probably not though :)