Chrono Trigger

Developed and released on March 11, 1995 by SquareSoft, Chrono Trigger features timeless, unrivaled RPG gameplay for the Super Nintendo

I sold my Super Nintendo and all my games for a Nintendo 64 in 1997. I love Nintendo 64, but a couple years later, I was badly missing Super Nintendo--it's the greatest console in the history of video games, so of course I was missing it. In 1999, the greatest year in human existence, I discovered console emulation on my computer. I played NES and Game Boy games (I have since refurbished those old consoles of mine), but more than anything, I played SNES games. At some point I remembered liking Super Mario RPG a lot. I figured I should try out another RPG. For some reason, I settled on 1995's Chrono Trigger...and my life has never been the same. The game consistently blew my mind, culminating in a winning fight against the final boss in the game's apocalyptic 1999 setting literally minutes before the clock struck midnight on the millennium, on 12/31/99. I felt like I had just saved the world (hey, Y2K didn't happen!) and beaten the greatest video game ever made. I soon wondered if I would ever play a better game. The next year, I got a new Super Nintendo (I've never sold another console again) and my own physical copy of Chrono Trigger. I've played through it several times since then, but last year, for the game's 30th anniversary and for the first time in a while, a play through felt necessary.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's go back to the beginning

That's more like it

I'll be frank. Chrono Trigger is still the greatest game ever made. I've played hundreds if not thousands of video games since I first played through Chrono Trigger. Some of them, like Metroid Prime, Resident Evil IV, or Hollow Knight, were so good, I still think about them all the time. Chrono Trigger is better than all of them. Objectively, the only two games in my lifetime that come close are 1991's The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and 1998's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Maybe Ocarina of Time is a Hyrulian hair's width better. But Chrono Trigger is my favorite. Everything about this game is perfect. So perfect it's pointless for me to ramble on about it, so I'll be concise.

 

Like Crono versus a tank

Japanese manga artist, Akira Toriyama, designed the characters for Chrono Trigger. Is that good? Toriyama famously designed the characters for Dragon Ball, in addition to countless others. Rest in peace Toriyama. It simply doesn't get any better. Every single character in Chrono Trigger has an iconic design. The main creative team assembled to create Chrono Trigger, including Toriyama, was called the "Dream Team" because of the superhuman collection of talent involved. The term was originally coined for the 1992 USA Olympic Basketball team, which was the greatest collection of professional basketball players ever assembled, and included Michael Jordan. They won every game by an average of 44 points. Chrono Trigger is the video game equivalent of beating every other team by an average of 44 points. 

I guess Christian Laettner is Magus

Chrono Trigger's iconic characters are animated in a way I can only describe as perfect--Crono's double-swing sword animation might be the greatest, most fist-pumping video game animation ever created. In addition to the characters, environments and magic attacks are archetypal, as in THEY ARE the archetype. There are graphical elements I love to see in a Super Nintendo game here, done as  well as they ever were. One is waterfalls. Chrono Trigger features several, and they are immaculate--some even contain prismatic rainbows. The second is the background when the player has reached a high place. Chrono Trigger features several of these. One, containing many far off mountains, shrouded in mist, is so atmospheric, it has stuck with and stimulated my imagination ever since I first laid eyes on it. Everything runs smoothly. This might be the best looking game on the console.

 

The mountains

The sea

The waterfalls. Hey, wake up!

The rain. The brooding.

The jungles. Jungles are an underrated element in the Super Nintendo's arsenal.

Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu are generally considered two of the greatest video game soundtrack composers of all time. They composed the soundtrack for Chrono Trigger together. The music here is beautiful, atmospheric, iconic, endlessly memorable. The game's sound design, from every sword shink to fiery magic attack, coupled with the music, is perfect. It doesn't get any better than this. Mitsuda's work on 1999's Chrono Cross, the Chrono Trigger sequel, is the only thing that comes close. This soundtrack is the video game equivalent to John Williams' score for the Original Star Wars trilogy. Chrono Trigger's ending theme is the greatest music ever composed for a video game.

 

Once you've been to The End of Time, it is almost impossible to see this image without hearing it. Also, The End of Time, replete with bowler hat-wearing wise man leaning against a Victorian Gaslamp, is the coolest, most comforting location in a video game, ever.

At the time of its release, some critics accused Chrono Trigger of containing too simplistic of a story. I was then greatly confused when I played the game and experienced an incredible, timeless story. I soon realized that those complaining wanted a convoluted, overly dense story that would confuse and bore the average person. There are plenty of RPG's with stories like that, and thankfully, Chrono Trigger is not one of them. The tale begins simply enough. A brave, noble, yet quiet teenager, Crono, meets his inventor friend, Lucca, at the town's Millennial Fair (it is 1000 AD). They accidentally stumble onto time travel, along with the Kingdom's princess, who has visited the fair in disguise so she won't be recognized. From there, the trio accidentally discover that a malignant alien being destroys most of the Earth 1000 years later, and they resolve to stop it. During their time-travelling journey, they make new allies and enemies. The story grows more complex, shocks, surprises, but is never convoluted or confusing. It's awesome. There are HUGE, brave, shocking twists and turns in the story that few if any games have attempted before or since. The plot becomes surprisingly heartfelt. Crono, as the virtuous, but silent protagonist, is the kind of everyman with which any player that's not a sociopath can easily identify. The game's eventual seven party members, many from different time periods, each have their own fully fleshed out story, and all of those stories are awesome. This game is so awesome.

 

I like every possible Chrono Trigger party combination and switch it up throughout the game, but out of sentimentality's sake, I beat the final boss with Crono, Marle, and Lucca this time

Of course, when it comes to video games, even the story is an aesthetic matter. How does the game play? Have you been reading the review up to this point? Perfectly! In the 90s, across the NES, SNES, and PS1, SquareSoft were known as the masters of the RPG, and Chrono Trigger is their masterwork. RPG's leading up to (and many after) Chrono Trigger feature something called "random battles," where the player will be traversing the game world, visually free of enemies, and after every few seconds of moving around, will suddenly be pulled into a battle screen where enemies must be fought. It's tough to enjoy exploration when you don't know whether or not a game is going to suddenly thrust you into battle at any moment, without any warning. Chrono Trigger eliminates this by featuring its enemies onscreen, so that the player can see them before initiating a battle. This not only greatly increases Chrono Trigger's immersion factor, but makes journeying throughout the game more fun.

 

Also, the world map is battle free!

As to the game's battles, they are fine-tuned to perfection. At first, each character has their normal physical attack with their weapon, and better weapons are found throughout the game. Eventually, special moves, and later, elemental magic is learned by most characters. Like in most RPG's, winning fights brings experience points that go toward leveling up character stats. However, characters who fight together in Chrono Trigger also gain a special kind of experience point that eventually goes toward that duo or trio learning combos together. There are dual combos, and late in the game, devastating triple combos that are incredibly fun to earn, and these incentivize using different character combinations.

 

Uh...maybe a triple tech was overkill here

Fights even transcend turn-based to a degree, as each character has a meter that must filled before an attack is possible. Different armors and accessories, as well as pickups found throughout Chrono Trigger's world can not only block enemy-inflicted status ailments, but increase the speed at which a character's meter fills. Max out a character's speed, and that given character will be getting in multiple hits to an enemy's one. The game also features many boss battles. These epic fights are strategic, as sometimes physical or magical attacks don't work on that particular enemy, or the boss may be more susceptible to a given move. Even the combination of characters used at a given time can be strategic. Just tapping buttons in this game's highly satisfying boss battles will not work. Thankfully, due to the elimination of random battles, even fighting low level enemies remains fun, and the game, unlike many RPG's, does not force grinding to increase playtime. Plus, the awesome soundtrack is backing all of it. Chrono Trigger is a perfect 25-30 hour adventure without tedious, repetitious fights.

 

This is what the REAL WORLD would look like right now if I hadn't beaten Chrono Trigger before the clock struck midnight on 12/31/99

I should also mention, I was scared Y2K would happen and take out technology before I beat Chrono Trigger! I was literally working against the clock!

There is also plenty of extra content here. The world is large, and the player gets to explore it through many time periods. At a certain point, the player can set the party to any chosen three character configuration out of the seven party members at any moment (outside of the middle of the fight). Late in the game, travelling through space and time becomes much easier for a very awesome reason. There are also tons of discoverable items that make defeating the game's final boss easier. These items require the player to take on the game's numerous, yet not overwhelming side quests. There's so much fun to be had here, and when the game is beaten, the player unlocks the revolutionary "New Game +" mode, where the player can venture back through the game from the start with the character levels and much (but not all) of the weapons and armor with which the game was ended. While the game's actual final ending is as satisfying as it gets, Chrono Trigger features a dozen unlockable endings for the New Game + player who tackles the final boss at different points in the game (that boss is nearly always accessible!). There's the perfect amount of extra content here to add to an already perfect game. 

I've got nothing else to say. Video games simply do not get better than Chrono Trigger for the SNES. 

If you haven't yet played it, now's the time!

 

You don't even have to time travel! Just play it somehow!

Graphics: 10.0/10.0

Sound: 10.0/10.0

Gameplay: 10.0/10.0

Lasting Value: 10.0/10.0


Overall: 10.0/10.0