Chrono Trigger

"Square graces the world with this flawless RPG"

Chrono Trigger is in fact, the second best game ever made. That is, right behind Final Fantasy 3. But what makes this game so good that you still hear about it today? Well, good music, characters, battles, bosses, ideas, worlds, and replay value. Once you beat the game, you unlock New Game + which allows you to take all levels, weapons, and techs over and start the game again. If you own a SNES or PS1, there is not a single reason you can come up with to not own this game. It is a simple must-have along with Final Fantasy 3 and Zelda: A Link to the Past.

You start off with your mom waking you up and reminding you your friend has set up one of her crazy experiments and you promised to go check it out. From your house, you can then go to the fair (which your world is celebrating it's 1000th year). At the fair, you can experience all the activities and gain silver points from various game for use later on. As you move into the fair you'll bump in a young girl who drops her pendent. This girl (with some hesitation) tells you her name is Marle and requests you help her find her pendent. After returning it to her, she then asks you to escort her around the fair as she feels out of place.

From here you can take part in the activities and you will eventually hear that Lucca (your friend) has finished setting up and you now can proceed to looking at it. But here's the problem, no one wants to test it out and she immediately pulls you out and demands you try it. With ease, you are teleported from one platform to the other. Marle sees how much fun it looked and jumps on the platform as well. This time though, her pendent starts reacting and she gets sucked into a time gate. Lucca tells Crono that he has the responsibility of taking care of hear and tells him that he needs to do something, Crono then decides to go after her and Lucca tells him she'll come once she figures out what happened. Crono on the other hand, gets sucked into the time gate and he is transported back in time, to the year, 600 A.D. Not knowing what to do, you talk to the local townsfolk and they have no idea about any millennium fair. Your travels eventually bring you to “Guardia Castle” where you are denied by the guards to proceed further. Queen Leene (the queen of 600 A.D) shows up and mysteriously knows you. You avoid the guards and continue on up the Queen's room where she reveals to you that she is actually Marle from the fair. Marle goes into a long discussion about how she knew Crono would come for her, but then the room grows dark and Marle disappears.

Shaken from these events, you leave the castle and run in Lucca along that way who explains to you how you are in the past, how Marle is the princess in the present time and that they must have mistaken Marle for the Queen. Thus bringing you to a demonstration of how if they cut off the search for the real Queen when Marle showed up, then the real Queen would die thus causing Marle to have never been born. Lucca also mentions how if they can save the Queen before she dies, then maybe they can save Marle. This brings your travels to the Chapel where you search the area and talk to the various nuns around. You soon find a hairpin with the Royal Family's Crest engraved and the nuns realizing that Crono knows that she is here, attack! But I thought this was a church? Well, it turns out that there are many monsters who have taken the appearance of humans in order to eat them. When all hope seems lost, a frog appear and saves you. He then explains who he is and that he would appreciate your company in order to save the Queen. After agreeing, you traverse through the dungeon and come across a monster disguised as the missing Chancellor. With your combined strength you defeat the monster and recover the Queen. You then return to the castle and meet up with Marle, knowing that your time is done here, you return to the mountains and Lucca explains how she used the pendents power to create a gate key that harnesses the power of these time gates allowing them to travel at their leisure. Thus beginning your story in Chrono Trigger.

As for most RPGs, there's only two things that need to be good for it to be a great game. One is the battle system and the other is the story. Chrono Trigger exceeds all expectations at that point and created one of the best RPGs ever. You know how people are always complaining about random battles? Well in Chrono Trigger, you see your enemies on the screen. Sometimes you can walk by them if you no how to, but most of the time, you will battle. Instead of waiting for the screen to load so you can fight, the game loads it right there and you fight on the level. Thus saving you loads of time and keeps you from getting annoyed. In the actual battle, your characters' time gauge goes ups and when it reaches full, you can select a command. But rather than one of the normal turn-base fighting, you can rotate between your characters and choose which one you want to attack. That of course, is not your only option, you can choose techs that are learned from gaining ability points. Techs can range from magic attacks to healing charms, and if you use a two characters are lot, they will develop double techs which let them attack together. And if you use three characters a whole lot or are able to find a special rock, you can use triple techs for ultimate damage. Lastly, is the ability to use an item, unlike most RPGs you really don't use items that often. Your characters are able to use their techs to heal each other, although most of the time you'd think you were out of Magic Points, you ran into a healing area.

Outside of battle, there are other unique gameplay additions, one of the early sequences has you in jail and you need to escape. Thus you can be stealthy and take out the guards without attacking or bum rush in to attack them in normal battle. Other mini-games include games like mashing the “A” button as fast as possible to drink soda, or timing your precision to hit a circus bell. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect would be the ability to dance. When you approach these various areas, you are allowed to press the controller buttons and have your characters get their groove on.

Now take this gameplay, combine it with first-class graphics and flawless music. And you have a great RPG. It was at this point, that developers were still trying to tap the systems' graphics potential. Few companies succeeded in making the best looking games. One of the few that did, was known as Squaresoft (now known as Squarenix). With their understanding of the system, they were able to put together the beautiful looking game. Character models portrayed actually had emotions and it was effortless to tell what they were feeling. If they were shocked, they'd throw their hands into the air and their eyes get big. If they thought something was funny, they'd close their eyes and open their mouths as you could tell it was laughter. When your characters run or walk, you can see the difference in how their feet were moving.

Chrono Trigger was made on an ancient system, so don't expect real life sounds. What you should expect, are sounds that actually make sense. If you are summoning up a butt-load of energy it shouldn't sound like you're swinging your sword. Chrono Trigger luckily, does not fail here. When Crono does a slash with his sword, you hear that slash. If he happened to do another slash after the first, that slash comes back as a different sound than the first. For magic spells, summoning up fire sounds like fire burning, summoning up ice sounds like ice cracking. Each spell, slash, shot, punch, blast, storm, and tech all sound like they should in real life. As with every RPG, the soundtrack is perfect. This is one of the few soundtracks I'd actually buy from a videogame. Each character has their own theme song for each other and there are select tracks that play when instances occur such as, panic, excitement, agreement, sorrow, joy, and time travel.

Square knew they needed to develop a game that would last a lifetime, and they did that with one thing “New Game Plus” as seen in current games such as “Final Fantasy X-2” and “Tales of Symphonia”. This aspect was revolutionary for its time. After your first playthrough which runs 20-30 hours, you have the option of taking all of your data and restarting the game. The purpose? Well, there are a lot more endings to the game based on when you decided to go defeat the final boss. Plus you also get to keep all items, weapons, armor, and accessories from your previous save. Thus giving you the best equipment to use straight from the start. And if that wasn't enough, you also carry over your character's levels, hit points, and magic points so you can continue to level them up to perfect stats.

The difficulty of this game is the only thing you can complain about. But it makes for a good starter RPG. Meaning, if you need to get any gamer into RPG's, you'll do it with this game. The game for the most part, tells you where you need to go to advance the story through use of flashbacks. It's not till the end where your side-missions are tough to finish as you're only given the location of where to start. Come to think of it, there's only a couple of parts where you might actually have some trouble if you don't have the correct armor or suggested level.

Buy?
Oh gawd yes, this is my second favorite game of all-time. And the game I've spent the most time on. The only problem is finding this game, I've never seen it at a used game store. If you happen to see it at a store, actually go up to the clerk and slap him for not picking up the game. Otherwise, eBay is your best bet, prices range from $40-$100+ for this game. The easiest way to get this game, is definitely the Final Fantasy Chronicles collection of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy IV for the PSX. This shouldn't cost more than $15 and is available at most stores.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/05