Chrono Trigger

"A ballin' game, but jeeze can they miss a few shots."

If you were ever to ask anyone who was born in the late 80's and grew up with an SNES what the “BEST RPG EVER” was, four out of five times that person would choose "Chrono Trigger". If you were to ever ask why, ten bucks says that they would have a list of reasons rehearsed from memory (because heaven-forbid someone likes Final Fantasy more): it's got charm, it has multiple fleshed-out endings, it has replay value that would put Tetris to shame, it doesn't take itself too seriously (unlike its fugly brother Chrono Cross), and it's the first Square game to not pit you against God / Satan / Generic Evil Empire using magical crystals. Even by today's standards it's a pretty darn good game; and to top it all off, it had an awesome translation, too. So with so much good going for the game: why remake it? Why bother messing with something flawless to begin with? Personally, I think it's because Squeenix has run out of games to rehash, and since a majority of their revenue comes from manipulating their fan-base by adding a new dungeon to an old game to make it seem worth repurchasing across five different platforms, their only option left was to port a game that they managed to craft perfectly the first time around so that they could stall themselves from creating a new IP that doesn't suck. But that's just me.

With this in mind, it came as a surprise to me that after a couple hours of play, I was asking myself: how could a game this good manage to do so much wrong? Aren't remakes supposed to be better than the original? Don't get me wrong; it's still a good game by all means simply because it's Chrono Trigger, and as any person who likes "role-playing games" and "Super Nintendo", I naturally think it's the best an RPG could possibly get. But that's just it, though: how can you possibly mess something wonderful up if your job is to cut and paste the game from one platform to another? Apparently there are plenty of ways, seeing as every supposed DS-oriented improvement made consists of the game shooting itself in the foot.

Half of the problem with Chrono Trigger DS is the fact that it was ported to a platform that uses touching and feeling things as a control scheme. Unfortunately, far unlike games that were actually built for consoles with "intuitive" control input, games ported to the DS or Wii often make the mistake of trying to use motion or touch control just for the hell of it; and if there is anything that Chrono Trigger wasn't built for, it's touch control. Using the option to move your character with touch is unresponsive and frustrating, especially since there aren't any visual clues that remotely indicate what direction your stylus will take you. Browsing menus with touch is pointless when pressing a button is faster. Jeeze, just the constant animation of the buttons you'll never use on the bottom screen is distracting enough. Almost everything concerning touch feels tacked-on and useless; there's absolutely no job it does that the D-pad or face buttons can't do better. In fact, the only purpose almost every new DS "feature" has is to give the whole extra screen on the bottom something to do, which is where the hardware itself starts to become more of the headache.

The other half of the problem with Chrono Trigger DS is that it was ported to a system with two screens; and if I have learned anything from using two screens at once to fight innocent woodland creatures is that it's absolutely nauseating. With the new "DS" UI option, everything in battle - status, ATB bars, and action menus of your characters - is placed on the bottom screen, while all the action is on top. Depending on what kind of timing system you're using (Wait or Active), if one design flaw doesn't get in your way, another will. Like "Wait" timed battles? Enjoy staring at the bottom screen's ATB bars and menus most of the time while you miss half the action on top. Are you a man and like "Active" timed battles? Have fun freaking out trying to look everywhere at once until you enter an epileptic seizure. Since I don't particularly enjoy foaming at the mouth while playing games, though, I switched the user-interface option from “DS” to “Classic”. This changes the user-interface in battles to the exact same one in the SNES version, which kind of undermines the point of making a new DS UI since the original interface had absolutely nothing wrong with it. What's even funnier is that they would include the option, too, since this gives the bottom screen practically nothing to do given that you will never have to look at it ever again; unless you want to look at two health bars instead of one. Too bad this only applies to battles and not everything else, since browsing normal screen menus will be just as dizzying.

Really, everything that is wrong with Chrono Trigger DS is associated with Squeenix's attempts at "refreshing" the game with a poor implementation of touch control and using the DS itself. You would think they would get the whole “remaking” thing right with all the experience they've had butchering every other game they've ever made, but I guess not. Despite all these design flaws, Squeenix didn't fall completely flat on its face. The extras are a nice little treat, the final dungeon is pretty cool, and I guess the monster training isn't completely boring (just kidding: it is). The best “new” feature is the refreshed translation, which is absolutely to die for: hard to believe considering the original script was excellent on its own terms. None of these constitute solely buying the game for, though. The real appeal of Chrono Trigger DS lies in the fact that you can finally play one of the best console RPGs out there on the go, or at all if you happened to miss out on the experience in the first place.

Assuming that Chrono Trigger is a ten out of ten game in itself, playing it on a God-forsaken handheld with two screens is a notch or two below the original experience. Most people don't need to be spoon-fed how whimsical the story is or pretty the graphics are, so I won't bother: if you like Chrono Trigger to begin with, you will love this game. Having to look at two screens at once will probably cause minor damage to your brain tissue if you're used to seeing this game in only one, but it's not totally impossible to get used to.

If you've never played this game before and are wondering if it's worth getting into now, though: hell-to-the-yes it is. Although old gamers might get peeved, the new DS features won't completely faze you if you're walking in without expectations or decent eye-sight. Just be sure that if you're beginning to become cross-eyed and experience migraines that you can always neglect absolutely everything the DS-experience offers by switching to “Classic”. After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/02/08, Updated 12/04/08

Game Release: Chrono Trigger (US, 11/25/08)