Chrono Trigger

"A great purchase for those who have never experienced it, but not if you've played it before."

Chrono Trigger is hailed by many as one of the best RPGs, not only of the 16-bit era, but of all time. For its time, it was very innovative, had an interesting but not too convoluted story, likable characters, beautiful graphics, a breath-taking soundtrack, and had a perfect balance of humor and seriousness. When the port was announced for the DS, many fans were first disappointed at the fact that it was just a port, but more worrying was the addition of the new features--would they hold up to the glory that was Chrono Trigger?

Let me say that if you have never before experienced this game, it will be a perfect purchase. The game's brilliant qualities have lost no luster in the 14 years wait. If you are buying this for the new futures, you might be a little disappointed, but a portable copy of this game is well worth it.

Gameplay- 8/10
A little archaic by today's standards, but of course that's to be expected of a 14 year old game. The most revolutionary thing CT does is how its battles are formatted. While the battles themselves still take place in a turn-based system (similar to Final Fantasy IV, V, and VI), there is no screen transition from the field to the battle screen. That is to say, you aren't attacked by invisible enemies in a cave, you can (with some exceptions--sometimes you will be ambushed) always see them ambling about uselessly. While most players will choose to engage enemies or will fall into their ambushes, you can also choose to avoid the battles.

Chrono Trigger is also known for its techs, analogous to magic in any other RPG, but with the notable exception of dual and triple techs. These techniques use two or three of the characters in your three-character party, and are typically much more powerful than just using an attack with each character. The combinations of characters in your party will lend themselves to different techs, so the game encourages you to switch party members often. Rather brilliantly, you never have to journey back to a central location to switch party members (as in other RPGs, such as Final Fantasy VI), instead, you can manage it through the menu. The only time you'll have to journey back to the End of Time (where the extra characters are kept) is when one first joins your party, in order to teach them magic. The End of Time is to Chrono Trigger as the Airship was to Final Fantasy VI. There, you can travel to any time period to which you have been, teach characters magic for the first time, fight what used to be the most powerful monster in the game, challenge the final boss, and restore your health and save the game. Because you must travel to this destination in between time periods for the majority of the game, it allows you essentially free infinite healing and saving.

Chrono Trigger is not known for its difficulty, and as such is a great introduction to RPGs if you've never played one. In the whole game, there are only a few bosses which are likely to give you a hard time. Most bosses, and some enemies, have some sort of gimmick to them, whether it be attacking a certain part of it first, alternating between magic and attacks, or only attacking it with a certain element at a certain time. While these techniques are known to those who have played the game before, newcomers will certainly enjoy figuring out these tactics.

Graphics- 9/10
My first impression was that the characters were stretched a little vertically, but after having played the game for a while, you get used to it. The graphics are in my personal favorite style, very lush, detailed 2-Dimensional graphics. The SNES graphics have been polished up a little, but it's not really anything you'd notice right away the slowdown from more complex displays is now non-existent. While they might have lost their original stunning power, if you are the type of gamer that enjoys SNES-era graphics, you will feel very much at home here. If you prefer the 3D graphics in the remakes of Final Fantasy III and IV, you might be at a lost here, but I urge you to discover the graphics of years past.

Music- 9/10
While some complain about the lowered quality due to the DS's speakers, it is a non-issue unless you have just listened to the SNES soundtrack. The soundtrack as a whole sounds just as it did on the SNES, while some songs (Guardia Castle most notably) sound a bit more tinny, newcomers are just as likely to be impressed as older gamers.

Unique to Chrono Trigger is that the soundtrack is not used in every cave or dungeon. Sometimes caves are just filled with sound effects, such as people moaning or water rushing. This greatly enriches the experience and makes it feel much more natural. At other times, the music will not change to the battle theme, which is not only a relief from hearing the same tired theme for the umpteenth time, but also makes the situation fit the mood better.

New Content: 3/10

The crux of a port with additional features should be the additional features. In this respect Chrono Trigger does not do a good job at all. The port retains the PlayStation remake add-ons (the bestiary, music-player, etc), and also adds two new dungeons and a new final boss, as well as an aside to the main game.

Before I get to the new dungeons, let's look at some more minor things first:

New Translation: If you've played the SNES version, you'll have a fit over it, but if you're new to this game, you'll have no problem. I'm sure you've heard by now how Frog has lost his 'accent' and how Magus is referred to as the Fiendlord. A few of my favorite lines (Johnny being the MAN, and the lovable YES INDEED! counter) are gone as well, but as a whole, the translation is a lot more precise and there is no reason to pine for the SNES one other than nostalgia.

Bestiary and Item Encyclopedia: They do a great job of telling you everything about an enemy (its stats, drop items, where to find it, etc) or item (where to find it, who can equip it), but scrolling through it is a pain, even with the use of the stylus. Granted, with the internet you should never really have to use it, but it is nice to be able to figure out for your own where to find more of a particular item.

Ending gallery and Dojo: It would have been really, really, really nice if you could actually watch the ending over again, but as it stands, it tells you how to get the ending and a picture. How nice. The dojo shows you all the techs you've learned, and with which characters you can preform them. There's a minor inconvenience in that some techs will be displayed with a certain secret character, but I don't see much point to looking at this anyway.

Screen Layout: Those who have played the SNES version will know that the battle menus could clutter up the beautiful scenery of Chrono Trigger. Because of the DS's two screens, this problem is alleviated by putting an option that allows battles to be fought on the top screen with menu selection on the bottom. I had no problem with this, and see no reason that anyone would. Out of battle, the bottom screen is used as a player-completed map, which is handy since it actually correctly represents the dungeon's walls, etc, but the fact is that Chrono Trigger has no dungeons that you could really get lost in. This is nitpicking to the extreme, but I noticed the map is exceptionally picky about where you have to stand to complete the map. Those who have played Final Fantasy IV DS will know what I'm talking about. For better or for worse, there are no rewards for completing the map.

The Arena: This is where the new content takes a serious dive. The Arena is some bad attempted copy of Pokemon. Once you save the
game, you gain access to this feature via the title screen, and only the title screen, which is its first problem. At the Arena, you will choose a monster and a time period in which to train it in order to level up certain stats. After at least 10 minutes of gameplay, you may go back to the Arena and check on its progress and put it into automated fights, the rewards of which will be progressively greater.

If it doesn't sound that exciting, it's because it isn't. The Arena was likely some employee's idea of an interesting add-on that adds absolutely nothing to the main game. While it is possible to get a few items earlier than you normally would be able to, and there are a few brand new items available through the Arena, the mindless grind necessary to obtain them isn't even worth it unless you are the type of person who enjoys getting full completion on every game no matter the grind required.

Perhaps my biggest complaint about the Arena is that it doesn't even add anything to the game. While the Final Fantasy ports' extra content wasn't that fantastic, either, it at least fit into the game. The Arena feels nothing like Chrono Trigger, and as I mentioned before, feels more like a Pokemon rip-off. SE already has their "Pokemon" like game, namely Dragon Quest: Joker, and they should stick to that.

First Dungeon: 3/10 This dungeon, by the name of Lost Sanctum opens up after a certain event about 75% of the way through the game. The entire dungeon admits itself to be a fetch-quest, and it is in every sense of the word. This dungeon presents almost everything wrong with RPGs. In order to progress the action, you must talk to a certain NPC in a certain era (the LS exists in two eras), and then fulfill their wishes. While the rest of Chrono Trigger does little in the way of forced encounters, this dungeon is full of them. Most frustrating are the forced encounters with groups of enemies that are immune to magic, and the others immune to physical attacks. While it's easy to run from them, that takes the meaning out of an RPG. Most unforgivably is a certain mountain that you have to scale over 7 times, usually just to talk to someone in order to initiate the next fetch-quest; this is the mountain with unavoidable encounters, the absence of which was one of the most notable qualities about Chrono Trigger.

Admittedly, I did the dungeon after beating the game, so if you intersperse completing the fetchquests with doing the main sidequests, you should have a better time with it. The rewards are worth it, even if they best the old ultimate weapons.

Second Dungeon: 2/10 Named the Dimensional Vortex, it only opens after completing the game. The dungeon is made up, I kid you not, of 80 or 90% recycled content. The exact. Same. Recycled content. Enemy positions, stats, kept completely the same. This is horrid game design to begin with, and the fact that you're incredibly over-leveled for 90% of the enemies doesn't help either. Again, you can avoid the encounters, but there are some that are still forced. The actual new content isn't horrible, just lacking. Completing the dungeon gives stat boosts to 3 characters, and unlocks the secret final boss, who is more of a test in patience than anything else.

The most disappointing thing about the extra content was how little it added to the story. While there is a new ending, it's not nearly as gratifying as it should have been, and messes up the timeline even more. I'm sure many players will agree with me when I say that additional content in Zeal, an area so deep an entire game could be based off of it alone, would have been much more welcome. Instead, we get literally recycled dungeons, tedious fetchquests, and a boring grind.

As I've said before, you should buy this game if you've never played it before, or if your SNES version has died. It's certainly better than the PlayStation version, which was slaughtered by lag. Chrono Trigger is still a fantastic game, but over the years its story has lost its weight, the music and graphics have become less jaw-dropping, and its gameplay has become a thing of the past. If you still have an old copy laying around, this isn't worth the purchase, especially at the usurious $40 price, but if you're new to RPGs, this game will be simple enough for you to enjoy, with a story deep enough to keep you playing.

New Content: 4/10
Original Game: 8/10.
Overall Score (not usually an average): 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/16/09

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