Gamer's Month - Chrono Trigger

Chrono Trigger



Publisher: Squaresoft
Developer: Squaresoft
Genre: Turn-Based RPG
SNES: 9/27/95
PS1: 6/29/01 (packaged with Final Fantasy IV as Final Fantasy Chronicles)
DS: 11/25/08

Chrono Trigger to me is the greatest RPG I’ve ever played. I don’t play a lot of turn-based RPG’s because I’m more into the action/adventure or FPS genres. This game, however, is one of the best games I’ve ever played and one of the first RPGs where I’ve actually wanted to unlock everything (though I never went as far as getting my characters up to level 99).

However, would you believe that a little over 5 years ago I had never played this gem? For shame, SuperSonic…how could you have not played Chrono Trigger?! I never really had a reason to, just like Final Fantasy VI (I’m getting to that eventually, I swear). So what in the world finally possessed me to give in and give this baby a try? Let me rewind you back to 2004 when I was participating in my first Best Song Contest on Gamingforce.

First off, there was a certain Sonic track vs. The Wind Scene from Chrono Trigger. I, of course, voted for the Sonic track seeing as how The Wind Scene was irritating to me at the time. I remember one of the comments from the voters being, “But it’s the Wind Scene. It’s the freakin Wind Scene!” That track somehow moved on and I was left a little shocked. Let’s move on to the final round where the awesome Metal Gear Solid 2 Main Theme was going up against To Far Away Times from Chrono Trigger. I definitely voted for the MGS2 Main Theme because come on, it’s the best rendition of the MGS Theme. Much to my surprise, however, To Far Away Times took the championship of BSC 2004. I was, again, left stunned. A day after the results I was like “Alright, I have to see what all the fuss is about. What is it that makes people vote over the MGS2 track?”

So with my ZSNES emulator in hand, a rom of Chrono Trigger, and my Logitech USB Joypad in hand, I was ready to tackle this bad boy. The first thing I noticed were the graphics were colorful and the backgrounds were amazing for 16-bit. It all starts off with fireworks in the background of an overview of the world map. A bell rings and lo and behold, we’re up and ready with our silent protagonist, Crono, waking up from his slumber by his mother. Moving Crono is rather easy and as soon as I get to the fair I bump into a girl who introduces herself as Marle. After that, I head to the left and meet the robot known as Gato. I’m introduced to a very catchy tune.

My name is Gato/I have metal joints/Beat me up/And earn fifteen silver points!

After the catchiness, I’m introduced to the combat system. It seems simple and regular at the time. I take out Gato and then head to the other side of the fair where some dancing is going on. This is where I start to get hooked into the game. Pressing certain buttons make the characters dance. One of the dance moves that Marle did was something I had not seen in a game before.



That…is awesome. After the dancing I start really getting into the story. Suddenly my new friend is flung through a vortex after trying out my friend’s teleporting invention. Apparently, her pendant reacted to the teleporter and opened that vortex. Being the man I am, we’ll try to open that portal once more and I’ll follow her. The awesome Main Theme plays and I’m flung through the vortex.

Once I get to the new World Map, I start hearing a familiar tune. Ah, that’s right…the Wind Scene! Listening to it in this setting with a visual, I’m actually starting to dig the tune. Wait a minute…this world map looks similar to the one I saw at the beginning of the game. I decide to ask around the village and…are you serious?! How is that possible?!! Yeah, that vortex sent me back in time. That is one of the many plot twists that appear in this game.

That’s about how my first impressions went. Now I want to get into the details of the game. As I’ve said before, the graphics and character design were impressive. Then I found out why I liked the character designs so much…they were done by none other than Mr. DBZ himself, Akira Toriyama. So Crono looking like Super Saiyan Gohan wasn’t a coincidence. Now would you believe that there are more than one world maps in the game? That’s because in this game you travel through six different time eras. All of them are similar in layout, but their appearance is different and appropriate to the setting that you’re currently in. This was another point about Chrono Trigger that was so amazing, it dealt with time travel and it was able to do it correctly.

The story is incredible. There are so many plot twists in the game that you wouldn’t believe and it is just great. The character backgrounds are pretty interesting as well. You may not like some of the characters, but it is difficult to not like any of the characters. A majority of people like the medieval speaking Frog or the mysterious Magus. I’m a fan of Crono and Marle, Marle because she’s adventurous and Crono because he’s dedicated and you can always count on him.

The gameplay is just unbelievably solid. You can move around and collect items just fine, but the battle system is what’s really special. At first I thought it was simple and regular, but as it turns out there’s an option called Tech in between Attack and Item. I just thought it was for the character’s magic and special moves. Well, it’s that plus the ability to do double and triple techs with the characters in your party. Never before had I encountered a battle system where you could work with another team member to cause some serious damage to your enemies. That is something really special, my friends. I was experiencing this in 2004, but this had been around since the game’s release in 1995.

The music is freaking incredible. I’m not kidding, it is one of the best video game soundtracks I have ever heard. There is not one track on the game that was boring sounding to me at all. Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu as a tag team on this project was a great idea. I consider this to be Mitsuda’s finest work. Even the songs that didn’t make it into the game but were released on the OST were great. From fun and happy, to dark and mysterious, to sad and depressing, to just straight up ready to kick some ass music, this game had it all. The main theme is great, the map music is amazing, and the battle music already gets me pumped up for some action. You know what I was worried about? The final boss music. After hearing some great stuff for FF8, FF9, and Mario RPG but being disappointed with the final boss music for FF7 and FF10 I was really hoping for something awesome with this game. This game once again, did not disappoint. Not only was the final boss setting awesome, but the music is kick ass and is one of the best final boss tracks I have heard in a game. Some people prefer the track that plays during the second-to-last boss fight called World Revolution. I like World Revolution, but I will always like Last Battle and believe that it is superior. Take a listen:

YouTube - Chrono Trigger Music - Last Battle

So I finally beat the game and am finally convinced why Chrono Trigger was so special to a majority of gamers. I was hooked and I started looking for a background of Chrono Trigger to use on my computer. Upon my search I started encountering anime screenshots of Chrono Trigger. Was there an anime? I was disappointed to find out that there wasn’t, but I was intrigued when I found out that those were screenshots taken from cutscenes of the PS1 version from Final Fantasy Chronicles. I immediately made my online purchase of it and it arrived a week later. I played through the game all over again and enjoyed it. Now the game didn’t have as many cutscenes as I would have liked to see, but they were still good nevertheless.

There was something else about the game that I came to know after buying it for PS1 and it is another reason why Chrono Trigger is treasured…multiple endings. Depending on when you beat the game, you could get a different ending each time. There were 12 endings that were listed to obtain on the PS1 version, but technically there were 14…one if you lose to the final boss and one if you beat the game like normal but it all depends on whether you destroyed something or not.

These endings could be obtained with the help of New Game +, another reason why Chrono Trigger was amazing. You could start the game from the beginning, but your stats would remain intact and you kept all of your weapons with the exception of one sword (and it’s critical to the game’s story). Chrono Trigger was also loaded with side quests, but I did them all so I would be powered up to fight the final boss. Never before had I put so much time into an RPG. It was the first game which would rival my liking with Sonic the Hedgehog, and that says a lot.

Chrono Trigger has a very large fanbase to this day that might possibly rival the fanbase of Final Fantasy VII. These fans have taken it upon themselves to try some large projects to show their appreciation for the game. Some have tried to introduce remakes with updated graphics and music or to create a true sequel to the game using rom hacking. Those projects were unfortunately shut down by Cease and Desist letters by Square-Enix. Some projects live though, like a flash animated retelling of the CT story in a satirical way. I’ve always wanted to hear voices for the game, so I’ve been doing my own Chrono Trigger radioplay. It may not be much to people, but it’s something I enjoy working on.

Chrono Trigger is still a great game to play and if you could somehow get your hands on the SNES version or the PS1 version, I’d definitely check it out if you haven’t played it. To the Gamingforce community, I thank you for being the reason that I played this awesome game. I am truly grateful and I’ll never forget how special this game is.

Jam it back in, in the dark.