Passion projects are some of the best form of media that exist. When an artist, a director, or a game developer has a focused vision for an experience, and gives their all towards making that a reality, the final product is always something to be respected, no matter the quality in the end. Chrono Trigger is a rare example of a passionate team coming together to create their dream project, and the final result being an absolute masterwork of quality. This game oozes passion and charm at every moment, and for a game originally released on the SNES, it holds up remarkably well despite how much games have evolved since it's initial release.

The first thing that jumps out at you is the combat, combining a mix of real-time and turn-based in a way that feels novel and exciting throughout the entire 20+ hour journey. Having to strategize around when you can use up your ATB bar for an action is doubly hectic by having your most powerful abilities tied to combo attacks requiring the ATB of multiple characters be used at the same time. The rapid speed of combat can be a bit disorienting at first, as it was for me, and while there is a lot of fun to be had by sticking with the Active gameplay style, the option to tweak gameplay settings to allow for more time when selecting actions is much appreciated, since menu-ing on a time limit is intensely frustrating when you are still trying to figure things out. The notion of static encounters over random ones, the dynamic positioning of enemies and allies, makes this game feel as close to a turn-based action game as could realistically be achieved. Top it off with stellar sprite work, excellent bosses, and a thumping soundtrack, and you arrive at one of the most action-packed JRPGs ever created.

The true hook of this game is the narrative. Time travel is such a pandora's box of a story trope, and it can be very difficult to create a story around that premise, but CT manages to use the interactive nature of games to great effect, taking advantage of player agency to manipulate the plot in major or minor ways. It's not exactly revolutionary, since many of the game's trademark multiple endings feel a little undercooked story-wise, but the sheer uniqueness of a sprawling JRPG narrative that presents itself like this is just so refreshing. CT never feels too bloated, never feels padded, and every moment of it feels like it was hand-crafted by a team of experts...which it was. Every story moment is presented beautifully, with, again, superb sprite work and an amazing soundtrack that punctuates every moment, no matter the emotion. The party members also each feel like fully realized characters, with their own goals, their own faults, and their own opinions. They all contribute to the plot, helping to build up this unfolding mystery through time. Really, no complaints to be had with the story of this game.

When it comes to faults in the game, I do have a few subjective ones. The game balance does feel a bit off, with large chunks of the game being easy to Auto-battle your way through the critical path, but then a couple of steep difficulty checks that are impenetrable without having found everything that the game makes available to you at that moment. While that does serve as a useful way to encourage exploration, it can feel a bit arbitrarily difficult, and for me at least, stunted my enjoyment of the game at first. Moreover, when I said the game never felt padded, that is true for the base game, but not so for the additional dungeons added in later versions of the game. Lost Sanctum and the Dimensional Vortex are just plain unfun, lacking any real challenge, and half-baked story moments that feel like a waste of time. Truly the only parts of this game that felt undercooked.

Even though Chrono Trigger will likely not stand as one of my favourite games for personal biases, there is no denying the quality of the product. In a genre known for convoluted plots, tiresome mechanics, and overly lengthy stories, Chrono Trigger stands as the antithesis to that stereotype. The game is a lean 20 hours to complete, is paced to perfection, never throws any convoluted skill trees or mechanics at you, and keeps the entire plot neatly organized to remain enjoyable throughout. It's a marvel of a game, and one that still plays amazingly today. There is a reason that the team behind this game is referred to as the Dream Team; some of the finest minds in all of the history of JRPGs got together to make their dream game. When talent and passion combine, greatness is born, and Chrono Trigger stands as one of gaming's greats.

I can totally understand this being something that doesn't bother a lot of people but the way the resolution works in this port drives me up the wall.
The way it handles turning this from a 4:3 to 16:9 and beyond resolution isn't to actually let you see more of what's going on in the horizontal space. It instead takes the lazy tv show remaster approach and zooms the screen in giving you less information then you'd normally be able to see. You can technically change the resolution to a 4:3 one but it's really only technically 4:3. It's technically a little wider than traditional 4:3, making the pixel art look a bit wider than it should. You also can't even seem to go beyond 1080p in borderless fullscreen so I really just get the impression something is just base level wrong with how this port handles resolution. All of this is ignoring the now optional "hd" Vaseline smeared blur filter, mind you.
I know a lot of people straight up won't notice or care nearly as much about the resolution but it really just makes this unplayable to me. It's a really pretty game, and I hate to see it's looks depreciated.

An absolute masterpiece. If you're playing this for the first time, you will surely notice the elements that have influenced modern JRPGs but none in my opinion surpass this original. Many RPGs suffer from a slow start, but Chrono Trigger throws you straight into an engaging plot involving time travel. Worth playing for the beautiful soundtrack alone that makes a case for the greatest videogame soundtrack of all time. The combat system may seem simple by modern standards, using a standard ATB turn based system, but this makes it simple to pick up and play without need for complex tutorials.

The game has surprising hidden secrets that you may have missed playing previously - like multiple endings, or being able to breed cats in Crono's house!

Many of the criticisms of the PC port have now been patched, and this is a perfectly functional, and the easiest way to play the game today. The "lost sanctum" added in the NDS version of the game is present, although the quest design here is tedious. The dimensional vortex is also present, and this is more interesting with a new final boss at the end of it all.

This is a game I would not hesitate to recommend to any RPG fan. Even if you're not, this may be the one to change your mind!

I played the first part of this in my horrible middle school contrarian phase and so obviously my opinion then doesnt matter, i hated it.
I expected this game to be just ok, still overblown (which it is) but fuck man. Theres something here that just isnt present in other rpgs, and idk how to describe it. This game is so cool. From every little thing you do in the opening scene being judged (i got 7 guiltys btw lol) to having a drinking contest with bisexual caveman Launch (crime form) it just shows you so many kickass scenes. Sure it has weird issues with inconsistency and whatever but damn! I get to play as a frog!

Friend bought me this to prove action time battle is shit.

I was like "Hah, gonna be ez".

Fought a robot training dummy, saw it was some pseudo JRPG trash where you can move around and was like "Nah. this aint it."

Square often times don't cook, but what were they cookin?

One of the most cozy, most timeless grand adventures ever portrayed in media.

I was a little skeptical about it since I heard it was about time travel. It's so easy to fuck it up and make it a nonsensical plot driver. This, however is what I'd call a prime standard for time travel stories. It doesn't do anything new or overly weird, it just fits perfectly. The characters are so incredibly cozy and likable and witnessing their stories which, again, aren't anything groundbreaking or untraditional but unravel in a masterful and satisfying way is cathartic. And like anyone and everyone, the campfire scene is just so fucking cozy i want reality to be it...

I'm a sucker for time travel stories that dont cower from exploring REAL TIME TRAVEL like if you have a time machine why WOULDN'T you go to prehistory and this game does that I love it so much for it. Something so grand and deeply resonating, witnessing such a monumental story being told in an intuitive way. Also the music is so fucking good oh my god.

Also in a way, its a pretty punk game if you think about it. Which is always a plus in my book.

Ayla best girl.
Robo best boy.
Akira Tomiyama's art is incredible.

I hadn't really known much about Chrono Trigger except for the fact that Square Enix worked on it and I'm a big Square fan. This really exceeded my expectations. I played on the PC remake version, so I had access to auto attack which I found eliminated much of the slog. Ended up with Ending 1 - Beyond Time as I did a lot of the side content before fully going into the Black Omen. Overall I found it was a really unique take on the turn based RPG style and the charm of the world it was set in made me fall in love with the characters and the exploration.

TLDR:

The god-tier music, timeless graphics/charm, and general polish were not enough for me to get past what I don't like about this game. Namely, the combat system, the ultra-non-linear design, and the barebones characters and story. I ended up dropping it sometime during the back half of the game and I don't feel motivated to pick it back up at this time. This game didn't work for me so I can't recommend it, but there's a good chance it will work for you, based on general reception and praise other people have for it.

--

As someone who considers himself a JRPG fan, I feel I like I have huge holes in my JRPG resume. This is one of those games that I felt it was necessary that I played as both a JRPG fan and just a video game fan. And on top of that, I was excited to play it. The praise for this game is near universal. I had already heard bits of music and screenshots and small clips of gameplay and it all sounded and looked good.

I think, in some ways, this game does in fact live up to the hype. In other ways, this is one of my most disappointing attempts at playing a game ever. And I say attempt because, for now, I have decided to drop it after months/years of trying to pick it up here and there and work thru it.

The music literally is some of the best VGM of all time. The graphics have a timeless quality. The characters have great designs and are charming. The time travel is both mechanically and conceptually very cool. The level of detail in the game is astounding sometimes. However, when it comes to actually playing the game and actually following the story and witnessing the dialogue, I don't feel this game is particularly good or even really up to any sort of modern standard.

This game has one of my least favorite JRPG battle systems ever. So much so that I find it difficult to believe that anyone likes it. It like, has to be nostalgia. Because the feeling I get when battling is that I am fighting the menus/UI, not the enemies on screen. I am constantly on my back foot, trying to keep up with the game as I am fumbling though the menus. I understand why JRPGs went down the ATB route, and I know other games use this system but something about this game's version of it really just doesn't work for me, it only manages to stress me out. Another thing that bothers me is the would-be strategic elements of combat that don't meet their potential. For example, depending on where your party members are in relation to the enemies, it can change how many enemies you can hit with some sort of attack. I will use Lucca's flamethrower attack as an example. It shoots out in a straight line from Lucca and will hit one or more enemies based on angle and positioning. However, you do not have any control over where Lucca is at all, not even like a start of battle placement phase, so it's just lucky, I guess, if you can do something like this. What seems like a cool concept is, to me, neutered in its execution. The tech system is cool but I feel like it corrals you into using the same few characters throughout the game, and then I think the boss design will sometimes punish you for focusing one team when you don't really have great tools to fight it. This is not a huge issue, but one I felt later on as the difficulty rises and bosses start having more complex mechanics.

Balancing wise, the pacing is good in that grinding is not really necessary. What I don't like is that there are a bunch of what I will call "gimmick fights", that aim to, I guess, change it up instead of just doing regular battles all the time. Which is a nice thought, but what it always plays out as is the fight is basically impossible without implementing the gimmick, and then when you do implement the gimmick, it is braindead easy. This is not particularly fun or interesting in my opinion, and honestly feels like I am unable to just play the damn game, I have to solve some unspoken riddle about this particular boss before I can continue playing, which to me feels like I am hit with roadblocks instead of just steady progression over time with "grinding".

I want to also talk about the general design of the game and world, which, much like many aspects of the rest of the game for me, is cool in concept but ultimately falls flat. This game is incredibly open. There are times when you are put down a path but other times when the game just says, "Alright, go figure it out." These "go figure it out" moments are sometimes cool but mostly overwhelming. There is a particular point in the game where basically you choose how it plays out. Depending on what you do or don't do, the ending can change sometimes drastically. I won't spoil anything but some of the things that are going on in this part of the game are conceptually cool, but serve to make the game itself more frustrating to play. Ultimately I don't feel motivated to seek these things out myself because I am not in love with the combat and I don't think the game has the writing chops to back up lots of dialogue heavy sidequests (see below for thoughts on story/writing/characters). So this is where I ended up dropping the game. I don't want to play it. I know that if I go straight to the final encounter, even if I manage to beat it as I am now, I know it will be annoying and I will get a bad ending. I don't want to do the sidequests cause I really just want to finish the game if I'm going to keep playing it. I am genuinely not interested in playing another 5-10 hours to beat this game.

In terms of story, I just don't understand where people are coming from saying that it's like a top tier JRPG storyline or characters. There's just not that much here! There are cool concepts. Interesting implications. What you are doing at any given time is cool. But in terms of raw text and story, there's just not really...anything. People say there are tearjerker moments in here...where? At what point do you actually become invested in these characters, because I can tell you, after getting through maybe 60-70% of the game, that I feel little to no attachment to these characters outside of just liking their design or maybe liking their backstory. It's just not enough. People will say in forums that "Oh, you just want to be spoon-fed a story like FF does, you just don't get it." I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. There is nothing that is that thought provoking, and there's not even that interesting of character interactions to make up for it. It is just not a fantastic or top-tier story, there's just not enough of it to even consider it! And the characters are 1000% being carried by their Akira Toriyama designs. This isn't even that big of a deal to me (I recently completed a playthrough of FF1, which has basically no story or characters at all), but I just feel like I'm in opposite world where up is down and left is right when I see people talking about how great the story and characters are. I just don't see it.

I want to wrap this up by saying that I don't see myself as a contrarian. I don't often find myself just totally disagreeing with the masses on things. There are a few instances where I think people overstate how good or bad something is. This time I am firmly of the opinion that this game is way overrated. More than any other game that I have maybe thought is overrated. HOWEVER...it has to be pointed out that I am obviously in a minority on this subject. Statistically speaking, in terms of you playing this game and forming your own opinion, it is more likely that you will like it a lot more than I do. So, with that in mind, take what I say with a grain of salt.

Rightfully deserves its place as one of the best JRPGs of all time. Definitely has some flaws (every cave looks exactly the same, you are constantly running out of MP), but those issues are but a drop in the bucket compared to everything else.
The character work is absolutely top-notch. every character feels as if they deserve to be there, and each one has fantastic sprite work. Marle in particular was a highlight, with probably the best and funniest sprites I've seen in a game.
The dual tech system was nice, but I do wish it was more strategic rather than "this is the newest dual tech you unlocked so that is the one that will deal the most damage". If I had been able to move my characters around to line up particular line techs, that could have been interesting.
Exploration was fun, and the game is basically laid out the same way as Final Fantasy VI, where it is heavily linear up until a particular story point where you can then complete the rest of the side quests in any order.
The shorter length also helps this, as there is basically no filler, although it is unclear why the story suddenly shifts towards befriending frog for a few hours.
The extra dungeons in this version of the game are absolute trash and were an actual detriment to the game. Lost Sanctum was the laziest quest design I had ever seen. No I do not want to trek all the way up and down a mountain a seventh time just because some dumb creature wants a banana.