In the pantheon of what people consider "perfect games", it's not gonna be hard finding Chrono Trigger being name-dropped.
Playing it all these years later, it's understandable to see why it has such a highly regarded reputation. Chrono Trigger moves along at a brisk and well thought out pace, establishing its world, tone, and characters in a few short and memorable scenes, right before sending you off on a time travel adventure to save the planet from ultimate annihilation with your best friend and a damsel in distress.
This is Chrono Trigger's biggest strength: the ability to not waste your time, presenting a compelling and fun diverse cast of personalities and enough intrigue and pathos to propel you on your quest. This is accomplished by the expertise of Square Enix's "Dream Team", a group of talented devs that included Sakaguchi (titan of the JRPG genre, famed for creating Final Fantasy), Toriyama (the man behind the iconic character design of Dragon Quest) and Uematsu (legend composer of the Final Fantasy series), along with other just as important members, who gave Chrono Trigger its classic art style and design, charming and witty dialogue and characters, a memorable and haunting soundtrack, and engaging combat system.
Beyond the bond and interplay between the main characters that happen during the cutscenes, the combat itself also reinforces that narrative, with its focus on cooperative techniques that have the team members joining together to deal more powerful attacks to the enemies. Added to that, the combat isn't as abstracted as other JRPGs like Final Fantasy, where the characters and enemies just stand in direct opposition to each other, statically waiting for their turn.
In Chrono Trigger you can see the enemies walking around in the field before encounters, and during combat they move around and are affected by their position in relation to your team members, creating a much more dynamic and expressive burst of action.
Chrono Trigger doesn't' necessarily push the boundaries of its main core components. The story is enjoyable all the way through, but it's not the greatest literature ever put on a cartridge, and the gameplay is satisfying enough but it's not gonna break the mold of JRPGs anytime soon. It's however the marriage between all its pieces that produce a blockbuster of 16-bit glory.
It's hard not feel some form of fascination and excitement during moments like when you are showing Marlie around the town fair, when you find yourself transported to the future and witness the world destroyed, when you fight Magus in his dark castle, when you find the lost magic kingdom that's suspended in the air, or when you save a team member who sacrifices himself to save the rest of the group from certain death.
As you find yourself at the end, having gone through space and time fighting a gauntlet of enemies and boss battles, and defeating a challenging and multiple phased final boss, it's difficult not to look back at the game and not be impressed by it's perfected simplicity.
Regarding which version to be played, the SNES is the right decision. The DS version, while more faithful, does a disservice to the characters by making the line delivery more stoic and stilted, and the game is intended to be played on a big screen, not on such a small device where the pixel magic will be lost.
Certified classic.
Playing it all these years later, it's understandable to see why it has such a highly regarded reputation. Chrono Trigger moves along at a brisk and well thought out pace, establishing its world, tone, and characters in a few short and memorable scenes, right before sending you off on a time travel adventure to save the planet from ultimate annihilation with your best friend and a damsel in distress.
This is Chrono Trigger's biggest strength: the ability to not waste your time, presenting a compelling and fun diverse cast of personalities and enough intrigue and pathos to propel you on your quest. This is accomplished by the expertise of Square Enix's "Dream Team", a group of talented devs that included Sakaguchi (titan of the JRPG genre, famed for creating Final Fantasy), Toriyama (the man behind the iconic character design of Dragon Quest) and Uematsu (legend composer of the Final Fantasy series), along with other just as important members, who gave Chrono Trigger its classic art style and design, charming and witty dialogue and characters, a memorable and haunting soundtrack, and engaging combat system.
Beyond the bond and interplay between the main characters that happen during the cutscenes, the combat itself also reinforces that narrative, with its focus on cooperative techniques that have the team members joining together to deal more powerful attacks to the enemies. Added to that, the combat isn't as abstracted as other JRPGs like Final Fantasy, where the characters and enemies just stand in direct opposition to each other, statically waiting for their turn.
In Chrono Trigger you can see the enemies walking around in the field before encounters, and during combat they move around and are affected by their position in relation to your team members, creating a much more dynamic and expressive burst of action.
Chrono Trigger doesn't' necessarily push the boundaries of its main core components. The story is enjoyable all the way through, but it's not the greatest literature ever put on a cartridge, and the gameplay is satisfying enough but it's not gonna break the mold of JRPGs anytime soon. It's however the marriage between all its pieces that produce a blockbuster of 16-bit glory.
It's hard not feel some form of fascination and excitement during moments like when you are showing Marlie around the town fair, when you find yourself transported to the future and witness the world destroyed, when you fight Magus in his dark castle, when you find the lost magic kingdom that's suspended in the air, or when you save a team member who sacrifices himself to save the rest of the group from certain death.
As you find yourself at the end, having gone through space and time fighting a gauntlet of enemies and boss battles, and defeating a challenging and multiple phased final boss, it's difficult not to look back at the game and not be impressed by it's perfected simplicity.
Regarding which version to be played, the SNES is the right decision. The DS version, while more faithful, does a disservice to the characters by making the line delivery more stoic and stilted, and the game is intended to be played on a big screen, not on such a small device where the pixel magic will be lost.
Certified classic.