For a game nearing 30 years old now, it's quite impressive to come away from it saying that there are virtually no major flaws that turned me off of the game.
The battle system doesn't feature any crazy mechanics that make it a complete stand out, but it is surely above average. It has two unique battle quirks that complement each other very well. The first is that your location during a battle matters, and the second is the classic active combat system is in effect. Combined, this makes for some interesting decisions where you have to make a decision to attack to get something off before your enemies, or to stand by and wait for a better alignment for perhaps a stronger attack.
Added to it, the memorable cast of characters all have their different strengths in battle, and interact with each other through super attacks known as techs. Techs motivate you to try multiple configurations of party members in battles as the more you battle with different people, the more potential solutions you will unlock upon TP level up. What is particularly great about this system is that any combination of characters can make a completely viable team capable of beating anything in the game, and certain lineups will shine for certain fights, or perhaps make some bosses easier. It's completely possible that an easy boss for one player may be tough for another and vice versa, all because of what character lineups they used for them. In summary, battles keep you on your toes and force you to think.
The bosses aren't particularly difficult, but can humble you pretty quickly if you aren't paying enough attention. Many of them have unique strategies that force you to change your approach. What is particularly nice about Chrono Trigger is that when you do lose a fight, the solution is never that you need to grind more. You just need to try a different strategy, or perhaps execute better. The game is designed so that grinding is never necessary, which in my opinion, helps with pacing a lot. Whenever you enter a new area, it's not going to take too long, and the difficulty always feels just right.
The removal of random encounters from your typical Final Fantasy game is the best possible change that could've been made. This pretty much guarantees that you're going to be at a reasonable level for most of your playthrough, and rarely are you constantly interrupted by surprise fights that you want no part of. Many enemies are avoidable if you don't feel like fighting, unlike its SNES counterpart, Earthbound.
My least favorite aspect of the game is how quickly enemies do respawn however - frequently I dreaded backtracking for chests or figuring out how to get to them, because required fights frequently rekindle even seconds after finishing them. Additionally, there were some parts of the game (2300 A.D.) that require you to go through an area multiple times, and the enemies get quite annoying in that section. This is strictly an improvement over purely random encounters however. The game is interesting enough that you don't always want to be thinking about battles, and it seems to recognize that.
How the story unfolds around you is quite interesting. Time travel is rarely a concept that ever truly works in media, and I'm not going to sit and act like it makes complete sense here either, but it is handled about as well as it could be in a video game here. Time travel is used to tell bits and pieces of the story in an out of order way. In a sense, figuring out the timeline is sort of a mystery, and all the different time periods in history have their own unique settings and party members that make them interesting. Time travel is also used as an optional puzzle solving mechanic in many ways, which I think is pretty clever.
While the decisions you make in many games are inconsequential, that is rarely the case here. It is made clear very early on in the game and in a surprising manner. I won't elaborate much on it here, but it's worth noting and talking about. The game has a lot of content out there that it is willing to let you miss. So much is optional, but it makes for a very personalized experience. At times it is frustrating if you truly want to do everything you can do, because the hints can range from obvious to cryptic. However, I respect that the game wants players to earn their cutscenes or extra dialogue.
We talk about New Game + in many JRPGs these days, but how Chrono Trigger introduced it was revolutionary. This is a game full of decisions, and while it's not quite a choose your own adventure type of experience, it remembers your route through the game enough to give incredibly unique endings. These endings range from simply getting to see alternative timelines that you may have missed (in a speedy way due to NG+), to radically shifting the final outcome due to simply being incredibly powerful. NG+ isn't just a way to get to replay the game with all your gear in tact in Chrono Trigger, it's a fast lane to other endings that you may have not experienced in your original playthrough, that still makes you work for them (unlike that of watching on YouTube). I've still yet to play another game that implements NG+ so well.
The character cast, story, artstyle, and music are all quite solid, but it's hard for me to find any character, area, or music track to be one of my favorites of all time. I've found that this game has a very high floor. It's an easy recommendation, because it's very solidly built and doesn't really give many people a reason to dislike it. However, I'm not certain it has the highest highs. There is of course a few moments that stick out in my memory. In terms of pure fun, it does feel slow at some points. This is why I think the people that played this game can range from finding it boring to finding it to be the greatest game of all time. I'm admittedly not the biggest JRPG fan anymore, and I find it in the middle of that. There are very few flaws and a lot of good moments, and I'll just leave it at that. It was a great experience overall and about as solid as you can get for a 90s RPG.
The battle system doesn't feature any crazy mechanics that make it a complete stand out, but it is surely above average. It has two unique battle quirks that complement each other very well. The first is that your location during a battle matters, and the second is the classic active combat system is in effect. Combined, this makes for some interesting decisions where you have to make a decision to attack to get something off before your enemies, or to stand by and wait for a better alignment for perhaps a stronger attack.
Added to it, the memorable cast of characters all have their different strengths in battle, and interact with each other through super attacks known as techs. Techs motivate you to try multiple configurations of party members in battles as the more you battle with different people, the more potential solutions you will unlock upon TP level up. What is particularly great about this system is that any combination of characters can make a completely viable team capable of beating anything in the game, and certain lineups will shine for certain fights, or perhaps make some bosses easier. It's completely possible that an easy boss for one player may be tough for another and vice versa, all because of what character lineups they used for them. In summary, battles keep you on your toes and force you to think.
The bosses aren't particularly difficult, but can humble you pretty quickly if you aren't paying enough attention. Many of them have unique strategies that force you to change your approach. What is particularly nice about Chrono Trigger is that when you do lose a fight, the solution is never that you need to grind more. You just need to try a different strategy, or perhaps execute better. The game is designed so that grinding is never necessary, which in my opinion, helps with pacing a lot. Whenever you enter a new area, it's not going to take too long, and the difficulty always feels just right.
The removal of random encounters from your typical Final Fantasy game is the best possible change that could've been made. This pretty much guarantees that you're going to be at a reasonable level for most of your playthrough, and rarely are you constantly interrupted by surprise fights that you want no part of. Many enemies are avoidable if you don't feel like fighting, unlike its SNES counterpart, Earthbound.
My least favorite aspect of the game is how quickly enemies do respawn however - frequently I dreaded backtracking for chests or figuring out how to get to them, because required fights frequently rekindle even seconds after finishing them. Additionally, there were some parts of the game (2300 A.D.) that require you to go through an area multiple times, and the enemies get quite annoying in that section. This is strictly an improvement over purely random encounters however. The game is interesting enough that you don't always want to be thinking about battles, and it seems to recognize that.
How the story unfolds around you is quite interesting. Time travel is rarely a concept that ever truly works in media, and I'm not going to sit and act like it makes complete sense here either, but it is handled about as well as it could be in a video game here. Time travel is used to tell bits and pieces of the story in an out of order way. In a sense, figuring out the timeline is sort of a mystery, and all the different time periods in history have their own unique settings and party members that make them interesting. Time travel is also used as an optional puzzle solving mechanic in many ways, which I think is pretty clever.
While the decisions you make in many games are inconsequential, that is rarely the case here. It is made clear very early on in the game and in a surprising manner. I won't elaborate much on it here, but it's worth noting and talking about. The game has a lot of content out there that it is willing to let you miss. So much is optional, but it makes for a very personalized experience. At times it is frustrating if you truly want to do everything you can do, because the hints can range from obvious to cryptic. However, I respect that the game wants players to earn their cutscenes or extra dialogue.
We talk about New Game + in many JRPGs these days, but how Chrono Trigger introduced it was revolutionary. This is a game full of decisions, and while it's not quite a choose your own adventure type of experience, it remembers your route through the game enough to give incredibly unique endings. These endings range from simply getting to see alternative timelines that you may have missed (in a speedy way due to NG+), to radically shifting the final outcome due to simply being incredibly powerful. NG+ isn't just a way to get to replay the game with all your gear in tact in Chrono Trigger, it's a fast lane to other endings that you may have not experienced in your original playthrough, that still makes you work for them (unlike that of watching on YouTube). I've still yet to play another game that implements NG+ so well.
The character cast, story, artstyle, and music are all quite solid, but it's hard for me to find any character, area, or music track to be one of my favorites of all time. I've found that this game has a very high floor. It's an easy recommendation, because it's very solidly built and doesn't really give many people a reason to dislike it. However, I'm not certain it has the highest highs. There is of course a few moments that stick out in my memory. In terms of pure fun, it does feel slow at some points. This is why I think the people that played this game can range from finding it boring to finding it to be the greatest game of all time. I'm admittedly not the biggest JRPG fan anymore, and I find it in the middle of that. There are very few flaws and a lot of good moments, and I'll just leave it at that. It was a great experience overall and about as solid as you can get for a 90s RPG.