I have always felt that Chrono Trigger earns its acclaim by what it doesn’t do. Really, the game feels downright barebones when comparing it to other RPGs of the time. Think about a massive game like Final Fantasy 6. What doesn’t that epic have? With dungeons within dungeons, two massive worlds to explore, and a titanic number of characters, a game like Chrono Trigger should not compete with Final Fantasy’s epic scale. Yet it does. So, how is it that Chrono Trigger can stand toe-to-toe with a game of that magnitude, maybe even surpass it?

By all accounts, Chrono Trigger should make people angry with its simplicity and restrictive gameplay. Up until the 11th hour, the story rides the rails. The five worlds you travel to are just window dressing to the next story event. When the game does open and allow you a bit of time travel freedom, it comes in the form of a handful of side quests. Most of these quests are small. Pick a quest, travel to a time period, kill a boss, get loot, the end. Lesser games would be criticized for the lack of content, but not Chrono Trigger. Why? The answer is intent.

Chrono Trigger has a very specific gameplan. It wants things to matter. No fluff. No roaming the world for collectables. No super boss exists just for the sake of the challenge. Every event, boss, and special item serves the story in some way. The rainbow shell side quest serves as a great example. You fight powerful bosses to get the most powerful gear, but the quest also uncovers a plot to usurp the throne. And this isn’t a plot tossed in out from left field either. It has specific connections to story events from way back at the beginning of the game, and it provides the Chancellor with motivations for his actions.

Each scene or location is planned out and has a purpose. At the Millennial Fair, you meet Marle. Together you take part in seemingly mindless tasks before meeting Lucca and starting the story proper. But these seemingly mindless tasks resurface at Crono’s trial and have story implications. When the time portal whisks away Marle to parts unknown, Lucca doesn’t take a day to gameplan with you or have a crisis of conscious about her machine. Nope. Crono gets on that tele-pad and off you go. When the game risks becoming monotonous, it throws in a race through the future wastelands. That is Chrono Trigger’s efficiency.

Character moments are quick, but impactful. Frog needs only a single scene to show us why he fights Magus but doubts his abilities. We don’t need more than that. No need to monologue or tell the player over and over about his motives. The game doesn’t even give him time to do so, because when he gets the Hero’s Medal and regains his confidence, its off to Magus’ castle. We barely need to hear about Magus’ reasons when he joins. His whole story was interlaced within the plot.

The gameplay also embraces this feeling of focus. Enemies move about visibly onscreen and most of the time can be avoided. Chrono Trigger basically asks you what you want to focus on in the moment. Need XP? Go fight. If not, then you move on. It simply does not have the time to surprise you with random battles every 5 seconds. Though some fights are scripted, they are the exception, not the rule.

I could go about the career defining music by Mitsuda, or the beautiful art by Toriyama, but I’ll let the countless other reviews handle that. To me, the success of Chrono Trigger lies in is design philosophy – a simplicity rarely found in modern games and especially the JRPG genre.

I cried so much.

But, if you wanted me to I could pick this game to pieces:
- The Xenoblade combat system is tired at this point.
- The class system is messy and I spent more time swapping people on and off classes than team building.
- The UI, while pretty, makes it a nightmare to understand what equipable items you have.
- It's a challenge to actually stay on the level curve and not over-level.
- Even if you do manage this feat, the game is far too easy.
- The final 10-20 hours are less exploration and just teleporting to fast travel points to wander to quest markers.
- Money has very little usage, except for one side quest at the end of the game.
- There are too many sidequests that are just fluff and make the good parts of side stories feel more tired and drawn out.
- Story beats throughout the midgame can become a tad formulaic.
- The ocean area sucks.

However, I don't care. I loved the game. I loved the gang. I loved the world. I loved the fantastic dub.

Big shoutouts to Kitty Archer's performance as Eunie. Absolutely endearing, and her scenes with Taion (Oliver Huband) are some of the highlights of the game. Wonderful chemistry.

Xenoblade 3 is an epic.

But Xenoblade 1 is a better videogame.

Having had much time to think, to play other SMT, to dwell on the worlds of man and demon -- this was something of a disappointment.

The narrative and characters were paper-thin to the point they weren't enjoyable. "Ah but these games are atmosphere and themes!" Yeah but the two immediate comparisons to this I'd make - Nocturne and IV - have something going on in the plot and a cast that at least have the illusion of change. The story here is almost non-existent - join a thinly sketched anti-demon group, fight demons, people have poorly defined turns in their arcs (his hat says SUCKER but he takes it off so he isn't a sucker anymore!!!!!!) It feels less like experiencing a story and more like reading a book report written by someone who only read the cliff notes.

The soundtrack is superb - can Kozuka miss even once? Goddamn - and the character designs, demon designs- all the aesthetic shit hits. I'll even forgive the fact the maps are all palette swaps. Tho they do all have a different central gimmick for exploring - still palette swaps!

The dungeons - all 3 of em! - are all bad for different reasons. The first is just dull. The second has one idea. It isn't executed well at all, and by the time it feels like they figured out how to set up puzzles with it - its over. The third combines both flavors and adds an extra bit of spice by making rooms with enemy encounters the same way I made them in Timesplitters 2 on Xbox. Sloppily.

I'm also growing increasingly weary of how mainline has basically stagnated with combat. Press Turn was cool in Nocturne but all the interesting iterations were in Persona or got trapped in a spinoff game and completely ignored.

V's idea of shaking up Press Turn is tacking the Magatsuhi system onto it which is a really boring way of slowly grinding up the ability for one free action that is either useful, shit, or incredibly mid. You basically only use it for bosses or those random enemies who are just idiotically strong for no reasons because it's a complete waste otherwise.

I sure hope that if they do a Maniax style cut I ain't gotta buy it again but I know Atlus has no clue how dlc works.