Finally played this in light of Akira Toriyama's death. I think the writing is shallow but the game makes up for it with great presentation and pacing. The only time I felt "ugh, can we move on?" is when I played the optional DS areas. It's very ahead of it's time with inactive party members getting XP, enemies being visible instead of random, and multiple endings.

I played Undertale & Deltarune before playing this, and there's a lot of overlap between the games. The dungeons are short & stylish and the tone is a blend of humor and melancholy. Indeed, Toby Fox listened to this game's OST when designing Undertale. Anyone who likes RPGs should try this, but if you're a Toby Fox fan, this should definitely be on your list.

After playing this I fully understand why it's a first ballot JRPG hall of famer. The storytelling is fantastic and tightly-woven, combat is incredibly fun and offers the chance for so many possible strategies, and the music/artwork heightens the already great experience into an amazing one. The fact that they were doing this shit in 1995 makes this even crazier. How it took everyone else so long to have bench leveling and remove random encounters in their JRPGs is beyond me. There's absolutely no padding to this game, each part of the game is fun and meaningful.

The story is killer. I love each of the characters so much that I'm not sure I could pick a favorite. Their personalities show in the writing and the spritework and it made the adventure that much more charming. Doing all the side quests right before the end was some of the most fun I've had in an RPG ever. This is really where the interaction between party members stood out. I didn't use Robo or Lucca too much until late game but after seeing them take the spotlight in some of these side quests, I used them way more often and really appreciate their characters way more. I wish the whole game had that level of party interaction, but it's just fine without it. At the present I have not gone for all of the alternate endings, but if I find myself wanting to return to the game, I think I will.

Getting to explore the world and uncover all its secrets was also very cool. The way the time-traveling storyline wove together the different maps and different characters was awesome. There were big, obvious connections, but also small, hidden ones that you only found if you looked. Every detail was meticulously planned out, which I admire a ton

Since there was no need to grind, and bench characters gained xp, I was trying all sorts of party combinations to tackle different problems. The Tech system is so sick, and it was cool to see what each character combination's Dual and Triple Techs would do. I loved how the combat was conscious of space too, and rewarded you for choosing attacks that beat certain enemy formations.

In terms of old games, it doesn't get much better than this- and it's better than a lot of newer stuff too. If you're even considering playing this game, I highly recommend trying it.

Chrono trigger is a game I’ve already played! A couple years ago in fact, but it did not do it for me at all. However, after becoming a huge dragon ball fan last year and hearing about toriyamas passing I thought I’d give chrono trigger a second try because I always thought it looked great visually and I figured it could be my tribute. Well apparently toriyama (and the fine folks at old square) does it again because this game actually rules pretty hard. This combat is excellent, the battle positioning and having to play around that, the animations and most of all the tec/part chemistry makes even dumb grunt fights feel pretty engaging and undoubtedly entertaining, it also helps that all the moves are cool as shit. There is not many satisfactions greater than watching chrono melt a couple imps with Luminaire. This game overall looks excellent also, doing a great job of separating all the times periods not merely by architecture but also environmental tone like how they make 600AD gloomy and cloudy and they make the future ashen and shadowy. On the note of sensory presentation this music sounds awesome. Every battle gets you into it immediately with that katana-unsheath-sound and the bass line coming in. All the music in this game is excellent and reeks of 90s SNES charm. While I wouldn’t call it ambient, the music accompanying the various over worlds in this game is perfect. It doesn’t compromise the games style ever but still makes the player feel like the sound is appropriate with their environment (corridors of time is the best at this for sure). The story is a mixed bag in my opinion however, some aspects are interesting and I like the idea of how time travel is done here but, first off, I never really like time travel, and second off, it’s nothing mind blowing or shocking narratively. The most I can say about this game stories are in its characters which I will talk about now. They are not super strong to be honest. In terms of using them and whatever, no character is lame but writing wise is different. Chrono is actually awful, he looks super cool for sure but he has actually nothing, even the dialogue you can pick for him isn’t doing him any favours. Luca and Ayla are pretty weak and basically have nothing except Luca and her mom (maybe) getting crushed by some big dumb machine. Robo is sweet and whatever but his story is nothing insane, still good tho, he’s the worst of the good. Marle is probably the most charming and I like that. The only two GREAT characters are Magus, who is very twisty and fairly layered (also cool as hell) and frog who is just the complete goat writing and all. Chrono trigger is an excellent classic RPG that I’m glad I revisited. For how long it takes and for how much effort the devs put into it (especially with the quadrillion endings) I would recommend it to everyone if only for its amazing presentation and perfection of SNES era combat. Please play!