I dropped Chrono Trigger five times before playing it all the way through
I grew up with Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball at the school's childcare. No fighting manga has ever come close to Dragon's ball fight readability. It is an effortless read. Smooth sailing.
Likewise, Chrono Trigger is an effortless play. They were attempting to make the -perfect- JRPG, so they sandpapered every corner of the game. Each half an hour, bite-size perfect, comes at you with greatness, polish and love. The characters acts a lot. Every corner has its own music. You look out of the train's window and the scenery keeps changing. A 10000 km/h bullet train going through the best landscapes you've ever seen. An amusement park without the waiting lines.
So -why- did I drop Chrono Trigger five times ?
I think the confidence it has in its presentation makes the battle-system look very weak in comparison. Not bad, just weak. Beautiful, well-paced, but controller in hand, it flows like "It's a small world". Where you'd have to spam one button to make the ship advance. The first hours of combat feels boring. Because you know, deep down, that you don't need to pay attention. And when a game is this good, presentation wise, you really -want- to pay attention.
It does get better, though I don't think it ever gets good. It gets stressful and difficult so you do have to pay attention to what's going on. Not in an interesting way because they won't commit gameplay-wise on any interesting idea. Every character plays the same way, combos waste the turns of everyone involved,. You don't have to make a lot of decisions. You never have to think beforehand as it's always about reacting fast enough to the ennemy's weakness.
Not bad enough to be a real problem.
Not interesting enough to be compelling.
Important enough so you can't straight up avoid it.
Just like doing your taxes.
That being said, it is a perfect game. JRPG are warm games and Chrono trigger might be the warmest. I was suprised by how the narrative evolved and by the edge of some of the game's moments. I loved how it respects the player's time. Short incredible main quest, few, very compelling side quests. It cannot get better.
I could linger on the game's many qualities though it wouldn't make an interesting read.
It is bold, it is confident, it is compact.
It makes other games of the genre look tedious.
It makes other games of the genre look texturally more interesting.
By the end of it, I wanted every JRPG to be Chrono Trigger as much as I wanted them not to be Chrono Trigger.
It is not my favorite, but if I had to replay one, I'd play this one.
If I had a time machine, this is the JRPG I would give to young-me, which is the greatest compliment I can think of.
I grew up with Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball at the school's childcare. No fighting manga has ever come close to Dragon's ball fight readability. It is an effortless read. Smooth sailing.
Likewise, Chrono Trigger is an effortless play. They were attempting to make the -perfect- JRPG, so they sandpapered every corner of the game. Each half an hour, bite-size perfect, comes at you with greatness, polish and love. The characters acts a lot. Every corner has its own music. You look out of the train's window and the scenery keeps changing. A 10000 km/h bullet train going through the best landscapes you've ever seen. An amusement park without the waiting lines.
So -why- did I drop Chrono Trigger five times ?
I think the confidence it has in its presentation makes the battle-system look very weak in comparison. Not bad, just weak. Beautiful, well-paced, but controller in hand, it flows like "It's a small world". Where you'd have to spam one button to make the ship advance. The first hours of combat feels boring. Because you know, deep down, that you don't need to pay attention. And when a game is this good, presentation wise, you really -want- to pay attention.
It does get better, though I don't think it ever gets good. It gets stressful and difficult so you do have to pay attention to what's going on. Not in an interesting way because they won't commit gameplay-wise on any interesting idea. Every character plays the same way, combos waste the turns of everyone involved,. You don't have to make a lot of decisions. You never have to think beforehand as it's always about reacting fast enough to the ennemy's weakness.
Not bad enough to be a real problem.
Not interesting enough to be compelling.
Important enough so you can't straight up avoid it.
Just like doing your taxes.
That being said, it is a perfect game. JRPG are warm games and Chrono trigger might be the warmest. I was suprised by how the narrative evolved and by the edge of some of the game's moments. I loved how it respects the player's time. Short incredible main quest, few, very compelling side quests. It cannot get better.
I could linger on the game's many qualities though it wouldn't make an interesting read.
It is bold, it is confident, it is compact.
It makes other games of the genre look tedious.
It makes other games of the genre look texturally more interesting.
By the end of it, I wanted every JRPG to be Chrono Trigger as much as I wanted them not to be Chrono Trigger.
It is not my favorite, but if I had to replay one, I'd play this one.
If I had a time machine, this is the JRPG I would give to young-me, which is the greatest compliment I can think of.