I let this cook for a few hours, slept on it, thought about it, and decided that this is probably one of the best RPGs ever created.
I had to sleep on it, because I'll get this out of the way first - the open world/side quest portion before the end of the game is bad. It's not good. They do not give you enough information to go on in order to complete their quests. It's really not that bad, but it feels like a nuke was dropped on my experience. This is because every other single thing about Chrono Trigger is perfect. It's, safe, but perfect.
I think partially I would call it safe just because this game could have been released yesterday. This game is timeless. To think that this game has this level of quality of life, narrative coherence, and balance in the battle systems is astounding. The battle system doesn't do anything absolutely incredible, and yet only one or two games have copied its tech system word for word.
I think what gets my point across best (and in the most goofy way) is this: literature and music have been around for thousands of years. Film has been around for almost 150 years. Video games have been around, generously, for 65ish years, popularly for maybe 45. In literature, we might think of like, Pride and Prejudice, maybe Frankenstein, as literary classics. In the film world, Casablanca comes to mind. Chrono Trigger is that game for the medium. It's not just a video game - it's THE video game. It is a triumph that this game was released.
I had to sleep on it, because I'll get this out of the way first - the open world/side quest portion before the end of the game is bad. It's not good. They do not give you enough information to go on in order to complete their quests. It's really not that bad, but it feels like a nuke was dropped on my experience. This is because every other single thing about Chrono Trigger is perfect. It's, safe, but perfect.
I think partially I would call it safe just because this game could have been released yesterday. This game is timeless. To think that this game has this level of quality of life, narrative coherence, and balance in the battle systems is astounding. The battle system doesn't do anything absolutely incredible, and yet only one or two games have copied its tech system word for word.
I think what gets my point across best (and in the most goofy way) is this: literature and music have been around for thousands of years. Film has been around for almost 150 years. Video games have been around, generously, for 65ish years, popularly for maybe 45. In literature, we might think of like, Pride and Prejudice, maybe Frankenstein, as literary classics. In the film world, Casablanca comes to mind. Chrono Trigger is that game for the medium. It's not just a video game - it's THE video game. It is a triumph that this game was released.