What Chrono Trigger does well it does better than any SNES game, possibly any RPG, possibly any video game ever. At its peaks it's engrossing in a way that needs to be felt to believed. The soundtrack is also incredible. So it's a real shame that most of the game is just, like, completely boring. All of that "immersion" (as much as I hate the term) bleeds away as you get into random battle after random battle after random battle- as cool as it is that fights take place without a transition to another screen, it's really not a replacement for substance.
There's nothing inherently wrong with turn-based combat. At its core, turn-based combat just boils combat down to a series of decisions, so as long as there are meaningful decisions to be made (or some other way to make that appealing) it can be a great system. Chrono Trigger really fails there- 95% of combat encounters just involve scrolling through menus to pick the same option for the 999th time. Bossfights try to spice things up with unique mechanics, but they're nearly all so easy as to be insubstantial or.. just actually insubstantial, like if you didn't even notice they were there it wouldn't hinder you at all.
[Very minor spoilers ahead]
As much as Chrono Trigger takes you on an incredible adventure, the actual plot is barebones (which is fine). The bigger story flaw is that its characters are actually all varied and interesting and have some great moments... all of which are stacked together right at the game in a series of optional sidequests. Half of the characters in the game join the party after speaking one or two sentences, then go silent for practically the rest of the game. Interestingly, there's a section later in the game where the (silent) protagonist leaves the party, and the rest of the characters (now freed from having to speak to someone that can't respond) all seem to come alive, interacting and bouncing off of each other in really charming ways. All of the elements to make something great are there but they're jumbled in such a way that it's impossible to feel any real emotional investment- I suspect a lot of the reason people love this game is that they've played it multiple times through so they care less about the back-loading of character development.
It's still worth playing, the highs are worth experiencing, just expect to spend quite a bit of time bored and don't expect to be too emotionally invested.
There's nothing inherently wrong with turn-based combat. At its core, turn-based combat just boils combat down to a series of decisions, so as long as there are meaningful decisions to be made (or some other way to make that appealing) it can be a great system. Chrono Trigger really fails there- 95% of combat encounters just involve scrolling through menus to pick the same option for the 999th time. Bossfights try to spice things up with unique mechanics, but they're nearly all so easy as to be insubstantial or.. just actually insubstantial, like if you didn't even notice they were there it wouldn't hinder you at all.
[Very minor spoilers ahead]
As much as Chrono Trigger takes you on an incredible adventure, the actual plot is barebones (which is fine). The bigger story flaw is that its characters are actually all varied and interesting and have some great moments... all of which are stacked together right at the game in a series of optional sidequests. Half of the characters in the game join the party after speaking one or two sentences, then go silent for practically the rest of the game. Interestingly, there's a section later in the game where the (silent) protagonist leaves the party, and the rest of the characters (now freed from having to speak to someone that can't respond) all seem to come alive, interacting and bouncing off of each other in really charming ways. All of the elements to make something great are there but they're jumbled in such a way that it's impossible to feel any real emotional investment- I suspect a lot of the reason people love this game is that they've played it multiple times through so they care less about the back-loading of character development.
It's still worth playing, the highs are worth experiencing, just expect to spend quite a bit of time bored and don't expect to be too emotionally invested.