(This is the 111th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
I didn't think Chrono Trigger, a 1995 JRPG by Square for the SNES, would live up to the incredibly high expectations I had that came from years and years of reading about how Chrono Trigger is still one of the best JRPGs today, if not one of the best games period. I would stumble upon quite a few of these types of highly praised games, only to have their impact lessened by the expectations going in.
With Chrono Trigger, there were two differences for me. First, I have done this challenge of mine for over a year now, starting all the way back in 1990 and arriving in 1995, having played 110 different games in the process, including over a dozen RPGs. So my expectations for what a great game in the 90s looks like were set rather accurately I'd say.
Second, unlike some of the other older games I would hear about and be slightly disappointed by, Chrono Trigger actually aged incredibly well. It won't make you a fan of the JRPG genre if you've tried many other games and don't enjoy the gameplay loop, but for fans of the genre, I'm gonna go ahead and say that there are few JRPGs out there who are as complete a package as Chrono Trigger. From 1990 to 1995, it's absolutely the best one, and possibly my favorite game as part of this challenge I've played so far. If you call yourself a JRPG fan, do yourself a favor and check this game out.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 9/10
Chrono Trigger uses a time travel theme for its main story. You play as Crono (or however non-canon name you would like to give him), who looks like a DBZ character in the game's cover, which makes sense since the art designer worked on DBZ as well. The game starts in 1000 A.D. You wake up and go to the fair that is in town, where a local girl named Lucca has a transportation device to showcase, which teleports you from one box to the other right next to it.
An accident happens and a girl you were hanging out with, Marle, is sent into a portal that opened up by the power of her pendant. You choose to be the hero and go after her. Soon after, you realize you are now in 600 A.D. That's all fascinating and stuff, but all you want to do is grab Marle and get out of there. Events transpire, and not much later, you find yourself in the future and uncovering something very dark: The planet is dying. With the power of time travel at your hands, it's up to you and your friends to go back and forward in time to do what's necessary and prevent this horrible death.
What impresses the most about Chrono Trigger's storytelling is that it incorporates time travel and does not end up in a jumbled mess by the end. Quite the opposite actually. The time travel theme gives the story lots of options to explore different settings, events and permutations of said events, which lends itself perfectly to the fact that this game has not one, not two but 13 (!) different endings that differ quite notably from each other based on when and where you take certain actions.
Additionally, Chrono Trigger reaches the impressive feat of having a time travel story make sense overall, while also avoiding being as formulaic as JRPG stories tend to be at this time period. The main villain in this game is really interesting and actually scary as shit the more I think about it, and as someone who loves a good villain, that's awesome, though I won't say much more than that. There are also many other villains of which many were well-explored, and the game has a diverse and charming cast of characters. I found some to be one-dimensional, like Robo or Ayla, but the others have some stand-out moments as part of the main story or their own side stories. I wish there would have been more moments where the entire casts interacts like in one singular scene that I found throughout the whole game, but the game is more focused on its plot, which is well-paced almost throughout, and that makes for a great experience as well.
One final note I want to make is that the game does a really great job at foreshadowing certain events, locations and characters, and when you get to the points where they become relevant, it makes for some of the best moments in the game.
As someone who likes well-developed characters as much as a good plot, I would personally have liked a little bit more in that aspect, but the plot is great, characters are easy to root for and there are at least a couple that do have great backstories and development, so if you're looking for a JRPG who ticks these boxes, Chrono Trigger probably comes up at the top of most lists for a good reason.
GAMEPLAY | 15/20
JRPGs have a pretty well-established gameplay loop, and Chrono Trigger does not distance itself from that either, which is understandable considering it was made by the same company that is reponsible for Final Fantasy, the SaGa series, the Mana series and more. That said, what Chrono Trigger achieves is three-fold.
First, Chrono Trigger makes the loop less grindy and cryptic. I never felt the need to farm XP mindlessly for hours to have a chance at a random mid-game boss. There was one boss fight that was unusually tough, sure, but I beat it by adjusting my strategy and was able to continue through the rest of the game. The game also never forced me to use a guide, which, believe me, means something. There is always that one time in these RPGs where I'm stumped as to where to go or what to do, but with Chrono Trigger, I always figured it out eventually, without fail. Talk to all NPCs and you will definitely find your way forward.
Second, Chrono Trigger introduces quality of life changes and general improvements to the genre. Talk to an NPC accidentally? Just walk away mid dialogue without having to click each line away. Don't want to be thrown into random encounters? You don't have to, enemies almost always appear on the screen and you can often just walk past them. Feel like you're usually missing out on the good skills/weapons in JRPGs because you can't find them? The game has "Techs", which the characters unlock naturally as you use them, which are more than enough to overcome any challenge as long as you use them correctly.
Third, Chrono Trigger avoids filler, at least the SNES version does. It adds a lot to the pacing of the story that you're rarely out there searching for item X to supply to NPC Y to unlock Dungeon Z to find item A to supply NPC B to finally meaningfully progress the story. Yes, there of course is still some of that here, but I can't say it was a chore to go through any dungeon this game had to offer because it was well-balanced with progression of the story and your character, and dungeons usually have unique puzzles for you. Both in actual puzzles and in terms of the battles, where you need to figure out how to "solve" a fight before you actually beat the enemy. Certain enemies for example can block almost all of your physical or magical attacks. That's simple enough. Then there are some who first have to be shocked with a lightning attack before they lower their guard and take damage. These "puzzles" get more and more tricky as the game goes on, up until the final boss fight, where the game throws one final curveball at you, though I'll let you discover that on your own.
At the end of the day though, Chrono Trigger is still a turn-based Square JRPG. If you didn't enjoy these before or especially after Chrono Trigger, the "Tech" skills won't be enough to change your mind. Even to me, watching the same attack animations play out slowly over thousands of times in encounters against much weaker enemies is not very fun but rather something you have to do to get to the next big fight, or something you do as part of solving a dungeon. Square still use their Active Battle System, which I dislike as much as ever because it has 0 to do with strategy and one billion to do with being quick on the buttons like a 12 year old Fortnite player building a castle in four seconds. Losing battles can throw you up to an hour back if you die shortly before getting to your next save point (unless you use save states).
So, to put it short: If you enjoy gameplay in JRPGs, you'll enjoy this. If you don't, you won't here either, but it's the most fun non-Shin Megami Tensei (J)RPG I've played that came out in the 90s so far.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10
Did you hear that Chrono Trigger has a great soundtrack? Well you heard correctly. I loved this soundtrack from beginning to end. The fair theme and Gato's theme at the start already had me getting earworms for the rest of my first day playing this. The battle theme is great and just doesn't get old. Then there are numerous character and location themes that range from great to perfection. I could name you a dozen songs that I loved and would gladly listen to outside of the game, and others would probably name you another dozen that they remember very fondly. It's a terrific soundtrack and if you want a taste, I recommend you to check out Gato's / Gonzalez's Theme, Secret of the Forest, Guardia Castle, Battle with Magus and probably my favorite, Corridors of Time.
They call me Gato ♪
I have metal joints ♪
Beat me up ♪
And earn 15 silver points ♪
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10
Thanks to the time travel theme and the many different ages you visit, this game has a ton of visual variety, which helps the game to visually never get stale. Enemy design is great, the world design helps give each age its distinctive properties and while I thought the characters had some weird looks sometimes (Marle doing the squilly face for example), I did like their design as well, though the characters to me stand out a lot more in their avatars than their in-game sprites.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10
This game packs so much detail for a game of its time and for any game period. I have one party scene in particular in mind where a unique song just for that scene plays and you got a bunch of characters just dancing as you walk around. I then interacted with Marle, who said something along the lines of "let's party", after which she went over to someone else and started mingling. Talking to her again prompted her to say "let's dance" and she started busting out the moves, and apart from the fact that I interacted with her to prompt these lines and actions, it all felt so natural. Or going to Lucca's home and talking to her mom, only for her dad to show up and then give us an item shortly after. Or the entirety of the millennial fair and how seemingly tiny interactions there are brought up later.
There are tons of small details like that and if you ask me what every great video game has, it is those small details. If you put that much care into those, it's almost a safe bet that the main portion of your game will be quality as well, and that's certainly the case here.
Outside of the details, the game is very atmospheric thanks to its varied locations and use of its songs. Funny thing is, even now a small detail comes to mind, like healing up in the future and getting the "you're still hungry" notification, which is such a small thing but only is added in this era. It helps paint the picture of the life the people who are there are living, and it makes a later moment stand out even more.
CONTENT | 10/10
The game is PACKED with content. It has a lot more content than you will see in one playthrough, that's for sure. It got all the endings, all the different ages, all the different side quests, lots of techs, double techs, triple techs, secret items, optional dungeons, New Game+ (which is a term coined in THIS game) and all those permutations to events you can have depending on your actions, not to mention plenty of bosses, high enemy variety and a ton of interaction that you can have between the ages, which is often optional but rewards you for your time pretty well. If you could only bring one JRPG with you on an island, and you had never played Chrono Trigger, this would keep you busy without you finding all the content in it for quiiite a while.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 9/10
The pacing in this game is great and the way the game rewards optional exploration is one of the better examples I've ever seen. The fact that grinding is not required even a single bit is a great achievement in itself. If there is one negative I'd have, it's the final dungeon (I played the SNES version, I hear other versions have bad optional dungeons). This dungeon takes a bit too long for my taste and keeps throwing the same enemy at you that disables your tech/items, which turns these battles into boring "Press A and wait for the battle to end" slogs. The final boss form then has a BS attack that insta-kills your party unless they are at full health (2 of my 3 party members died even then), so I didn't enjoy that either, plus the GolemTwins fight was BS, but those would be my only negatives in a game I played for 25+ hours. The least frustrating retro JRPG I've played overall by a mile.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 8/10
In many core ways it doesn't differ from contemporary JRPGs, but the time travel mechanic and great pacing help the story stand out, the Tech system is one of the most fun satisfying systems I've experienced in retro JRPGs and the game helped popularize having a lot of different endings and NG+. Even if you are one to play through a game once and that's it, the way you can choose how and when to do things is a terrificly executed in Chrono Trigger.
REPLAYABILITY | 5/5
Don't think I stumbled upon a more replayable game up to this point, Chrono Trigger can be played many times over and present you with vastly different events.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 90/100
Chrono Trigger aged tremendously. If you're a fan of JRPGs and haven't checked this out, I don't even know what to tell you. Is it the best JRPG today? Probably not, but I agree that it's the best JRPG up until the time of its release. And even if it's not #1 today, it still isn't too far from that spot in my opinion. Few games offer such a complete package, and I'm glad I finally got to experience this game.
I didn't think Chrono Trigger, a 1995 JRPG by Square for the SNES, would live up to the incredibly high expectations I had that came from years and years of reading about how Chrono Trigger is still one of the best JRPGs today, if not one of the best games period. I would stumble upon quite a few of these types of highly praised games, only to have their impact lessened by the expectations going in.
With Chrono Trigger, there were two differences for me. First, I have done this challenge of mine for over a year now, starting all the way back in 1990 and arriving in 1995, having played 110 different games in the process, including over a dozen RPGs. So my expectations for what a great game in the 90s looks like were set rather accurately I'd say.
Second, unlike some of the other older games I would hear about and be slightly disappointed by, Chrono Trigger actually aged incredibly well. It won't make you a fan of the JRPG genre if you've tried many other games and don't enjoy the gameplay loop, but for fans of the genre, I'm gonna go ahead and say that there are few JRPGs out there who are as complete a package as Chrono Trigger. From 1990 to 1995, it's absolutely the best one, and possibly my favorite game as part of this challenge I've played so far. If you call yourself a JRPG fan, do yourself a favor and check this game out.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 9/10
Chrono Trigger uses a time travel theme for its main story. You play as Crono (or however non-canon name you would like to give him), who looks like a DBZ character in the game's cover, which makes sense since the art designer worked on DBZ as well. The game starts in 1000 A.D. You wake up and go to the fair that is in town, where a local girl named Lucca has a transportation device to showcase, which teleports you from one box to the other right next to it.
An accident happens and a girl you were hanging out with, Marle, is sent into a portal that opened up by the power of her pendant. You choose to be the hero and go after her. Soon after, you realize you are now in 600 A.D. That's all fascinating and stuff, but all you want to do is grab Marle and get out of there. Events transpire, and not much later, you find yourself in the future and uncovering something very dark: The planet is dying. With the power of time travel at your hands, it's up to you and your friends to go back and forward in time to do what's necessary and prevent this horrible death.
What impresses the most about Chrono Trigger's storytelling is that it incorporates time travel and does not end up in a jumbled mess by the end. Quite the opposite actually. The time travel theme gives the story lots of options to explore different settings, events and permutations of said events, which lends itself perfectly to the fact that this game has not one, not two but 13 (!) different endings that differ quite notably from each other based on when and where you take certain actions.
Additionally, Chrono Trigger reaches the impressive feat of having a time travel story make sense overall, while also avoiding being as formulaic as JRPG stories tend to be at this time period. The main villain in this game is really interesting and actually scary as shit the more I think about it, and as someone who loves a good villain, that's awesome, though I won't say much more than that. There are also many other villains of which many were well-explored, and the game has a diverse and charming cast of characters. I found some to be one-dimensional, like Robo or Ayla, but the others have some stand-out moments as part of the main story or their own side stories. I wish there would have been more moments where the entire casts interacts like in one singular scene that I found throughout the whole game, but the game is more focused on its plot, which is well-paced almost throughout, and that makes for a great experience as well.
One final note I want to make is that the game does a really great job at foreshadowing certain events, locations and characters, and when you get to the points where they become relevant, it makes for some of the best moments in the game.
As someone who likes well-developed characters as much as a good plot, I would personally have liked a little bit more in that aspect, but the plot is great, characters are easy to root for and there are at least a couple that do have great backstories and development, so if you're looking for a JRPG who ticks these boxes, Chrono Trigger probably comes up at the top of most lists for a good reason.
GAMEPLAY | 15/20
JRPGs have a pretty well-established gameplay loop, and Chrono Trigger does not distance itself from that either, which is understandable considering it was made by the same company that is reponsible for Final Fantasy, the SaGa series, the Mana series and more. That said, what Chrono Trigger achieves is three-fold.
First, Chrono Trigger makes the loop less grindy and cryptic. I never felt the need to farm XP mindlessly for hours to have a chance at a random mid-game boss. There was one boss fight that was unusually tough, sure, but I beat it by adjusting my strategy and was able to continue through the rest of the game. The game also never forced me to use a guide, which, believe me, means something. There is always that one time in these RPGs where I'm stumped as to where to go or what to do, but with Chrono Trigger, I always figured it out eventually, without fail. Talk to all NPCs and you will definitely find your way forward.
Second, Chrono Trigger introduces quality of life changes and general improvements to the genre. Talk to an NPC accidentally? Just walk away mid dialogue without having to click each line away. Don't want to be thrown into random encounters? You don't have to, enemies almost always appear on the screen and you can often just walk past them. Feel like you're usually missing out on the good skills/weapons in JRPGs because you can't find them? The game has "Techs", which the characters unlock naturally as you use them, which are more than enough to overcome any challenge as long as you use them correctly.
Third, Chrono Trigger avoids filler, at least the SNES version does. It adds a lot to the pacing of the story that you're rarely out there searching for item X to supply to NPC Y to unlock Dungeon Z to find item A to supply NPC B to finally meaningfully progress the story. Yes, there of course is still some of that here, but I can't say it was a chore to go through any dungeon this game had to offer because it was well-balanced with progression of the story and your character, and dungeons usually have unique puzzles for you. Both in actual puzzles and in terms of the battles, where you need to figure out how to "solve" a fight before you actually beat the enemy. Certain enemies for example can block almost all of your physical or magical attacks. That's simple enough. Then there are some who first have to be shocked with a lightning attack before they lower their guard and take damage. These "puzzles" get more and more tricky as the game goes on, up until the final boss fight, where the game throws one final curveball at you, though I'll let you discover that on your own.
At the end of the day though, Chrono Trigger is still a turn-based Square JRPG. If you didn't enjoy these before or especially after Chrono Trigger, the "Tech" skills won't be enough to change your mind. Even to me, watching the same attack animations play out slowly over thousands of times in encounters against much weaker enemies is not very fun but rather something you have to do to get to the next big fight, or something you do as part of solving a dungeon. Square still use their Active Battle System, which I dislike as much as ever because it has 0 to do with strategy and one billion to do with being quick on the buttons like a 12 year old Fortnite player building a castle in four seconds. Losing battles can throw you up to an hour back if you die shortly before getting to your next save point (unless you use save states).
So, to put it short: If you enjoy gameplay in JRPGs, you'll enjoy this. If you don't, you won't here either, but it's the most fun non-Shin Megami Tensei (J)RPG I've played that came out in the 90s so far.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10
Did you hear that Chrono Trigger has a great soundtrack? Well you heard correctly. I loved this soundtrack from beginning to end. The fair theme and Gato's theme at the start already had me getting earworms for the rest of my first day playing this. The battle theme is great and just doesn't get old. Then there are numerous character and location themes that range from great to perfection. I could name you a dozen songs that I loved and would gladly listen to outside of the game, and others would probably name you another dozen that they remember very fondly. It's a terrific soundtrack and if you want a taste, I recommend you to check out Gato's / Gonzalez's Theme, Secret of the Forest, Guardia Castle, Battle with Magus and probably my favorite, Corridors of Time.
They call me Gato ♪
I have metal joints ♪
Beat me up ♪
And earn 15 silver points ♪
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10
Thanks to the time travel theme and the many different ages you visit, this game has a ton of visual variety, which helps the game to visually never get stale. Enemy design is great, the world design helps give each age its distinctive properties and while I thought the characters had some weird looks sometimes (Marle doing the squilly face for example), I did like their design as well, though the characters to me stand out a lot more in their avatars than their in-game sprites.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10
This game packs so much detail for a game of its time and for any game period. I have one party scene in particular in mind where a unique song just for that scene plays and you got a bunch of characters just dancing as you walk around. I then interacted with Marle, who said something along the lines of "let's party", after which she went over to someone else and started mingling. Talking to her again prompted her to say "let's dance" and she started busting out the moves, and apart from the fact that I interacted with her to prompt these lines and actions, it all felt so natural. Or going to Lucca's home and talking to her mom, only for her dad to show up and then give us an item shortly after. Or the entirety of the millennial fair and how seemingly tiny interactions there are brought up later.
There are tons of small details like that and if you ask me what every great video game has, it is those small details. If you put that much care into those, it's almost a safe bet that the main portion of your game will be quality as well, and that's certainly the case here.
Outside of the details, the game is very atmospheric thanks to its varied locations and use of its songs. Funny thing is, even now a small detail comes to mind, like healing up in the future and getting the "you're still hungry" notification, which is such a small thing but only is added in this era. It helps paint the picture of the life the people who are there are living, and it makes a later moment stand out even more.
CONTENT | 10/10
The game is PACKED with content. It has a lot more content than you will see in one playthrough, that's for sure. It got all the endings, all the different ages, all the different side quests, lots of techs, double techs, triple techs, secret items, optional dungeons, New Game+ (which is a term coined in THIS game) and all those permutations to events you can have depending on your actions, not to mention plenty of bosses, high enemy variety and a ton of interaction that you can have between the ages, which is often optional but rewards you for your time pretty well. If you could only bring one JRPG with you on an island, and you had never played Chrono Trigger, this would keep you busy without you finding all the content in it for quiiite a while.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 9/10
The pacing in this game is great and the way the game rewards optional exploration is one of the better examples I've ever seen. The fact that grinding is not required even a single bit is a great achievement in itself. If there is one negative I'd have, it's the final dungeon (I played the SNES version, I hear other versions have bad optional dungeons). This dungeon takes a bit too long for my taste and keeps throwing the same enemy at you that disables your tech/items, which turns these battles into boring "Press A and wait for the battle to end" slogs. The final boss form then has a BS attack that insta-kills your party unless they are at full health (2 of my 3 party members died even then), so I didn't enjoy that either, plus the GolemTwins fight was BS, but those would be my only negatives in a game I played for 25+ hours. The least frustrating retro JRPG I've played overall by a mile.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 8/10
In many core ways it doesn't differ from contemporary JRPGs, but the time travel mechanic and great pacing help the story stand out, the Tech system is one of the most fun satisfying systems I've experienced in retro JRPGs and the game helped popularize having a lot of different endings and NG+. Even if you are one to play through a game once and that's it, the way you can choose how and when to do things is a terrificly executed in Chrono Trigger.
REPLAYABILITY | 5/5
Don't think I stumbled upon a more replayable game up to this point, Chrono Trigger can be played many times over and present you with vastly different events.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 90/100
Chrono Trigger aged tremendously. If you're a fan of JRPGs and haven't checked this out, I don't even know what to tell you. Is it the best JRPG today? Probably not, but I agree that it's the best JRPG up until the time of its release. And even if it's not #1 today, it still isn't too far from that spot in my opinion. Few games offer such a complete package, and I'm glad I finally got to experience this game.