Chrono Trigger... ah yes... good times... but after playing it a good 20 times and getting all endings and watching your little cousins and younger baby sister play it, all it does is bring a warm feeling to your heart as you can only remember a fraction of the joy it used to bring. But now, with all the newer and more advanced games, it is only a thing of the past. Sitting down and reminiscing on the spiky hair of Chrono and how all throughout the game you would be wondering when he would put the hits on Marle. Below you will find an assortment of all the good characters which you get on your team in Chrono Trigger below. Girl with blonde hair is Marle and guy with spiky hair is Chrono, mind you. Names from left to right: Robo, Frog, Chrono, Marle, Lucca, Ayla.
In essence this is a game where three teenagers from the era 1000 A.D., Chrono, Lucca, and Marle accidentally cause a rupture in the time space continuum using Lucca's new invention which is supposed to warp objects instantly in space. When Chrono tests it out, it works fine, however, when Marle tests it out, she is blasted into 600 A.D. and only her pendant is left behind. How? I don't know, I guess it's becuase if it wasn't left behind the bitch would have died and there would have been no game to begin with since you couldn't use it to go after her and save her ass. Anyhows, Chrono wears the pendant and travels into 600 A.D. in search of her also and this time, the pendant goes with him. After that, they meet this Frog dude who is trying to save a Queen and... ..... . .. blaarrghh! Well basically the story unfolds into a series of ass kicking adventure all throughout different eras in time. More importantly, let's move on to why this game is my favorite a.k.a. graphics, fight style, etc.
Chrono Trigger was a revolutionary game of it's time, for many reasons. Number One: Graphics. The above is just artwork, however, look below and you will see what I'm talking about.
The sprites used in this game and the overall layout is 2D, however, it was the most sophisticated 2D of it's time for sure, at least for RPG's. Chrono Trigger's only other rival could be Final Fantasy 3 which all in all is a great game and arguably some might say even better than Chrono Trigger, however, it suffers a great humilation when you compare the graphics of both of them. Take a look below at a Final Fantasy 3 screenshot and you shall KNOW the difference.
Next runner up: The fighting style. Now all RPG's at the time had the traditional turn-based fighting style, however, Chrono Trigger's was different because it had team up techniques amongst the 3 characters you could fight with at the time. It had Double Techs and Triple Techs in which double utilizes two characters and triple utilizes all characters for a powerful attack. This was the first RPG that I knew of that ever did this. Additionally, the amount of movement involved with the characters and their fighting was quite interesting. They would jump from their original spot, get in front of the monster, hit him, then jump back to the original battle formation spot and wait till the next turn. When they hit, you could actually see them hitting the monster more realistically. For example, when Chrono hits it with his sword, he lifts it from the side in a diagonal line to the other side. Basically, the animation was well done and the magic attacks were well done also.
The other thing that struck me about the game was its strong element of adventure and good will as you were playing it. You would travel back and forth through time to save people's lives, and ultimately, the whole world. Now, you can find this in just about any RPG, however, in Chrono Trigger it was done quite well through text speech and how well the characters expressed emotion which could easily be interpreted by player and so you would empathize with their emotion. In previous games, the text and music was the only indication to how you would know how the character was feeling, which was good, but could still be worked on. In Chrono Trigger, you could have hand gestures, text speech, a really good soundtrack, and facial expressions as well to enhance the feeling. Finally, the game was the first of its kind to have 20 separate possible endings via choices you make throughout the game. This increases its playability by a lot. In my opinion, the ending is what you have earned after playing through the whole thing, which is especially important in an RPG. IF you have a really good RPG and a sucky ending, it will really throw a damper on things and leave you with that last feeling like oh man that sucked instead of wow that was a really good game.
Below you will find an interesting asssortment of pictures from an old project on www.opcoder.com about a Chrono Trigger Resurrection project which attempted to revive the Chrono Trigger game with new aspects and enhanced graphics. The project was shut down due to Squaresoft Enix's interference. They still do, however, plan to release a high quality mastered improved soundtrack based on the original Nobua Uematsu soundtracks for Chrono Trigger. Like I said before, music is an important element to let you emotionally know what's going on in the game. Below you will find screenshots of the shut down project of Chrono Trigger Resurrection. Enjoy.
