CGA-2025-10 🕹️⏰ 🗺️ 🐸 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ Chrono Trigger
1995 A.D.
I traveled back to this year to revisit the release of Chrono Trigger.
The game is out for the Super Nintendo Entertainment system in Japan and the United States. It is not available in Europe or Australia. Those regions won't get an official release until Crono uses the Epoch to visit the Nintendo DS in the year 2008 A.D., over a decade later.
I travel around and speak with different townsfolk. Everyone seems to have opinions on the game.
My first stop is a little cave called GamePro where I speak with Sir Scary Larry:
Chrono Trigger is another satisfying and superlative game from Square. If you've finished FF III and are itching for some fantasy field work, pick this one up. Thankfully, the fantasy isn't final yet.
I then meet Al Manuel in a little town square by the name of Electronic Gaming Monthly:
THIS IS AWESOME!! Chrono Trigger is an RPG that combines the best features of the FF series and Mana and puts them all in a game that easily gets my vote for RPG of the year! As with all Squaresoft games, the visuals are drawn with stunning detail, and the music immerses players even further into the quest. Of course, the game's best feature is its endearing story line. Add multiple endings to that and you've got a must-have for your RPG collection.
I wander into some houses and find Video Game Magazine lying on a desk. Geoff Higgins has written about it:
Chrono Trigger is the newest in an increasing number of quality RPGs to come out in the past year. Coming on the heels of games like Ogre Battle and Might & Magic III, Chrono Trigger could easily have paled in comparison. Instead, Squaresoft has brought us another reason to hold onto our SNES.
Right next door is Game Informer, with this posted on their bulletin board:
In contrast to Square adventures of the past, Chrono is a shining new star. [...] The characters that you meet during your quest all have well-developed storylines that make their small sprites seem larger than life. The magic spells advance and become more grandiose as they go to double and triple techs. To put it simply, Chrono is the pinnacle for RPG's on the Super NES and must be played to be believed.
While there, I also speak with Andy "The Game Hombre" McNamara:
Let me tell you a little story. Everytime one of these Square Soft RPG's comes to the office I can't get any sleep. I get so involved in the storyline that I stay up late trying to see what happens next to this soap-opera on a cart. You'd think that one of these days these guys are going to screw-up and I may finally get some sleep, but noooooo. It never happens. Once again, this game put me into that guru floating sensation of "wow." If you're looking for an RPG, you don't need to look any farther. Chrono is the feel-good game of the summer!
I am about to leave, but he keeps going:
Originally, the cover of this issue of Game Informer was going to be graced with Chrono Trigger [...] However, the artwork created for the game was done by a well-known Japanese artist known as Akira Tomiyama. This man is famous in Japan for such artistic feats as Dragon Ball Z and Chrono Trigger -- the hottest game right now in Japan. In his ride to glory, however, he managed to forget the little people.
He and his company refused us the rights to use his artwork on the cover because they felt that any magazine that featured Akira Tomiyama artwork on the cover would instantly be worth quadruple its original cover value. They even went as far as to say that it would be traded on the black market because his artwork is so sought after in Japan.
I think he meant "Akira Toriyama" but I don't mention it. And now that I think about it, none of the places I visited had Chrono Trigger artwork on their main displays. Sure, you can see some of the characters and screenshots tucked away in individual houses and shops, but the banners I see when entering the locations are always for different games: Killer Instinct, Lunar: Eternal Blue, Super Bomberman 3, the Virtual Boy.
Everybody is talking about Chrono Trigger, with many people seeing it as the hero of the time, but nobody is featuring its artwork.
But then I notice a little Game Players shop, and it, quite surprisingly, does have a small picture of Crono and Marle on its door. Interesting. Inside, I talk with Chris Slate, who doesn't mention it:
Can Square Soft do anything wrong? I mean, look at the track record: Secret of Mana, Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy II and III [...] it's hard to criticize near-perfection. The graphics are beautiful, the interface is slick, and the gameplay is just plain fun. It's RPGs like this that wil eventually win over the mainstream.
As I'm leaving, I notice Super Play, the shop across the street, has a full, front-and-center display: Chrono with the Epoch! Did they get permission from To[m|r]iyama? Did they break the rules? Was this actually just fan art drawn by someone else?
Wil Overton doesn't have any answers for me, but he does share this:
This is a fine game and one Square fans will get a lot out of. The time travel premise is superbly implemented, and the way things are intermingled through the different periods means the main underlying story stays strong throughout all the individual quests. Definitely recommended... if you've got the time (ha!).
Having thoroughly explored the region, I hop back in the Epoch and return to...
2025 A.D.
It is here that I noticed that the threat of Lavos still remains, his heat steadily growing, slowly placing the entire planet in peril. Meanwhile, despotic royals lust after power and oppress their subjects to pursue their own selfish glory and greed.
We can use a hero. Maybe Crono will visit our time?
Or maybe we have to pursue this quest ourselves.
Team up, level up, fight for good, support one another, and...
...maybe...
...against all odds...
...change the course of history.
So concludes this month of our COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURE!
For anyone wondering, u/ali asked me to step in and host because they are traveling and weren't sure if they'd have consistent internet. I hope what I wrote is up to their standards!
This topic is to share your thoughts on Chrono Trigger:
- The good
- The bad
- The fun
- The interesting
- How the game was like back then
- How the game holds up now
- Your favorite moments
- Your least favorite moments
- The things it reminded you of
- The memories you have of it
- The memories you made playing it
- And absolutely anything else!
Because we are now removing the cartridge, spoilers will not be hidden in dropdown blocks so please be aware of this if you haven't yet finished the game.
This topic remains open, so you are welcome to post in it whenever you do finish the game, even if it is days or weeks later.
Up Next:
Our next month, November 2025, is our very first Arcade Special, which is a group of shorter games that are intended to be played together.
The theme is: PlayStation WHAT? and will be hosted by the esteemed u/Lapbunny.
It's a collection of oddball, off-the-wall games, 4 of which are on the PlayStation and 1 of which is on the PlayStation 2 because someone forgot to check the games' information before bundling them up.
It was me. I'm the someone.
I was excited to see that Chrono Trigger was picked for this month's game. I actually started it on Steam almost two years ago, playing up to dreary 2300 AD (about six hours in). However, I got sidetracked and have been meaning to get back to it ever since. So thank you, CGA, for providing the motivation I needed.
I spent the month of October playing through the rest, and I'm so glad I did. I finally understand the hype. I'm honestly shocked by how modern it feels, and how well it plays by today's standards.
Combat
The semi-real-time combat system feels surprisingly novel for a 30 year old game. It adds a little tension to the moment-to-moment gameplay, but still allows you time to think by pausing during your turn. I did try playing in full real-time briefly, but found it made the game way more difficult than I was prepared for. I'm curious if anybody else stuck with this successfully.
The game introduces more depth as it goes, with greater emphasis on enemy positioning, damage resistances, and the occasional gimmick (eg. burning away a fiend's wooden hammer). It was interesting to try discovering these gimmicks through experimentation, or to simply learn them from villager dialogue ("Did you know dinosaurs hate lightning? Just thought I'd mention it.").
Some of my favourite fights leaned into these gimmicks the most. The golem boss, for example, was kicking my butt until I clued in that it was copying my element. I remembered that I'd bought fire-protection gear earlier in the game, so I swapped my team out for fire casters and equipped that armour. This made a huge difference in the fight, and it felt good to be rewarded for implementing strategy.
Another example was the large bug creature within the desert pit. The fight always started off well, but once the boss's core broke, my team was quickly ground into paste. I realized that I needed to stop attacking the core, but this wasn't enough -- it would drain its own core's health to restore itself. I finally discovered I could heal the boss to keep its core alive longer, allowing me to do enough damage to its other parts. My most frustrating fight turned into my most memorable.
I did find that towards the late-game, many encounters started turning into "gimmick roulette". I'd find myself asking, "Are you weak to <physical/lightning/fire>?", as I ran through the gamut of damage types. While it arguably added more strategy to these later encounters, I felt it added some tedium as well. It was possible to use a screen-wide attack to test all enemies at once, but this ran the risk of them having a counterattack that could wipe my party in seconds.
I made pretty extensive use of the auto-battle feature, though mostly between turns to speed up animations. Sometimes I'd accidentally leave it on too long and it'd queue up regular attacks. I mostly relied on techs in the later-game, so using regular attacks could be a liability.
The game is pretty good about avoiding backtracking, but when it does happen, it can be annoying. Monsters respawn quickly, and doubling back to check alternate paths often meant having to fight through the same baddies I'd just mowed down.
I suspect I was overleveled for the final encounter with Lavos, because the battle itself was a bit anticlimactic. I enjoyed fighting through the shell (and trying to remember each of the prior boss's gimmicks), but the final form itself seemed a bit... lacking? It didn't require any strategy, and it seemed like the goal was just to dump damage into the right-most flying enemy. I didn't really get it.
Afterwards, I unlocked the post-game dungeon Dimensional Vortex. The Shadow-Crono boss there was much more dangerous. He could wipe two of my characters from full health in a single attack, and had me scrambling for consumables. Beating him felt like a more satisfying way to finish the game out.
Characters
One thing I really appreciate is that every character feels substantial. They each have meaningful progression, a fleshed-out backstory, and contribute unique dialogue as the adventure unfolds. It was tough deciding who to bring because I wanted to see all of their reactions.
In the end, I ran primarily with Crono, Frog, and Robo (who I renamed to Han-D, from Risk of Rain). Han-D carried me for most of the game, acting as both my healer and screen-clearer. I found the Golden Stud which reduced his MP usage to 1/4th, and allowed me to be far more aggressive with his high-MP techs.
Frog admittedly wasn't much of a contributor to my team as a secondary healer, but I loved him regardless. It cracks me up that the funny frog man is the true hero and wielder of the legendary sword. I felt like he had to be on my team for that reason alone.
I did swap in the other characters on occasion. This was made easier due to them leveling in the background, and a lot of gear being character-locked. The only problem was their lack of higher-level techs being unlocked. Ayla turned out to be my most common substitute, and she proved invaluable during the Blackbird stealth section.
I later learned that Magus joins your party if you choose not to fight him on the cliff edge. Whoops.
Story and World
Time travel stories are hard to tell well, but Chrono Trigger nails it. It introduces plotlines across different ages, but manages to keep them digestible. Most stories are self-contained within their respective epochs, but they begin to overlap as the main plot progresses.
I was impressed by how consistently the game enforces its time-travel rules. Opening a chest in the past also opens it in the future, but not vice versa. You can also bring items between eras to solve problems or effect change in other ways.
Two good examples are the quests for rescuing the Reptite village and replanting Fiona's forest. These use long time jumps to create impactful changes on the world itself. Similarly, defeating Ozzie erases his legacy in Medina Village. I suspect there are a ton of little secrets buried in this game.
The pacing feels very natural. The first third of the game introduces you to each epoch, showcasing that era's cast of characters. The middle third opens things up, letting you revisit any discovered portals (though I could never remember where each one went). Finally, the last third gives you the fabulous time machine. This is a major quality-of-life improvement, which gets even better once it gains flight. For all the Doctor Who fans, I named mine The Wimey (since "Tardis" wouldn't fit).
Despite my original long break, I found the game kept me hooked for most of my playtime. Some moments were heartfelt, and others hilarious. Actually, the game had a ton of humour. The characters played well off each other ("Big frog present? For Ayla eat?"), and even the combat encounters were full of little jokes.
I enjoyed Dalton's malfunctioning golem, which counted down ominously before getting confused at zero. The sewers were also full of gags, like a fake save point that chimed to lure monsters. Another good one was a sleeping fiend being pelted with a rock to drag them into battle.
I really liked the cartoon animations they included during key moments. They looked beautiful, and I can't imagine how they included them all on a SNES cartridge.
I played the game in original graphics, not high resolution. I thought the original pixel art looked great, and found that the smoothing on high-res didn't really add much. If anything, it made the game's gridlines more pronounced.
The music was also fantastic. I'm sure I've heard many of these tracks before in remixes or YouTube videos, but it's great to experience them in their original context.
Fin
Chrono Trigger absolutely stands the test of time. It's well-written, funny, sounds great, and still plays well today. It definitely deserves its accolades.
After finishing, I glanced at the wiki and learned there were thirteen different endings. That's crazy for a video game from 1995. Even the first ending has five variations depending on your choices. I got 1b: Follow that Cat.
I won't have time to start on New Game+ mode any time soon (November's Backlog Burner event starts soon!), but would like to replay it someday with a completely different party composition -- and maybe let Magus live this time.
They didn't. There were in-engine cutscenes instead.
I actually surprised myself by preferring the real-time battle system, which is what I used apart from briefly testing the more turn based variant.
I typically much prefer being able to take my time in games, but I also typically don't really like JRPG battle mechanics. The time pressure here was fun, and witnessing myself make one suboptimal move after another kept the game fresh. My problem with JRPGs is typically that I discover combos that I like and that are effective, and then I just spam those for 30 hours, in a UI that reminds me of Windows 3.1, and that isn't exactly my definition of fun.
That said, I also ended up mainly repeating the same moves in Chrono Trigger, but at least there I had a few different approaches depending on enemies and which phase of a battle I was in. All in all, I must say I really enjoyed the battle system, and I think for me the pseudo real time aspect of it was a huge reason for that. Bosses felt like speed-puzzles that I needed to solve.
This is pretty typical of older RPGs because you get new skills that effectively replace the older ones as you get higher in level. Final Fantasy games were the epitome of this with their literally numbered elemental spells (numbered in the US translations at least). In Chrono Trigger, at least you can get the double and triple techs that can vary depending on the group you are running with.
If memory serves, there's still a use for the lower tier numbered spells in the old SNES-era Final Fantasies, at least for heals. The smallest heal is the most MP efficient for the amount healed. So you can use a massive heal in a pinch, or for turn efficiency, but it's going to cost more MP overall.
This can be true depending on which game of the series we're talking about, but only out of combat and I personally rarely found it worth the hassle.
A tangent, but the QoL feature a lot of newer turn based RPGs have where you fully heal after combat really does take out some manual drudgery and it lets them go a little harder in the fights because they know you are starting with full health.
My favorite ending has always been the reptite one because of how wacky it is. Interestly, I thought that there were only 12 endings while that wiki you linked shows 13. Was the 13th added in one of the remasters? The wiki mentions how it previews Chrono Cross, so it could be.
If I remember correctly, the 13th ending was added to the Nintendo DS release.
Ah thanks, makes sense.
I did a fair bit of side questing this month, exploring the history and context of Chrono Trigger from a few different angles. I've posted about the music separately in this thread, and wrote a bit about the game's release in the other thread.
In case anyone is interested in watching some YouTube videos, I though I could list some that I have found particularly interesting. I came into Chrono Trigger with very little understanding or appreciation of the JRPG genre, hence the fairly holistic approach.
I'm aware that there is at least one large piece missing from my side questing, namely the Final Fantasy series, but that's intentional. I'm thinking about playing through Final Fantasy VII at some point in the near future and want to explore it without too much context at first. It will be my first game in the series and if it tickles my fancy as much as Chrono Trigger did, that'll be the time and place for me to jump into the history of Final Fantasy in more detail.
Any additional suggestions what to watch or play or listen to or read for a better understanding of Chrono Trigger are more than welcome.
Thank you for sharing, I'll probably watch a considerable amount of these videos, I appreciate it.
The way you spoke about Dragon Quest in the 3rd bullet point leaves me unclear on your own familiarity level with it as a franchise. If you haven't yet played one, I would highly, highly recommend DQXI to basically anyone interested in JRPGs (except maybe those concerned about very long games), but nobody (not even Square-Enix themselves) sells it better than Tim Rogers did in this review.
The tl;dr highlight of this video that best makes the point is 23:00 to 27:09, for anyone reading this comment without time to watch the whole thing.
One more edit: the part of this video starting at 30:12 specifically touches on Chrono Trigger and is hilarious in the context of this thread.
Yes I'm spoiler tagging for a youtube video.
I haven't played DQ IV, or VII yet and it's still pretty early days in my V and VIII playthroughs. I have finished III and XI. I might actually like XI as much as CT... Feels crazy to say. On the other hand, I think saying III is equally as good as Chrono Trigger is laughable, but I "wasn't there" when it came out and did its thing. I recently finished it via the remake and quite enjoyed it, but it isn't even the same kind of JRPG with the same kind of goals as CT, I feel.
Then again, a big part of the fun of this video is the severe degree of glazing and over-exaggeration, I'm pretty sure we're not meant to take the opinion he presents in this segment that seriously.
Thanks for the link! Before this month's CGA, my familiarity with the Dragon Quest series could be summed with the phrase "some Japanese game?". With the stress landing quite heavily on that question mark.
Since then, I have learnt a lot from the videos that I linked, as well as from other sources, but I must say that the video that you shared and especially your personal recommendation is the first time that I really started to consider actually playing a Dragon Quest game. I have now added XI into my watchlist.
The reason I hadn't seriously thought about playing the series until now is that from what I have gathered, while the games look quite interesting, they also look very grindy, which is not my favourite thing in the world. And they are also very very long. But Kotaku's video makes a point about there being as much grind (and challenge) as you want, and perhaps ultimately it's just a case of me needing to slightly shift my mindset and preferences.
Chrono Trigger was very good at teaching me this, taking me this October from someone who was convinced that I'm just not in tune with JRPG battle mechanics or storytelling, into someone who is currently quite excited about a whole new genre of games that I could explore. I always thought that, for various reasons, JRPG games should be my jam, but I had never found one that I actually enjoyed playing to the end until this month's CGA. And this was also my third or fourth serious attempt at playing Chrono Trigger. I fully expected to give up once again but I'm very glad that I didn't, as something eventually clicked and changed me.
A fun side-note: I lived in Japan back in the 1990s and I remember a couple of friends having these cute teardrop shaped plush toys in their rooms. I never asked them about those since Japan was so full of everything that I had no reference for and it just wasn't possible to ask about everything, but those plushies clearly made an impression since earlier this month, when I started watching those Dragon Quest video essays and first saw the slime monsters, my brain went oh, that's what they were!, having not thought about those plush toys for well over a quarter of a century. Now I kind of want to play a Dragon Quest game just to see those guys in the wild.
Yeah for DQXI, I think the relatively vanilla turn-based JRPG combat (and DQ is kinda the king of "vanilla" in JRPG combat having basically established it), and the length of the game (not quite Persona long but not far off either) are the biggest risk factors for that title failing to reach and connect with you, but if it works out it could be really rewarding.
Thanks for sharing about the slime plushies! That's cute haha. Toriyama really cooked when he drew those, I doubt it was originally intended to be a mascot. There is some really cool Slime merch, too!
For DQVIII and XI there were "Slime Controllers." DQXI introduced a PS4 and Switch models of it, and DQVIII on PS2 introduced a regular blue one but also a variant based on the rarer, "metal slime" monster.
In the funniest ironic twist that could happen to these, the blue ones from the PS2 era (not sure about modern ones) suffer from an issue that happens to many rubberized objects where they get kinda oily if unused after some time, like how regular, non-slime playstation controllers left in a drawer unused will develop on the analog sticks, except these slime controllers have a fully rubberized coating so it happens to more than just the sticks. The phenomenon is thought to be depolymerization, or elastomer loss, or finger oils that have entered into the rubber rising back out to the surface, not entirely sure as I'm no scientist! But in short, the slime controllers got slimy.
There's also a Nintendo 2DS XL (LL in jp) that has a Liquid Metal Slime theme that is absolutely gorgeous. I want this thing so bad. It released for the jp-only 3DS port of DQXI a few years back.
There is actually a ridiculous amount of Dragon Quest limited edition consoles. most of which feature slime variations.
There's even a game where you play as a slime, and wouldn't you know it, it has a Chrono Trigger reference!
Those slimy slimes are funny!
It's quite interesting that slimes specifically have become such a big part of the Dragon Quest brand. I believe as enemies they were pretty directly lifted from Wizardry and Ultima, two western RPG series that heavily influenced Dragon Quest. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure those two in turn took the enemy from Dungeons & Dragons, where I believe slimes have been present since the first edition rules.
But that's kind of beside the point. Like you suggest, it's not the enemy itself that's memorable, it's the visual representation that Toriyama gave it. I suppose my own history with the slimes, as recounted above, tells us how effective that design is.
Dragon Quest's straightforward combat does worry me a little. Which reminds me, are there any JPRGs where combat is much more like turn-based puzzle solving? I'm thinking of games like Gloomhaven, Into the Breach, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes or even Magic: The Gathering, to give a few examples off the top of my head.
My issue with JRPG combat systems often is that they quickly become very easy, with a handful of actions and combos that always seem to be the best option. And when the battles are challenging, it's usually not an open-ended puzzle challenge where you can be creative and assess risk/reward benefits, but more of a case of just trying to identify the enemy's one weakness and then spam against it.
Chrono Trigger's pseudo real time system mitigated this somewhat as I had to adjust to changing circumstances under time pressure, leading me to make less than optimal decisions that I then had to course correct for during a more challenging battle. It worked well for the relatively short duration of the game and the variety of encounters that the game threw at me, but I doubt I would have finished the game if the playtime had been double or four times of what it was, i.e. the 50-100 hours more typical for a JRPG. I really appreciated how I never felt like Chrono Trigger was wasting my time.
I'd rather hit my head repeatedly against 50 difficult (but fair) encounters, rather than breezing through 500 battles that I can win while reading the news.
I'm once again replying to you with a gigantic essay and I'm genuinely sorry about that. This message started small, and its length was never the plan when I set out typing it, I just get carried away, I guess.
Well... before reading the examples you indicated, my immediate thought to your question was the Shin Megami Tensei series by Atlus. But do be aware that I did write some suggestions more comparable to the Gloomhaven/Into the Breach/M&M/MTG examples after the next horizontal rule.
In contrast to Persona which you've tried out, most SMT games (and Metaphor) use a "Press Turn" system. The way it works is once you have 4 party members, you have 4 "turn icons." If you don't hit a weakness, but your attack goes through, it consumes a turn icon and moves to the next character. If you do hit a weakness while you have regular turn icons remaining, one of them will change state (light up in SMTV, shrink in Metaphor, the visual varies) instead of being used. I'll call that a weak turn, and it can be used again for a full action at no penalty, but there's no way to generate further weak turns when consuming a weak turn even if you hit a weakness. On the other hand, if your attack gets nullified or dodged, you lose 2 turn icons (either weak or normal) and if it gets repelled or absorbed, you lose all remaining turn icons and pass turn to enemy. There is a mechanic to pass a character's turn to the next allied character but it's not like Persona 5's baton pass where it's free and confers buffs. Instead, passing turn in Press Turn is at a partial turn cost (1 weak turn vanishes or 1 regular icon downgrades to a weak turn) but can often be circumstantially strategically sound.
So for instance, with 4 characters, you have 4 turn icons, if all 4 characters can hit a weakness, your party could go a combined total of 8 times before passing to the enemy, but only 4 times if you never hit a weakness, and as low as 2 if you get nullified/dodged or even 1 if you get repelled or absorbed. All of these turn gains and losses apply equally to the enemy team's actions against you as well, and it's absolutely possible to just get comboed out if you're not set up for a given fight.
That can be pretty oppressive even in normal mode and especially in harder difficulty modes, but a lot of the time the solution is found in demon fusion, which is functionally the same as Persona fusion but has more profound effects on your overall party setup because instead of summoning a "Persona" (demon) to be your main character's spell list like in the Persona series, instead your MC has their own kit while your other 3 party member slots are filled with the demons you fuse.
So if you think back to your P5 experience, imagine your fellow phantom thieves don't exist, and instead of joker summoning a persona behind him to cast a spell, he fills the other 3 slots with "personas" (demons) and they stay on the field full time. I also should mention you can't travel with duplicates of any demon, so they have to be 3 uniquely different demons, which can make creating the situationally appropriate team more challenging than it sounds. The Press Turn system also favors you less than Persona's 1-mores, yet favors enemies against you more. It can still happen but it's rarer and harder to just clean sweep under Press Turn rules than Persona combat. So anyway the puzzle solving happens outside the fight during fusion, and practically speaking this gameplay experience will often be taking a loss, trying to come up with an idea/plan that works against whatever you died to and a set of demons to execute that plan, and then return and hopefully win. SMT also usually puts you up against stuff with difficult weaknesses to exploit, earlier in the game and more often than Persona, and SMT much more often presents enemies or bosses who have no elemental or physical weaknesses, which could definitely be a form of coverage against your dislike of feeling like exploiting a built-in weakness is the only reasonable option. SMT games also more often allow status effects and buffs/debuffs to affect bosses, which is the exception to the JRPG norm on this matter.
For the record, although Metaphor also uses Press Turn system, it doesn't have demon fusion, instead it has party members kinda like Persona, but they all have a flexible class system so they're more customizable than in Persona but less customizable than SMT demons. Your Metaphor party's class composition is less likely to have full element coverage than SMT going into any given fight, and yet you can still fight it out and win. Definitely more interesting than Persona where the protagonist's multiple Personas mechanic will guarantee you a full element spread all game long. The Metaphor MC can't class change in combat unlike Persona MCs swapping personas mid-combat, and Metaphor MC doesn't have the privilege of really any extra functionality above the other party members unlike Persona MCs, he plays within the same class system as everyone else.
SMT III Nocturne has a reputation for beating the shit out of the player especially in the early game but staying hard throughout. SMT V Vengeance is like the most modern QoL'd title in the franchise.
Also in contrast to Persona, the SMT series is much lighter on exposition. There are stories here, but overall they're pretty gameplay-forward titles while dialogue/cutscene quantity takes a bit more of a backseat compared to the standard for the genre.
Another shoutout from Atlus could be the Etrian Odyssey series. I'm linking EO3 here because by reputation I think it's commonly agreed upon to be the best one. I haven't played these so I don't exactly know what the combat gameplay is like, but I hear it is difficult, and I think it might be more in line with the SMT level of difficulty than Persona. The reason I'm mentioning Etrian Odyssey is actually because of its exploration system, which itself is challenging. These games originally launched on the DS and had a first-person perspective and are dungeon crawler JRPGs, which also draws a through-line back to Wizardry, and probably some inspiration from things like Phantasy Star 1 and SMT 1 & 2 and SMT if... (which were first person grid map games) along the way. Basically, in the DS version, the bottom screen displayed an open grid and set of tools for drawing your own map almost like you might on paper in the games that inspired it, but built right into the game. Getting lost, finding your way, surviving being lost while your resources potentially dwindle are probably the difficulty aspects here. I can't speak for how the Steam versions UX is, I see from the screenshots the map seems to now be an overlay or popout window, and I would hazard a guess you can fill it in with the mouse.
I can say that Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is one of the hardest turn based JRPGs I ever beat, and it's basically an SMT game on DS that was built in Etrian Odyssey's engine (it doesn't even use Press Turn!) but the mapping is filled in automatically by the game as you explore, which is easier but less interactive... and again I'm saying Strange Journey was one of the hardest JRPGs I've completed. You can feel free to assume if you add in being responsible for my own mapping, I'm straight up scared of EO.
However, I haven't even touched on what came to mind after reading the comparison examples you indicated.
The examples at first shifted my mind towards strategy-JRPGs. Titles like Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem series, Ogre Battle, Unicorn Overlord, and Triangle Strategy all fit in here. Maybe even some of the Front Mission games? I'm not that well versed in this subgenre so for almost everything that I've listed just now, I've tried out but haven't finished most of them. But from what I have played, they seem pretty "choicey" in a way that feels like it would last through the whole game.
By reputation, Final Fantasy Tactics is many people's idea of the gold standard in this subgenre, and there is a famous fight to get stuck on in the PS1 version that often walls players who don't keep multiple saves going back far enough to load from and salvage/prep for the fight. The remake might have changes or QoL that minimizes this. Also by reputation, Final Fantasy Tactics is pretty breakable to become OP, but I don't know how likely players are to figure out how to do that on their casual first playthroughs.
I have finished a Fire Emblem game, which in my case was Awakening, and I've dabbled in a few earlier titles like the GBA ones. A key mechanic in FE is all the gear has durability, which does keep you paying attention to sustaining your resources in longer fights especially. More importantly though, Fire Emblem games before Awakening are fully permadeath games, where even when you win a chapter/scenario and advance the story, anybody who died in the fight is permanently dead from your save file. Pretty intense consequence that will definitely keep you engaged and thinking about your every turn. Every move is a risk evaluation in a way that lots of other games aren't.
Another line of thought triggered by the example games you cited is that there's a JRPG series called Baten Kaitos from the GameCube that has a card-based battle system and consequently involves elements of deck building and combo building. I haven't played them and I'm not sure how difficult they are or if the combat sustains being engaging through the runtime of the game.
When I consider your positive remarks on CT's "Active" setting, lots of Final Fantasy games starting with IV up until IX used an ATB system where realtime bars fill up before you can take your turn, much like Chrono Trigger, but I don't know if all of them have the Active/Wait options. I know FFVI does, but I don't remember offhand if any do not, and I think in the case of any that do not give you the option, I would assume they behave like "Wait." They also don't feature anything like CT's dual techs or the same kind of positioning opportunities for techs, and they have random encounters instead of in-world encounters.
However, if you found Active appealing, it's worth mentioning that not all JRPGs are turn-based. The cool thing about some of the action-JRPGs is that in a lot of them you can outplay level deficits and stuff if you get really skilled at the actual moment to moment gameplay.
The Tales video game series has been action-combat since its inception, with the best entry in my opinion being Tales of Vesperia. I quite like Tales of the Abyss as well, but it's PS2 or 3DS locked for now, though a Tales remaster project has been ongoing, and I could easily imagine Abyss getting one someday. Tales of Symphonia is a fan favourite as well but does show its age, while recent titles in the series have felt a bit more hit or miss to me. Tales games have a lot of depth potential in their systems but don't usually require you to understand them much at all for normal mode playthroughs, but hard modes probably strike a nice balance.
Some other action-JRPG series include Mana series, Star Ocean, Kingdom Hearts, Ys, and later FF games like FF15, 16, and 7 Remake/Rebirth.
Honorable mentions?
Undertale and Deltarune (unfinished, releasing episodically) are turn-based but you are playing bullet hell minigames against enemy attacks during the enemy's turn.
Earthbound and it's sequel Mother 3 have HP displays that spin like the digits are on rollers when the value changes due to damage taken or healed, and can be interrupted. So for instance, say you have 50 hp and take >50 damage, a would-be lethal attack. If you can manage to get through the menuing in time to use a healing PSI or item on the character, when the heal happens it will stop the reels early from spinning to 0, and instead start spinning up for the heal amount from whatever value the spin-down was interrupted at. In other words you can save characters who took a lethal hit due to this! Mother 3 also has a bit of a timing mechanic with some attack types where you can keep pressing A after your attacks land in a rhythm to the BGM to score small amounts of bonus damage.
Mother 3 rhythm mechanic hint
If you find the rhythm ambiguous, putting an enemy to sleep lets you hear a heartbeat that indicates what the rhythm is supposed to be.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is turn-based but you have realtime dodge and parry mechanics based on enemy attack animations during the enemy's turn and active button prompts to boost your own attacks on your turns. Some other games have less numerically polarizing versions of this (COE33 on the defensive side can be very all-or-nothing), like Super Mario RPG and the Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario series, and standalone titles like Legend of Dragoon. Characters in FFVIII who use gunblade weapons have an active trigger mechanic during their attacks too, but a lot of these Mario RPGs, FFs, and probably LoD are in the "you'll do a lot of spamming your biggest attack" bin.
Anyway that's all I can think of for now, but there's definitely going to be options for you besides the most simple straightforward turn-based games!!! It's a big genre with lots of options and variations, I'm sure there's something in this giant essay you'd like.
Oh, comments like yours certainly don't need to come with an apology.
Having someone help you who is genuinely nice, passionate and willing to share their knowledge is quite infectious. In addition to the information, it also transfers some of that passion and positivity. Thank you for making the cyberspace a better place.
I am impressed by the breadth of your knowledge, but if I'm allowed to pat myself on the back a little bit, I'm actually also quite impressed with myself since I was familiar with (the names of) most of the titles that you mentioned. I could even place them in some kind of a historical context. My one-month dive into all things JRPG has clearly brought some results!
That said, your comments and recommendations have certainly clarified where I should look next and which series and sub-genres might be more suitable for me than others. There is quite a lot of ground to cover but I'm curious to see where this journey takes me.
I have actually played through Undertale and Clair Obscur. Both are titles that I remember fondly but didn't like that much. A bit contradictory, I know. Both really annoyed me in some way or another, resulting in a very viscerally negative reaction. But they were also very memorable and expertly crafted, which I enjoyed.
With Chrono Trigger, I think the active battle system was appealing to me mainly because it forced me to make poor decisions. But I am usually more at home with turn based systems where I can take my time and think about things. It really surprised me how I ended up preferring the active mode in CT. We can add that to the list of things that the game taught me about myself.
Thanks, I appreciate your kindness. In other online communities I've got a reputation for saying too much and in too many words, and maybe I've become too self-aware of it. As long as it's interesting or helpful though then I guess it was worth typing it all out!
Definitely a fair pat on the back if you're recognizing most of these titles. There's a long history in this game genre, and aside from a few really big franchises there's a lot of really niche stuff that's in kind of a AA space without a lot of big marketing and the genre can be surprisingly diverse in gameplay, all RPGs are games of systems after all. Researching and watching videos and having discussions and stuff is ultimately what will lead you to the ones that work for you, and that you are having fun and finding the ones you can enjoy is what matters most.
Funny, for me these are two games that I had pretty opposite reactions to. I love Undertale deeply, and would put it among my favourites, but on the other hand I found COE33 combat so utterly repulsive for my tastes, to the point I dropped the game and watched a playthrough instead.
I don't mind my timing being tested, more generally speaking. I love Souls games and recently finished Sekiro so it's not the timing checks themselves but how they interact in a turn-based system. But even Super Mario RPG on the SNES (and I like the Switch remake just fine too) is one of my childhood favourites and I find its timed hits system really fun. In contrast I feel that in COE33 they're overemphasized to the overall combat system's detriment, and I also feel that the animation quality isn't up to the task to serve that type of timing-sensitive gameplay.
Story was alright, has some neat stuff in it, but I have yet to truly understand why it's so revered. The fact was made public in interviews and stuff, but it could not be more obvious from just the game itself that it is a game made by a lot of ex-Ubisoft employees who wanted to do a genre Ubisoft wouldn't do. It shows!
I think that there was a very powerful hunger for a turn based game in a JRPG gameplay style that has "AAA graphics" (close but not quite) with a semi realistic aesthetic, because there's a lot of Ex(?)-FF fans who feel like that franchise left a void when it changed going into the HD era. I feel like it's a good - maybe even great game, in a very "average good game" way, and it absolutely does openly show its budget and team size in the final product, counter to what people like to say. The experience of reading and hearing people clamouring over it as some kind of genre saviour redemption piece that saved gaming this decade or whatever has been kind of frustrating to witness. I'm not even a hater, again it's good or maybe great depending on taste.
Interesting! I've always preferred CT on Wait mode, because I feel like Active isn't that much in my own concept of the spirit of a turn based game. For instance some of the real-time action JRPGs that I mentioned earlier are where I'd look to seek the pressure of gameplay that is moving in real-time, while staying under the JRPG umbrella, instead of going for an Active ATB mode like CT's Active. I guess maybe for me, I conceptualize menuing gameplay as "strategy" gameplay while like Tales of Vesperia's "B for attacks, A for artes X for block etc" is "action" gameplay, so the former input style is something I don't feel is appropriate under any kind of real-time pressure. Even Tales does pause the action if you choose to go into the item menu, for instance.
Still, the simple explanation that Active kept you away from always making perfectly optimal decisions and consequentially making the game easy is a completely understandable one. I guess for me the solution to that in turn based gameplay is to make the system more complicated so that the possibilities and outcomes are trickier to optimize for, and find ways to make it so that you may not have been prepared with the best options (but ideally still have a way forward) cause you can't have literally every option prepared at all times. If that makes sense and is even possible, I am not so sure of that myself.
I felt the same, and when I realised this it turned the whole thing into a rhythm game for me. And not one that had particularly complex game mechanics. However, funnily enough, it's also probably the only reason I played the game to the end: upgrading and crafting and levelling and grinding are not game features that I typically like all that much -- unless they are rare events and have actual meaningful impact on gameplay, rather than incremental -- and I realised that if I just got really good at blocking and parrying, I could eventually win almost any battle. And so I did, finishing the game by not touching any of the side quests or areas, and scraping through battles with a seriously under-leveled party. It may not have been the fastest or most sensible way to play the game, but it was a way. I did have to lower the difficulty level towards the end.
Which reminds me of another thing that I really liked about Chrono Trigger: I didn't need to level up my characters or upgrade my gear.
Anyway, I do understand why Clair Obscur is so loved. It is very well put together. The voice acting (at least in French, but I hear also in English) is excellent. The soundtrack is gorgeous. The characters are memorable. The visuals are creative. The story can be touching, even if it wasn't quite my thing.
I got really obsessed about that game about a year ago. To the point where I ended up chasing down every achievement. Soulslikes as a genre is quite far from what I typically like (or am capable of), but something about Sekiro clicked with me. I think it was the metroidvania-like progression and exploration, combined with the feeling that I was actually getting better at the game, and my progress wasn't just my character's numbers going up.
I would definitely have preferred playing a more interesting turn based game, but early on I felt Chrono Trigger's combat wasn't deep enough to keep it interesting, so I stuck with the active system. And while this could be seen as a criticism of the game, it's also not: I feel timed systems like these are really difficult to pull off well. If the rhythm is too slow it becomes meaningless, if it's too fast it becomes nonsense. In Chrono Trigger, for the most part, the rhythm of the active system was just right for me.
That said, it also meant that I didn't really explore the combat system fully later on when it probably did get more interesting. I think I used a combo attack a grand total of three times in the entire game. They just never became necessary. I'm sure I could have made it easier for myself if I had learnt all the possible combinations, but when you are selecting things from a menu in a hurry, you tend to go for what you know will work.
This is actually a bit similar to how I played Persona 5. I know it's in the title of the game, but in my 40 hours or so of playing the game I never really saw the need to change personas, so I didn't engage with the system any more than I absolutely had to. Maybe if I go back one day, I'll need look into it more.
I guess I'm a simple man. If I see something that works for me, I stick with it until it doesn't. And if a game never gives me a reason to change my ways, I never change. And then I complain that the game is repetitive and unable to hold my interest.
I can't quite place my finger on it, but something about the pictos and general upgrade system in COE33 felt very "western" to me, like I was looking at Borderlands gun stats or like diablo style perks or items or something. I don't know, this is a really hard one to point at specific details and make apt comparisons that others will understand, because it's an intangible vibes-based thing, and it's not like Japanese-made JRPGs don't have massive skill trees or progression systems like Final Fantasy X's sphere grid or similar, but something about the phrasing of most of the pictos effects and how the pictos and lumina system worked was one of the factors in that game that is part of what I mean when I said that it shows that the game is made by post-Ubisoft devs.
But anyway, I do quite like progression features. Like with the Sekiro thing you said later about your progress not just being your characters numbers going up, I agree that I like to feel like some element of player skill is rising, but as a Souls fan, I like both. Sekiro is great and didn't feel like a lesser game in any way for not having as much number-go-up as fromsoft's "Souls" games, but the other ones' RPG mechanics and levels and stuff do a lot of work for build variety and replay value. Indeed they are progression systems where my character becomes stronger, but the games are still challenging enough that I have to become stronger as a player, too. So I guess I like both.
In turn-based games, I think it's harder to find a way to enable the player to become stronger as a player. I think without realtime elements the only form of player progression is basically knowledge, which will inform strategy and make the player more successful, but if the systems are too simple, it doesn't take much knowledge to "solve" the game and just keep pressing the solution button over and over again, so some complexity or variety helps, and that's a reason I sometimes choose to seek hard JRPGs (and other genres!) but on the other hand like with Dragon Quest, sometimes I just wanna relax and vibe, and the game being simple is what gives it that "after a bath, before bed" quality that Tim Rogers highlighted in the Kotaku review. Some games just need to be a bedtime story, or have hang-out-itude. Sometimes I seek that instead.
For me, I also experience a fluctuating appetite for difficulty. In the past several years, it ebbs and flows with Final Fantasy XIV's content release schedule because in that game I'm an avid raider who clears battle content at all difficulties and sometimes with very hardcore play scheduling/habits during raid release windows (last Savage raid tier I played 7 days straight of 8-12h days and a 16.5h day trying to clear the raid tier in the first week with party finder pick up groups), my appetite for a challenge is often completely sated by that FFXIV content, causing friction with other games when I'm trying to chill, but run into difficulty unexpectedly.
So I think I naturally strike a balance a balance between seeking easier games (regardless of genre) to play in the weeks following raid releases when I'm all burnt out on difficulty, and seeking harder games closer to the middle of the content gaps in FFXIV where I've neither done too much hard raiding lately nor have new hard raiding imminently releasing.
Yeah interesting how that played out. The combo techs can be seen in the menu when forming a party lineup though, so outside of combat you do get the time to consider what would be in the menu if you decided to set up for them, though I guess it still matters that you'd have to take the time to try them all out and under time pressure that's not a priority I suppose?
I assume you mean spending a lot of time on fusion, rather than changing the equipped Persona in combat, because the 1 button that pulls up your abilities that hit a known weakness changes the equipped persona for you automatically if you're using that button.
I'm not sure even a higher difficulty mode can help with this case. For instance, if a Persona MC is threatened by a boss because the equipped persona is weak to an element the boss uses a lot, the Persona MCs can simply switch personas mid combat, while Metaphor MC and SMT MCs can only interact with the systems that change their weaknesses outside of combat.
So I think you're simply the exact right type of personality to discover this flaw in Persona's combat design and become displeased and bored by it.
The Persona MCs' ability to basically always walk around with an answer to every problem because they're carring like 5-10 personas at all times and can change them in combat keeps you ready for anything, meaning if you do have a situationally poor matchup equipped going into a fight, you're like a turn away from finding out and another turn away from just changing persona to change away from the weakness.
I know there's a sort of small section of the Persona fandom that swears by playing P5R/P3R on Merciless explicitly in search of more challenge, but I'm not sure how much it improves on the experience for those seeking more challenge, as I have never tried out Merciless.
It is what it is, there's no need to worry if the fault is your pattern of behaviour or game design, rather it's just a matter of compatibility. Nothing wrong with moving on if something's not a fit! That's just valuing your time and seeking the experiences you want to have.
CGA Announcement: We have officially ejected the cartridge for Chrono Trigger. Use this topic to share parting thoughts and experiences. Please be aware that spoilers are not required to be hidden in this topic, so be careful if you have not finished the game!
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I finished the game! Here are my final thoughts:
After my previous rant on the Golem Twins , I finished the rest of the Zeal portion of the game (through the blackbird). I didn't really like any of the Dalton bits. He comes in super strong with the golems, and that twin golem fight was really frustrating. Then he becomes more comedic relief, and it's just a roller coaster ride that overall was the lowest point of the game for me. It's too bad, because I really like the whole zeal setting, and would have liked to see more about the blackbird. Oh well. After that section, the Epoch gets full flight capabilities, and the game really opens up. I ended up finishing all of the optional side-quests. I'm not sure when I'll find time to play this game again, so it seemed best to complete all of the main character's stories to get some closure. I had to use guides at this point because I was really running out of time. If I had tried to discover everything myself it could have easily been another month of playing. That must have been really fun back when the game was released, but I had deadlines to meet! I did really like all the quests. I can't really pick a favorite, since they all added to the depth of the different characters. I am partial to the Frog and Robo arcs though.
Speaking of characters:
Characters
I mentioned in another comment that Crono, Ayla, and Frog were my go-to team this round. This only got to be a stronger preference as I entered the endgame. In previous playthroughs, I was always stuck on Marle or Robo for healing, and I think the realization that Frog is a solid healer really opened things up. Marle is a relatively weak with physical attacks, so when I used her she was mostly on healing duty. She's ok, but she loses some versatility when stronger physical attacks are needed. Robo has some great early game dual techs with Crono, and can also heal. But that becomes part of the problem. You can't really dedicate him to either task, so he ends up using his magic points to straddle the two jobs and it throws off the balance of the fights a bit. Frog is great because he has some great standalone damage, and can achieve full party healing all by himself. This meant that my other two characters were free to focus on dual techs. I gravitated toward Ayla and Crono for the other 2 slots because of a couple of reasons:
They are both really strong on their own. Their attacks hit hard, they are pretty fast, and they have single techs which are also really good. Also, Ayla's Charm ability becomes super useful late in the game since there are opportunities to steal some really great endgame gear and upgrades from enemies. I equipped Crono with the Frenzy Band when I got it and he would often end battles all on his own with counters.
They have some really great dual techs together. Falcon Strike was probably my most used. It's super useful for clearing groups of enemies. Thunder Chomp is also great for single target damage, and I remember it hitting one of the bosses REALLY hard (I think it was one of the bosses in 65M BC).
All around, I just found that this team in particular was able to handle most of the things I threw at them. I even managed to get through a couple of bosses where they clearly weren't the most effective group. This was especially the case for the mutants in the Black Omen. I think I could have specialized the team for each of the battles, but decided to stick with my regular group instead. They were still versatile enough to stay alive and limp through.
Lucca and Magus never really got used outside of where they were explicitly required. I think I covered Lucca a bit in my other comment. None of that really changed in the endgame. I went back to mostly ignoring her unless specifically needed. Magus was also mostly ignored outside of his specific quests. In his case I think he suffers because you're supposed to be able to finish the game without him. So he ends up feeling really forgettable as a result of the game needing to be balanced independently of his presence.
Lavos Fight
This was super fun. I over-prepared a bit by tackling the Black Omen in all three of the eras where it appears. This let me stock up on potions, and charm extra Prism Dresses from Queen Zeal's final form. The outer (shell) version of Lavos was a cakewalk. I could one or two shot most of the "previous boss" forms with the 3D Attack triple tech. The fun really started though when I got inside the shell and fought the 2 final forms of Lavos. The music during this section was excellent. I was tapping my feet and grinning while I ripped the first form limb from limb. :D The second form was a bit trickier because of the mechanics of the two orbs, but I found a strategy that worked pretty well. I basically went all in with my triple tech to one shot the left orb anytime it was alive, then used the same triple tech to pound on the right when it was exposed. Anytime I needed to heal I used MegaElixirs instead of spending any MP on healing. I had plenty by the end, and figured there was no need to save them since this was the last battle.
Ending
The ending was surprisingly emotional. Somewhere during the side quests I became pretty attached to the characters, so seeing their arcs conclude hit me with a lot of feelings. I did not expect Robo's farewell to hit me so hard, but I actually teared up a bit! Wild to be that moved by a 16 bit game from 30 years ago.
Summary/Closing thoughts
I really like the game overall and I'm glad I finished. Pushing past the Zeal area was important to turning the game around for me. It really feels like two different games before and after that area. Before, it's a super balanced story experience (Similar in my mind to a Zelda-like game). After Zeal/Blackbird, it opens up to a more traditional JRPG, with open world travel and choices to be made. I think both are interesting in their own way, and it was a mistake to try to compare them. Once I accepted that shift I had a lot more fun.
I think this game now holds my personal record for longest time to complete. I think I first played it around ~1999, so ~26 years start to finish? 😂
I did it! Chrono Trigger is complete!
I'm not a huge JRPG person. I loved Final Fantasy VII growing up, liked Final Fantasy VIII (okay, maybe I just liked Triple Triad) and then pretty much moved away from the genre for the most part. I recently tried to play Final Fantasy IX and thoroughly enjoyed it until I just... didn't anymore. I fell off somewhere around 10 hours or so. JRPGs are not my favorite genre, and their long, meandering stories don't really grip me like I want them to as an adult. When I was a kid I was enthralled with their sprawl, but as an adult it honestly kind of puts me off.
So, if it weren't for CGA, I probably never would have played Chrono Trigger, much less actually finish it. My playthrough, though, is a contradiction:
How can these both be true? I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. I liked the game; I liked the characters; I liked the story; I liked the battle system; I liked the music. I have nearly nothing negative to say about it.
But I have to admit that, particularly in the back third or so, I was playing it out of a sense of obligation rather than a driving interest. Maybe it overstayed its welcome with me? Maybe this would happen to any game of this length in a genre I don't particularly love? Who knows.
That said, I don't want my writing here to cast the game in a negative light. The game itself is splendid.
I have no nostalgia for the game, so I was playing it with fresh 2025 eyes and expectations. And, frankly, I'm amazed at how well it's held up. The game honestly feels like it could be a retro-inspired indie darling that released a few years ago. It had a freshness to it that I genuinely didn't expect.
When I put on my 1995 eyes, I'm utterly blown away. This game must have felt SO ahead of its time (pun acknowledged). It was undoubtedly cutting edge. The spell effects were wild, and the few moments the game goes into "3D" (the bike race, the bad ending, the Epoch flying in the credits) must have been utterly stunning on hardware known primarily for 2D sprites. The whole time travel conceit and being able to play with cause and effect was probably SO novel for gaming, which was still nascent and had so many concepts yet to be explored.
I can fully understand and appreciate why this game has the cultural status that it does, especially because, on top of all of those, there is a cast of memorable and lovable characters. My go-to team was:
Chrono for obvious reasons; Frog because he has the best character portrait and
runhop animation; and Ayla because she's a badass. I did cycle through the other characters to unlock different techs though, and I wish I could have four characters on a team because I'm particularly partial to Robo as well.Speaking of getting attached to the characters, Chrono's death was like, a mic drop moment for me. I was legitimately shocked and thought they'd fully Aeris'ed him. I 100% believed he was killed off for good. I can't remember how long it was before I realized that there was a way to get him back, but for those 10-20 minutes I was legitimately thinking that the game took one of the biggest swings I'd ever seen in gaming: fully killing off the main protagonist well before the ending.
I thought the game did a great job of balancing the heartfelt and the funny, though that could have been primarily because I was constantly getting serious, knightly dialogue from Frog, and comical, choppy dialogue from Ayla.
There were a few pain points. Towards the end of the game, I started peeking at a guide simply because I wasn't necessarily sure when or where I should be for things, and I didn't feel like running around trying to get hints from people. I also didn't realize you could access the Epoch from The End of Time, so I spent a non-negligible amount of time looking around all the different eras for where I had last parked it after returning to my save after a week of downtime. Let's be honest, who among us hasn't forgotten where and when we left our time machine?
I should also mention that I am one of those insufferable millennials who, having grown up starved for LGBTQ representation, will immediately connect with any character who has even the slightest whiff of queerness. In this game, I was lucky enough to get two!
I had Lucca in my party when I met Ayla. Ayla begins by sizing up Crono, commenting that she likes strong men. She then turns to Lucca and says:
Got it. Ayla's a bicon. I stan.
If there was any doubt about whether Ayla meant it just as a friendly, platonic thing, Lucca's response kind of locks that out. I didn't write down what she said, but it was something like "Oh, I'm uh, not like that."
Later, we meet Flea, a mini-boss in Magus's castle who you fight on your way to Ozzie. Your party discusses Flea's gender when meeting them, to which Flea responds:
Nonbinary villainy. I stan.
Also, it's not exactly queer, but Robo getting a companion in his ending in the future was legitimately heartwarming. Honestly, the whole sequence where it cuts between the different characters as the Epoch flies over was a masterstroke. What a perfect way for the story to sign off.
I had mentioned it in a previous comment, but the game had a lot of little touches like that which I loved. Like, when I figured out that I could leave Robo back in time to help him plant the forest, I thought that was really clever. And then when you do, you can see him plowing the fields on the world map. It was lovely. Fast-forwarding a few seconds in game time to have Robo so excited to see you again after four hundred years was honestly touching. The game had so many little bits like this throughout it that give it a wonderful richness.
One thing I noticed as I played was clever asset re-use. In fact, the game's entire scope is really a set of (mostly convincing) smoke and mirrors. The world map isn't really that big; it doesn't have too many places to go; and the places you can go are usually only a handful of screens at most. But by changing and remixing these, it makes the game feel substantially bigger than it actually is. I almost wonder if size limitations helped yield the idea of a time-travel story in the first place, because it was an easy way to keep the size of the art down while still allowing for a huge and expansive story.
Admittedly, by the very end of the game, I was quite ready to be done. Lavos has four phases. FOUR. And they aren't easy! After my first accidental Lavos fight that took me a whole hour, I felt considerably more prepared to tackle him once I'd finished the game proper. I went in and defeated Lavos, only to find out that was merely his first form.
I was surprised by his second form, but I scraped by. Home free, right?
Wrong! Form three absolutely wrecked me. I had to grind for a while before I felt ready to try again.
When form three died and a FOURTH form came out, I'll admit I was mildly annoyed. The game broke the Two Health Bars boss rule, and then it broke the Rule of Three boss rule, and who's to say this fourth one isn't actually his final form? Also, it didn't feel like the fourth form, it felt like the fifteenth because the first form had so many different modes in the first place.
Anyway, my annoyance was shortlived. The final fight was great. That music was good, and that piercing scream in the soundtrack was utterly haunting. The vibes were right for a "final" final boss, and, like many of the other battles in the game, the final fight itself was interesting mechanically. Lots of powerful spells thrown your way, and who would have guessed that Lavos wasn't the guy in the middle? (Not me!)
The ending I got was nice. I liked the celebratory spirit and joyousness. A parade! Balloons! Time traveling cats! More games need outright joyful moments like this. It's not something we get a lot in gaming. I mentioned it earlier, but when they took off in the Epoch and it cut between the different characters (especially Robo), I was moved.
I played the Steam version, so I also got an animated cutscene that was similarly joyous. Crono and Marle get married (which felt a little abrupt to me, but I also pretty much never had Marle in my party so I didn't get to see any of their allegedly budding relationship). Ayla and her beau (who I thought was another woman the entire game) also got hitched in a manner befitting Ayla's badassness. And Lucca has a new robot companion and finds a baby in the woods. I loved that she had a new mechanical pal, though the baby was admittedly a touch baffling to me. Either I missed something in the story and this was supposed to be someone I recognized, or maybe it's setting up for the sequel?
Anyway, I'm glad this game got picked for CGA. I know I never would have played it on my own, and I now feel like I have a first-hand grasp of why this game is so beloved to this day. It's got a lot of heart, and it did SO much right, which is all the more noteworthy for when it released and so much of what it tried out was thoroughly uncharted territory in gaming. Truly a classic.
Apparently that's something that was added in later to tie in with Chrono Cross.
I almost made the exact same comment, word-for-word. It was in my first draft! If I'd never heard of Chrono Trigger before, I 100% would have believed that a recent AA team made it as a love letter to JRPGs of yore. It really feels that modern.
I can agree though about being ready to put the game down by the final act. I absolutely enjoyed my time with it, but sometimes you're ready to move on. October coming to an end probably added some time pressure as well.
It's interesting how mixed people seem to be on Lavos. It seems like by that point in the game, your build options have really opened up enough so that you can get very powerful if you combine the right items and characters. I'm guessing this made the difference more than levels or anything else. But I'm glad Lavos gave you a proper fight, and a nice send-off for this month's CGA.
Has too much Backlog Burner planning made us meld minds? Or did I travel back in time to plant the idea for this sentence in your head? Maybe the game really was made by a contemporary studio that used the Epoch to then release it back in 1995. There are so many possibilities!
Also, I'm just now realizing that the perfect Remove Cartridge topic text for this would have been something that I could change each time someone posted a top-level comment to mimic the game's whole go-back-in-time-to-change-the-present motif.
What a classic! As someone who plays a lot of JRPGs, Chrono Trigger is definitely close to the top of my list, if not the top. I feel like it rotates around FFVI, Earthbound, and Chrono Trigger. All originally SNES JRPGs.
I first played Chrono Trigger back on the SNES as a kid. I didn't own it, rather I'd rent it from Blockbuster. And it was one of the few games I rented a few times.
That said, I never finished it back then. Kinda. I think in those days, the furthest I got on my own was 2300 AD. I think I always got stuck chasing that stupid rat in the rafters of the Arris Dome.
But being a rental copy, there were saves from other people. And I'd check out those save files. One of them was definitely way further along than me, so I gave it a try and decided to fight Lavos. After a lot of casting Chrono's Luminaire, and reupping his MP and keeping the party alive, I defeated Lavos. I beat the game!
Of course, I didn't really put the work in to get there. So when Chrono Trigger came out years later on the DS, when I was an adult, I picked it up. This time, I got to Antiquity...before doing what I often do with JRPGs: I put it down to take a "break," but never went back. Pretty sure I still have the cart.
For this CGA, I was determined to play through the whole thing and beat it. And after about 40hrs over the course of a week, I did! I will admit, that once I got to the point where the party member sidequests were available, I started using a guide. I wanted to fully explore and experience the game.
Since I played the Steam version, I even got access to the Lost Sanctum. Talk about a slog. Not even sure it was worth it, but for the purposes of grinding out party levels and techs, that wasn't so bad.
Speaking of which, I finished the game with all party members around Lvl 60. And with the best gear available. Which really made all the battles after that a cakewalk. Yes, that's what grinding does, but I was still surprised at how easy all the final bosses were in the Black Omen.
In general, none of the fights in the game were that hard, even before I got all the best gear. I think I only Game Over'd twice during my whole playthrough, typically when I didn't initially realize a strategy for a boss.
Additionally, I don't know how it took me about 30yrs to realize what "Active" battle was trying to achieve (I played with ATB off). Yeah, I knew that mobs wouldn't wait for me in the tech/inventory menus with ATB on, but I never looked at it holistically. Like taking into account how enemy moves weren't just a sprite flashing, like in earlier JRPGs, to show that they're attacking. Enemies and party membres actually move across the screen to attack. How the party members will actually change their sprite stances through a battle. How even respawnable "trash mobs" will sometimes have strategies, just like bosses do (and those strategies sometime come from talking to random local NPCs).
Chrono Trigger was trying to really create an actually active, full of action, battle, something more akin to JRPGs that came after it, such as today's Final Fantasy 7 Remake/Rebirth and FFXVI, among others in the last 20+ yrs.
I thought it was just a typical "this year's" gimmick that JRPGs often do with battle systems. But once I realized that, I was kinda blown away. That this was a precursor to modern JRPG "live-action" combat systems.
As far as the story and characters, it's definitely one of my favorites. There's a lot to chew on and the writers did a good job of keeping it all tied together, across the ages. I'm not saying there weren't any plot holes or there isn't a need for suspension of disbelief at times; it's still a JRPG from the 90s, where there's not all the explanatory dialogue and massive worldbuilding that we have today. But it's still fairly tight.
Some of that is due to small things that help tie things together. Like if you have Magus in the party when going to Ozzie's fortress, or have Frog in at certain times, dialog with NPCs or enemies will actually change to address the situation. I think if you have Frog in the party with the Masamune, when fighting the Mammon Machine, attacks from the Mammon Machine will be absorbed. Because the Mammon Machine and the Masamune are both made of Dreamstone. It's a tiny detail, but it helps keep things cohesive.
Overall, glad I finally got to properly finish this game that's one of my favorites. I even started the sequel, Chrono Cross, which I've never played before -- probably because I never truly finished Chrono Trigger.
I think I mentioned in the starting CGA post that, to me, Chrono Trigger is one of the genre's standard bearers. Sure it's been 30yrs, and a lot of has changed in the world of JRPGs, but I still believe that. Character designs, world building, the visuals, the music (one of the best game soundtracks IMO)...Chrono Trigger has it all. It's held up incredibly well and I think that's testament to the team at Square back in the day, for really wanting to push the envelope. I will never not recommend Chrono Trigger to anyone who's interested in JRPGs.
Great write up. I'm glad you finally got to cross it off your list after all these years!
I definitely got a laugh out of some of the character-specific interactions. I remember a tavern denizen talking about an "ugly frog coming through here", but suddenly changing his tune when Frog is in your party.
I actually didn't realize that Reptite Village quests weren't a part of the original game. That was the only time that I felt the backtracking got too heavy. I guess that just shows that the original team knew well how to avoid padding.
I was also a fan of how active the combat felt. It kept me engaged, and really made character progression feel much more impactful. Giving a speed capsule to a character actually made them feel faster. It's not like in Pokemon where they occasionally get to go first instead. +1 speed contributes during the entire fight.
When you get a gear upgrade, it's always noticeable. A helmet giving you 50% more magic damage or resisting all ailments could make a huge difference in combat. There's no 1-2% damage boosts here. Everything uses big numbers, and it tickles my brain.
My characters were around level 52 when I finished. I probably missed some optional content, but I did the three major side quests at the end of the game. It makes me wonder how low of a level you can actually beat the game at, by utilizing all tools available to you. I bet speedrunners had a blast solving this game.
It's kinda funny, that at first, I was a bit annoyed with the battles! Because of how slow they were, with all the enemy animations. Particularly with an area's trash mobs. I'm so used to just mindlessly button mashing the basic attack option on trash mobs in other JRPGs. Though I suppose I could've done auto-battle -- which I just remembered existed -- but it still wouldn't have sped anything up. It was only after I put all the pieces together that I started to appreciate it.
I would love to hear what everyone's favourite track from Chrono Trigger's soundtrack is.
I know it's a difficult choice but if I had to pick just one, it would be the tune that plays when the party dies. Basically, the game over track. It is such a peaceful, lovely melody that it always took away any frustration that I might have had with dying, which is such a brilliant design choice. The game wasn't laughing at me, it wasn't calling me a failure, it wasn't punishing me in any way. Instead, it rewarded me with beauty and serenity. The characters were just lying there, as if sleeping, with the lullaby-like song playing for them. Everything was ok, they had given their all, the struggle was over, nothing could harm them any more.
The track also contrasted really well with the battle tune, which I would inevitably hear soon after, as I went back to kick the butt of whatever had just killed me. That song has such a "let's do this" vibe. A great contrast, there.
My love of the the game over lullaby ended up influencing a decision at the very end of the game. After a long final battle with Lavos, I failed to beat it. And I was surprised to discover that I wasn't just given a regular game over state, but an actual ending. And that ending included a version of the game over lullaby. It made me happy, so I decided to call it my ending. In the end, the future refused to change. I felt that it was a poignant way to end the story.
I also found the title of the game over track hugely meaningful. "The Day the World Revived", it is called. Which is a beautiful way to call your game over track. And there are so many interpretations you can derive from that. But later on, as I got sucked into the rabbit hole that is the Chrono Trigger Soundtrack, I went through the Japanese track titles, and realised that the official English title is likely a translation error. The Japanese reads 世界最期の日. Or, something like "The Last Day of the World". A slightly different vibe, there.
Another song title that I got excited about was Memories of Green. It is another one of my favourites and I was curious to find out if it had anything to do with Vangelis's 1980 track with the same title, which was later also used in the film Blade Runner. I couldn't find any connection, though.
All in all, I spent quite a bit of time with the soundtrack this month, and learnt a few things. One is that both the Frog's Theme and the Robo's Theme were featured in the opening ceremony of the 2020 (2021) Tokyo Olympics, demonstrating the cultural place that the game and its soundtrack have in Japan. And speaking of Robo's Theme, it has some similarity with a certain pop tune. If you want to dive deeper into that, and why Japanese game and pop music often sounds so "Japanese", read about a chord progression called the Royal Road Progression. I did. David Bennett also has a good video about it.
I mentioned the brilliant battle tune earlier. The game's original ROM actually included another battle tune, as well as a tune called Singing Mountain, neither of which were used in the SNES game. But both were later utilised in the DS release with the added areas. However, it seems like the first time the track "Singing Mountain" was used in a video game was actually in the Game Boy Advance title The Hobbit in 2003. Here's the tune very briefly as part of a playthrough, and here's the full tune from the game. I don't know how it got there.
There are also many other interesting places where a Chrono Trigger song has ended up. First, refresh your mind by listening to something like ten seconds of Schala's Theme from the timestamped section. Then, head over here to the timestamped part of Whiz Kalifa's song "Never Been", which has apparently been fairly popular somewhere at some point, as it has over 50 million YouTube views. His Never Been Pt II also sounds very familiar. And if you think that's interesting, there are actually dozens of other songs that have sampled Chrono Trigger over the years: head over here for more examples.
The original soundtrack has of course also had multiple official releases over the years. These include the game soundtrack itself in both the SNES and DS versions, as well as several orchestral releases. Personally, I found the jazz arrangements the most interesting, of which there are two official ones as far as I can see: the 1995 acid jazz release Chrono Trigger Arranged Version: The Brink of Time (YouTube), and the softer 2022 Square Enix Jazz release (YouTube).
Apart from the official releases, there is also a plethora of cover albums, too many to list really. But some of my favourites that I have come across are this AI assisted ambient lo-fi drum loop album, this synthwave collection, and this jazz album which I couldn't find on YouTube but is free and well worth downloading.
Did anyone else get sucked into the soundtrack vortex? Any thoughts on the music and its influence? If you happen to know any other Chrono Trigger album releases that are worth checking out, I'm all ears! Quite literally.
My favorite track is Schala's Theme. I have listened to it on loop for hours in the past when doing homework, and I'm still not tired of it today. It's just such great ethereal background music.
But throughout this whole month I've found myself constantly humming Wind Scene. It's the song I most associate with "Chrono Trigger music".
Schala's Theme and Wind Theme are my two favourites as well.
Wind Scene is being used for one of the general background songs while me and my soon to be wife sign our marriage certificate this weekend after the wedding ceremony.
That is so awesome! Congrats to y'all.
I'm a firm believer that life is better with a soundtrack. Excellent choice, and congratulations!
The victory theme has been by ringtone for years now
Thanks for all the musical info! The two Wiz Khalifa tracks are great.
After finishing the game, I still think Memories of Green is my favourite. Corridors of Time definitely gets a spot too. Third spot probably goes to Brink of Time. I also really enjoyed Secret of the Forest and At the Bottom of the Night.
Honestly it is probably one of the best soundtracks for a game that I've ever heard!
I finally finished Chrono Trigger for the first time last year before my first child was born. I had attempted to get through it many times before giving up at different points. I think I would fall off after getting distracted by another game or just life and then forgetting where/when everything was going one.
The only criticism I have for this game is that the first few hours are absolutely sublime and there’s no way anything could keep up that standard. There are plenty of moments that reach those heights later on, but the concentration of unforgettable moments, music, mechanics, etc in the beginning is unparalleled. The trial scene made one of the strongest impressions on me of any kind of art when I first played it in 2004.
I loved being able usually to see enemies before you encounter them. I had not played many helps, but random encounters like Pokémon always felt like crashing a car into a wall. I loved the music. I loved how all the eras felt cohesive artistically while feeling completely different and being rich enough to potentially be their own world.
Myself and another dad I know both played Chrono Trigger handheld after the birth of our first child. My daughter slept on me all night while I stayed awake playing. Amazing times ❤️
I've noticed before how vivid my memory is for the specific games that I was playing right before one of my children were born. It's an odd effect.
I feel like any game you play during a historic life event or over a concentrated period of time can have that effect. Same goes for books or movies - there's something about delirium and having your full attention that makes an experience so much more rich.
This makes me feel better about falling off at 10-hours. I really enjoyed that early game and then after about 6-7-hours I started feeling pretty bored overall..
I was kind of the same. I played it multiple times but never quite finished it. I beat it for the first time a few summers ago when my daughter was very young. She was sleeping weird hours and it was an easy game to play while rocking her to sleep or just being up with her in the middle off the night.
I kept waiting for new content, but spent almost the whole game feeling like I had done everything before. It was only when I resurrected chrono that I was sure I hadn't been here before. Then it turned out I was basically at the end/
Oh my god, I can't believe it took me this long to remember this is a thing, but now that I've remembered, you all have a required activity.
A few years ago, Yasunori Mitsuda produced an arrange album of some key songs from Chrono Trigger and Cross called To Far Away Times. You simply must listen to the album. Listen via a better source if possible because the mastering is part of the package.
If you must have a reason to listen to this, it's the original musician partnering with some very talented musicians to give vocals and lyrics to some of the most iconic songs from the two games. All but one vocal song has English lyrics, even. I can practically guarantee you will be moved to tears.
Holy shit! Pardon my language, but this is just so good. Thank you for sharing. I was hooked with the shredding guitars in the first track, but then the next two tracks are absolutely the best renditions I've heard of my two favorite songs in game! What a magical way to end this month of the CGA. ❤️
That was absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing this.
Already?! Damn! I thought I had the rest of the month still.
I liked it, made it in 10-hours, having just defeated Magus in his castle either yesterday or this morning, I can't recall. That said, sometime around the 8 or 9-hour mark, I started to peter out and lose interest in it. It's not that the game is bad or anything, it just felt like I'd seen all the gameplay mechanics and exploration is not particularly interesting and while I enjoyed the story and the characters, if I'm honest there's not really enough there to continue driving me forward with it.
I was really enjoying it when I first started and again, could not stop playing it for the first couple of weeks (I play maybe half an hour to an hour every day or other day), but then I dunno, I just kind of got bored? Then some huge things happened in my life and I fell off even further, though I did still want to play it, hence defeating Magus within the last 24-hours.
But really, I felt like things started feeling pretty samey after that first 6-hours and the combat got pretty dull. I found myself getting pretty annoyed in Magus Castle with the amount of encounters, sort-of finding the whole thing pretty tedious overall, so I'm actually not sad that we're removing the cartridge already. I might continue, depending on how I feel next I turn on my emulation device (since it'll open automatically), but I'm not necessarily going to feel disappointed or like I need to get back to this one.
But don't take my opinion as gospel. I tend to fall off games often and frequently, I'm not really sure what drives me through to complete a game.
You do!
The Remove Cartridge post always goes up on the 20th, but it’s not a deadline. We want to give the early finishers the opportunity to start talking about it, with other people joining in whenever they’re done with it.
My vision for it is “the topic is ready whenever you are.”
So, don’t feel rushed! You’ve got time.
Psst. Don’t tell anyone, but I haven’t finished the game either!
Ahh alright. Well we'll see if I get there!
Yep I'm feeling the grind as well. For me it all started with a couple of the more tricky bosses. I ended up having to look some things up, and now it seems every boss has me second guessing. I'm at the final boss now, and planning to finish (because I promised myself I would). But I'm ready to move on. I'll probably post more thoughts after I've actually seen the end credits.
I'd be curious to see how you feel about it. Honestly every time I've been in you position and finished the game, I ended-up absolutely hating the game by the end (FF6 for example).
If I stop now, I think I'll be able to remember Chrono Trigger as a game I enjoyed, but ultimately wasn't able to finish because it didn't hold my interest all the way through. Not to discourage you!
Chrono Trigger is a special case for me. I've played it several times and never finished, so the CGA seemed like a good enough motivation to get that completion.
For most other games I don't have a problem stepping away if they lose my interest. The most recent example of this was Satisfactory. I loved most of the game, but decided the endgame was just too tedious.
I've got some other thoughts on Chrono Trigger (and JRPGs in general) floating around, but they haven't coalesced into cohesive ideas yet. 🤷♂️
I knew that a full playthrough wasn't in the cards right now, but I did complete the game a few years back on the DS and revisited a few key moments in the game that stand out for me. Here are some high and low key moments that are baked into my memory.
Zeal
The first time you enter Zeal's world map is magical. After being transported up from the surface, the combination of the visuals and the music always gives me shivers.
To Far Away Times
Mitsuda-san describes the song as one that he wrote before a friend before working on Chrono Trigger, and chose to use it because it suited the moment. I was 12 when I finished the game for the first time (after a marathon rental session and false sick day) and remember feeling overwhelmed after the ending.
I had played for so many hours straight that I was having a hard time separating my experience playing the game from reality. Almost dissociative, yet entirely awesome at the same time. I recorded it to a cassette and listened to it on repeat on my sick Panasonic Shockwave. No Tupac for this bad dude, just big feels for Chrono and friends.
That goddamn shriek sound effect
Lucca's mom sounds like a harpy when her legs get caught in the conveyor belt. Horrifying.
I spent at least a week looking for the stupid controllers that are unique to the SNES mini so I could play Chrono Trigger on it and play a new game plus. I never found it, so I decided to just start from scratch on my MiSTer. And it turns out that was actually the system that I played the game on; my save was all the way at the end of the game so I figured that I'd just quickly beat it and start all over again.
Fuck Lavos. It ruined the entire game for me.
Obviously I had a hard time with it before, and that's why my savegame was stuck at the last boss. But because I wanted to enjoy playing the actual game, I decided I would cheat and give all of my characters infinite health and MP.The final battle with Lavos Core ended up taking a full hour to beat. I was something like level 60, which is over what most guides recommend being when going through this fight. And the ending I got - really any ending I could have got - was not worth the annoyance I had with that boss fight.
The thing is that the game is legitimately great, and I think it pretty much still stands up to this day, but man that final battle ended up ruining things for me. After I won, I decided to go through and get the programmer's ending, since I've already broken bad on cheating; this time I equipped anti-slow equipment and I beat Lavos in about 20 minutes.
It was good to listen to the music again, though. The ending song is pretty much as perfect as it could get; really the only game I think has a better ending song is the game's sequel.
I'm really curious why you had such a hard time with Lavos at that level of the game. It makes me think that perhaps you didn't get the end game items for your characters (every character has a semi-difficult to locate weapon and there are few top tier armor sets) or your didn't have a good party setup. If you try to do the fight when you are too low your fight generally just end quickly because you can't sustain the damage from Lavos's more annoying attacks, but once you can either through leveling or gear it shouldn't be that bad. The end game weapons can be VERY significant from a damage perspective, so maybe that was the case. Also you should be using some of the better double or triple techs when you can as they tend hit really hard or can be the better choice for healing.
I looked at equipment charts and for the most part I did have the best possible equipment. The reason why it took so long to beat Lavos the first time with cheats is largely because I had Marle in my party for healing and she isn't exactly a DPS powerhouse, I picked it up after not playing it for a while so probably wasn't playing very optimally, and above that the final battle is designed specifically to mislead you. Plus RNGesus was playing against me because I got that whole-party slow spell being cast on me probably once ever minute.
Yeah, I have always found that if you don't go in with status immunity on every character, the lavos fight can be a nightmare with bad luck. And if you don't take out both of his arms at the same time, you can have your status immunity taken away. The fight can be rough, but I think maybe I have just done it enough to know what works well. My goto team for lavos is Chrono, Ayla, and Frog. Ayla and Frog have the best dual tech for healing AND one of the best dual techs for single target attack. Chrono is usually on item duty and throwing out luminaire when possible.
This is my favorite team this playthrough. In previous attempts I ignored Ayla because of her "lack" of a weapon, and didn't realize Frog was so useful for healing.
During the course of the game, Frog goes from good to great to highly medicore and then with his upgraded masmune and skills becomes useful at the end. Ayla just scales differently and is the fastest and strongest physical character in the game which is always good for a boss fight.
I've also found that Falcon Strike is a super useful combo when you just want the random enemies to go away. :D
I feel like I always did something similar in the past. Lucca is the one I usually never used, so I made an effort to pull her out more.
I did see a few people in the prior thread say that the game is long, and my intention is not whatsoever to call anybody out, be toxic, or gatekeep, I just want to highlight that I think it's actually a pretty funny and revealing statement.
In my opinion Chrono Trigger is noticeably shorter than average for its genre, so I think anyone commenting that the game is long would probably say that about any JRPG, while people who regularly play the genre often say the game is concise and moves at a breezy pace, never overstaying its welcome.
I hold the latter opinion, and "notoriously" (except practically nobody knows this about me) I take much longer than average to beat JRPGs the first time through, often anywhere from 120%-200% of what howlongtobeat will say.
Of course, I don't know how many times I've played CT before but being a repeat playthrough saves a lot of extra time by knowing what to do at all times, so I just kinda kept my Analogue Pocket near me and took lots of idle opportunities to keep pushing through it. At one point I even had the pocket in one hand (I can reach the dpad and face buttons with 1 thumb while holding it in one hand - not comfortable, but doable) and my PC controller in the other hand, playing CT while grinding levels in DQ3 HD-2D at the same time.
Anyway, fantastic game! Made me a believer in time travel stories, though I don't know if the genre has ever done it better in the 30 years since.
Ayla cracks me up and Robo's a real one for tending the forest for 400 years. I love the whole cast really, well Crono is a bit blank slate silent protag but yknow. The rest of them anyway.
I took note of how long it got me to get to certain points. So from the start of the game to the point of entering the final dungeon, I clocked it at about 23hrs.
At this point, I started using a guide, so that definitely sped things up. I finished all the party member sidequests in another 5hrs. I then decided to do the Lost Sanctum and that took probably another...5-ish hours? Then the last dungeon and final bosses, probably 2-3 more hours.
Altogether, it took me about 40hrs to do the main story plus all the major sidequests. That is INCREDIBLY short for a full-featured JRPG. That's usually just the main story alone in a JRPG. The sidequests might take another 10+ hrs. Most JRPGs I play are measured closer to 80+ hrs, because I'm a bit of a completionist and explorer.
So yeah, I agree. Chrono Trigger is a super short JRPG. Of course, not everyone is used to playing these, so I get that, too.
Chrono Trigger is short, which is part of the reason why I think it's better than the vast majority of RPGs out there even to this day. But it's still an RPG, and that takes a degree of dedication that I think that most gamers today - myself at least partially included - either do not have or are unwilling to give. It feels like many (but nowhere near all) of the super-popular games these days are like a glorified Skinner box where you press buttons to get a dopamine hit.
It's my opinion that RPGs really need to be designed to be picked up and put down in order to be accessible to adults. When I pick up a game I haven't played in a long time, I need to have a way to understand what's happening and what I need to do next. Almost a year ago I stopped playing a Chrono Trigger contemporary RPG, G.O.D., and when I went back to it after finishing with Trigger I was surprised how easy it was to get back into it because it had the then-novel approach of having a diary that you could read to brush up on the story so far.
But on the other hand, I'm also really put off by modern big name RPGs that get around this by simply telling the player where to go and what to do at all times. I find it infantilizing, and I feel like it's masking poor game design.
Return to Monkey Island had a pretty neat recap mechanic to address this. The whole game is set up as a story told by the protagonist, and every time you return to the game you get a quick "now where was I?" recap. I thought that was pretty clever, and didn't break immersion.
Recaps and stuff are definitely a big way forward for the genre. The Tales of series has been doing this for ages, having a Synopsis feature in the main menu that will give you the rundown chapter by chapter of what you'd seen and done. Dragon Quest XI also gives a recap of recent events when you load your save.
On the other hand, when I come back to a JRPG that doesn't have these features, I'll often enough figure out where I am and work my way through an online synopsis or even skim parts of someone else's playthrough to jog my memory, and have yet to go too far or spoil myself so it has been a working option, but I can totally understand why some would not go down that path.
I'll do damn near anything I can when returning to a game I dropped for whatever reason, to not start over. I have just witnessed the cycle of restarting and never finishing too many times, both with myself in the past, and with friends even to this day, and it's just not something I want to be doing with my time. (This is categorically different than finishing a first playthrough for me, replaying something I've beat before is a different thing than restarting unfinished titles from the beginning.)
So this is something I have been seeing in modern JRPGs. Such as the ability to save practically anywhere you want, instead of at defined save points. Some games, like Final Fantasy XIII went even further and made every save point (still had save points, but they were placed every ~100ft/30m it seemed) a shop, so you didn't even have to trek back to a town to buy new gear or healing items.
I'm playing the new Final Fantasy Tactics remaster, "The Ivalice Chronicles," and it has a "visual chronicle." It also has an in-game encyclopedia, along with a cutscene viewer, which also has a text summary of that cutscene/event, in case you don't care to watch a cutscene. These weren't in the original game. Pretty sure these systems were taken directly from Final Fantasy XVI. And I've seen some or all of these features in other newer/ish JRPGs I'm playing, like Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero.
It's great for people like us who tend to put JRPGs down for awhile, only to come back later (hopefully). I've literally taken years-long breaks in some games, and it is for sure hard to come back when I don't remember what I last did or where in the story I'm at or even who some character is.
Agreed, however, that it does seem that modern JRPGs have become even more linear than they already were. And some of these systems don't help, Because, as you say, they right away point you in the right direction. It feels very MMORPG-ified. No need to get lost and explore; the game will tell you where to go next! Final Fantasy XVI was particularly egregious with this; practically no reason to explore an area. Barely any chests or cool things to stumble upon. I think all the sidequests were presented to the player.
As such, it was nice to see in Chrono Trigger where, sure, there are hints about sidequests, but it's still up to the player to find them and figure out how to solve them*.
*He said, as he used a guide at that point...
Possibly unpopular opinion: I dislike the active battle system.
I prefer to take my time and strategize, and especially with some of the trickier bosses the active system just added more stress to the situation. Wait mode was a bit better, but still sort of confusing since only some menus would "pause" the action. The whole thing felt a bit clunky to me, in a way that was hard to pinpoint until late in the game.
I do however love that enemies are visible on the map so they can potentially be avoided. This worked better in some areas than others, but I still prefer it to the random jump-scares of most Final Fantasy games.
I'd like to hear what people thought of Luccas mom. I played this game quite a few times before I had that quest trigger. I retried many times before finally looking up the solution. I don't know how anyone would figure that out on their own.
My biggest problem with it is that I never realized till that moment that Luccas mom couldn't walk. Which robs some of its impact.
She's always sitting when you see her, but if there's any dialogue about her having an accident in the past, I completely missed it.
It also kind of bugs me that Lucca turns out exactly the same if you save her mom. I was wondering if she would lose some of her mechanical apptitute without the traumatic experience driving her.
So there are some context clues, but I agree that I wouldn't have figured them out without looking up the guide. The solution was also really hard for me to execute on the DS, because there are a couple of A button presses to get into the right state before it "accepts" the code. Anyway, here are the clues I noted:
Good point. This was my third or fourth time playing Chrono Trigger, but I never realized Lucca's mom was crippled in a home accident. It was only when I unlocked that scene this time around that I learned that.
Like Mendanbar said, yeah she always seemed melancholy compared to her husband and daughter, but it seemed far more likely she just didn't share their interests in engineering. Or that she didn't have that kind of relationship with her daughter. I know that's a trope (and thing that happens IRL) that sometimes teen daughters and mom's aren't close.
I almost wonder if that's a translation/localization issue. I'd be curious to know if the Japanese dialog was more forthcoming about Lucca's mom's disability.
You can find the full (?) script here and compare the English SNES translation with the original Japanese, as well as a more literal translation. I myself don't see any direct mention of her disability in any version.
What I do perhaps see though is a little warmer and gentler person in the original Japanese than in the English translation?
While on the subject of translations and Lucca's mom, there is an interesting difference between the mother's name (and therefore also the code) in the Japanese and English versions. That website also has a couple of other articles on Chrono Trigger, including one that briefly looks at Frog's speaking style in the original English translation, which has been a subject of much discussion for the liberties that it took.
For anyone studying Japanese and interested in playing the game in Japanese one day, I've also come across Anki decks like this one that pair the original Japanese with English.
I spent way too much time this month reading about Chrono Trigger. Or maybe it was just the right amount of time!
We did it, people!
Yuji Horii has just become the first game designer ever to be recognised in Japan's autumn honours list with the fancily named Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette. As I understand it, that's practically Japan's highest civilian state decoration awarded to a non-politician.
If you don't remember who that is: Horii is not only the creator of the hugely popular Dragon Quest series, but was also a supervisor and one of the primary writers for Chrono Trigger.
Clearly the Japanese government noticed the overwhelmingly positive reaction that many of us have had for Chrono Trigger this CGA, as well as the love and enthusiasm for Dragon Quest that many of you have shared this month, and they decided that it was time to recognise Horii.
Or maybe he's just one hell of an artist with a portfolio that few can match.
System Survey:
Please vote for the system/setup you played the game on below. If it's not present, please add it as a reply to this comment.
Steam version on Steam Deck
DS ROM on an R4 device.
The Steam version on a Windows PC.
I played on the original 1995 version using the final SD2SNES revision cartridge (renamed as FXPAK PRO for avoiding legal issues) on an RGB-bypassed 1CHIP Super Famicom (the same hardware as the American SNES, under a different shell).
The video signal is then output to Lotharek's W-Hydra2 SCART switch, using Retro-Access's Nintendo RGBS SCART cable. The switch then splits the signal, one of which goes through Morph 4K's VGA port using Retro-Access's custom-made SCART-to-VGA adapter cable, so I can play on my 1440p monitor and have my GC573 capture the video from the video upscaling device.
The other signal goes to OSSC Pro, with its Extra AV out add-on outputting that video signal through VGA, so axunworks's RGB-2YC device can transcode it for my composite-only CRT TV. The audio is routed directly to mono-only audio jack using 3.5mm cable and an AUX-to-RCA adapter to mix two channels into one.
I played the SNES version on my SNES hooked-up to a CRT, as well as on my handhelds for emulation, the RG405m and TrimUi Brick; I copied my save back and forth between my SNES and the emulators.
That's awesome that you still have a CRT setup for emulation. I had to give up my last CRTs a few years ago due to space concerns.
I only got it it about 5 years ago! My Mom has had it since the early 2000's and finally decided to get rid of it and since I was just beginning to get into retro gaming, I figured I'd take it!
I love the idea of retro gaming on a CRT, but my eyes can't handle it anymore. I think growing up on CRTs is the reason I wear glasses today, and if the world hadn't transitioned to better tech when it did, who knows how screwed up my vision would be now.
I honestly don't use it a ton, but I love the look of it. So much so that I'm obsessed with CRT shaders on emulation that look just like the shittiest TVs in remember from my childhood.
If it makes you feel better, I only had OTA channels growing up and was strictly limited to 1 hour per day of TV time on a CRT. I still had glasses starting at age 6 so maybe it's just bad genetics and not the CRT
In support of your point by way of completely opposite behaviour and outcome, I was parked in front of CRT TVs and CRT monitors pretty much constantly in my childhood and nothing has happened to my vision. I think it really is a matter of genetics and the cards we were dealt. If there is some effect from CRTs, genetics may still be involved in susceptibility to the effects probably, I have no idea.
SNES version on SNES9X (running inside OpenEmu on my Mac). Using a PS4 controller for input.
DS version on N3DS / Twilight Menu++
SNES version via Retro Pi
SNES version on MiSTer
I played on my SNES classic, but I've played it on SNES, emulated, DS, and Android previously.
SNES version on Analogue Pocket using agg23's OpenFGPA SNES core.
Wasn't my first playthrough though, been around this block a few times.
For anybody looking for a *good follow-up, the fan made RomHack Crimson Echoes is a nice way to keep the adventure going.
I don't remember what happened exactly, but it was a good use of existing resources to tell more of the story and world build a little more between Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers/Chrono Cross.
Another one I didn't finish. I wish I could stay at something for more than a couple of hours.
Personally, I imagine I won't finish most of these CGA. This month was a bit easier for me since 1) I love Chrono Trigger and JRPGs and 2) I'm furloughed, so I have time to play. I mean, I'm a SINK so I always have time to play, but more so than usual 😅
Anyway, I'm mainly doing the CGA as chance to try games that I wouldn't have played otherwise. Like last month's entry. I like story games, but I would've never played that. Didn't finish it either. But it was cool to at least try.
Did you at least enjoy the bit of CT that you did play?
I did enjoy it a little. My experience with JRPGs comes mostly from the downstream influence of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras that shows up in avant-garde RPGMaker games, mostly Yume Nikki and its fangames. Although YN is probably old enough it qualifies for a slot in CGA in and of itself, I only played it a couple years ago so my perception of its release date is definitely skewed.
Anyway When I got to the future area for the first time(there is probably a proper name for it) I kept seeing things that reminded me of the barracks area in Yume Nikki and the sort of industrial wastelands that are common in YN Fan Games like .flow and Muma Rope. This made 2 things clear to me.
Stopping to do battles is easily the worse part of the traditional JRPG gameplay loop for me. I just want to explore strange places. I don't mind if monsters chase you occasionally or something but I don't want to have to stop and fight.
The random racing minigame they used to show off mode 7 is just the racing mini-game joke from this skit but 100% unironic in a bad way
I like to think of myself as someone who likes video games in general and can find enjoyment in any genre or time period but I feel like CGA is forcing me to confront the fact that both of those statements don't accurately describe me anymore if they ever did. I am still going to at least attempt to keep playing the CGA game each month though. I really like Playstation 1 and Playstation 2 games so maybe next month will be an improvement.
Yeah I'm not treating CGA as a committment to completion either, and that may even be the case for the game I nominated if I turn out to not like it. I'd like to give every game a fair shake and do my best at finishing but I'm never gonna force myself. Next month is an Arcade Special and I plan to treat it as more of a sampler or even as if those 5 titles came on a playstation demo disc - odds are good i play like just an hour or two of each, unless I get hooked.
I'm almost done with the game, and am not ready to share any thoughts yet besides one - the soundtrack in this game is absolutely amazing. Memories of Green has been playing in my head for the last few days, I swear I hear it in my sleep.
I'm going to take this opportunity to plug what is possibly my favourite piece of software, in case there are any other music nerds or producers in here: it's a bit accurate emulator for the SNES sampler that can play back songs and access the patches used to create them:
https://www.plogue.com/products/chipsynth-sfc.html
Damn that plugin sounds just right! It reminds me of what this guy does with kind of midi direct connection and has done it live as a big group which is a crazy and respectably deeply nerdy thing to do.
I probably need another hour, as I keep dying on Lavos.
I just wanted to quickly stop by and say that the last sanctum is hands down the least fun I've ever had with a video game. There is a 100% chance the design doc for that was written by a suit who never played the original game... it was so bad it spoiled the rest of the game for me. Truly unforgivably awful.
I also pre-apologize for this duplicate comment. (I haven't read the other comments yet, but I can assume they all say this!)
OK, so I finally finished the game (aside from the Dimensional Vortex which I still intend to finish), and Lost Sanctum aside, I would definitely say this jumped straight to my top 5 SNES games of all time.
As mentioned above, my favourite part of this game was definitely the music. I never played the game when I was young, but I absolutely got a strong sense of nostalgia just from the instrument choices. Everything about SNES music just feels warm to me, especially when using melodies as strong as the ones from this game.
The story and characters were another high point - the whole time travel mechanic was very cool, and I loved how every character was viable and had a bit of backstory. As someone else mentioned, travelling to Zeal for the first time was an awesome experience. It took me a while to realize that was in the past instead of the future! Crono's death was also super shocking, but I realized almost immediately that this was a time travel game so I was pretty sure he would be coming back at some point.
I did end up breaking down and taking some looks at a guide once I got to all the side quests, as I wasn't in the mood for wasting 10 more hours. As far as I'm aware, the only thing I failed at was stealing items from Ozzie and friends, although I did admittedly die a few times during the game and probably 4 more times on Lavos. Overall it didn't seem overly difficult, which is probably good for a game with NG+.
While I didn't play this on a SNES, I'm pretty sure this is one of the most technically impressive games I've seen for the system, possibly only beaten by the Donkey Kong Country games and maybe Flight Wings. It still plays really well today, and I was impressed with the Active battle system like others here. I did end up turning this off for the Lavos fight, but honestly even the Wait setting doesn't feel super overpowered.
I feel like I will probably play this again at some point in the future - considering how things at Square-Enix are going, maybe we will see a pixel remaster someday? That being said, I absolutely will not be helping anyone at the Lost Sanctum...
Overall I'd give the game an 8 or 9 out of 10, and would definitely recommend it!
Nicely done! For as many Chrono veterans as there are in this thread, it's also great to hear from those of us that were completely new to the game.
I only did part of the Lost Sanctum quest, and it sounds like I was fortunate to skip the rest. Hopefully, if there ever is a Pixel remaster, they'll give that area a little love.
I definitely hear you on the OST. I didn't realize how captured I'd be by it during my playthrough. Now that I've finished, I find myself often humming or listening to the soundtrack in the background. It has some major staying power. As you said, the melodies are great, and I think the SNES' distinctive sound definitely plays some role as well.
I posted this in the opening thread, but I wanted ti give people a chance to see it now that that they've played the game.
https://youtu.be/Yn2Vu_R-KKc?si=Z6YIxipMI_EEwXu5
This is a musical that completely tells the story of the game. All the story bits are voice acted and the songs are all arrangements of the songs from the game.
I'm actually still playing the game as I was already playing a couple of other games. I have no intention of not finishing even though our month is over. I've beaten the game a dozen times over the years, so it is more like a nostalgic trip down memory lane.
I think Chrono Trigger is a great game that I love. Tried many times. Unfortunately my ADD is pretty bad and I eventually get completely lost between several worlds and timelines. I do look at guides from time to time but I don't like the idea of following a guide from start to finish. So I never finished it.
I'm coming into this topic late, I managed to get about 8 hours in to the game but I've already completed it a few times over the years.
Not much to add that hasn't already been said. I find Chrono Trigger to be a work of art, lightning in a bottle that is rarely captured, a once in a lifetime opportunity that we're very lucky to be able to play.
This isn't even coming from a place of huge nostalgia either, I had a Sega growing up and I live in the UK so even if I had a SNES I wouldn't have been able to play Chrono Trigger as we never officially saw it in Europe until the DS release.
I played this game for the first time as a 15 year old on a SNES emulator and it became a game I quickly fell in love with. The characters are wonderful, the plot is a ton of fun, insane, intricate but not too complicated, the visuals are stunning, the music is one of the best video game OST's ever composed in my opinion, and the gameplay itself is brilliant, simple to learn and understand but there's depth to it for those who want to master it.
I can't say much more to be honest, other than I hope we get the chance to play Chrono Cross at some point, it's another beautiful game with, in my opinion, an ever better OST than Chrono Trigger.
Similarly I first played this game to completion somewhere around 2012 on a snes emulator on a smartphone, as an adult. I probably never made it past the court scene in earlier attempts as a teen/kid. I do not have a nostalgia-driven judgment of this game.
Same goes for FF7, same thing around 2013, emulated on phone, as adult. I bring it up cause being a fan of FF7 is the #1 attractant of "rose tinted glasses" allegations.
I agree. Chrono Cross is less frustrating than Trigger IMHO and I found the story’s themes more interesting. Plus it has one of the most moving endings if you can pull off the Chrono Cross.
That ending brought tears to my eyes, the music in particular is very powerful.