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.

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.

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.

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.