- What is it?
- A role playing game for the SNES, 1995.
- What computer or emulator will it run on?
- Any computer that can run an SNES emulator.
- Similar Games
- Terranigma, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest VI.
Chrono Trigger is probably the most beautiful RPG ever created for the SNES. For me,
it was the reason I got in touch with emulation; I had read a lot about it and wanted
to try it. At first I tried to run it in ZSNES, which I hadn't figured
out yet, so I watched the intro as a tiny 256×228 window on my huge
1024×768 desktop. Just the intro, I couldn't play it that way. The
intro shows a birds' eye view of some island, where a fair is going
on. Seagulls cry, baloons rise into the air, salutes are fired. I was
instantly smitten.
Most excellent games excel mainly in one aspect. For Chrono Trigger, this aspect is dream fulfillment. The world where this fair takes place are our favorite childhood memories. Rather, the childhood memories we all would like to have. A world reminiscent of the mid-20th century, with portal-shaped radios, black mechanical typewriters, huge refrigerators, steamboat ferries and lots of fun. Soon our teenage hero will run into the royal princess in incognito on the abovementioned fair. It's a millenial fair, by the way, not something that happens every day.
Our hero, called Crono by default, but like in any good Japanese RPG you can give him a name of your choice, is friends with a geeky girl, Lucca, who has invented a teleporter. Somehow the princess (she is still simply known as Marle) vanishes from this teleporter, and Crono is kicked into an exciting adventure travelling back in time.
Naturally he finds her and brings her back safely. She invites him to the castle (she could not help but lift her incognito during the adventure), her father throws him into jail. The father-daughter relationship goes downhill rapidly, and when Crono manages to flee, she follows him. Much later it will be her father who has to face court, and she will rush in in the last minute to save him from the trumped-up charges.
Now which teenage girl would not like to win such a fine moral victory over her father? Which teenage boy would not like to run into the royal princess (insert actress, pop star, or whatever here) at a once-in-a-lifetime fair?
Lucca later gets her dream fulfilled too. As a child, she had to watch helplessly as her mother lost both legs in an accident. Now, she is able to travel back in time and save her.
Yes, Chrono Trigger is beautiful. And it is highly playable and replayable. What annoyed me most and lowered the replay value considerably for me are three arcade minigames that cannot be bypassed in any way, even when playing the second time. I don't like games where success depends on how fast you push buttons, this is one of the reasons I like RPGs.
I would not call Chrono Trigger the best
SNES RPG or
something like that. The best
is a rather vague term. But
I do call it the most beautiful. Beautiful in story, graphics, and last
but not least, music. There is a triad of SNES games that truly excel:
Terranigma for its noir overtones, Earthbound
for its whackiness, and Chrono Trigger for its sheer beauty.
Chrono Trigger was re-released in 1999 for the Playstation with some rather bad anime art. The original SNES cartridge is extremely rare. There have been two sequels, the strange interactive novel Radical Dreamers that was never released outside Japan, and the Playstation game Chrono Cross.
Many console RPGs add special bonuses
for players who level,
that is, fight more random encounters
to gain levels earlier. In Terranigma, for
example, you gain hitpoints much faster after you reach level 32.
Level 32 is where you will finish the game if you do not level. In
Chrono Trigger, the bonuses are manifold:
charmskill, you can get a good set of equipment from the enemies there.
There are probably more, these are the ones I remember. I list them mainly to show that this game certainly does not lack well-designed gameplay.
