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 The year is 1000 AD. Festivities are in full swing at the Millennial Fair. The people are celebrating the defeat of a powerful wizard in their history. Crono is going to see his best friend Luca's newest invention. On the way, he runs into a girl name Marle, who wishes to travel with him. Together they see Lucca's creation...a teleportation device that can transport a person from one place to another. Something goes wrong, and they are teleported to another time and place. They learn of a great evil that will destroy their world. Now the must journey across time to try and prevent this terrible day from coming to pass. Everything from the past to the future will change, and be re-written in order to save the present world they love so much.
 In 1995, Squaresoft had just released Final fantasy VI to great critical praise, and reception. While working on the latest technology for the upcoming Final Fantasy VII, they needed something that would stem the want for the next installment. What they made was pretty far beyond what they anticipated. Chrono Trigger is defined as one of the masterpieces in the realm of RPG. Chrono Trigger is perhaps one of the most engrossing adventures in the SNES cannon. The story of Chrono is nothing like the world had seen before, but has tried many different times to emulate. In this game, your hero and his friends travel through time in a attempt to stop the Day of Lavos from happening. Things that are done in the past times have an effect on the future times within the game. This was something that had not been done before. Things such as speaking to a person in the past, can change the outcome of an entire town in the future.
The story of Chrono Trigger is one of the best. Sometimes the translation is a bit on the ugh side, as was the case with most games at the time, but it was still enough to get you completely engrossed in the game. You would not even realize that 5 hours of game play had already passed. There were plot twists a plenty in the game, as well as different little stories going on to distract you from the game. Each time you visited was given full details of history to that point, rich characters, and evil to face.
 Characters are done well in Chrono Trigger too. They are not as fleshed out as the then recently released Final Fantasy VI was, but none the less they were just as engaging. You have the silent hero Crono, whom I think was actually a good idea to have as a mute character. For some reason it made him more believable. Almost reminiscent of say Dopey in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs©. There is his best friend Lucca, who can invent or fix anything mechanical, Marle who is actually the princess in disguise. This creates the nerd and prep gal type of humor that will definitely bring a smile to your face more than once. As you travel, you can gain a whole variety of different characters ranging from a frog and cave girl, to a robot and wizard.
Game play was similar to Final Fantasy titles, but unique at the same time. Chrono Trigger utilized the ATB system found in all Square games at the time, but with a twist. Rather than entering battle screens, you fought your enemies right on the maps. As you fought, your enemies moved around. This could enable you to hit more than one enemy at a time, if they were to move close enough together. This was definitely something not seen within a RPG game before.Chrono Trigger also came up with the idea of Tech Skills, rather than traditional skills and magic. These used MP, but not only were there different types of skills, you could combine skills for bigger attacks with the right party fighting. This made you want to try different combinations of characters all the time, where you might not use someone in the party very often otherwise.
Also in a first, there were different endings to the game. Each time you go through the game, you can end the game at almost any point after the first play through. Not only did you get a different type of ending, it raised the replay value incredibly from other games. It was fun to see the different endings of the game, especially the one where Crono actually has dialogue!
 Graphics in Chrono Trigger were beautiful as well. The detail of the game is fantastic for the limitations of the SNES console. The environments are lush and colorful as ever. Beautiful scenery and plants for the times where the world is still good. Dark and foreboding colors are used in the future as well as the times where evil is dominant. each character and enemy is done well, with movement and personality seldom seen in a 16 bit game.
The scoring of Chrono Trigger was brilliantly done as well. Music found in the game is fun and festive when needed, and somber or epic when things are dire. Each song fits the respective point in the game perfectly. It is also not too overdone, or underscored either. Though scaled down some from the Final Fantasy cannon, the score is definitely a masterpiece work none the less.
Chrono Trigger since its release has become one of the most sought after titles on the SNES. There have been copies sold on Ebay for as much as $200.00. It is truly a masterpiece and milestone in the gaming world. It has garnered a huge fan base all over the world, and people have even attempted fan games based on the game. Desire to see a sequel, as well as a re-release was over the top in 1999, when Square announced not only a sequel, but a re-release of the title with perhaps one of the best Final Fantasy titles in their cannon.
 Final Fantasy Chronicles featuring Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy IV was released on the PS1 in 2001, shortly after the release of Chrono Cross. Not too much changed from the original game itself, but the introduction of animated sequences in the intro as well as throughout the game made it worth the effort. World renowned animator Akira Toriyama, whose is best known for Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball-Z did fantastic work on the animated sequences in the game.
The overall game play was left unchanged, as well as the storyline. There was a few minor changes in dialogue, but nothing truly noticeable. The music was remastered for the Playstation version, and sounds just as good as it did in 1995.
The greatest addition to the game was the Extras Mode, which certain parts are unlocked by beating the game in its many different times. This boosted the replay value of this title even higher. You got to see full bestiaries, treasure maps, Tech skills, and music from the game. The Chronicles sold so well, that it was re released as a greatest hits the following year. This title has also become something of a collectors item, with copies sold between $30.00 and $60.00 on Ebay and Amazon. Though it was released in America after Chrono Cross, it was definitely worth the wait to get this title again.
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11-28-2008 |
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11-20-2008 |
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2-6-2009 |
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2-3-2009 |
  iN 2008, Chrono Trigger saw its third release, not to mention its return to the Nintendo lineup. This time it was released on the DS handheld system. It also saw its first release in Europe and Australia.
First the story was given a complete overhaul to fit more to the original Japanese storyline. The DS re-release contains all of the bonus material from the Chronicles version on the Playstation, as well as new additions.
The added features include a dual-screen mode which clears the top screen of all menus. Love that addition! a self-completing map screen, and finally you have a default "run" option.
Masato Kato participated in development, overseeing the addition of the monster-battling Arena, two new areas, the Lost Sanctum and the Dimensional Vortex, as well as a new ending that further foreshadows the events of Chrono Cross. This was a really fantastic additional ending, since there was very little connection between the two games inside of America.
Though this versions new additions was met with some mixed reviews over the new additions, this is perhaps the best of the three different times it has been released, mostly because of the fantastic translation by Tom Slattery. It does not matter which version you have though, no gamer should ever be without this video game defining masterpiece.
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Chrono Trigger
