It's about time...

[Before I start, I’ve got to get this all out of the way. Finally, my fiftieth review is here. I was going to write on Nirvana: Unplugged in New York since it was, and still is, very close to my heart. Then, I decided that I should write on something equally close to my heart, but I couldn’t find “aorta” as a reviewable item on the site.

Then, I started thinking as I read Y2JmcDohl’s profile (which said I, much like he, am a lazy bastard… this is true) and realized that the reason people read my reviews are because I know one thing more than anything else… video games. So, in honor of my yearlong trek to fifty reviews, here is yet another game review! And the people were happy… and so they rejoiced… yea.

Then another problem arose… what should I review? I mean, I haven’t even attempted reviewing The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time yet and I just bought Capcom vs. SNK and it’s one of the coolest fighting games this geeky gamer has had the honor of playing. What about Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 and Spiderman? Both are great games that everyone should at least try playing… maybe I could coax one gamer to buy it and have some sort of gaming bliss. After a long and difficult debate with my imaginary friends (Who, I might add, voted that I sacrifice a goat in honor of this event.), I decided there was only one game reviewable on the site that I deemed worthy of my review (I also decided it’d be too difficult to get a goat on such short notice.). This game, of course, is Chrono Trigger.

Fair warning to the grip of people reading this who have never had the pleasure of playing the game, since it is being re-released as a package with Final Fantasy IV this July for Playstation under the poorly named Final Fantasy Chronicles, I plan on having some spoilers in here. So, if you want to know just if this game is worth getting, I say, “Oh, HELL YEAH!” I paid $90 for a used copy on Yahoo Auctions and it’s worth every single penny and more.

Note: This review is based on the Super Nintendo version of the game that, as I said, I paid way too much for… but I do have plans on buying Samba de Amigo and the maracas, so I’m a pretty hardcore gamer. Anyhow, this is an excerpt straight from Y2JmcDohl himself stating just what the difference is between the SNES version and Playstation.

“1) For the most part, it’s pretty much exactly the same. I mean, you might think the graphics are a bit cleaner and whatnot, but you’re missing nothing really new if you just play the SNES version.

2) Because it’s on the Playstation, there are loading times, obviously. They aren’t as bad as with Final Fantasy Anthology, though.

3) Finally, the main addition, as with many next-generation remakes, is animated sequences strewn across the game, and he told me that they look pretty damn amazing.”

Anyway… let the ranting truly begin!]


Squaresoft, the company that took Sony’s Playstation by storm and has become known by most new-school gamers as “the greatest game makers in the world,” and I have history together. As a matter of fact, I’ve been playing their games since the very beginning when they programmed Rad Racer 2, a totally radical NES racing game that boasted the most excellent ability to be in 3-D with the keen glasses that came along with the game. Hey, poorly modeled sprites with a 3-D look had to be hard to pull off, but Square pulled it off.

What better a segue for Square's next game, Acclaim-published Space-Harrier wannabe 3-D World Runner, than the mention of poorly modeled sprites in a psuedo-3-D world? The game wasn't exactly successful, but it wasn't exactly brilliant, either. But, that's okay, because Square would find their niche with the next game.

Final Fantasy... the game that, for many people, started it all. I know, I know, Dragon Quest/Warrior was released first in both Japan and the states, but when you mention great RPGs on the NES, you're more likely to here Final Fantasy as the game named than any of the four Dragon Warrior games released on the system. Hell, Final Fantasy is the game that started me as a roleplaying game fan before I even played the game. Nintendo Power, in its transition to a monthly magazine, released four strategy guides in the four of eight months they didn't release actual magazines. Sure, Ninja Gaiden 2 was one of the great games they covered in complete depth, but Final Fantasy was the game guide I studied.

Final Fantasy was unlike any game I had ever seen before, including Dragon Warrior. For the first time, characters actually looked good, be they allies or enemies (And the props go out to the amazing character designs of Yoshi-taka Amano... not that Dragon Warrior's character designer, Akira Toriyama, was a scrub. I actually blame the poor graphics on the sprite programmers and the first-person perspective.), which was something new entirely. Then, there was the customization involved... do I take a thief or a black belt? What's better to have... a red mage that kicks butt early in the game but isn't nearly as good late in the game or a black or white mage? Would I ever get to fight the rare monster in the sea palace? Well, the answer to my last question, thus far, is no. A one in 64 chance and I still have yet to fight that thing. Yet, I wouldn't play the game for a few more years.

Skip way ahead to the last years of the SNES, after Square changed their name to Squaresoft, the makers of Final Fantasy have established themselves in the states as the premier roleplaying game developer. Such great titles as Final Fantasy II (IV), Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy III (VI) have solidified their place in gamers' hearts here in the states with improved graphics, complex storylines and amazing orchestrated soundtracks. In Japan, though, Enix is still the top roleplaying game developer with games such as Dragon Quest V, Dragon Quest VI and Terranigma. Sadly, none of those titles ever made an appearance here in the states with Enix opting instead to release such average games as Robotrek and Illusion of Gaia. So, while Enix blemished its great reputation, Square improved theirs. With the three Squaresoft games I mentioned, Square would've left a legacy on the SNES that no other developer, save Nintendo themselves, could match.

But, Square wasn't going to go out without one last hurrah. As a matter of fact, Squaresoft wanted to make the roleplaying game to end all roleplaying games. In essence, they wanted to create the roleplaying equivalent to platforming's Super Mario Bros. 3. And, with one great thought (Not that it's difficult to come up with a thought like, "Hey, let's make a game that doesn't suck!" Unless you work at Midway.) came another. Square would enlist the best people in the business to contribute to this game. Nobuo Uematsu, the composer of the Final Fantasy series, was to compose the music. Akira Toriyama, the character designer of the Dragon Quest series and creator of Dragon Ball, designed all the characters and enemies in the game. Finally, the story was crafted in a collaborative effort by Dragon Quest scenario writer Yuji Hori and Final Fantasy writer and producer Hironobu Sakagushi.

The final product is, to many people, just what Square set out to do from the start: the ultimate roleplaying game. To many people, including myself, this is THE roleplaying game to have and to hold till death doth we part. While roleplaying games evolve and become more accepted by the masses, gamers still hold Chrono Trigger in the highest regard. In some weird way, it’s clawed its way into every gamer’s heart that has played it. But what’s so special?

First and foremost, this has what just may be the greatest traditional roleplaying battle engine (I say traditional because I like Tales of Destiny’s action-based battle engine a little more.). Sure, there’re your regular options in that include fighting, special techniques and items. But there’s more than meets the eye.

This, my friends, is the game that started Square’s obsession with the three-character battle party. Even though you can have up to seven characters (One of the characters, Magus, is optional.) by the end of the game, only three characters are going into battle with you. After this game, Final Fantasy VII, Xenogears, Chrono Cross and loads of other RPGs adopted the three-character party.

But something just wasn’t right about all those games. As Square proved with Final Fantasy IX, FF games shouldn’t have so few characters. Xenogears just had something terribly wrong with its battle engine that having the limitations of only three characters just didn’t help. But it wasn’t until Chrono Cross was released did I realize what was really wrong with the battle systems in these games.

You see, at first I thought the problem with all these games was the fact that they didn’t have any combination attacks. That was a big problem, admittedly, as combinations attacks were part of what made Chrono Trigger unlike any other game at the time (Though I can’t remember if Phantasy Star IV came out before or after Chrono Trigger… PS4 had combination techniques, too.). Whenever characters fought together in battle, they could develop group attacks commonly referred to as double and triple techs (Magus, the optional character, was quite the loner and would not learn any double techs with any other characters. He did have a triple technique, though, if you found the right accessory to equip.) that were more powerful than the original attack. Combine Crono’s “Swirl” tech, a whirling sword attack that hit all enemies in a limited area, with Marle’s “Aura” tech, a healing technique that would restore one character’s hit points, and the end result is the “Aura Swirl” technique, a healing double technique that restored all character’s hit points in the party. Combine Lucca’s “Fire” spell, a fire-based elemental attack, with Marle’s “Ice” spell, an ice-based elemental attack, and the double technique that is formed is “Antipode,” a powerful non-elemental area attack. This made everyone who was fighting seem like an actual team that would try to help each other out instead of individuals who just fought together for a goal. It actually “fleshed” the characters out and made it seem as if they were friends, not allies. It was all the more real.

But, Chrono Cross did have double-techniques and something still seemed off. Sure, the double and triple techs were much more rare, but I was using Serge and Glenn and something still seemed wrong.

Then I figured it out… as I mentioned when going over the techniques, some special attacks had a limited area range, meaning the placement of enemies was integral to your success. Battles actually had a little more strategy to them thanks to this feature as you had to choose when to unleash an attack. Sure, you could hit three of the four reptites if you let off a “Fire Whirl” right now, but if you wait, you might be able to get all four of them and conserve some MP at the same time. If the characters were almost lined-up, you could wait until they were in a line and hit them all with Crono’s “Slash” attack, a non-elemental attack that went only in a straight line. If all the enemies were clustered, you could hit them with an “Antipode” or several other attacks. Sure, there were still hit-everything-on-the-screen spells like Crono’s ultimate attack, “Luminaire,” but there was something so special about the area attacks. Sure the graphics were only 2-D, but the gameplay was more 3-D than any other Square roleplaying game since then.

Characters, like almost every roleplaying game preceding it, get stronger as they increase their levels. These levels are gained after a character meets a prerequisite number of experience points, which are gained from defeating enemies in battle. Characters in Chrono Trigger, though, also gain action points (AP) after each battle. Action points, in turn, go towards learning the next technique or spell that said character could learn. As a sidenote, you won’t gain action points if there are no characters in your party who can learn any new techniques and characters that are defeated in battle gain neither experience points nor action points. Wow… not a bad explanation, if I say so myself. Then again, I am a little biased.

With every level that is gained, the character’s attributes will go up in six of seven categories (each will max out at 99):

Power- Basically, this will denote just how hard you physically strike your opponents. So, in other words, if you’re not punching or slashing them, this isn’t going to help you.

Stamina- This is your defensive statistic. In other words, the higher this attribute is, the lower the HP your opponent takes away with physical attacks will be. Magic attacks, though, are a whole different monster entirely.

Magic- The actual name of this stat is magic power. Um… magic power shows how powerful your magic is. Of course, if your characters don’t use magic, this is pointless.

Hit- This is closer to accuracy than anything, but that’s still the wrong name. Anyhow, hit denotes just how much a character’s distance attack will catch an opponent. Will the arrow you let fly catch an enemy in its chest or just scratch its arm? Striking attackers don’t need this statistic so don’t worry about it.

Evade- This is your character’s ability to evade physical attacks. The higher this statistic is, the less likely you are to get hit at all. You lucky dog, you.

Magic Defense- Sorry to tell you… you’re highly unlikely to avoid magic attacks that do physical harm. With that said, you can lessen the damage they do with this statistic.

The seventh category, Speed (which should need no explanation), will not increase when you gain a level. You can enhance that attribute by equipping accessories such as the “Bandana” or armor such as “Taban’s Vest.” Those are only temporary solutions (unless, of course, you decide to leave them equipped the entire game) and the only way to truly raise the statistic is by using a “Speed Tab” on a party member.

What? What do you want? Why you looking at me like that?! Oh… wait. I haven’t explained tabs, have I?

Tabs, you see, are items that raise one of three attributes permanently. The tabs, when onscreen, tend to glimmer making them easy to spot when roaming around in castles, dungeons, forests or any other screen that’s not the overworld map view or an anime cutscene. They are as follows:

Power Tab- The most commonly found tabs in the game, this tab will raise a character’s power attribute. Remember, Marle and Lucca use distance weapons that, when not actually whacking an opponent with the butt of the weapon, do not reflect their power attribute, but their hit attribute.

Magic Tab- Almost as common as the Power Tab, this tab raises a character’s magic power. So, since Robo and Ayla can’t use magic, don’t even bother using one of these on them.

Speed Tab- Rarest of the rare, as you’ll find about four of these in each time through the game and then you’ll have to work for other ones (By defeating Spekkio’s final two forms or having Ayla charm the pants off of the Black Omen’s “Panel.”) Speed, unlike all the other attributes, will max out at sixteen.

Interesting sidenote, before I quit rambling on something as unimportant as tabs, the instructions never mention their effects so I thought it would only be a temporary boost and didn’t use them until almost the end of the game. When I found out they were permanent, though, I felt like a real jacka5s.

The most important of all differences from most of the RPGs of the time was that you could see and evade most fights if you knew what you were doing. Why waste your time fighting enemies from the first forest when you’ve got level 99 characters? Low on HP and you know there’s a save point ahead? Well, if you’re good enough, you should be able to juke the enemies and use a shelter to regain all your HP. Of course, if you run into a boss on the way, you’re S.O.L… and you know what that means.

So, even with all the differences in the battle system, it all sounds like pretty standard fare, doesn’t it? Then why is this game such the legend that it is?

Well, I mentioned earlier that the combination attacks just made all the characters seem like they had feelings for each other. It did and it gave them heart. But what really made the difference was the characters themselves. Each character has some sort of feelings for the others, be it Lucca’s love of technology including Robo, Frog’s distrust in Magus or Magus’ search and struggle to save his sister.

When Crono dies going up against Lavos and Queen Zeal (see, told you there were spoilers), you immediately tell that it affected the characters in a way that can’t truly be explained. No other death in gaming history, not Final Fantasy IV’s Tellah, not Final Fantasy V’s Galuf, not even Final Fantasy VII’s Aeris (see a pattern here?) could match the emotion that you feel when you watch Crono get disintegrated in slow motion right before your eyes. And, when bring Crono back with the “Time Egg,” you can’t help but feel happy for all the characters in the game as they express their joy and admiration (In Marle and Lucca’s cases, hug a friend they thought they’d never see again.) for him.

I’ll admit two things that are fairly uncharacteristic of me that this game brings out. One, whenever I see them save Crono, I can’t help but get that “I’m too much of a man to cry” feeling in my throat that I have to fight to stop from becoming “I’m such a wussy, girlie-man in touch with his feminine side and I even squat to pee, now.” The second thing just happens to be that, when I have a terrible day that makes me want to just break something, all that I need to sedate my rage is this one simple scene.

And that’s the beauty of this game… you actually care about your characters and think about their feelings. Do you think I give a damn about Rinoa and Squall hooking up? Hell, she’s a psychotic, possessed tramp just throwing herself at that exciting-as-a-board jerk, Squall. I bet, now that they’re together, he hits her like Cloud hit Aeris. But, when Crono and Marle are together, it’s something magical (Though I think the new super-happy anime ending took too much away from the imagination as it shows Crono and Marle’s wedding reception. At least Master Roshi… I mean, Melchoir, is shown in the crowd.). When Lucca fixes Robo, it’s because she has faith in the technology she loves so much. When Robo meets up with his robotic ex-girlfriend, Atropos, and asks to fight alone, you’ll feel sorry for something that’s not even supposed to have emotions. There’s so much to each character, you’ll have trouble deciding which is your favorite.

What better a time to talk about the characters?

Crono (1000 A.D.) – Crono, our silent protagonist (yeah, yeah… that’s a Chrono Cross reference), was just thrown into situation after situation up until the party finds out about the end of the world at the hands… er, uh, shell of Lavos and he decides they can stop the “Day of Lavos” from ever happening. To say the boy’s fearless would be an understatement. His element just happens to be lightning… which, considering his freaky spiked hair, should come as a shock to no one. If any of you ever see me in person, feel free to hit me for using that pun.

Marle (1000 A.D.) – Little Miss Happy-Go-Lucky just happens to be Princess Nadia of Guardia and she just wants to go out and see the world, away from her father’s overprotective grasp. Marle’s elemental power is over ice and curative spells.

Lucca (1000 A.D.) – You’ve heard me say it about a hundred times by now, jerky, so you should already know this Velma from the Scooby-Doo Gang lookalike just loves technology. [Interesting sidenote for those of you who think I took that from Velma line from Thor Antrim’s Homepage (thor.mirtna.org), I’m the person who submitted it to him.] She repairs a rundown R-series robot and brings him to life, which leads me to my next bio.

Frog (600 A.D.) – Well, he’s a human-sized frog… but he wasn’t always a frog. That was until Magus and his minions changed him into one for opposing him. Now, this Ye Olde English speaking frog is out for revenge and to save the world. He is the only person who can wield the legendary Masamune and the keeper of the Hero Medal.

Robo (2300 A.D.) – All the other characters accidentally run into a bleak future world that, while technologically more sound, is virtually the end of all human life. Robo just happens to be the aforementioned repaired R-series robot. Anyhow, he’s slow as molasses and can’t use magic, so you’ll probably be using some of your speed tabs on him or Lucca (who’s almost as slow). He’s all about brute force and has some cool techniques that hit, for the most part, in areas.

Ayla (23,000,000 B.C.) – This super-strong cavebabe loves strong people and, even with her primitive hold on the English language, she was given a job at Square as a translator for Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy Tactics. I got a good feeling! Seriously, though, she can’t use magic but her physical power more than makes up for it. A great, great character if not just for her “Charm” ability, which is the same as your basic RPGs’ “Steal” option.

Magus (600 A.D.) – Resident gothic badass, Magus is yours for the taking if you don’t fight him. He’s physically weaker than most of the other striking fighters, weaker armor than just about all the other fighters, tried to eradicate all of humanity and he refuses to learn double-team techniques but his coolness factor is just too high to not have him in your party. He’s on a search to save his sister, Schala, from her fate. Oh… and his mother is the evil Queen Zeal.

Each character, as I mentioned long ago, were designed by Akira Toriyama and, now that I’m a Dragon Ball Z fan, means even more to me. At the same time, each character bears a strong resemblance to characters in the DBZ universe. It’s easy to see that Crono was modeled after the teenage Gohan and Magus looks an awful lot like Piccolo. Some could see that as a bad thing, but I don’t.

The sprites, be they enemy or ally, are all clean and easily recognizable as the anime designs. More important than that, though, is the fact that they’re both animated as opposed to the still sprites that were found in most RPGs up until then. If it weren’t for the limited color palette, you’d never know this was a Super Nintendo game. There are tons of transparency effects and little lighting touches that were well ahead of their time. At the same time, when compared to more recent 2-D games such as Tales of Destiny and Valkyrie Profile, you’ll notice things missing like a shadow when you step in front of a window. Still, it’s still rather beautiful to this day. When I read, I believe, Nick Rox’s explanation of the graphics in Diehard Gamefan, I didn’t believe this game could cause permanent dain bramage just from how beautiful it was. But, he was right.

The sound… oh, I can’t believe I haven’t talked about it, yet! Wow, the soundtrack is amazing. Admittedly, Nobou Uematsu didn’t contribute that many tracks to the game, but what is there is great. From the fight theme to Schala’s music to the Millennium Fair’s music, everything seems like a tight and right fit. If I were to compare the music in the game to any other RPGs, I’d say the music was on par, if not better, than Final Fantasy Tactics and Xenogears. While there are simple sound effects, they fit the bill nicely with some plasma shooting, bolt releasing or flesh slashing sounds.

But there were two really important gaming aspects that separate the game from the rest at the time. The first time you play the game, you can beat the game one of three ways. Two of the ways are easy (the bucket in the “End of Time” and by using your time machine, the “Epoch”) and the last way you must go through a final dungeon. Why go to the final area, the hardest part of the game, if it’s optional? Well, my friend, if you don’t go through the final area, you have no chance at getting a grip of speed, power and magic tabs that you can charm from enemies. But, more important than that, is the fact that you’ll unlock a secret function if you beat the game the hard way, known as “New Game+.” When you use that option, you can play the whole game again with the same characters and have the same items (minus key items like the Masamune) that you just spent leveling up.

So, what’s the point? This is a roleplaying game, infamous for being the least replayable titles on the face of the planet. Once again, my slow-witted friend, there’s more to it than meets the eye. Chrono Trigger has no less than fifteen endings (with some of them being slight variants, but most being completely different endings) that reflect what you do in the game and when you do it. If you don’t kill Azala, the leader of the reptites, when he’s trying to gain power over the humans then you never saved the human race meaning that the reptites survived while humans died off. You awaken, much like at the beginning of the game, as a reptite and the only human you see is at the race in the Millennium Fair where the reptite used to be. Freaky. If you don’t save Crono but you do beat Lavos, you see all the characters start their voyage to save him. There’s many, many more including Frog turning back into the human Glenn and many others. It’s a brilliant way to add replay value to a great game. Story, in this game, is more important than anything else. But, that’s not to say the gameplay takes a backseat to the story like, say, Final Fantasy VIII. No, my friend, this is the game all other games should take notes and model after.

Wow, this whole time, I’ve barely touched upon the story. It’s simple, really.

Your main hero and mine, too, Crono, awakens on the morning of the Millennium Fair and goes to see his friend’s new invention and just have some fun on this festive day. When he’s there, he bumps into a girl who, after helping her up, asks to tag along with him for the day. He agrees to let this girl, Marle, join and they see some sights around the fair before heading off to see Crono’s friend, Lucca, show off her newest invention. This invention, the teleportation device, works like a charm when Crono takes a test ride and, after he returns, Marle decides she must try it, too. But something goes wrong as Lucca’s machine has a reaction with Marle’s pendant and she’s sucked into the void. Being the brave lad he is, Crono follows her, donning the same necklace that Marle wore in hopes of having the same effect… and he does.

Soon, Crono finds himself in 600 A.D., four hundred years before Millennium Fair, and meets up with a Queen that bears a remarkable resemblance to Marle at Guardia Castle, a nearby castle that overlooks the entire kingdom. But, when the Queen reveals herself to actually be Marle, things go wrong again. She vanishes before Crono’s eyes, with no explanation. When he exits, he meets up with Lucca, who has caught up with him finally and she explains who she is and what happened to her. It seems that Marle re-wrote history when she took the Queen’s place and the search stopped for her. Lucca went on to add that Marle is Princess Nadia, a descendant of the Queen that had disappeared. If they want to save Marle, they have to save the Queen.

Um… to quickly summarize the next two thousand words, they saved the Queen thus saving Marle, Crono returns Marle to the present time castle and gets put on trial for “kidnapping” the princess, he and Lucca make a jailbreak before his wrongful execution is about to take place, the princess joins them and, as they try to run away from the guards chasing them, they find a “Time Gate.” Time Gates are the portals that take you from one point in time to another and Lucca learned she could open them with another invention she called the “Gate Key.”

Once they escape into the Time Gate, they’re thrown into a bleak future world that’s near the end of humanity. They give a glimmer of hope to the starving with something as little as a plant seed and Lucca fixes a robot that was trashed but not beyond repair. After saving the robot, he helps them enter into a laboratory and the party learns how the future got to this point… and when the world ended. From that point on, the game becomes a time shifting “save the world” game of not-so-typical fair. A brilliant concept that’s pulled off with few plot holes or errors. Final Fantasy VII was great my butt.

The original tagline for the game was simple but precise. “It’s about time.” And, after the explosion of roleplaying games into the mainstream and new-school gamers acceptance of Final Fantasy VII as the greatest roleplaying game of all time, they finally show the geeks what they’ve been missing. Finally, Square is re-releasing games (this game and a re-translated Final Fantasy IV) with great stories and tons of heart. And, I must say, it’s about time.