Chrono Trigger
Chrono Trigger is a video game released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and re-released in 2001 for the Sony PlayStation as a part of Final Fantasy Chronicles, alongside Final Fantasy IV.
Chrono Trigger is regarded as one of the best games of all time by many fans. It was made by a group referred to as "The Dream Team". The Dream Team was made up of Hironobu Sakaguchi of the Final Fantasy series, Yuji Horii of the Dragon Quest games, character designer Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball Z and music composers Yasunori Mitsuda of Xenogears and Chrono Cross, and Nobuo Uematsu of the Final Fantasy series.
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Warning: Plot details follow.
Chrono Trigger is about a group of adventurers who travel across time to save the future. Along the way they recruit allies from other time periods in an attempt to defeat the alien parasite Lavos that is slowly destroying the planet. You eventually gain seven playable characters (in order of appearance: main hero Crono, rebellious princess Marle, studious inventor Lucca, amphibian knight Frog, android Robo, cave-woman Ayla, and the bonus character, the dark wizard Magus) and travel via time gates and a flying time machine to seven different time periods: the prehistoric times (65 million years in the past), the ice age (13.000 years in the past), the Middle Ages (400 years from present time), the present time (1.000 A.D.), 999 years into the future (Apocalypse), the post-apocalyptic world (1300 years into the future) and the very End of Time.
One interesting note about Chrono Trigger is that the main character, Crono, never talks, though the other characters seem to act as though he does. This seems to be so the player can be in Crono's shoes, and talk for him. The one exception is in the ending "A Slide Show?" in which Crono says one line ("What ARE you two doing?! I thought you said something about a nice little slide show?"). Although this quirk was very common in RPGs years ago, such as Breath of Fire (except in the Final Fantasy series) Chrono become almost universally identified with this peculiar 'muteness.'
Chrono Trigger uses an Active Time Battle (ATB) system. Each character in your party of 1-3 attacks after a certain time period has passed. Attacks can be with an equipped weapon (such as swords and bowss) or using "techs". Techs are characters' special attacks which use Magic Points (MP). There are many combo-techs that require two or three characters. Chrono Trigger also has unique battles because they take place at the actual spot you meet them (not in a generic battle area). There are no random battles while wandering on the overworld map. The positions of the enemy and of your party are important for many techs. For example, some techs will damage multiple enemies only if if they are close together. Other techs will attack in a straight line and only damage enemies in that path.
Some players consider one of the main problems with the game is its short playtime. It takes approximately 20 to 25 hours to complete the game, which is a very short timespan for a SNES RPG (Dragon Quest VI, for instance, takes about 100 hours). To solve this problem, the developers of the game created quite a few multiple endings that the player could earn, including several secret endings. The plot of each ending depends on which point in the storyline's progress the game is beaten. Also, they inserted the "New Game +" system, which allowed you to start an new game with all the various rare and powerful equipment and experience you ended another game with. This allowed the player to reach all 12 endings very quickly.
The remake for the PlayStation features anime movies spread through the game at key sequences and an "extras mode." Each ending reached unlocks more of the following:
A side story for Chrono Trigger was released for Nintendo's Satellaview add-on for the SNES and was called Radical Dreamers. Radical Dreamers was completely redone for the PlayStation and released in the U.S in the year 2000 as Chrono Cross. The original Radical Dreamers was a very short, text-based game, available only in Japan. However, Chrono Cross was redone with many more characters, a complete and total revisal of the plot, and other such advancements to convert Radical Dreamers into a full-size RPG, Chrono Cross.Plot
SNES version
PlayStation version
Sequel