Battle Through Time

Having recently finished the DS version of Chrono Trigger, it's time to share some, likely disorganized, thoughts on the game.

I first played Chrono Trigger one the SNES back in highschool, which would place it in 1995 or 1996, which puts it back a ways. I borrowed the game from a friend and loved the game back then and have since played it through several times on emulator. It's been quite some time since I last played it though (for some reason I never did play the version that came as part of the FF Anthology for PlayStation) so I was glad to have the chance to play it again on the DS.

First, I loved the game every bit as much as I did when I first played it. It's a great game. The graphics are spectacular and hold up really well - being 2D, it doesn't suffer from some of the problems of early 3D games such as the blocky characters in FF7. The sprites are large, backgrounds are detailed and it generally looks pretty wonderful. The music is great too and has some spectacular and memorable themes in it. I especially like the "music box" special feature on the DS version.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story for Chrono Trigger as well. The intricate way that things tied together across the different time periods, the sense of the inevitability of fate as things come crashing down in Zeal, and the big "shock" that happened there - all fantastic.

Chrono Trigger was shorter than other RPGs of the time, but the New Game+ feature and multiple endings made it easily replayable, and I replayed it a lot. I think the length helped make it a nice, tightly woven experience.

One of my few gripes about Chrono Trigger is that the artist was the Dragon Ball guy, and I've never liked his art. Fortunately, the sprites don't (and can't) reproduce his art style exactly so they still looked ok.

Anyway, Chrono Trigger was, and still is, a great game and I think it's certainly stood the test of time and will likely be considered a classic.

Freak Out,
-TFitC