Nintendo DS

Chrono Trigger

Trivia

It was named Best Role-Playing Game of the Year in Game Players 1995 Holiday Edition (Vol. 8, No. 13)

Chrono Trigger was one of the first JRPGs, to have good looking cover art for the Western release. However, it is not perfect.

Notice that the cover art shows Marle casting a Fire spell on Crono's sword; presumably a combo from the game. The only problem is that Marle cannot cast Fire magic since she uses Ice magic. Lucca is the only one who can cast Fire magic.

The Nintendo DS version of the game marks the first time that Chrono Trigger has been released in any PAL territory. That's about fourteen years, for those of you keeping track!

An unofficial remake/sequel to the game, called Chrono Resurrection, was planned and being developed by Nathan Lazur and his team. The game, which was to use the Nintendo 64 console and technology, had progressed to include a trailer, but on September 6th, 2004, the team had to cancel the project, due to a cease-and-desist letter they received from Square Enix, Inc.

You can still visit the project's website, which includes the trailer, screenshots and interviews with the team, here.

Many rumours surround the game since its development, due to its plot depth and seemingly unresolved ends. While some of these claims, such as a rumoured mountain area accessible in 65,000,000 B.C., were true, though only in the beta. Others are simply untrue.

For instance, it has long been held that at one time the traveler Toma and the princess Schala were intended to be playable characters, due to manipulation of the player character selection screen via Game Genie or Pro Action Replay codes. However, closer inspection and the aid of ROM hackers have revealed that while faculties in the code for an eighth character exist, the game is hardwired and designed specifically for the featured seven.

There is also no corroborating evidence from the beta version of the game released to stores or preview screenshots in magazines. Examination of the beta's code also establishes that no extra animations for Toma or Schala existed.

Those in Japan who pre-ordered the game received a limited edition holographic foil collector's card from Square, with each card having a piece of game artwork on the front: a character's portrait, the American box cover, the battle with Magus found on the inside of the American manual, or the flight in the Epoch.

The game's engine featured an event tracking system, which was used to update the save screen's "chapter title", change certain characters' dialogue, and alter the maps to conform to the current point in the story. It was also used for checking bugs and consistency within the game.

If events happen out of order (if the cartridge's save RAM (SRAM) is corrupt, or if the player uses a Game Genie code to walk through walls and skip over certain events, for example), a creature called a Nu will appear in front of the doorway to Epoch's construction bay in 2300 A.D. and state that the Time Axis is out of alignment. Aside from this warning, the game will still continue, cheats/hacks included

Biggs(sometimes named VIcks), Wedge and Piette, from the Fair tent, are all characters from the Star Wars trilogy.

Biggs and Wedge were pilots who flew with luke(Wedge was flying the X-wing that helped the Millennium Falcon destroy the 2nd Death Star) and Piette was an Imperial officer who was quite prominent in Empire and Jedi.

Although the game was officially developed (and published) by Squaresoft, the development was in fact done by people from two companies: Squaresoft and Enix. If you check the credits, you'll see names like Akira Toriyama, the character designer of Dragon Warrior series, or Yuji Horii, Enix' producer.

Contributed by Unicorn B. Lynx (61192) on Jul 04, 2005.

Game Informer was going to put Chrono Trigger on its cover, but the cover was so amazingly well done, the artist thought that people would sell the magazine for profit. He pulled the cover back, and the cover was never released. Game Informer has the only version of this cover framed in their offices.

If you go to the Millennial Fair's "Show tent" and spend 10 silvers points, you'll have a game where 3 soldiers, Vicks, Wedge and Piette, and they'll mix themselves up. Vicks and Wedge also are here in Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 (and possibly other games by Square). And this mini-game isn't found only in Chrono Trigger. Actually, it already came out with Hanjuku Hero, a strategy game made by Square just after the very first Final Fantasy.

At the millennial fair's racing stand, you can go faster than the runners just by walking. If you're running, you'll be able to run 2 turns while the runners does only one.

Features over a dozen possible endings.

Chrono Trigger was voted #15 in the Top 100 Games of All Time poll published by Game Informer Magazine (Issue 100, August 2001).

Contributed by PCGamer77 (3025) on Jun 29, 2004.

When you get the Programmer's Ending, one of the characters will say something like, "If you think this is hard, try Final Fantasy 2!"

The PS1 version of Chrono Trigger was rather unique technically from other SNES-PS1 Squaresoft ports.

First, if you popped this CD into your PC, you'd find a file with the extension ".ROM". It's actually the Super NES version's ROM! The PS1 version uses the ROM for most of its data, while the game code is PS1 data. Changes were mostly made to have the anime cut scenes play when appropriate.

While there is additional data on the disc, most of it is dummy data, but it shows (quite interestingly) that Square at first intended to fully port CT as a full-fledged PS1 game, but cut the project either due to lack of time, laziness, or both.

Anyone who played "Chrono Trigger" knows that one of the most important and fascinating characters of the game is Janus, Schala's little brother. "Janus" was also the name of one of Roman gods - this god had two faces, and was therefore often referred to as "Two-Faced Janus". Later, this name became quite a common description of a person who can not be trusted -somebody who switches sides. Doesn't the name fit this "Chrono Trigger" character quite well?

Contributed by Unicorn B. Lynx (61192) on May 04, 2003.

If you talk to Doreen (the big-headed creature) in Ehansa (Kingdom of Zeal, 12000 AD) several times, he'll tell you: "Am I a butterfly who is just dreaming it is human, or a human who is just dreaming he is a butterfly?" This is a quote from a famous book written by the great Chinese Daoist philosopher Zhuang Zi (also known as Chuang Tse).

Contributed by Unicorn B. Lynx (61192) on May 02, 2003.

As further evidence that Ozzie, Slash and Flea are probably references to popular music artists, a woman you speak to in the game refers to them as "Tone-deaf, evil fiends!"

Contributed by kbmb (399) on Apr 27, 2003.

The Day of Lavos occurs in the year 1999 in Chrono Trigger - a very obvious reference to Nostradamus' (unfortunately incorrect!) prediction of the end of the world in July, 1999.

Gaspar, Balthasar, and Melchior (three characters from the game) take their names from the three wise men of the Bible. The characters Ozzie, Slash and Flea are, assumedly, named after rockstars: Ozzy Osborn, Slash (Guns 'N Roses) and Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers).

Proving that not even Square is devoid of marketing gimmicks, for Chrono Trigger the famous comic-book artist Akira Toriyama was hired to do the character designs. This was by no means a small detail, since Mr. Toriyama is one of the biggest names in Japanese comic-books, having penned both Dr. Slump and the mega-blockbuster DragonBall series in addition to being one of the two only comic-book artists (the other being Osamu Tezuka) whose work has been shown on classical Japanese museums (not cel-galleries and stuff like that). Eventually others would use Toriyama's work to sell videogames (ie. the Tobal series).

Why "Chrono"? Well, there couldn't be a more appropriate name for an adventure where the heroes travel through time: "chrono" is old Greek for "time". Zeus' father, who ate his children, just like the time "eats" everything, was called Chronos.

Contributed by Unicorn B. Lynx (61192) on Jun 07, 2002.

Exactly one week after Chrono Trigger was released on the PlayStation in Japan, its sequel, Chrono Cross, was released in Japan! Chrono Trigger was released November 11th, 1999, and Chrono Cross was released November 18th, 1999.

The memory card requirements on the back of the box are wrong; a saved game takes only 1 block on a card, not 2.