Chrono Trigger

aka: The Dream Project
Moby ID: 4501
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Description official descriptions

A young man named Crono is about to enjoy a carefree day: he plans to go to the Millennial Fair, where his friend Lucca intends to demonstrate her newest scientific invention: a teleporter. Upon his arrival, Crono meets a young girl named Marle, who volunteers to be the first to test Lucca's new device. However, Marle's pendant affects the teleporter's mechanism in a mysterious way, and as a result, she is teleported four hundred years into the past. Crono and Lucca quickly recreate the time portal and follow Marle. They find out that her unexpected appearance has created some confusion, and proceed to fix the error, which in turn leads to unforeseen consequences, eventually compelling the heroes to travel to different time periods and change the history of the world.

Chrono Trigger is a Japanese-style role-playing game in which the player takes control of a party consisting of up to seven characters, developing the combat skills of its members and managing their equipment. There are no random encounters in the game: all the enemies are either visibly walking on the field maps and can be avoided by the player, or are waiting to ambush the party. No enemy encounters occur when the player navigates characters over the world map.

The game utilizes the ATB (active time battle) combat system from Final Fantasy games as one of the combat style selections offered to the player in the beginning. The other selectable battle mechanic pauses combat whenever the player accesses the menu, effectively removing the real-time element and rendering the battles fully turn-based.

As the characters grow in power, their parameters increase, and they learn new "techs" - special powerful attacks and maneuvers which cost them magic points to use in battle. Techs may target a specific formation of enemies (e.g. a line) and can be used tactically depending on the enemies' positioning in combat. Characters may execute techs individually or perform double or triple techs, where each character contributes a tech which is combined with one or two others to unleash a powerful attack.

Once player-controlled characters acquire the ability to travel freely between time periods, the game's plot develops in a non-linear fashion. From that point on the player may opt to face the game's final adversary in combat and complete the story, or perform other plot-related quests. Depending on the moment of the story when the player decides to proceed to the final battle, the game may be concluded with thirteen different endings. The New Game+ option allows the player to start the game anew after having previously completed it, carrying over levels, techs, and equipment of the characters.

The PlayStation version features an anime-style introduction movie and cutscenes, a "movie theater" mode which allows the player to re-watch these movies and listen to the game's songs, as well as an unlockable bestiary, dungeon maps, and art gallery. The Nintendo DS version retains these changes and adds two new dungeons and a new possible ending that foreshadows the events of Chrono Cross.

Spellings

  • クロノ・トリガー - Japanese spelling
  • 时空之轮 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 超時空之鑰 - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 크로노 트리거 - Korean spelling

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Credits (SNES version)

103 People (97 developers, 6 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 93% (based on 103 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 549 ratings with 13 reviews)

If only we could go back in time and tell Yuji Horii to write this properly.

The Good
The opening is at least effective at establishing that the protagonist is inexperienced and unprepared for the challenges ahead of him, though this doesn't really come to anything.

Perhaps the solitary moment that stood out was when the frog-guy's backstory was revealed. While it didn't really say a whole lot about his character, it was a legitimately moving moment.

I'll also say that the soundtrack is strong, with some catchy tunes here and there, particularly for boss fights. Having said that,

The Bad
The tune for regular fights is pathetic, it's just an opening that doesn't go anywhere. Speaking of fights, they brought over that horrible Active Time system for Chrono Trigger, where attack orders are completely random and it's impossible to judge whether you'll get pummelled if you spend to long looking for the best attack, even in Wait mode. But here, it's made even worse by only having three party members active in one fight, which would make you think about who you assign abilities to except you can't even do that. The only way anyone gains an ability is by levelling up.

The fights just have no depth to them. All of the abilities are essentially the same swing of a sword but with a different elemental effect, and getting to them is a pain with all the identical names and the needlessly obtuse menu design. This should at least make one be able to make judgements as to which abilities are needed for each fight, but even that's hampered by the aforementioned lack of customisation meaning that, since only one person knows the healing spell, you'll only ever have one slot in the party free to assign, reducing any thought process on your part to trial and error. Each real fight has one and only one way of winning, but even that goes out the window as you get near the end, with some big bads making up their own rules as they go along. So basically, the only way to beat Chrono Trigger is to level grind excessively. Which is impossible because there are no random encounters.

And yes, those two moments mentioned above still stand. But apart from those, the game is pretty flat, just meandering around through contrived plot thread after out-of-left-field twist, leaving each before getting the chance to go into any narrative depth. The frog-guy is the only person here with even an implication of character development, other than that it's just the same re-used archetypes that are so done to death that the game's writer Yuji Horii had actually parodied a few of them in his earlier career(see also: Alena from DQ4).

The Bottom Line
The idea of Yuji Horii writing a game for Squaresoft should have been handled with more care and attention that was shown here. Chrono Trigger feels like it was made after a few scribbles on the drawing board with no real thought as to how the concepts would fit together.

Nintendo DS · by CrankyStorming (2927) · 2011

Derivative! Simplistic! Two traits that help make this a supreme classic for all time.

The Good
Innovation and interactivity have long been what I find most valuable in games, and Chrono Trigger is almost completely deficient in both. Why put this in the "good" section?

Because narrative-driven RPGs rely almost solely on passive content. Attempts to bloat up the interactivity or innovate on the tried-and-true "plucky heroes against the foozle" formula are not necessarily good or bad on their merits, but rather live or die by how they fit with the old standby of the genre--passive content. What I mean by "passive content" is the scripted plot and its supporting graphics, music, and atmosphere--stuff I like to rail against as having usurped resources from gaming's most valuable and unique quality, interaction. Taking time to think about what games I actually -enjoy- the most, however, I find that in certain genres interactivity is the last thing I care about, and an inappropriate focus in that direction can actually spoil the game.

How does it happen? The crucial factor here in narrative-based games is that the player's motivation is not at one with the avatar's. The avatar might care about a random girl's slow vaporization via temporal dissonance, but the player doesn't, not to anywhere near the same degree. The player is invested in advancing the plot, and experiencing the passive content. This is why the player will reload to play out unexplored branches of a scripted plot, to try all the significant available paths, without much regard for the avatar's established motivations. Who cares about my supposed squeamish "goodness" when there's more delicious content to experience?

Which brings us to Chrono Trigger's interactivity--there's not much, and that's fine. You don't have to schmooze with some King Guardia simulacrum for hours, carefully massaging his "personality" stat-bundle while mowing mindlessly through a vast plain of mostly barren dialogue menus--you get all the content written for His Guardia-ness just by waltzing up and hitting a button. This is less interactive than an exhaustively subtle dialogue system complete with procedural NPC personality stat matrices, sure, but let's be honest--for some genres, it's better not to have all that crap.

Why? Because NPCs have no agency in a narrative RPG. They have no life outside the player. They simply stand around and wait for you to throw logic switches, then provide you with the requisite quest/bauble/info to throw more logic switches. They're boolean vending machines for the game script. They're never going to break free, form goals, and alter the gameworld in any significant way. They have no agency or life in the world outside of the player, and thus asking the player to relate to them emotionally via subtle mechanics is ridiculous. They are soulless robots in terms of mechanics--to ask the player to navigate a comprehensive conversation system with them would be akin to having blowup dolls require thoughtful gifts, stimulating nights out and long foot rubs from their sad misfit owners. Some reasonable facsimile of life is necessary to justify any game's demand for a player to relate to its NPCs on a more human level. Complex mechanics should not be a shameful disguise for playing tea-party with empty mannequins.

So why not give them more agency, more life? Because that kills any well-structured RPG narrative dead. The player need only waltz into the world and kill vermin for six hours before killing the foozle--if NPCs are equal agents to the player, then -anyone- could have killed such a pushover foozle at any time. Why not allow the player more freedom then? Because the amount of plot-branches would quickly become staggering, precluding the highest levels of quality in the passive content, or making all paths drably alike. If Crono could decide "nuts to Frog; screw that guy, I'm not taking him along," then all the work on the 600AD Magus sequence goes up in smoke, all Frog's passive content characterization is for naught, and alternate paths must be scripted and fleshed out with passive content to an agreeable standard. Now imagine this necessity repeated for every major plot point in the game--if there are only ten major yes/no decisions, that's 1024 discrete paths. You could lower the standard of content, make it more abstract and modular, merge the paths into only a few fleshed-out endpoints, etc.--but then many of Chrono Trigger's NPCs and much of its drama would be as faceless as some of their counterparts in Wasteland, and something valuable, for me at least, would be lost.

As great as Wasteland is, if the passive content is good enough to justify a heavily scripted narrative I don't mind at -all- if I'm led by the nose through an exclusively linear plot. If the signpost NPCs are charming, well-written and relatable even in the most non-interactive sense, then I don't care if I can't micromanage the inflection of my greeting. I don't care if the conversation always goes the way the script demands. I don't care if my avatar is mute! If the content's good enough, exhaustive interactivity isn't the be-all end-all.

Chrono Trigger's content is definitely up to that standard. This is the absolute pinnacle of 16-bit art--sprites are well-designed via Akira Toriyama, environments are lush and evocative, the music is jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and the time-travel plot, complete with varied and lovable characters, reaches mind-boggling levels of fun and JRPG charm. The battle system is remarkably versatile and deeply strategic in design, even though (as usual for JRPGs) its full subtleties are never required of the player by the actual encounters. All these isolated components are derivative, but who cares? If you can do derivative to the highest standard, then count me in. I won't praise you as innovative, but I -will- praise you as good!

The game's few innovations (and there are some) serve mainly to streamline delivery of that wonderful content. Gone are many of the random dungeon fights--a surprising number of monster encounters are realistically visible and may be avoided, drawing down the tedium of sidling up to those logic switches, keeping the focus on the content. Side quests are kept to a bare minimum prior to having an easy means of locomotion, and the main motivation for completing those that exist after the Black Omen rises is--you guessed it--a better ending! The large number of endings and constant accessibility of the final battle go hand in hand in emphasizing the value of passive content--who wouldn't want to see Nobuo Uematsu in sprite form? :-P Even the "New Game +" option's primary value is in providing the player an easy way to march merrily down those almost wholly non-interactive alternate paths, and I would wager most people who enjoy this game have done exactly that. I have!

This game was designed and fleshed out with love and awe-inspiring talent. To experience it is worthwhile even if you're dead-set against kiddy, derivative, linear RPGs. You can't stab Frog to death and take his stuff, sure, but he's a lot more memorable than Mayor Pedros, and that may well encapsulate the trade-off heavily narrative-based games are forced to make.

The Bad
There's very little I didn't like. A few sequences are tedious, such as the aftermath of the "soup-eating" contest where you must follow little footprints through a jungle of slow, unavoidable monster encounters. The Reptite palace is similarly slow in pacing, with (again) too many unavoidable encounters, complete with some backtracking. Catching the rat and the bike race in the future are reminiscent of action sequences in Sierra adventures--not exactly thrilling and incredibly frustrating if you can't hack them. The bike race is pretty, though!

The Bottom Line
Chrono Trigger epitomizes the best qualities of the 16-bit era JRPG. Sometimes, a lack of interactivity and a "childish" theme are exactly what allows for passive content of the highest quality. When the non-interactive art is at such a high level, even the most utterly linear gameplay feels somehow justified.

SNES · by J. P. Gray (115) · 2009

A really upbeat title. It's my favourite game, and that for many reasons.

The Good
It's an honor for me to be able to review this game. I really don't know where to start. It's my favourite game, and it's good points are endless. Well, let's begun. The first time I played the game, it was trough a SNES emulator. Now I borrowed the real SNES cartridge from someone and completed 4 times the whole game, two times trough emulation and two times on the real thing, and I'd be ready to do it more times, if there weren't so much games I want to try or even complete right now. I usually don't mention replayability in my reviews, because Chrono Trigger is the only role-playing game I ever played more than once.

I played a lot of RPGs, and I have even a biggest list of pending RPGs I want to play right now. But still, Chrono Trigger is always in my heart. I just can't forgot this game at anytime. Well, let's come back. The first time I played it, trough emulation, I have much less experience about gaming and about RPGs that I have right now. I just excepted another RPG, my reference back in the time was Final Fantasy games, and also Secret of Mana. So I just excepted something similar, and I wasn't wrong. But I was thinking that nothing could beat Final Fantasy 6 and 7, and man I was wrong.

You begin your game in your bed, and you get up. I was instantly caught by the graphics, that are bright but contrasted (so dark places are also very dark), colorful, and very detailed. Just when I saw the Crono's cat get up, and when I saw you can open and close the curtain of the room's window, and this will change the room's luminosity, I just fell that the graphics of the game are way better than the average SNES game. The characters looks just like they do on the artwork, and I don't think there is many games where I can say this unless the recent game machines such as the PS2 came out. (for example, FF8's characters are much less finely rendered than Chrono Trigger's characters, regardless of the possibilities of the console. And well, actually the PlayStation is supposed to render better graphics than the SNES, and about the characters it is the other way around. Really). All the playable characters have countless animation frames, but some NPCs also have fun stuff with them, and the monsters are also the most detailed monsters I ever seen in a SNES RPG, especially when you take account that they are present both on field and in battle (no separate screen for battle, making programer's live harder, but really worth it !)

There is a lot of originality for them, for example, you will have two Imps playing football using a Roly as a ball (my favorite set of monsters of all RPGs). Isn't that cool enough to fell in love for the game ? Well, several monsters of the game does cool and fun things like this, while others are just walking or flying. You will even sometimes open conversation with monsters, before fighting them. It's what this make this game really great, there is no a single battle in the whole game that setup the same way as another. There is no longer boring random battles, and the screen doesn't change when a battle scene opens, making you remember what you was doing before the battle. No longer "What was I doing ?" or "Where am I going to ?" that I often ask to myself after beat a Final Fantasy battle. Also, the animation during the battle is very varied and well done, even if the playfield is still there, unlike the "dummy" background you'll found in a FF game.

All the playable characters are incredibly cool. They may be a bit cliched, but they're so fun, it's sure easy to fell in love for any of them. I'm even sure that Chrono Trigger has the best set of characters even seen in any role-playing game out there. They are plainly so cool ! Some found them too much cliched and lack of interest, but myself, I simply love them, and what I like is that the game focuses more on the gameplay than on boring discussions between characters like several FF titles (no all, however). The few discussions between characters are short and addictive, plus you can switch them to get different dialogues, that's sometimes very fun.

Controlling the game is simple, and efficient. The menus are easy to use, and you can even walk while speaking to people ! It's the only RPG that ever had this feature to my knowledge.

Now, I'll talk about the music. Man, it's great. There is upbeat tunes, nostalgic tunes, sad tunes, simple bliss tunes, fun tunes, everything is there is this soundtrack, that is the most varied soundtrack I ever seen in a game. It may not the very best, since there is still a couple of bad songs (like the ending fair one), but the good songs are WAY good. Overall it's one of the best soundtrack for any RPG. And the battle theme is the best battle theme of all RPGs, it is nearly perfect. There is almost no melody, just bass, a lot of drums, and some chorus chords then some notes played with an organ and a marimba. It's as plain as it, but a such battle-theme beat all battle theme of FF games that will be coll the first few dozen times you heard it, then it will make you mad due to the amount of battling involved in the game. It will never get on your nerves. (it happened once to me to listen it during 57 minutes trough Winamp before be tired of it).

Not only the music is good, but also the sound quality is impressive, and possibly the best of all SNES games. The sound effects are catchy, exiting and incredibly varied, they sound real (warning for those using an emulator, they're very different from the real SNES, they emulate badly the noisy sounds). I especially liked the echo in the sound effect, while the majority of (non-Square made) SNES games have just analog low frequency sound effect without echo. The game features a large set of different instruments, and pretty much all of them sound CD quality. It's one of the only SNES games where the drums sounds real (recorded with at high frequency), while others instruments are for sure much harder to simulate, but still sound great.

I seriously think no RPG have ever be able to compete with the battle system of this game, except of course strategy RPGs, but that's a different genre. It's simple, fun, enjoyable, easy-to-learn, effective and varied. You can learn some techs and some magic, then you'll be able to combine your tech with the one of a friend when both are ready at the same time (both ATB bars full). This is a combo, or double-tech that is much more effective. Even if each character has a very limited list of tech, the list of possible double-techs is endless. There is even triple-techs, but they're only available if Crono, the main character, is in your team, or by equipping strange accessories replacing the ability of Crono by other people. Each boss has his own strategy to be beat, it you don't found the good strategy, you'll probably be unable to even beat it, unless you have your levels twice up as what they are supposed to be.

Finally, the story of the game is just catchy and... so sweet ! There is nobody saying stupid stuff in towns, and you really fit in the main character that is actually speechless (like in the Dragon Quest series or Golden Sun, you just select between Yes and No). You just are him. Well, I didn't even notice that on my own, a friend tell that to me and I firstly couldn't believe him, even after playing one half of the game (back in the time I had played neither DQ or Golden Sun, so I wan't used to speechless heroes). The story is easily understandable, "light" and half-linear. You still have an order of events to do, but you feel like free to do as you want, even if you aren't. There is a large bunch of side-quest, but none of them is really impossible or boring like they are on some other RPGs. Overall, you can visit the past or the future as you wish, to eventually build up your characters and beat the big bad guy to restore the destroyed future. You can defeat him when you want, but it's needed to "complete" the game at least once. Then, a "New Game +" option will pop up, allowing you to begin a new adventure, but with the stats of a saved game.

Well, the very impressive thing about this game is that there is absolutely no flaw. Of course, time travel is still confusing, but the game setup it in a sweet ambiance, you just shouldn't think about the possibility or not to change the past to make the future like this, else you'll end up hating Chrono Trigger without even knowing why. Such story impossible, I know, but who cares ? It is so cool !

The Bad
Something bad about Chrono Trigger ?? Hahaha. There is really none to say here. Heh, I'm still talking about the good here, proof that there is most certainly not a single bad point in this game. Well, I'd still say that a game under New Game + option becomes rather boring at some points, when you beat each bosses in one hit. They should have added a bit more secrets and ultra strong bosses for these occasions.

The Bottom Line
Chrono Trigger is not just a game. It's a world. The game is in 2D, but the world is in 4D, because there is time travel. I won't determine if this is the best game ever or not, because there is no "best game ever". Chrono Trigger is still sure one fine title for the SNES, and it's a must play regardless if you like RPG or not. If you haven't played it yet and if you like RPG, play this. If you don't know what is a RPG, play this, you'll quickly learn it. If you hate RPGs, play this, you may change your mind. If you have already played the game, play it again. It's all I can say.

SNES · by Bregalad (937) · 2006

[ View all 13 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
A small issue I have with this game. Simoneer (29) Sep 29, 2010
Trivia disagreement Joshua J. Slone (4666) Sep 24, 2009
The origin of the Rick (rocket?) Roll J. P. Gray (115) Jun 2, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The SNES version of Chrono Trigger appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Chrono Cross

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

Cover art

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.

Chrono Resurrection

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.

Enix

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.

Game Informer

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.

Millennial Fair race

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 two turns while the runners do only one.

Nintendo DS version

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.

Nu

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

PlayStation version

The PlayStation 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 PSX 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.

Pre-order

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.

References

  • 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). A woman you speak to in the game refers to them as "Tone-deaf, evil fiends!"
  • The Day of Lavos occurs in the year 1999 in Chrono Trigger - a very obvious reference to Nostradamus' prediction of the end of the world in July, 1999.
  • 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 Chinese Daoist philosopher Zhuang Zi (also known as Chuang Tse).
  • Anyone who played Chrono Trigger knows that one of the most important 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?
  • When you get the Programmer's Ending, one of the characters will say something like, "If you think this is hard, try Final Fantasy II!"
  • 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). They are all characters from the Star Wars trilogy. And this mini-game isn't found only in Chrono Trigger. Actually, it already came out with Hanjyuku Hero, a strategy game made by Square just after the very first Final Fantasy.
  • 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.
  • In the prehistory you meet a cave girl called Ayla. Interestingly enough, this character seems to be based upon the main character from the popular Earth's Children novels by Jean M. Auel, which are about a cave girl called Ayla. Much like the character from the books, Ayla is a good-looking prehistoric girl with blond hair who is skilled at hunting.

Rumours

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.

Save games

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

Title

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.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2009 – #3 Best DS Game of the Year
  • Electronic Gaming Monthly
    • August 1995 (Issue 73) - Game of the Month
    • November 1997 (Issue 100) - ranked #29 (Best 100 Games of All Time)
  • Game Informer
    • August 2001 (Issue #100) - voted #15 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll
  • Game Players
    • Vol. 8, No. 13 - 1995 - Best Role-Playing Game of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2008 – Nintendo DS Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)

Information also contributed by atadota, BenK, Big John WV, Bregalad, Cameron Rhyne; CaptainCanuck; kbmb, PCGamer77, Rensch, sealboy6, Tiago Jacques and Unicorn Lynx

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Satoshi Kunsai.

PS Vita added by Fred VT. Wii added by ResidentHazard. iPhone, tvOS, iPad added by Sciere. Android added by Kabushi. Nintendo DS added by Bregalad. DoJa added by Ms. Tea. PlayStation 3, PSP added by MAT.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Shoddyan, Alaka, CaptainCanuck, Leandro S., David Lloyd, DreinIX, Patrick Bregger, Rik Hideto, FatherJack.

Game added July 15, 2001. Last modified March 7, 2024.