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 547 ratings with 13 reviews)

Do you like the hair?

The Good
The Good: Being a huge RPG fan, and having played many RPGs, Chrono Trigger takes the honors of being one of my favorite all-time RPGs. There are so many aspects of the game that leave gamers playing for hours on end. The storyline is incredible, and non linear events can lead to twelve unique endings, giving this game an amazing replay value. And if you'd like to see more endings, the New Game + feature allows you to start the game again -- with your old stats and items from your previous game. The replay value combined with the ever-building storyline creates a formula that makes this RPG so addictive.

In turn, the musical score is absolutely beautiful, so much in fact that you'll find yourself buying the soundtrack. It fits the mood of the scenarios in the game so perfectly that you won't have a problem with it at all. I'll recommend the soundtrack to players of the game and those wanting to get into it alike.

Usually, I'm not one to pay much attention to graphics -- I'm all for story, music, artwork, and game play. However, the graphics were so stunning that I could easily forget I was playing a SNES game. Squaresoft pushed the capabilities of the SNES so far that the graphics looked almost 32-bit when it came to some spells and the final boss fight.

The gameplay was pretty good, the controls were easy to get into. Also, the battle system is simple to operate, and can be used with a lot of strategy. Instead of having set positions in battle as such as in any one of the Final Fantasy titles, the characters get to move around on the battlefield. You get to use the postitions and ranges to your advantage, for example, toasting a ring of enemies around you. Experience was done well, and was easy to come by. Although the game tends to get a bit easy for die-hard RPG gamers, it's still a great gameplay nonetheless.

The Bad
Nothing. Nada. Nanimo. The game is THAT good.

The Bottom Line
Squaresoft and Toriyama Akira did such an excellent job, kudos to them!

If you've picked this baby up, tell people to leave messages at the door; you might be playing this one for a while.

SNES · by Iris-chan (70) · 2002

A very shallow RPG. Too easy, too kiddy, too dull.

The Good
Ah what can I say? I enjoy RPGs, and while I've always been a PC guy, there's always been a spot in my heart for them good ol' console RPGs. Chrono Trigger was a game that had been thoroughly recommended to me via friends and relatives, and I'd seen such praise about it here on Mobygames and on various message boards, I thought it was finally time that I tried it out for myself.

Right from the very beginning, this game glowed with that "SNES classic RPG" feel that I'd gotten so many times, from so many games, and for most of them I have Squaresoft to thank. Nostalgia instantly hit me as I saw the ticking of that thing in those grandfather clocks (you know what I mean - that bar with the circle on it? It goes tick-tock? Erm...anyway...) even though I'd never played this game before. I knew I was going to enjoy this romp.

So I began my game and...well, I'll finish this paragraph in "The Bad". For now, let me reflect on the good parts of the game.

It's a console RPG. If that ain't a "good" thing, I don't know what is. None of these new-fangeled game engines with wacky rules that are too confusing to understand. Nope, instead, this is a very simple game that takes absolutely no time to figure out. Once you begin playing, you understand the game. Anything "new" that the game might bestow upon you (such as spellcasting) is introduced with a warm in-game tutorial, so you're never lost. Good ol' console RPGs.

If you didn't know already, the game's plot revolves around time travel. (I'm not giving too much away here - you figure this out two minutes into the game) This is one of the few RPGs, or games in general I've played for consoles that involved time travel, and being an ol' kiddy sci-fi whacko, I loved the idea, and I felt the game did it very well. I also liked traveling back in time to see what the land was like, say, one thousand years ago...or foward in time, to see what it's like several thousand years in the future. Familiar landscapes and cities are a welcome treat. Some of your events in the past are even retold by people in the far future! This added a great thrill to the game.

You can fight the "big bad boss" at almost any point in the game, and possibly kill him (though I wasn't able to until I'd completed all the other parts of the game). I love this sort of open-ended gameplay.

The Bad
Now, where was I? Oh, right. So I began my game and was instantly disappointed. Why? Because there is absolutely no atmosphere in this game at all. Almost nothing to entrance me, nothing to bring me into this game. RPGs have a way of making you feel something about the characters in it, they have a way of making you become the character you play. I've never seen an RPG fail at this so horribly as this game. Now, don't get me wrong, the game was fun...but it completely lacked the atmosphere RPGs tend to have. Every NPC you talk to spits forth the most boring and unrealistic series of dialogue I've ever read. You never have any sense that what you're doing really matters because the people that your actions affect never seem to care about anything. Walk up to someone and they might say, "Did you hear about the weather? Yeah, it might rain. Oh, and I hear there's a secret entrance underneath a bush near the cave to the East."

I've played plenty of console RPGs, so I know that dialogue (particularly in Squaresoft games) is never really "realistic", but this is way below par. Never in the game do YOU ever acomplish anything on your own, except perhaps defeat a boss. Everyone directs you wherever you need to go, everyone tells you all the secrets, and if they're not doing that, they're dropping little "hints" that are so obvious that if you didn't get them perhaps you shouldn't be playing video games anymore.

Even worse than the NPCs in the game are the ones you get in your party, which include two annoying girls, a frog and a robot, none of which I gave a damn about. One girl is some sort of scientist, the other's some psycho hyperactive princess whom I got rid of as soon as I got more than three party members (as per the norm, you can only have three fighting at a time), and the other is some sort of robot that has feelings. Every time a part in the game comes along that requires one of my party members participates in a dialogue exchange, I want to just turn the television off so I don't have to endure their childish, boring, unrealistic and unimaginitive stories and obvious questions.

The characters are also all about five to eight years old, I would suspect. That, or they all escaped from the short bus. It's a personal pet peeve of mine in games when the "hero" is some eight year old kid with a sword. And by the way, why do you start with a sword? What happened to the whole "I wielded this sword to defend myself!" acquiring of your weapon that happens in so many classics? Link grabbed a sword to fight those ball-spitting things. That Secret of Mana kid pulled one out of the thing to defend himself. In Final Fantasy 2 you were a knight, fighting for justice or something. In this dumb game, you're just an eight year old kid who happens to have a sword with him and gets himself into a whole lot of trouble. I wonder what his mother thinks of him wielding that thing around? And another eight year old kid is armed with a pistol!

One of the "key scenes" to this game was one in which you race someone in a post-apocalyptic ruined highway. This has got to be the most overrated worthless "scene" I've ever bothered to watch. First of all, it's not a damn race. It's a two minute animation of two guys on bikes (which, to their credit, did look pretty cool for SNES games) who are constantly getting ahead of each other. There's no strategy involved here. You just try and be the one "in front" when you reach the finish line. Here's a funny story - I set the controller down and just won the race.

The game is also painfully easy. You get tons of cash for killing easy monsters, and aside from boss battles, I've never lost a fight, and typically, I just hit the "A" button until the battle is over. Strategy? Tactics? Who needs'em? Well, actually, they come in handy in boss battles...

This game has the setup for a really great story, and it almost comes together at times, but it's completely ruined by the fact that your actions seem to have no affect on anyone but your damn annoying party members. And while it's typical for console RPGs, the entire setup at times just seems way too unrealistic.

"Let's save the world!"
"Okay!"
"Do you know how to use a weapon?"
"Nope, but let's save the world!"

Save the world? I say let'em burn. Maybe they'll give a damn then.

The Bottom Line
It's obvious that this game was targeted at a younger audience, but old farts like me still love to play these games, so guys over the age of eight still make up at least half the market. I just can't see this game appealing to anyone over eight years old, unless they REALLY enjoy console RPGs and don't mind stupid kiddy dialogue, ininteresting (and uninterested) NPCs and annoying party members.

The time travel thing is a great idea, and it comes together in some places, but not enough for me to care.

SNES · by kbmb (415) · 2003

The best RPG of all-time? Quite possibly.

The Good
This game is beyond criticism. It was made during the few years when SquareSoft was in it's prime, before it moved to the PlayStation and started focusing on its Final Fantasy series.

The graphics are beautifully rich, with some of the best use of Mode 7 graphics this side of Super Mario Kart. The story is the best I've ever seen in an RPG (yes, that includes all of the Final Fantasies). An innovative concept and control system puts this game heads above the rest in it's genre, and kicks the asses of every "best RPG ever" that came before it, like Earthbound and The Secret of Mana.

The Bad
If anything remotely bad can be said about this game, it's a) the game is too short (with only about 15 hours or so needed to fully complete the game form start to finish, the ending can slip on you pretty fast), and b) with sixteen possible endings, you can be constantly plagued by wondering what might have been if you'd said no to a question instead of yes, because in this game, even tiny choices like that can result in the butterfly effect.

The Bottom Line
If you've never played an RPG, play this one. If you love RPG's play this one. If you consider yourself an expert of RPG's but have never played this, go out in your backyard and hit yourself in the head with a hammer. Then play this one.

SNES · by lechuck13 (296) · 2002

[ 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. tvOS, iPhone, iPad added by Sciere. Android added by Kabushi. Nintendo DS added by Bregalad. DoJa added by Ms. Tea. PSP, PlayStation 3 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.