The Wonder Years 9.13.07: Week 21 - Chrono Trigger
Posted by Owain J. Brimfield on 09.13.2007
One of the finest games of the 16-bit era.
Welcome to the column where all gamers of a certain age come to wallow in 16-bit nostalgia. I'm your host, Owain J. Brimfield, and I'll be discussing some of the hidden gems and instant classics of gaming's golden era. Some of these games may crop up on the Wii's Virtual Console at some point, some may be consigned to the annals of history. Either way, they're worth tracking down if you missed them first time round, or replaying if you were lucky enough to catch them. Let's take a trip to:
CHRONO TRIGGER
(Squaresoft, Super NES, 1995)
Yes, I thought it was about time. We've had our fair share of classics over the past few months, but to celebrate the Wonder Years' 21st column, we're coming of age with a bonafide legend of a game. Yes, as you all well know, Chrono Trigger is just that damn good. The game's reputation speaks for itself - widely hailed as one of the best RPGs ever made, the best game Square was ever involved with (FF VII be damned!), the best game on the Super NES, and yes, one of the Best Games Ever ™. Hyperbole? Not a jot. Well, maybe one of those... but you'll have to read on to find out which one. And with that jaunty poetic link, let's take a closer look at a masterpiece...
Developed by Square's ‘Dream Team' of RPG programmers, the game is ultimately fantasy and RPG cliché writ large, yet done so in a manner that everything feels fresh and vibrant. The game's protagonist Crono and his friends Marle and Lucca are accidentally thrown through time, and come to realise that the world will soon be destroyed by an evil supernatural entity known only as Lavos (for more on the big evil dude, see last week's feature on memorable bosses). Resolving to prevent said world-ending from happening, our heroes embark on an epic quest through time and space, encompassing the breadth of 65,000,000 BC to 2300 AD. Along the way they meet up with many friends and foes, some of help and some of hindrance in their mission to destroy the destroyer of worlds. Rendered in lush and colorful graphics that were pretty much unrivalled by any other 16-bit game, Chrono Trigger feels huge, in more than one sense of the word.
The gameplay itself is pretty refined, thankfully doing away with the random battles that blighted many traditional RPGs of the age, instead going with a ‘visible enemy' approach that was more standard in action RPGs. The battles themselves are more action-oriented, too, as actions take place dependent on a character's speed rather than a turn-based mechanism. It's a little tricky to get used to initially, but after many hours of play it becomes second nature and you begin to question the merits of turn-based battles. The usual magical attacks are replaced by a Tech system, with each character learning up to eight new attacks that can be combined with those of other characters, creating an immensely in-depth system that surpasses most contenders the genre can offer. The addition of several gaming sequences that deviate entirely from the standard RPG template is also welcome, with sections including side-scrolling battles (ala everyone's least remembered Zelda game The Adventure of Link) and Mode 7-based racing minigames. The best aspect of the gameplay, though, is that everything feels natural, and nothing feels forced. Very rarely, if ever, is the fourth wall broken by a tricky gaming mechanic or flaw. In my eyes it's one of the first real examples, pre-dating even Super Mario 64, of a game being truly immersive.
Let's take a moment here, too, to lavish praise upon the game's soundtrack. Composed in a joint effort by Yasunori Mitsuda and Final Fantasy audio chief Nobuo Uematsu, there's a reason that many hundreds of artists have remixed, reworked and revamped the audio for personal pleasure - it's quite simply a breathtaking achievement, that easily stands alongside many movie scores despite its MIDI origins. You can check out the 3-CD soundtrack album, which also features a number of tunes composed for the game but ultimately left out.
The game is one of the longest-lasting of any on the 16-bit consoles, along with Final Fantasy VI and the Phantasy Star games, although I've seen a few critics dispute this. Partly Chrono's longevity is due to the sheer size of the game world - not only is there an entire planet to explore, it's extended across six different and distinct time periods. But that's not all, friends! Oh no, the game also has 13 distinct endings - trying to see them all could well take a few years out of your life. Encouraging their discover, though, is the debut of the New Game + mode which Square would include in many of their subsequent games - the ability to start a new game from scratch while retaining all your abilities and items from a previous completion. It's a fantastic idea of course, one that we may take for granted nowadays but surprisingly wasn't pioneered until here.
So what makes it so good? Mute heroes, Millennial Fairs, time travel, teleportation, pendants and portals, mistaken identities, missing ancestors, knights turned into frogs, wrongful imprisonment, jailbreak, the Mystics, post-apocalyptic future, jet bike races, robots, the End of Time, Spekkio, the best video game soundtrack ever composed, ancient swords, Heroes, blacksmiths, the Stone Age, drinking contests, the Dreamstone, dinosaurs, evil wizards, Lavos the destroyer of worlds, swallowing castles, floating kingdoms, time machines, prophets and gurus, ocean palaces, death of a hero, the Blackbird, the Chrono Trigger itself, resurrection, campfires, Mother Brains, concentration camps, ghosts, greedy mayors, ancient artifacts, the Black Omen, the end of the world, the dawn of time, the endings.
The most shocking thing about Chrono Trigger - and in my opinion, one of the most shocking things ever (or rather, never) to happen in videogames, is that the game has never been released in a PAL territory. Seriously, one third of the gaming world never got a proper chance to experience Chrono Trigger, and it doesn't look as though it never will - let's face it, European localization would be an absolute nightmare, and the ‘franchise' (if indeed two games can be labeled as such) has been dormant for a while. It's a huge disservice to gamers. One of the best RPGs ever made? Without a doubt, its status as a pinnacle of the genre is undisputed. The best game Square was ever involved with? It's a bold claim given the company's reputation for excellence, but at the risk of a backlash from the FF7 fanboy crew, I'm going to give it the nod. Best game on the Super NES? Debatable; the console saw a lot of quality, and I think Mario and/or Link may just have the edge over Crono and chums.
But one of the best games ever made? Yes. Yes it is.
Chrono Trigger trivia
A port of the game for the PlayStation was released in 1999, which naturally managed to find a way to gut the experience, inserting unnecessary cut-scenes and lengthy load times, not to mention actually having worse graphics than the SNES original. Direct your shame towards developers TOSE Co.
The Chrono universe is one of the richest sources of fan fiction and material of any game in the mid-90s, with some fan artwork in particular being genuinely impressive. It's easily Google-able.
Rumors persist that a new sequel is in development, entitled Chrono Break. However, it sadly looks as though this isn't the case, as Square's patent on the name has since fallen through.
Chrono Trigger is number 7 in my official all-time Top 100 games.
Reactions and interactions
A question this week from 411 reader John:
From: John Dyess Subject: old superhero games
My nephew is into superhero games. Since I don't really want him messing up any new game systems, I was wondering If you could recommend some for SNES, Sega Genesis, NES, and N64.
I certainly could. Recommendations coming your way, sir:
For the NES, there aren't too many -
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Konami (1988), which is a platformer / beat 'em up divided by a birdseye view map. It was actually one of the first games I owned for the console, and is still very difficult.
Batman: The Video Game by Sunsoft (1990) is surprisingly good visually for the console, and has a good soundtrack too, although the gameplay itself is a little limited.
And stick away from the X-Men games on the console, they're pretty poor.
For the Super NES / Genesis -
Maximum Carnage by Acclaim (1994) was released on both consoles, and is a side-scrolling beat 'em up featuring a bunch of Marvel characters, with Spiderman and Venom in the lead roles. It's a bit repetitive, but nicely challenging and has a good array of playable characters, from Captain America to Deathlok. Probably the best out-and-out superhero game on either console.
The Turtles again in TMNT 4: Turtles in Time by Konami (1992) for the SNES, yet another scrolling fighter (I guess it's just the easiest genre for old-school superhero based games), which is probably the best game starring those characters.
Batman Returns by Konami (1993), again on both consoles, is my favorite game starring the Caped Crusader, technically excellent for the 16-bit era, although the SNES version probably edges it for graphics.
X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse by Capcom (1994) on the SNES is a good non-linear game with a variety of characters from the X-Men universe, although it's slightly limited on the playable characters.
As for the N64, you know, I can't think of any good choices. Spiderman 64 was mediocre, and Superman 64 is one of the worst games ever made. I wonder if any readers have any good ideas?
Of course, if you don't want to stick to 'conventional' superheroes, there are a ton of other choices, Earthworm Jim and Boogerman being two of my favorites.
Splendid visitation possibilities
The place to come for random retro gaming tidbits, links and videos, and general amusing games-related stuff collated from the interweb.
Of all the multitude and myriad of Chrono Trigger fansites, this is probably the most interesting, offering an insight into how a movie of the game would look, read and sound. Check out Chrono Symphonic here:
We mentioned the good ol' NES earlier on, and it's a console that many gamers seem to have forgotten about. Not so this guy, who has come up with a rather unique use for his.
If you have never had the misfortune of playing aforementioned ‘classic' Superman 64, I'd encourage you to feast your eyes on the following video, and then try not weep too much.
Every week in this section I'll endeavour to provide you, the faithful readers, with a fascinating insight into the various forms of entertainment currently dominating my spare time.
This week, I have been mostly enjoying:
Command & Conquer: Red Alert, a PC classic that I dug out due to my TV breaking down, so the console gaming will have to be put on hold for a while. Red Alert has stood the test of time well, although the XP compatibility does make things a little jerky.
18 by Moby - having adopted a dog this past week, I've been needing to chill out, and this is the perfect album to do that to, a gorgeous mix of electronica and melancholia.
The Simpsons, which I have regained my love for having finally made the switch to digital TV and all the fancy channels that brings. Now to see the movie.
and classic Tony Banderas film Desperado - or at least I would have, had not the clerk at the DVD store mistakenly put a disk of Mr. Deeds in there instead. That's pretty much two extremes of movie right there.
And finally…
As always, reader feedback and suggestions are welcome, I respond to everything so just drop me a line. Next week in "The Wonder Years" - the finest hour of SUPER FX! Until then - keep it real, keep it retro.
