Developer(s) SquarePublisher(s) Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Genre(s) Console role-playing game
Mode(s) Single-player
Rating(s) Super Nintendo Entertainment SystemThis is my review on Chrono Trigger, one of the best RPGs on the Super Nintendo and of all time. There is a Playstation remake of Chrono Trigger, it's supposed to have extra FMV scenes or something and a gallery of artwork I think. It also has other games within the Playstation release such as the Music Library, where you can browse all the games current music, providing you have heard them in your game of course.There is another game called Radical Dreamers on the SNES as well, it's a sidestory game to Chrono Trigger, but it's not really, actually it's very similar to Chrono Cross, with some of the same characters, which is a sequel to Trigger with a whole new storyline, setting and characters.The graphics that they used were better than the SNES Final Fantasies, VI, VI, IV etc. even though it was made one year after the latest one. Not outstanding, a bit cleaner and better created with lots of different item and object sprites. The sprites and basically all of the towns and buildings were created "taller", stretched, so not the short regular sprites used, but different sized, making the game feel a lot different than FF when played. The world map was a good idea, they compacted everything, as well as making the characters puny and weird looking, adding different effects on with the current storyline, raining, dark etc. Running in dungeons and towns, even the world map you'd have the other characters following just like in FFVIII.
Text looks simple and good, text boxes are easily changeable to user's personality, with a couple of expressions added to the characters, making scenes far more attractive.Battle animations are good, each Tech Skill and magic having very different graphics, good looking battle and enemy sprites, great battle backgrounds and interference conversations as well, leading to greater battling experiences.Moving around is good too, you can move in different directions, instead of the regular up down right left, you can move diagonally, except the sprite doesn't change, eg. moving bottom left makes the sprite just stay facing you, not on a 45 degree angle, but it's good to have it anyways, makes it much easier to explore and move around. You can choose to run also, so getting to your current destination is much quicker.Music is great and catchy, sort of ringtone like, but great all the way. Sound effects are good as well, conversation box advancing, treasure chests etc. They were created and scored by Yasunori Mitsuda and famous man Nobuo Uematsu. Hehe, I can play the Battle tune on guitar :P But sadly, not Bass :(Now, battle gameplay is very interesting in this game. Instead of using the regular ATB (active time battle, okay they still use it), they made it so you move around when battling to random locations sometimes providing either an advantage or a disadvantage to you or your allies or you enemies. Of course you can't move around yourself, or else that would be too complicated and too annoying to do, instead they do it at random, when you are attacked, when you are attacking, or when you just performed a Tech Skill of some kind, for example as Crono's Cyclone Tech, which can damage every enemy in the battle, depending if they are close or in range or in a straight or diagonal line from you. Being the furthest away from your enemy can protect you from some certain special attacks, but not regular attacks of course.
Weapons, Armour, Helms, Accessories etc. are in the game as well, buying them, finding them, there's quite a few of them, with a few legendary weapons. It's not like FFVIII where each character only gets 4 or so weapons. Leveling up works like usual, gain experience, gain levels.They also added extra features such as Double Tech and Triple Tech, when a character of yours learns it with another character, they can perform moves together in combos, providing extra damage and awesomeness. At the cost of magic points of course. Certain Double and Triple tech can only be learned by certain people, so don't think Lucca will be able to do every Tech possible. Some of the more stronger multiple ally techs sometimes need certain special items to be equipped to be used, one of the people required can equip it, providing all of the other characters what they need to perform the Tech Skill.
Also, nearly every character gets their own magic type, once appraised by the guy at The End Of Time. So that means if one of the characters has a Fire type, they can only use Fire magic. Unfortunately, you can't choose which type goes to who, so it's all been set for you, Crono = Lightning, Glenn = Water, Marle = Ice, Ayla.. = Nothing :P So with all of these new battle techniques, it makes for a pretty tactical game, in most battles anyways, such as boss battles or else you don't have to worry about your placement whatsoever.Lots of secrets are held in Chrono Trigger, such as the mysterious black boxes. You can just unlock them with the necklace when you're up to that part anyway :PThe storyline is very good, a man and a princess and others try to stop Lavos, who is trying to end the world. The End Of Time is a place where a monster and an old man live. As the name suggests, it's the end of time, where time has stopped. There are portals to different times in the world there as well which you use to travel to the Prehistoric ages, last century, the Ice ages, the cold future, and Lavos' time. Great thing about this game is that once you find the ancient airship, you can travel wherever you want, to any time you want.
There's quite a few different sidequests you can do, collecting Sunrocks, etc. which some are linked by going to different times, aging rocks by going back 5 million years and coming back 10 million years, making the game even more enjoyable. There are plenty of minigames in Lenne's Square, such as drinking soda, guess the man and more.Doing things in the past times of the game, change what happens in the future of the game, such as when you go to court for supposedly kidnapping the Queen, they see how bad you were in society. If you took the man's lunch, they would speak out on that. If you didn't return the cat to the little girl, they would speak out on that. However doing this won't make you seem not guilty, so you end up going to jail anyway. Another example is beating Lavos at the end with different characters actually changes the ending scene. The biggest ending scene can only occur if you go on the big optional sidequest and bring Crono back alive. After beating the game, there's Ex-game, where you can replay the game with the same stats and equipment, other than the essential storylines which are removed and must be found again. This has been implemented in other Square games, as well as other developer's games. 
There are a total of six playable characters in the game, not including the evil Magus.There has been a couple of fan remake projects, even one where they made an FMV of all of the SNES's Chrono Triggers opening scenes, even with the same music. Of course, Square Enix/Soft shut them down. There's also plenty of ROM hacks, one adding a complete battle colliseum to the game where you battle whatever enemy you want, and one that supposedly makes the game much more difficult, and a very dirty one that has a lot of perverted jokes, this one I played when I younger :P Supposedly, the original American version had references to alcohol and gambling, like in Final Fantasy VI which they did not leave out :P But hey, what can you do :PThe game has sold over 2 million copies in Japan alone, Gamespot included Chrono Trigger in The Greatest Games of All Time" list in April 2006 as well as "All Time Top 100" from Japanese Magazine, Famitsu. Chrono Trigger is one of the best RPGs on the SNES, and one of the best games of all time. It is my 3rd favourite game so far.Now, for the marks of the game itself:Presentation: 10/10 - Everything is easy to read, understand, you always know what to do, and you're never stuck on how to do something. Very helpful information in game.Graphics: 9/10 - Graphics are really good for a game nearly 15 years old, beats some of the graphics of GBA and NDS games today.Sound: 8/10 - Good sounding music and tunes. Great sound effects, too bad they sound really ringtone like.Gameplay: 10/10 - Awesome gameplay, lots of features make for very interesting and tactical battling, Tech Skills are awesome!Lasting Appeal: 8/10 - I have beat this game 2 times so far, not as lasting as Final Fantasy VI, not as long, so wouldn't play the game again unless I had a lot of time.Total: 45/50 - This game is really good, I recommend it to anyone who has a SNES or a SNES emulator :PLinks:Chrono Trigger Resurrection Video - http://youtube.com/watch?v=FxS0lB9mkUQ-anandjones