Chrono Trigger is a game released by Square-Enix. Originally made for Super Nintendo, the game was made available on Nintendo DS in 2008 and was ported to iPhone/iPad in 2012.
The opening screen.
Chrono Trigger starts with the main character, Chrono, waking up on the morning of the Millennial Fair. Chrono goes to the fair, and while he’s there he literally bumps into a girl named Marle. They decide to have fun and check out the fair together. Chrono has an inventor friend named Lucca, and he and Marle go to see Lucca’s newest invention – a transporter! (Star Trek – eat your heart out.) Marle volunteers to demonstrate it, but something goes wrong and she is sucked into a mysterious portal. Chrono decides to follow her while Lucca figures out a way to get them back.
What follows is a game that spans seven time periods from prehistory through the end of time as our heroes fight against Lavos, an entity that threatens to destroy the Earth. On the way Chrono meets an incredible variety of allies and foes and seeks to do the best thing for all timelines. The game concludes in a satisfyingly epic battle against an implacable enemy that segues into a taste of adventures yet to come.
Frog, Chrono, and Ayla take on Lavos.
Chrono Trigger is a game that is both a classic and an excellent example of what a game should be today. Chrono is a voiceless protagonist, which makes it easy to imagine yourself in his place. Moreover, as you travel back and forth through time you see the consequences of your actions, both good and bad. For example, in the first section of the game Chrono and Marle are wandering through the Millennial Fair. You as Chrono can decide to eat an old man’s lunch or return a little girl’s kitty to her, among other actions; later, Chrono goes on trial for kidnapping Marle, and the old man and the little girl can act as character witnesses to say that Chrono is bad or good. In fact, the game hinges on changes made in the past affecting the course of the future, and sometimes you have to visit one time to solve a problem in another. You can choose to fight Lavos at many different points throughout the game, and depending on when you beat it you can get different endings – there are at least fourteen distinct endings!
Marle and Chrono take a break after saving the world.
This is what you see if you lose. Not cool.
Chrono Trigger is both appealing in appearance and fun in its variety. The character designs are by the famous manga creator Akira Toriyama, whose style is distinctive and colorful. When you beat the game you get to see a few pictures drawn in his style of various events and scenes from throughout the game. The scenery of the game is incredibly different from era to era and from place to place. From a cheerful fairground to a gloomy haunted castle to a dystopian metallic future to a dinosaur-filled forest, scene after scene is fun to travel through and memorable. The music only adds to the experience – I could listen to Chrono Trigger music all day! With the music composed by Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu, what could anyone expect but excellence?
Four of the pictures you see after beating the game.
The gameplay of Chrono Trigger is an interesting hybrid. On the iPad, you swipe your finger to control movement and choice of action in battles. I found the controls were simple to use, if a bit finicky at times; however, the parts I struggled with were the parts designed to be a challenge, so I feel that the original intent of the programmers was met with the touch control system of the iPad. In general gameplay there is a fixed overhead camera, and you always view your characters in third person perspective; however, you can discover secret passages that are hidden from your overhead viewpoint until you walk into them. Battles often are initiated without warning when you walk into certain areas, but sometimes you can either choose to provoke an enemy into fighting or go around them. Once battle begins you cannot control where your characters are, but you can control whether their attacks hit one enemy, all enemies, or all enemies in a certain configuration. Some enemies move, and because of this you find that different attacks become more or less effective. You can also use attacks from a single character, two of your characters in concert, or all three characters.
Chilling at the End of Time.
The best thing about Chrono Trigger is that it is genuinely fun. You don’t feel like you’re wasting time or grinding to get a certain item or amount of money; objectives are usually clear, and you can decide if you want to blast through the game hitting only the main plot points or if you want to tease out every sidequest and explore every nook and cranny. A wonderful feature is that after you have completed the game once you have the option to start a New Game+, which lets you begin the story with all of your items intact and with all of your characters at the levels they were when you finished the game. This means that you can breeze through the game and focus on enjoying the story and exploring the different endings available to you.
Chrono Trigger is one of the games that I enjoy wholeheartedly and can recommend without reserve. It is fun and interesting and has incredible variety; it is clean and clever and well-designed. If you have an iPhone or an iPad, I absolutely say buy this game – you won’t regret it!
A very difficult optional boss. There was material added to the game for the DS, but this is a brief review so let’s just say it’s all good stuff.