O tempora: Chrono Trigger (the PC port)

O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

Chrono Trigger doesn’t need an introduction. If you’ve ever been interested in jRPGs, you’ve heard of it. If you’re not interested in jRPGs, I’m sure you are aware of it anyway. It is often called to be one of the greatest videogames of all time and, in my opinion, that title is rightfully deserved. And while I will continue on talking about what makes the game so great, I’ll spoil it right away – absolutely worth playing, fantastic soundtrack, great characters, exciting story, 10 out of 10 would time travel again.

But there’s a catch. For whatever reason, ever since its original release in 1995 on SNES, it has never gotten a re-release that a game of this greatness truly deserves. And this current PC port, despite numerous updates that fixed most game breaking issues, remains a rather poor, yet somehow the only, way to get and play the game nowadays.

During the early 1990s Square were releasing one hit after another, with internationally release titles like Final Fantasy IV, VI and Secret of Mana. And another, somewhat more risky and strange project was in development at the same time. One that involved not only the team inside Square, but also the lead writer for the arguably competing jRPG series Dragon Quest – Yuji Horii. With illustration work provided by Akira Toriyama, who also worked on Dragon Quest but is most known for his Dragon Ball manga franchise. Chrono Trigger, as it eventually came to be called, was to be a story-driven RPG with a time traveling plot and a lot of novel ideas and mechanics that were not attempted by Square before.

And I can list here how many cool ideas the game has, some of which are still novel. How it’s visually beautiful to this day. How the animations are slick and stylish and how memorable the soundtrack is. I can talk long about how this is one of the greatest examples of a time travel story I’ve ever seen, effortlessly handling difficult concepts, going through numerous characters and plotlines in a way that you remember and understand it all clearly and how it all makes complete and total sense. Unless you try to dig deeper than the game’s simple adventure setup needs to be analyzed anyway. I can mention how the amount of time it takes to finish the game the first time is at around 20 hours which for majority of games starts to feel like a drag, but for this one it feels like a breeze and you just want more. How every location, scene, situation change is almost beat perfect and you never get too much or too little of anything. How simple and intuitive, but at the same time deep and exciting the combat system is.

But what still amazes me most, to this day, is how it all comes together in a way, as if somehow every second of this interactive media was reviewed and edited to be done exactly as it needed to be. Something that any linear media has troubles achieving, but working nigh perfectly in a videogame, where you, the player, dictate the pace. It’s not just that any of the named separate elements are astonishing, it’s that they somehow add up to far more than just the sum of all parts.

Yet, I do have to calm myself a bit and address that the game is not without flaws. There are few things in it that “didn’t age well”, as the majority of it is quite timeless (no pun intended), but there are a couple of moments and jokes that feel quaint today. And how basic the adventure is at its core (as far as some of the character motivations are) can at times conflict with how much deeper the game can get into emotional scenes with darker topics. Also the fact that this game, in a way, canonized the idea of “New Game Plus” doesn’t help that the said mode feels underutilized. There are 12 original endings (plus 1 more in this port, but on this later), with 2 main big ones and a bunch of alternative “early” endings, which is a neat concept for a time traveling game where you can destroy the big bad early if you’re good enough (or if you’re in NG+). Yet, vast majority of said endings are just simple jokes that go nowhere and are at times not even fun or funny, with only a couple of said alternative endings being a curious exploration of the time travel paradoxes. Oh and, sadly, none of the cutscenes can be fast forwarded either, which is not a problem for the first playthrough, but can get a bit annoying when you’re fully exploiting that NG+ and hunting the endings.

But none of the original game faults are important enough to be a detriment even today. Sadly, all of the later releases introduced issues and the current PC port carries that legacy. The PS1 release of the game was more or less the same as the original (apart from terrible CD load times), but it did introduce one new element – the animated cutscenes. Which do look kinda cool, but sadly feel out of place, especially since they essentially mimic the in-game cutscene that the game will still show you before or after the animated one. And if a few cases, I’d argue that the in-game one had more style. Plus, I’m not a huge fan of Toriyama’s artwork in motion, it looks far better as concept art and stills.

The DS version introduced a few helpful elements, expanding on the additional Extra menu added in the PS1 release and kept the animated cutscenes. But it also changed the localization (a lot for the better, but not all), some of the colour grading and most importantly added 3 additional game dungeons. All of which are absolutely abhorrent. They feel like a lazy romhack made by people with no understanding of what Chrono Trigger is liked for, bring nothing interesting to the story (which includes the additional 13th ending that serves as a connection for than already released Chrono Cross) and just waste your time.

Then came a mobile port, which became the basis of the current PC port. And even after lots of patches it’s still not great. Numbers for money above 999 don’t render, all screens that had the sprite rotation effects are horribly muddy and mangled (luckily, these are rare), the “High Resolution” option just makes everything blurry and broken, game can still crash, some audio loops incorrectly… All while the terrible additions of the DS version (apart from a weird monster breeding one) are included, while a Bestiary option is not. Oh and with the new widescreen support some of the scene composition got broken and looks bad, including some cutscenes that now simply do not show things that you’re supposed to be able to see. But at least the auto-combat with fast forward is helpful, even though its implementation is very hacky.

It is genuinely baffling to me that Final Fantasy series got the Pixel Remaster treatment already (and it was fantastic, if not perfect), while Chrono Trigger somehow did not and nothing of sorts has even been announced. Because this current port is not a great way to experience the game. It’s just the only way to experience the game you probably have (excluding emulation, of course). Note that I, myself, have first played this game in the early 00s, long after it was new. It was far from my first jRPG experience too. So I don’t really have any nostalgic view on it, nor do I understand what it was like to play it on an SNES on a CRT. But I love this title and can say that this port is not what a game like this deserves. As it is still as enjoyable today, in fact if you’re tired of how slow and formulaic a lot of jRPGs became, it would most likely feel better than many modern titles.

So if you do want to experience this timeless classic and this is your best option, it is… acceptable (as long as it works for you, as it just doesn’t launch at all for some). But my advice – ignore all of the “Lost Sanctum” time portals that will appear closer to the end of the game, and ignore the new portals that appear in New Game +, unless you absolutely need that 13th ending achievement. It will actually sour your enjoyment of the game that is otherwise almost perfectly paced. Pretend that they’re not there (and if a Pixel Remaster does arrive, I hope they cut this crap out, like they did with the FF games and terrible extra dungeons).

Chrono Trigger is still one of the greatest games ever. Unless you have a seething hatred for any RPGs, you will love this game. And even if you do – give it a chance, it might grow on you. Despite this port being what it is, I still enjoyed replaying the game a few times. And will gladly do it again in the future.