It's hard to imagine now, the sort of impact Chrono Trigger must have made in the gaming community in 1995 when it was released. It featured the most vibrant graphics ever seen on the aging Super Nintendo hardware, a memorable and inspiring soundtrack, and an immersive and an epic storyline that still puts many modern Japanese Role-Playing Games (JRPG) to shame.
What Chrono Trigger is about?
Chrono Trigger is a Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG), published by Squaresoft (in the present now merged with Enix to form Square-Enix), as famous for its JRPG and Final Fantasy franchise in the past as it is today. Yet Chrono Trigger was not part of Squaresoft's Final Fantasy stable, or any other franchise under the company's name at that time.
You play as Chrono, a simple farmboy attending a local fair with your inventor friend, Lucca. Chrono accidentally bumps into a strange girl called Marle, whom she shows around the fair. Unfortunately, an accident with Lucca's transporter opens a hole in time that sucks Marle into the past, and Chrono and Lucca must save her. In the process however, they discover their past, their future, and a slumbering alien deep in the earth that awaits them at The End of Time. As they discover new enemies, they discover new allies and friends as well through their journey from prehistoric times to a post-Apocalyptic future.
Exploring and Battling
As a JRPG, Chrono Trigger's gameplay revolves around world exploration and battling creatures, predominantly the latter. When not in combat, players control Chrono and any 2 of his companions and can move around the game world, interacting with select objects and talking to Non-Player-Characters (NPCs). Depending on the environment, players would have to solve puzzles or find certain objects and NPCs in order to advance the plot.
Battling is handled more dynamically and immersively than in previous JRPGs by Squaresoft and those seen on the SNES. A key feature was the lack of loading screens. Previous JRPG games would require the game to spend some time loading a separate screen on which the monsters and players would battle. In Chrono Trigger, this was done away with and the on-screen exploration screen served as the battle screen as well.
Another difference was how monsters and players sprites were arranged. In the Final Fantasy games for example, monster would be on one side facing the player and his party companions; in Dragon Quest, a first person POV style was used with no characters shown but a frontal view of the monsters instead. Furthermore, all the sprites used for the monsters and characters were static or with very minimal animation.
Chrono Trigger was visually superior, with fully animated sprites with idle animations and various different 'move' animations. Instead of a static arrangement, battles had the monsters and characters spread out randomly, though with the player having no control over the arrangement.
This feature had a tactical property. Players had 3 choices in combat. The standard Attack, using Items, or using Tech. Tech included the standard 'magic' style attacks, as well as special combo moves. These combo moves changed depending on the party make-up chosen by the player, and would include from 2 to 3 different characters. Several of these Tech moves had a certain area of effect, hence positioning would affect the effectiveness of certain moves.
This gave players unparalleled tactical flexibility that was not seen yet in JRPGs. The lack of loading screens made battling feel all the more immersive, and the fast pace of the battles meant that battling in Chrono Trigger felt more action-oriented than in the other JRPGs of the time.
The First 15 Minutes
It opens with a panning shot of a large town near the coast. Balloons and fireworks float past the screen as they rise up to the sky, past the idling clouds that move with the sea winds. There's the sounds of celebration far below, and then the horn and chugging of a ship entering the port.
You talk with your mom, who hands you some money and you meet up with your neighbour and friend to head to the fair.
It's a huge fair, with many, many things to do, you just can't wait!
Until you bump into a strange girl who ran out from nowhere! Thankfully, she's unhurt, and you spend the rest of the time at the fair with her as a companion as your explore it.
Unfortunately, at the last moment when you went to watch Lucca's demonstration of her transporter, a hole in time appears and sucks the girl, Marle, away. Even more unfortunate, she was the princess.
You get pulled into a courtroom, and a list of your deeds, good and bad are read out. This is where you find out that ALL the various actions you've taken throughout the game till now, was being monitored. For example, when you bumped into Marle, whether or not you helped her up first or picked up the shiny amulet she dropped first is brought into question; with the latter being the worse reflection of your character. If you had lost health from one of the trial battles you could take part in earlier, and you saw a lunch left on a table and ate it to regain health, the owner of the lunch accuses you of theft within court.
This is the point perhaps, that best exemplifies Chrono Trigger's scale of story and immersion. You the player is being judged on your actions, and actions that in other JRPGs, have no consequence. In a typical JRPG, the player could basically ransack any house or object for something usable. In this scene, you are judged on your character based on that action. This form of almost karmic retribution would be used in many Western RPGs that would expand its impact on the player game wise - e.g. in the Elders Scrolls series, Fable series, and RPGs created by Bioware - but to my knowledge, has not reappeared in any other JRPG since.
This court scene is also a precursor to the cause-and-effect consequences when the player eventually can jump through different time periods at whim. Doing something in an earlier timeline would then have a visible alteration in the later timelines.
A Hallmark
Without a doubt, Chrono Trigger is a hallmark of game design and scope. Despite being in the declining years of the SNES, the veterans of the JRPG genre, to name a few - Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of Final Fantasy and arguably the JRPG genre, Nobou Uetmatsu, famed music composer of nearly all of Squaresoft's JRPG games, and Akira Toriyama the famous manga artist of Dragon Ball fame - combined their talents to create the last swan song for the game system.
In 2 years from Chrono Trigger's release, Final Fantasy VII was released on the Sony Playstation, ushering in a new era for JRPGs on 3D consoles. However, noone would deny Chrono Trigger's place in video game history for it's successful melding of an action-oriented and tactical game system and compelling and touching story in a brightly animated and colorful world.
Even now, in the top 100 or top 10 lists of various gaming websites and magazines, there is a guarantee that Chrono Trigger would make an appearance. It has also been re-released on the Nintendo DS, virtually unchanged (after all, nothing was broken), giving a whole new generation a chance to experience it for themselves.
Post a Comment