Retro Review – Chrono Trigger (NDS)

Chrono Trigger has remained one of my favorite games of all time. Following the story of Crono, a guy living in 1000AD, a chance encounter with a runaway princess sends him on a journey through time. After the first couple of trips, he and his friends discover a future where the world has come to an end and decide to try and prevent this future from taking place. Their foe is a creature living within the center of the planet, Lavos.

The first thing I want to point out is how great Lavos is as an antagonist. Without getting into too many details, he isn't a typical kind of villain, Lavos is more of a force of nature. Any actual force working against you in the story is all motivated by something to do with Lavos, but none of them follow any orders or motivations from Lavos himself. Lavos simply existing is enough to shape the world and story. Both for the time and even into the modern-day he is a unique villain in this regard.

Even the heroes of our story didn't start their journey because Lavos did anything to them. Frankly, if they just ignored the threat none of them would ever feel the effects of the world's end in their lifetime. All they did was learn of his existence, something that was enough of an event to spur them to try and stop the end of the world. It all creates this situation where, despite never acting directly against you, Lavos feels ever-present in the game's story.

I'll avoid going into many details on the actual plot since it's a lot of spoilers best experienced for yourself and I'd be covering a lot of short stories that make up the overall plot, I will highlight the one weakness in the game's narrative. There are times where some characters, specifically Ayla and Frog, just seem to accept all the time-traveling without any issues. There isn't even a moment any one of them seems to question the fact they are now just hopping through time. That said, it's not a huge problem for me and it's probably the biggest issue of the game.

The second big problem is largely avoidable, and that is all the extra content added to the DS version of the game. It is, quite frankly, lazy and uninspired at best. It requires constantly going through the same areas repeatedly, nothing of importance is added to the story, and it just gives you more items to make the game even easier. It's not a big issue cause you can just skip it all and not miss out on anything.

As far as combat goes, it's incredibly fun. It's a turn-based system, but enemies will move around the field as the battle progresses. Certain attacks you can make are dependent on the enemy position, so there is a level of tactics present here that a lot of other RPGs at the time didn't have. Turn gauges continue to fill even while selecting your actions (Unless you switch the mode to Wait instead of Active) so there may be times you want to hold off on taking an action if you think the enemies are about to cluster together, as certain attacks such as Cyclone will hit a small area.

Of course, the real fun of Chrono Trigger is that it introduced to the world of JRPG's to one of my favorite mechanics, Dual Techs. If two characters turn are ready to go, and they have the right abilities learned, they can perform an attack together. Except for one character who needs certain items equipped, every character has a large number of potential Duel or Triple Techs that can be used with other characters. It is a lot of fun mixing and matching party members to figure out all the different abilities you can learn. Beyond that what you have is a solidly made JRPG.

The last thing I'll go into detail on are the differences between the DS and SNES original, and which is the better version. I already brought up the extra content, and while bad is skippable so not a big point against the DS version. And, frankly, the DS Version beats out the original in every other way. It has the Playstation ports animated cutscenes without the horrible load times that came with that version of the game, an improved translation that adds a lot to the game's character, and importantly it puts the battle menu on the bottom screen. In Chrono Trigger battles take place on the same overworld map rather than cutting to a separate screen. The one issue with this was the battle menu would shift from the top or bottom of the screen and cover part of it up, and this was annoying. The DS version uses the touch screen for the menu (You can still use normal controls or the touchscreen depending on your preference). The game fights just look better without the menu being on the same screen. So yeah, the DS version is easily the one to go with.

Chrono Trigger is one of the closest games out there to be flawless. And it just does everything very well. If you are at all interested in old-school RPGs and still haven't given this game a shot, I highly recommend it.