chrono trigger
chrono trigger is an old ass jrpg released for the snes and by old i mean 20 years old which is incredibly important because apparently rpg developers have been jacking off for the entire time it was released and did not learn some incredibly important lessons on making your game not stuff 101 that it supplied. i try my hardest to avoid comparative reviewing because forget that but damn this game really blew the stuff out of every other game in the features that dont suck ass category. in chrono trigger you play as eventually a party of characters but you begin as some dragon ball z looking fellow who gets the forget out of bed because its time for a festival that happens only once every millennium and that eventually leads to some forgetery where you get forgeted into the future or some stuff and realize that somewhere along the lines someone or something forgeted it up because the entire world looks like a cyberpunk detroit so now you and your party of people picked from time go around trying to unforget everything. i dont really give a stuff about the story or even the gameplay but holy forget they took like almost every complaint about how stuff rpgs were and fixed most of them. i would also like to point out that off uses an extremely similar system of combat and stuff to chrono trigger but they forgeted up so bad when the off dev had loving 13 years to learn from how good chrono trigger did everything and improve it with the almost limitless possibilities of new technology in comparison to the now loving dinky ass snes but they forgeted it up so bad holy forget why is off allowed to exist its just a monumental failure to learn from history.
chrono triggers combat system is pretty simple. you get 3 dudes in your party and they have little attack meter things that fill automatically and when they are full you can attack or use a skill. your party members have stats that influence things like speed being the speed bar stat and power how hard you hit and stuff. each of your party member has a basic attack thing and some skills that do a variety of things like buff and damage. combat happens in real time and the bars fill up relatively fast so if you want to get the full use out of all your characters you got to be sort of quick. up to this point i have been describing the combat systems of both off and chrono trigger together however this is where off drops out of the race because thats as far as terrible games are allowed. chrono trigger has 6 total party members you can mix around and stuff as opposed to off locking you for the entire game with the ones you have. chrono trigger also has moves that require two party members to have full bars to execute which translates to team moves which translates to making party member picking have more meaning and also giving the opportunity for supermoves that look cool as forget be applied because they require 3 people. this also distances it from the generic off strategy of just continually mash people with your best move because now there is an actual distinction that matters between some of the really powerful moves and sometimes you got to pick between charging your 2 person death ray or letting the charged guy use a healing move in case one of your party members gets forgeted. also there are actually 4 party members in off you can have at one time forget you i wanted to be clever but it actually just makes it even worse why did anyone design chrono trigger with 4 party members and no team moves and stuff like adding another party member can add the depth but they forgeted it up.
more importantly the enemies you face are just better in every way. in off the main tactic was to bludgeon anything in your way to death via the highest mp move because of virtually infinite mp and all other tactics being far less effective. in chrono trigger yeah normally you try to clean house asap vs trash mobs but the trash mobs can do some damage if you let them, mana is relatively limited so unless you have mana resupply stuff, which you probably will anyway its pretty plentiful and im just using this review as an extended off review at this point, you may be chewing off more richard than you bargained for and although it takes some good amount of loving up at least its in the realm of possibility. bosses in chrono trigger also are relatively challenging at least compared to offs loving stuff ass bosses that were normal mobs with a ton of hp and different sprites that you fought and beat the same way you did normal mobs. chrono trigger bosses are capable of loving you up pretty bad if you forgot to bring anyone with good healing stuff or tonics although its actually impossible to create a full party without any healers but still this was 13 years before off and yet its better. the best part though is that they forgetin scrapped random encounters entirely i mean like holy stuff was it really that hard this game plays so much better without them now i can finally roam the map and pick stuff up off the floor and other similar rpg activities without being molested was it really that hard to implement trash mob combat in all rpgs has been stuff forever because they all fight the same why cant people realize they are a one or two and done deal like damn 13 forgetin years from off. i am younger than chrono trigger. off sucks.
almost done with off bashing because this part sort of applies to everything and its the games little gimmicks and details that tie everything together. chrono trigger has an exceptional amount of gimmicks that fix all the stuff you didnt know you wanted fixed. want to talk to that forgeter over in the corner of the house but realize you dont actually care what he says miliseconds into his dialogue? you can walk the forget away at any time during conversations holy stuff they even go on while you explore the rest of the house oh my god its a second coming and by second coming i mean im coming. i never figured out if it was cumming or coming so ill just put a disclaimer in case any expert linguist is here also whats the difference between gray and grey like why are there two versions of that word thats loving dumb. other features include changing the loving battle speed holy forget why did off not have this feature again i mean why the actual forget. the game is full of other features like that including an auto inventory organizer and is only really kept down by the
controller making cycling through usable items and skills mid battle an exciting journey into the reason controllers have more buttons but you can se the combat to turn based so that you have unlimited time to forget around in that but im not pusillanimous individual i play at maximum speed because i gotta go fast. off has none of these features. off sucks. many rpgs also do not have these features. why. we will never know. anyway now that im done with that stuff its time to talk about how good the game actually is.
the gameplay of chrono trigger is really just okay all things considered. it may have been revolutionary for its time but so was space war and wizardry and you dont see anyone playing that stuff anymore for a reason. also i have hipster cred for mentioning wizardry now get forgeted. chrono trigger lacks grind and random encounters and has all those good gameplay enhancers i talked about before but none of that really does anything for the core other than grease that stuff up and the core of chrono trigger is just okay. combat in chrono trigger is unique as far as i know with moves that hit multiple enemies based on positioning and stuff and its better than off obviously but in the end the most advanced battles are versus enemies where you need to take parts out in a certain order or have to use certain elemental attacks and the maximum challenge comes from maximizing damage output while keeping your team healthy since you get forgeted in like 3 attacks or less from bosses if you dont have a guy doing heals sometimes and reviving is difficult without marle aka the heal character with a good revive spell but other than that its pretty simple with status effects being rarely used by enemies and player usable debuffs being nonexistent. player buffs are also like not there with few characters having them and the only one i really used was haste but that belonged to marle who did no dmg so forget that. forgetin marle. armor and stuff is basic too with it mostly being just increases in [stat] and most high level armor providing protection from debuffs entirely and theres a pretty clear tier to armor with some aberrations but mostly its a linear path. the game handles leveling up well with xp being shared through your party but not at a good enough rate to keep them leveled with your main crew if you were that kid who leveled his starter to like 90 before the elite four while the rest of his pokemon were tm slaves at 1 but im not and use them all so its pretty easy to keep them all together stat wise. everyone on the internet talks about how good this game is or was for its time and it may have been for its time but the throwing spear was once the best weapon of all time back when we were hunting mammoths and i dont see anyone mesmerized over that so unless you want to go fight a saber tooth youre on your own.
the story is actually some pretty basic stuff with a twist and the characters don't really have much character in their writing but that isnt terribly bad since it doesnt hinder the gameplay in any way and takes you to some cool ass places because the premise is that you travel all over time trying to stop bad stuff from going down and while they dont really forget with the implications of time paradoxes and stuff like that they do forget around quite a bit with the change the future thing because thats like the entire game so it was pretty nice trying to save people from being erased from existence because their ancestors died instead of some other mundane stuff like killing a dragon but the story sort of serves as a vehicle for conveying the fact that traveling through time is some cool ass stuff and adventures are fun although the ending stuff with the final boss is pretty intense. characterization never goes for anything deep and emotional except for one scene with lucca which was pretty forgetin dark but you have to play the game to find out richardsucker. i guess the devs figured out that exploring too deep into characterization with a story like this so dont expect anything too good. one exception to this is the final boss whose existence is consistently portrayed as pretty forgetin terrifying throughout the game although you only brush with him once before the last battle and that time he kicks you in the richard and pisses on your corpse. its a pretty great character even with it being entirely textless. most other minor characters in the game give typical one liners that are usually sort of comedic or explanatory or sell you something. also the game has a stuffload of endings but all of them are basically kill the final boss during a different part of the game instead of the ending because theres a new game + thing that allows you to restart with all your levels and items and most of them are humorous takes on an alternate future but the final boss battle is pretty long and hard like my snake hahuggggggggggggggggeawfdgtgg
g or i didnt grind enough to finish it quick or im handicapped so good luck getting all of them.
the graphics in chrono trigger are actually loving fantastic and time traveling is a good way to show off how good everything is by having a bunch of different environments for the artists to forget around in. all of the main characters are highly animated for sprites and express a lot of energy and emotion for being entirely pixelated. all npc sprites are all nice and colorful and mostly unique although theres a few palette swaps here and there and its humorous to see the same few characters with different outfits based on the time they live in. the stated environments are all loving amazing and its really incredible that this stuff was released 13 years before off and it has better graphics than it. off sucks. i dont really write too much about graphics because in the end they are mostly irrelevant as long as theyre passable but the chrono trigger team did a really good job and you should look at them instead of the inside of your starfish you prick.
music isnt actually critically acclaimed super sounds from god that i was told it was. it is mostly passable albeit mildly atypical standard jrpg music that helps sets the mood and sometimes sounds good but isnt really stand out. the best track is the one you hear when you get to undisclosed information due to anti spoiler policy
here. sound effects are actually a really big part of this game and help immensely with many of them being memorable indicators of certain enemies and especially certain bosses. it seems as though the music suffered the same overhype as the rest of the game because it really isnt too good i mean stuff it really just is okay. i would say this probably the only point where the game may equal off in terms of quality.
you see oftentimes when chrono trigger gets brought up people are like its the greatest rpg of all time because the only thing those mouthbreathers can do is either get stuck in the past or parrot internet opinions. they are wrong. chrono trigger may have been some revolutionary experience to rpgs around the globe because somehow someone managed to make an rpg that finally played like something other than a boring random encounter forgetfest where every time you went into battle you felt like killing yourself but thats hardly an achievement. yes chrono trigger did do a lot of things right and still to this day could be a source of innovation for any future rpg developer because even to this day it feels polished as all forget but the core gameplay really just isnt something that keeps anyone coming back. its still pretty good and you should check it out possibly if you want just to see how much better this game does things better than your stuffty favorite rpg. i still need to play a final fantasy game to see how properly chrono trigger stuff on the competition but that day is yet to come.
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