For example, and it’s no shock to anyone but me, I was shocked and delighted to see dual techs-abilities from two characters that combined to make one superpowered move-in Chrono Trigger after first experiencing them in Final Fantasy IX some years ago. In other places, like the game’s combat, I can clearly see hallmarks of some of my favorites that came a while after Chrono Trigger. It’s mostly contemplative in its tempo, with a dark, if not insidious, undercurrent buried in those synths, and it lights up my brain in the best possible way. And the music here, captures the quintessential fantasy of this scenario. The first occurrence of this time travel is by complete accident, and lands the player 400 years in their own past, in the year 600 A.D, when magical dark forces still pose a threat to their homeland and ancestors. If you don’t know already, though I don’t know how you couldn’t, Chrono Trigger follows a band of adventurers being flung backwards and forwards in time. What really makes “600 A.D’’ for me is just how accurately it fits the period in this game. The humble beginning, the magic-bearing synths, and the harmony that emerges from it and the instrumentation as it crescendos and crashes back in on itself nails the narrative arc of these games. I joked about it at first, but the overworld theme that plays when you’re first thrown into the past is a pitch-perfect JRPG theme. Chrono Trigger has me rapturous at its unrelenting pace a few hours in and I don’t really see it letting up anytime soon.Ĭhrono Trigger’s whimsical nonsense is aided by a score that simply doesn’t miss. What those ludicrous statements don’t entirely capture is my manic energy, not to mention my frenzied hand movements, as I’m laying it on my poor unsuspecting friends. Afterwards, I went back to the present, was imprisoned (and subsequently broke out of jail), destroyed a tank on my way out, and then escaped further imprisonment by jumping into a desolate future destroyed by robots and left to ghosts. The way that I keep describing Chrono Trigger to friends who aren’t as familiar with it is by rambling incoherently about the fact that within mere hours I’d accidentally sent a princess back in time, followed her back there, saved her ancestor, and started hanging out with a frog knight. Mostly though I just appreciate what an audacious game it is and what a wild ride it’s going to be all the way to the end. It’s been an absolute joy to dig into this game and find not just touchstones of games I’ve played since its release, but deceptively clever bits that not too many of its successors ever picked up on. Seemingly the JRPG that inspired the vast lot that’d come after, Chrono Trigger holds up remarkably well. There are games with a legacy and then there’s something like Chrono Trigger. In keeping with that tradition, this year I’m finally tackling Chrono Trigger. I sucked at it and got stuck after getting to the Dark World, but man was I glad to have tried it at all.
Last year, I tried my hand at A Link to the Past.
Rather than shoot for the average game, though, I try to knock something really big out. The onslaught of new releases is typically done by December and though this only just recently became a job, I get just enough reprieve to come up for air and do something for fun. Over holiday breaks, I tend to try filling the big gaps in my backlog.
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