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Chrono Trigger is one of those games you can play just for the music.
For anyone interested, Chrono Trigger is part of the Steam Spring sale for just $3.74. It’s absolutely worth that price.
I have never played Chrono Trigger, but I am currently spending some time playing old classic games. However, some games don’t age well and are mostly appreciated due to nostalgia. How easy is Chrono Trigger to get into for someone without the nostalgia, and is the Steam release worth playing?
There are a lot of JRPGs from this era that I love dearly but would have a hard time recommending to anyone who didn’t grow up on these kinds of games. Games that are slow, grindy, and mostly consist of clicking Attack every turn.
Chrono Trigger is the one exception I can recommend to anyone, and then say that if you liked this entry point then you can try some other JRPG classics.
Just note that the original SNES translation should be avoided, play a modern rerelease or a retranslation patch.
But Ted Woolsey’s original SNES translation is gold for what it is. Remember that he did the whole thing basically by himself and had to get extremely creative to cram the script into the ROM space since English text takes up more characters than Japanese, while also avoiding NoA’s insane censorship rules at the time.
I respect the hell out of him for doing the best he could with very limited resources, difficult technical limitations, and an insane deadline. I just can’t recommend playing that version today over a better alternative.
CT is one of the all time great JRPGs… if you put the effort in.
But it is very much a product of its time between missable party members and even mechanics that penalize you for opening treasure chests too soon.
Conceptually it is cool as hell that there is something like five or six main endings and then a bunch of variants and special/joke endings. But… this is a 20-30 hour JRPG and ain’t nobody got that much time. Although, different re-releases have helped speed those up.
All in all? The big set piece moments are some of the greatest in gaming. The moment to moment are… from the early 90s. I would probably recommend grabbing a totally legit dump of your SNES cartridge, playing until you get bored/annoyed, and then watching a lore video.
Missable party members? 5~ endings?
Is this really in Chrono Trigger?
There is an optional party member that you can either recruit or fight based on which dialogue option you pick. You’ll know it when you see it though, so it’s easy to make the right choice.
There are 12 endings (13 in DS and subsequent rereleases). You can easily see all of them in just two playthroughs. Theoretically you could even do them all on the first playthrough, but it’s much easier to do in NG+.
The only caveat is that you have to see them in order, you can’t backtrack if you miss one, which is why I recommend starting with the final and true ending on your first playthrough, then do all the others on NG+. NG+ makes it pretty easy to speed through things as well, your second playthrough will be much shorter.
There is also one (three?) party members that you can potentially lose due to story related reasons and not recover before endgame.
And yeah. With a guide and some save scumming you can definitely optimize your routes. But that also kind of defeats the purpose of “enjoying” the game, at least to me.
The character that leaves and rejoins the party is not permanently missable. It might be tricky to figure out how to get them back, but there’s no fail state.
You can and should do the first playthrough blind. Save the guide for NG+.
