The Wii may be light on new games, but Nintendo just added a classic to its Virtual Console download service. Chrono Trigger, one of the most highly regarded RPGs in history, is now available for download. The price: $8.00 (800 points). Republished by Square Enix, the original 1995 SquareSoft role-playing game takes place on an Earth-like planet and follows a young man (Crono) from 1000 A.D. who transports to the future and finds that a giant creature (Lavos) awakens and destroys the planet in 1999. Vowing to save the planet, he begins transporting through time to find a way to stop the beast.

Chrono Trigger was developed by a dream team of RPG developers. It’s artwork is drawn by Akira Toriyama, who is best known for creating the Dragon Ball series and the art for Dragon Quest; it’s music is composted by Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu, the latter of which is renowned for his compositions in Final Fantasy games; it was directed by a trio of designers and planners from various Final Fantasy games; scriptwriter Masato Kato from the Ninja Gaiden series helped write the game as did the creator of Dragon Quest, Yuji Horii; and Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi designed the game. There was no shortage of talent in the Chrono Trigger development team.

It’s story has been praised, but Chrono Trigger is also one of the first RPGs where most battles were not random encounters. Instead, you would see your enemy in the overworld. Also, instead of transporting to a battlefield once a fight has started, Chrono battles took place right in the overworld as well. Finally, the game also utilizes a somewhat real-time battle system.

Chrono Trigger likely requires a Classic controller add-on, but if you enjoy RPGs, you may enjoy it.

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