The twentieth anniversary of Chrono Trigger

Intelligent Minimalism

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Characters have only a handful of abilities and equipment slots, and the use of each is carefully tailored with potential interactions in mind. Each of the seven adventurers has a very distinct look and ability set, and party composition greatly affects how you approach encounters. While the world itself is sprawling, most individual zones and dungeons are carefully constructed to be explored in digestible portions without a lot of frustrating backtracking or aimless wandering.

Fluid Battles

Combat is extremely fast and very rewarding. A simple positioning system encourages variety in attack choices, and party members can coordinate to deliver devastating combos. Your handful of abilities are almost all useful, and some are delightfully flavorful. If you’ve never known the joy of crushing your enemies under the weight of a gargantuan glowing magical frog, you really owe it to yourself to play Chrono Trigger. No random encounters pad the story. Every battle is either carefully scripted or clearly indicated by the presence of nearby foes, and you can bypass many of them if you don’t feel like fighting.

Great Bad Guys

The enemies in Chrono Trigger are delightfully flavorful, colorful, and entertaining monster designs that are a feast for the eyes. The major villains are sympathetic and interesting characters with comprehensible motivations. Show mercy to your archenemy after your final encounter, and he joins your party as an aloof, grumpy, and extraordinarily powerful ally who doesn't really like you very much. And the final big bad isn't some cackling miscreant: he’s a hungry alien starfarer who’s just doing what hungry alien starfarers do on a geologic scale.

Rewards for Experimentation

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Your choices have consequences. It’s entirely possible to jump far ahead or outside of where the game’s canonical story wants you to go, and should you succeed despite the odds, a myriad number of alternate endings await to reward you for your experimental initiative. Plot twists abound, people die, and good does not always triumph. Even your harmless pranks and misdemeanors may come back to haunt you.

Delightful Tone

Sound engineering is extraordinary in Chrono Trigger. The capable SNES sound processor is pushed to its limits synthesizing clocks, bells, wind, teleporters, spells, and a host of memorable instruments. The music is vibrant, diverse, and sonorous, with melancholy and spirited scores perfectly fitting the alternately grim and hopeful tones of the narrative. While Chrono Trigger tackles some heavy stuff, there’s always a playful self-awareness, a sense that there are moments of friendship, humor, and wonder worth smiling at even in the darkest times. Also unusually for a JRPG, the story actually makes consistent sense, with understandable motivations and character reactions throughout.

Chrono Trigger is best experienced today through its excellent DS port or the Wii Virtual Console. The PSN version is based on an inferior PlayStation CD version and loses some of the magic. If you’re a JRPG fan it’s an absolute essential, ranking alongside the all-time greats like Suikoden 2, Dragon Quest 5, Final Fantasy 6, and Persona 4 Golden. But even if RPG’s aren’t normally your thing, you really ought to consider taking Chrono Trigger out for a spin. It’s instantly comprehensible, immediately likable, and marvelously immersive.

Jared Petty is a Senior Editor at IGN. His name is Gato and he has metal joints. Sing along with him on Twitter.