Chrono Trigger: The Unforgotten Masterpiece that Did Made it to the West

Yes, we all remember the 16-bit era of the Super NES and Sega Genesis and we all remember our beloved plumber Mario and Sonic, but there are many other great titles that were lurking elsewhere among them. Chrono Trigger is one of those title that many gamers and RPG fans could appreciate back in the 16-bit era. It was developed and published by SquareSoft(now Square Enix) and is the one title that took the Super NES console to its limit.

Chrono Trigger(CT) is a turn-based RPG similiar to Square's mainstay Final Fantasy series, but unlike that series which are consist of random encounters, in CT, players could actually see the enemies lurking and can either choose to engage in battle or avoid them. The turn based battles can also be fought in active mode which let the enemies themselves attack your characters even if they are not prepare or in wait mode in which the enemies will wait until the characters are prepare and the fight will resume. While in battle, players can also learn new multi-tech attack in which two or three characters can combines there attack or spell together to inflict heavy damage on the enemies, for example the Twister Multi Tech which had Ayla use Tails Spin along with Chrono's Confusion Tech and Robo's Spin Laser to combined into one twisting typhoon that will suck in multiple enemies and inflict heavy damage to each one. Also in CT, you will have access to seven main characters, six if you choose to drop one of them(Magus), and due to this, the game will come to an entirely different conclusion depending on how the game is played throughout. The storyline in CT started out like many other RPGs similiar to the Legend of Zelda: A Link To the Past, Breath of Fire I & II, and Golden Sun(with the main hero waking up before he journey out), kind to think of it, almost every good RPGs back them started out the same, even Link's Awakening and Ocarina of Time which had the same wake up and start your adventure kind of playover. Then you'll start to meet new party members such as a genius inventor(Lucca), a tomboyish princess(Marle a.k.a. Princess Nadia), a futuristic robot(Robo a.k.a. R-Y66 Prometheus), a frog prince(Frog a.k.a. Glenn), a prehistoric babe(Ayla), and a mysterious wizard with a dark past(Magus a.k.a. Janus), you will even encounter many scenes in which you are given special tasks like saving the inventor's mom, fight or welcome an ally, change names of party members, and even change the history of each of the timeline in between each events. Heck, even when you do make it to the end and fought the main nemesis of the entire storyline, you will be given a special new do-over mode that will let you restart from the beginning but with every data, items, and strengths you currently had fully intact and also let you discover the many multiple endings within the game.

When CT was released on the Super NES, many young players didn't had the chance to play it due to arcade being so popular at the time and platform games rule out most of the categories in a console, RPG back them are very rare to appreciate, but a few that did had a chance to play this had found that it is one of the most enjoyable game of even the most popular genre. CT also featured incredible graphics and a great presentation, all of the game's characters and events are hand drawns and created by Dragon Ball and DBZ creator, Akira Toriyama(who's is now lending his magic alongside Mistwalker Studio for Blue Dragon on the X-Box 360 and Square Enix for Dragon Quest Sword: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirror on the Wii), the game is also handled by Dragon Quest creator, Yuji Horii, and Final Fantasy co-creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi(who's the owner of Mistwalker Studio and is responsible for Blue Dragon on the X-Box 360) with the musical score by Yasunori Mitsuda. With an ultimate dream team of developers like this, no wonder CT is one of the best and most unforgotten masterpeice of an RPG ever created.

Since CT didn't get the high sale it is aiming for back then, it was later released in 1999 as a PlayStation bundle with Final Fantasy IV in a compilation package known as Final Fantasy Chronicles, it was one of the most complete package of two of the best RPGs ever, CT in that package even included many extras such as a music jukebox, a "Dash" feature for faster gameplay, some new DBZ style anime FMV movie cutscenes to tide it in with the PS sequel, Chrono Cross, as well as new endings not found in the original, though all these features were great additions, many players also felt that the PlayStation port of CT which got a few new pros above its Super NES version also had a new con that were not in the Super NES version at all, load times. In the new release, load times play a very big part in game play, it takes away the fun when waiting for a single battle to occur and end as well as chatting with NPC characters and opening and closing menus. Though load times are feature, most of the original magics are still in the game and the New Game Plus option is still available just like the original. One strange fact that did occur in 1999 is that when FF: Chronicles were released, many RPG fans who played those versions later decided to actually went to search on Ebay or Amazon in finding the actual cartridge versions of those games rather then playing the compilation at all and the Super NES version of CT later got into a popular price frenzy with online sellers whom sold the original cartridge for as high as $60-$90 when in truth at game retailers, the cartridge actually cost around $8-$10 with the PlayStation compilation carrying a cheap price tag of $20.

So as you already know, CT is a masterpiece of an RPG, it's good that it is also one of the few great RPGs Squaresoft had actually released in the U.S. but was unappreciated when it first came to released, due to this unappreciation with RPGs from young gamers back then, almost every good RPGs from other RPG publishers didn't reach the western world as well like Tales of Phantasia, Treasure Hunter G, the Fire Emblem series, Star Ocean, Magic Knight Rayearth, Dragon Quest V & VI, and even Square's very own Final Fantasy V, the Romancing SaGa! series and the rare forgotten masterpiece that was Seiken Densetsu 3(the true Mana sequel to Secret of Mana as opposed to Secret of Evermore which was also good but not part of the series). It's too bad that even now as new gamers are starting to appreciate the RPG genre, there will never be a time when we could actually play the original Star Ocean or the great Seiken Densetsu 3 on our very own HDTV since the publishers didn't really see any gamers this generation interest in re-experiencing those masterpieces. Let's keep our fingers cross for these titles and keep the petition going in case if one actually did become available for download either for the Wii's Virtual Console or Sony's PlayStation Store on our new generation consoles. It would also be great if CT be there as well, many RPG players would agree it's better to play the original version(with no load times) in cheap quality form rather then shelling out a few near hundred bucks for it on Ebay and yes, we don't want to force ourselves illegally downloading those roms either.