Chrono Trigger, the best RPG ever made

[Bijo]

Ahhh, Chrono Trigger: IMO one of the best, if not THE best, RPGs in the whole damned world. It's like everything's perfect about this many-years-old game originally made for the SNES (Super Nintendo). Good story, good music, interesting characters, gameplay, etc.

Who here has played it? Let us reminisce about this fine RPG of the past :(

What I like most about it is that the atmosphere together with the music (and SFX) is so well done, especially in the darker areas of the world. And the time travelling is just great. It's one of those few games making me feel -- HAH(!), feel :P -- as if I'm in that world, totally immersing me, taking away all other reality. If a video game can do that to me, and it's a well-designed -- and in this case a perfect -- product... well, I rest my case. There's not a single point I can lay my finger on to criticize it.

Arrrgh! I get the urge to play it! Must... not... play... Chrono, Trig... ger, 'cause... agh, gotta do.... stuff.... and, this..... bahh!

[Fragony]

Time for a release on the virtual console, you will be happy to hear that the same goldenboys are working on another game for the Wii. It sure is one of the greatest games I ever played indeed, console rpg doesn't get any better then this, FF7 and FFX can go do something not very pg if you ask me.

[Whacker]

A truly timeless and excellent game to be sure Bijo, but my #1 favorite SNES game of all time goes (to a slim margin, there were sooooo many good games) to Secret of Mana.

[doc_bean]

I had a period a few yers ago where I played a lot of old school SNES RPGs, but for some reason i never got around to chrono trigger, perhaps I should look into it again.

I'd nominate FF6 or 7 for best (j)RPG I've ever played.

[econ21]

A truly timeless and excellent game to be sure Bijo, but my #1 favorite SNES game of all time goes (to a slim margin, there were sooooo many good games) to Secret of Mana.

I'd loved that game too. My first task of video RPGs until I got to the good stuff on PCs. The music was excellent and the world it created rather wonderful. It's rather hard to go back to now, though, once you are used to KOTOR and the like.

[Whacker]

I'd loved that game too. My first task of video RPGs until I got to the good stuff on PCs. The music was excellent and the world it created rather wonderful. It's rather hard to go back to now, though, once you are used to KOTOR and the like.

Nooooooo!!! Don't say that! You can and should always be able to go back to your old favorites for a nice stroll down memory lane. There's literally dozens of games spanning the past decade+ that are in my "rotation". Stuff like Final Fantasy 4 & 6, Deus Ex, Fallout 1 (and 2 now with killap's patch), System Shock 2, KOTOR, Rune, all in my list just to name a few.

The cool thing is that depending on how often you get a new PC, when you go back to play these games again you can keep bumping up your settings until you theoretically "max out" the game graphically. And there's always the odd project or two, like the opengl DLL rewrite for Deus Ex that adds a new life to the game. Stuff like this makes them all worth going back and playing again. To be fair though, I sometimes fall victim to the "graphics bug" as well, some stuff just gets... y'know, painful, to look at.

[Azi Tohak]

My favorite is FF VI. But CT is way up there too. I still think the combat was a great idea with the combos. And so pretty too! I need to load my emulator on my company laptop to take with me to Derkastan.

Azi

[Kekvit Irae]

I admit I'm the only old-school gamer who has never touched the Chrono Trigger series before. I was too busy playing FFVI and MajorMUD to care.

[UltraWar]

A truly timeless and excellent game to be sure Bijo, but my #1 favorite SNES game of all time goes (to a slim margin, there were sooooo many good games) to Secret of Mana.

Secret of Mana is my favourite game of all time. We should talk to each other more often!

[Bijo]

I admit I'm the only old-school gamer who has never touched the Chrono Trigger series before. I was too busy playing FFVI and MajorMUD to care.

What??? Shame on you! You must go play it now!

[Whacker]

Secret of Mana is my favourite game of all time. We should talk to each other more often!

Whoa! What's an UltraWar doing in a place like this!?

[UltraWar]

Whoa! What's an UltraWar doing in a place like this!?

Mostly to defend the legacy of the Secret of Mana series from all pretenders and to be friendly with people who also enjoy the game

[professorspatula]

Interesting to see how the original poster not just loves the game, but feels totally immersed in the game world. That's the problem I have with Japanese style RPGs.... I find them so far removed from reality, and to be honest - overly simplified, a little child-like even, that I can never take them wholly seriously. The characters and conversations tend to be simplistic one dimensional tools to move on the story rather than something deeper. Plus their incessant number of battles grates too. I tend to see games like Chrono Trigger more as adventure games with strategy bits bolted on rather than an RPG per say. You're following a very strict plot where you have countless battles to play. It's a journey, where you're the passenger. Fortunately, I think the journey is quite good with Chrono Trigger. I'll never love it like something like Ultima 7 (also more of an adventure game with RPG bits, where the characters and game world draws parallels to our own), but after a while, and the sheer number of hours you invest in the game, it does have a certain charm. I never completed it though. I'm not sure if I gave up after another difficult boss battle, or the PC packed up first. Probably the latter.


On a side note, are there actually any Japanese style RPGs that are gritty and dark and don't feature heroes with ridiculous 'just came out a salon' hair styles? The hair styles seems to be a trademark of Japanese RPGs, much like in Western RPGs where every dwarf must have a Scottish accent.

[Bijo]

@professorspatula
Actually, the immersing thing is over kind of. Back then I was immersed, now it's more like... still beautiful to see from my artistic point of view and a productional standpoint, but less immersiveness.
That criticism sounds familiar: I used to say that too about those RPGs (always the hair thing, and the young hero, and in the 3D RPGs those characters always have to "look good" or something)
I'll be honest with you: I used to hate RPGs a lot and I still do to some extent. It's just that there's a few that actually are worth it for me. Or maybe my taste has been changing (or has been added to) over time. I hate Final Fantasy for instance (though I don't mind part III/VI).

[frogbeastegg]

On a side note, are there actually any Japanese style RPGs that are gritty and dark and don't feature heroes with ridiculous 'just came out a salon' hair styles? The hair styles seems to be a trademark of Japanese RPGs, much like in Western RPGs where every dwarf must have a Scottish accent.

Shadow Hearts on the PS2 was quite dark and definitely weird. I haven't played either of the sequels; they are reportedly lighter in tone. The main character (Yuri) is a spiky-haired pervert who can morph into a bunch of damnably freaky monsters after stealing their souls.

Veeeery weird game. Oh yes. Certainly it is the only game I have ever played where there is a common enemy type which attacks by slapping you with its giant penis.

[Kekvit Irae]

I haven't played Shadow Hearts, but seeing the gameplay on Cheat! on G4, it looks very amusing. Where else can you find a drunken cat, a Mexican guitarist which uses his instrument as his firearm, and a Native American girl who frequently strips off what little clothes she already has?

[frogbeastegg]

That must be the second or third game. The first game wasn't really amusing, not intentionally anyway. The bad voice acting did make one cutscene laugh out loud dreadful. [very fake old lady voice] "Suirsh. Squirsh. Squuuursh. Splat. Squirsh. Squirsh. Squuurish. Splat." [/voice] That's someone trying to pretend to be a mystical old woman doing an imitation of the sound a drowned corpse makes as it shambles across the land to pay a visit. The cutscene was several minutes long, and this line appered frequently for dramatic effect.

[Kekvit Irae]

I'm thinking of Shadow Hearts: From The New World