Happy 20th, CT

Just thought I would point out that one of the greatest games of all time, as stated by multiple sources, Chrono Trigger, reaches its 20th anniversary this year.

As someone that bought it Day 1 on SNES back in '95 (and still have that same cartridge), I wanted to get an appreciation thread going for this gem and other masterpieces crafted by the former giant that was SquareSoft.

SS was an absolute juggernaut that exerted its dominance for a literal decade(regarding US releases), from '93 with the release of Secret of Mana until 2003. While there were certainly gems before this period and some great games after the merger, that time frame was what many would consider their "golden age", with the merger marking its end.

What say you? Agree? Disagree? Do you think Chrono Trigger is worthy of its label as a masterpiece? What other SquareSoft and Square Enix games are among your favorites?

I...never actually beat CT. I owned it on PSX though.

Another SquareSoft game I thought was a masterpiece was Final Fantasy IX.

/salute!!

I liked the replay value of Chrono Trigger. I wish they expanded the series further than 2 games though...

Don't we all... I truly wish Chrono Break would have materialized, rather than end up being abandoned. Oddly enough, the development and subsequent release of FFXI is partly to blame for Chrono Break being left behind. Staff from CB was moved to FFXI.

Happy birthday!

ps. where is my sequel?

Btw, thanks for making me feel old!! D:

My brother sold my original cartridge, along with a ton of others while I was out of the house.. Super bummed. I have a replacement, and plan on playing as soon as I get through this play through of FF4. I am willing to argue CT is one of the best RPGs of all time, with only FFT and FF6 giving it a run.

Hell Europe only recently got the Chrono Trigger release for the DS, we never even got Chrono Cross, fantastic game and I'm glad I get to say one of my favourite video game characters is a frog.

Now give the EU Chrono Cross already SE.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

*Ribbit*

Chrono Cross. The quintessential example of character roster bloat.

Still loved it. That opening at Fort Dragonia.

Why Cross gets ***is because the original game was so character driven and then you get a sequel where mushroom men, voodoo dolls and tiny dragons are getting character slots.

Oh and Cross ***on its predecessor just cause it could. 'What the *** is going on???' JRPG plot points aside around disc 2, the game has a marvelous OST and tops the RPG charts of the PS1 era.

FF7 is better then CT you should feel ashamed for saying otherwise.

It's all about the Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, man.

Chrono Trigger... My fav game Single player RPG ever. Prolly the best RPG ever made next to FFT and FF6.

Chrono Cross was such trash tho.

He didn't....?

I've never played another game that had more replay value than CT. FF6 was excellent, Tactics and Cross were meh. Legend of the Dragoon was way better than those. Cross had fantastic music, but little replay. CT allowed me to get so sucked in I could new game+ a game twice in one day without thinking about it. It also paved the way for rpg's to have multiple endings. Though it kind of got a bit cheap with a rainbow sword and frenzy band equipped, haha.

Tactics was great. Tactics advanced sucked ***. Story and general plot was weak.

Dragon Warrior IV, that is all.

Great game, but I liked Seiken Densetsu 3 better.

agreed i loved both chrono trigger and ff series, but my hands down single player ff has to be ff9 such a amazing game as well.

Bloodrose !!! we find common ground in our love of Tactics and dislike of advanced +1 you. Tactics was a another master piece have you tried the psp version i fell even more in love with it. I remember how bad of a mistake it was grinding my characters to max lvl before the first 3 chapters and realizing how hard i made the game for myself,lol. Sure i destroyed the story line missions, but each random battle was tougher then the final boss !!!! I had to make sure i saved after each random battle because of that. *** chocobo armies !!!

Disagree, No
I liked Chrono Cross more than Chrono Trigger.

FF Tactics(FFTA sucked), Parasite Eve, Xenogears, SaGa series, Tobal 2, Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean, Dragon Quest VIII, 3,5,6,7,9

He didn't, but I will: FFVII is a bloated, cancerous mass ruined by too much fan hype backing a very run-of-the-mill game. Chrono Trigger had a laundry list of positive points that have rarely been matched.

For one, it's basically the only game with a New Game+ mode that makes some semblance of sense with regards to its plot. The story was varied but coherent. It had side-quests but you couldn't disappear so deep into side-questing that you'd forget what you were doing. You basically did not need to grind, in stark contrast to almost every other JRPG, though you can grind if it really matters to you to get Ayla's Bronze Fist. The multiple endings encouraged replay in a way few games at the time (only a limited number since) had done.

Other than that, it was just a gorgeous example of the JRPG with a fairly fun variation on the turn-based system (that's one gripe I have: for all they claimed it was active-time, even basic attack animations tend to take so long as to make it irrelevant). The music will be burned forever in my auditory memories. And the plot point around a character death was handled beautifully.

FFVII is mostly just another JRPG. It added nothing meaningful to the battle system, it is the granddaddy of getting distracted and lost by side-quests, it continued the rotten trend of every character being largely interchangeable, and it did nothing to encourage replay unless you really wanted to take Barret with you on a date. It wasn't a bad game. The music was great, the cast of characters was varied, the story was ok (but suffered the same problem most Final Fantasy games have: you can easily forget what the hell you were doing).

The only thing that can be said is that Chrono Trigger unfortunately didn't change anything in the industry in spite of its little innovations, whereas FFVII launched a fanbase (I have no idea why -- was 3D that compelling? I don't remember being amazed by it when it came out while I in high school), so I guess FFVII was technically more successful. At least Chrono Trigger isn't one of those games that was lousy at launch but has lately been bathed in nostalgia like, say, Earthbound.

And I couldn't even get invested in Chrono Cross. I didn't like the characters and I didn't like the battle system. If one is going to make a game that finally becomes "good" after 20+ hours invested (*cough* FFXIII *cough*), make the story to get that far compelling and the gameplay simple enough that I'll endure it.

indeed.

i got to say ff7's 3-d approach was mind blowing back then even if the graphics are not comparable to today's " standards". Back then ff7 was top notch graphics wise. I give credit to where its due square soft which latter became square-enix continue to push forward with all types of improvements. I give my thanks to that because they gave me a side hobby i like to do. To give myself a break from the insanity of researching policies,lol.