Chrono Trigger (DS)
As I held Chrono Trigger’s DS incarnation
in my hands, I felt a bit… nervous.
Trepidation, you could say. I had played Trigger’s sequel, Chrono Cross, several times as a child (it being my favorite game of all time), and I had heard and read so much about this legendary game, I couldn’t help but wonder if it could possibly live up to the hype. Did it? Read on to find out….
Platform: Nintendo DS
Developer: Square (original)/TOSE (DS)
Publisher: Square Enix
Release Date: November 25, 2008 (USA)
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone 10+
in my hands, I felt a bit… nervous.
Trepidation, you could say. I had played Trigger’s sequel, Chrono Cross, several times as a child (it being my favorite game of all time), and I had heard and read so much about this legendary game, I couldn’t help but wonder if it could possibly live up to the hype. Did it? Read on to find out….
Platform: Nintendo DS
Developer: Square (original)/TOSE (DS)
Publisher: Square Enix
Release Date: November 25, 2008 (USA)
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone 10+
Background
As I’m sure most (if not all) of you know, Chrono Trigger was a widely praised game for the SNES, created by Final Fantasy‘s Hironobu Sakaguchi and developed/published by Square (now Square Enix). Released here in the States on August 22, 1995, it was a critical success, earning several awards, and even managed to sell well. It was later ported by TOSE to the original PlayStation, along with Final Fantasy IV, under the title Final Fantasy Chronicles, with new animated cutscenes and some unlockable content. This version is what it’s Nintendo DS incarnation is based upon.
The Story
Chrono Trigger centers around protagonist Crono. The game begins the morning of the Millennial Fair. Heading to Leene Square, Crono meets the mysterious Marle. As Marle participates in one of Lucca’s teleportation experiments at the Fair, Marle’s amulet activates, sending the mysterious girl into a strange portal. As logic dictates, Crono naturally attempts to follow her, despite not knowing how safe this endeavor may be. This turn of events sends Crono and the gang on an epic adventure through time, winding through major events in their world’s history, gaining new friends, and entangling themselves in the ultimate fate the planet itself. All of this leads to a final confrontation with Lavos.
The game features a few unique endings, each one dictated by your choices in the game, as well as which party members you use in the final confrontation.
Features
The DS’s touch-screen is the game’s main standout feature. Thanks to this simple addition, navigating the menus and doing battle is a breeze. Though it feels completely natural to use the touch-screen, it is completely optional. You can forego the new control scheme and navigate battles and menus using the directional pad and A/B/Y/X buttons for that old-school feel. When out of battle, the bottom screen is dominated by a map of your current area and menu icons. In addition, the game also includes unlockables, such as a bestiary (which lists stats and info on monsters you’ve battled, including bosses), a “Music Box” (allowing you to listen to songs from the game), an art gallery, and an “Ending Log”, which keeps track of endings you’ve unlocked, among other features. Also present are the animated cut-scenes from TATO’s PlayStation port, which are sprinkled throughout the game, and are viewable in the extras menu after they’ve been unlocked.
Gameplay
The game is split into several time periods, navigated by portals at the End of Time early in the game, and the Epoch a little later. These time periods are reflected most evidently on the over world map; changes in geography are the biggest changes between time periods, as well as the inhabitants of each era.
Most of the game is spent navigating the overworld and dungeons with either the directional pad or the stylus. The action takes place on the upper screen in and out of battle. Out of battle, the lower screen holds a map of your current location (whether it be the overworld or dungeon), as well as icons allowing you to access your items, equipment, and the save/load screens, among other things. During battle, battle commands are located on the lower screen, allowing you to use the stylus, making battles fun and fairly fast paced. Your team can consist of up to three characters at a time. Each character has a magical element type, which dictates the type of Techs they use; Crono, for example, is Lightning type, so his special moves tend to be electrical (ex. Lightning, Luminaire, etc.,…), in addition to his Physical type moves (ex. Slash). In addition, party members sometimes have the ability to augment each others moves, creating Dual and Triple Techs, bringing two or more party members together for a single attack.
Graphics
This game is beautiful. The environments (overworlds, towns, and dungeons) are well designed, and look gorgeous, and the character sprites are charming, to say the least. It may just suit my tastes, though, as I’ve read that the graphics look dated to some, but, aside from the pixely character sprites, I just don’t see it. This game shows why I believe that 2D games are still viable in this day and age.
Music
First off, Yasunori Mitsuda is one of my favorite composers; his soundtrack for Chrono Cross is one of the greatest soundtracks ever. So, one thing I was looking forward to with Trigger was hearing Mitsuda’s work for it. To say that I wasn’t disappointed is an understatement. Even though Trigger was the first game he significantly contributed to (only a few songs on the soundtrack aren’t scored by him, thanks to stomach ulcers he developed while working on it; these few tracks were scored by Final Fantasy’s Nobuo Uematsu, as well as Noriko Matsueda), the quality of work is really astounding. I was pleasantly surprised to hear some familiar ques he had reused later on Cross’ soundtrack. Some very, very catchy tunes here.
Faults
Chrono Trigger doesn’t feel terribly long: I think I squeezed as much gameplay as I possibly could out of it in a little over 30 hours using the roughly the same team; that includes leveling all 7 characters up in battle enough to learn all possible techs, as well as quite a bit of procrastinating. Other than that, I really can’t think of anything to fault it for. Some may not care for the rewritten script or renamed items/monsters, but if you’re like me and never played the original version of the SNES or the PlayStation port, this really isn’t an issue.
The Final Word
Does Chrono Trigger live up to the hype? Yes. Rarely do I play a game where I thoroughly dread the ending; not because of a difficult final battle, but because I simply don’t want the story to end. This is most definitely the case with Chrono Trigger. If you’ve never played this amazing game, the DS version is a great alternative to the SNES and PlayStation versions. Do yourself a favor and pick this game up!
10/10
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