Chrono Trigger for PlayStation 1

In September of 1995 the small in-house project that Square paid little attention to, was released in the states and since then console RPG's could never be on par. Why? Three reasons: (1) Square left Nintendo and became a money grubbing weasels that care more about making movies than making REAL games. (2) The Dream Team of Akira Toriyama, Yuji Horii, Yasunori Mitsuda were giving free rein over the game when it was in development. (3) It's a first for consoles RPG's in MANY WAYS!

IT was the first RPG to totally eliminate random battles, and when battles did happen they happened on the same overworld screen. The first RPG where each character in your party could attack together in double and triple attacks. The first to have the New Game+ option of after beating the game completing EVERYTHING you can go back and at certain points beat the game again getting close to 20 endings depending one where you are in the New Game+. The first that I can recall where the main character dies and you can progress further into the story, even in New Game+ you can beat the game.

The story followed Crono who WASN'T the chosen one, WASN'T related to the villain, WASN'T the son of a great warrior who lives in the shadow of his father, WASN'T a clone of the villain, and wasn't a kid itching for adventure. All he was, was JUST A KID who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As he's walking through the Millennium Fair he bumps into Marle (who is Princess Nada in disguise) who tags along with him. When they meet up with his friend Lucca and test her teleportation device. Marle's pendant has a strange reaction with the device and she is sent back in time, Crono soon follows and his adventure through time begins. Crono has no story or background; hell he only said one thing in a silly ending where Marle and Lucca rate the men of the game. He acts more like bridge to connect the stories together. That is the true sprit of role playing, your you but as Crono, you make decisions as you see fit not like say FF7 where your cloud and have to be like cloud weather you like it or not.

The game is full of little quirky thing that gives it its charm. For example when you return with Marle you are charged with kidnapping the princess and depending on what you did at the millennium fair you will be found guilty or not. Say you pick up the pendant before talking to Marle you'll accused of bumping in to the princess to get the pendant. Also there are character witnesses depending on what you do. If you bring the kitten to the little girl she defends you yet if you take the food on the table a guy will say you stole his lunch. Not only silly things but things that effect the ending like if you decide to kill Magus, Frog/Glenn
will be human at the end of the game. Also if you crash the Epoch into Lavos you won't be able to chase your mom through time in the end. At one point you need a item that a greedy rich man refuses to give you, yet 600 years earlier his family is poor and has given up on the kindness of strangers, once you gain their trust the guy in the future will be more generous....MUCH more. Finding these things was probably the best part of the game and gave it the most replay value aside form the endings.

The game did spawn a sequel on SNES's disk drive named Radical Dreamers which is the same story as Chrono Cross, same characters and such, backing up the fact Square was a better company under Nintendo's wing. Sony did remake the game but it had nothing to do with the original Radical Dreamers.

Overall this game is still my favorite game of all time and suggest if your not a neo gamer and don't feel that 2D graphics = bad game; that you try to find this game. It should be more cost effective to get a Rom but I DON'T CONDONE THAT AT ALL!. Or pay the average used price of 39.99 for the game. Hopefully the Dream Teams next game Dragon Warrior (forgot what number) for the PSX will be as good if not better then this.
heheh they had enough time to do so....