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Product summary
This perennial time-travel adventure is worth falling in love with all over again.
Specifications: ESRB: Everyone 10 and older ; Genre: Role-Playing ; Number of players: 1 Player See full specs
Price range: $38.99 - $39.99
Gamespot editors' review
- Reviewed on: 11/21/2008
- Released on: 11/25/2008
It's been more than 13 years since SquareSoft first released its time-travelling epic Chrono Trigger on the SNES. With an endearing cast of characters and a fantastic story that took place throughout the ages, it went down in history as what many would call one of the greatest games ever made. It was later rereleased as a part of Final Fantasy Chronicles on the PlayStation, and though it included several new features such as anime cutscenes and a detailed bestiary, it suffered from long and frequent loading times. The Nintendo DS rerelease includes new areas to explore, an all-new ending that better ties into its sequel, Chrono Cross, and all of the additions of its PS1 predecessor (minus loading issues), making it the definitive edition of Chrono Trigger.
When the Kingdom of Guardia gathers to commemorate its millennial anniversary, the young Crono celebrates by sleeping in. Roused out of bed by his mother, he rushes to the festivities to catch the public demonstration of his inventor friend Lucca's latest creation, and in his haste literally runs into Marle, a hyperactive girl who looks more than a little familiar and insists that he show her around. With little choice in the matter, Crono brings his new companion to Lucca's show, where an experimental teleportation device malfunctions, sending Marle through a rift in the space-time continuum. Armed only with a wooden sword and dangerously spiky hair, Crono follows Marle into the past to attempt a temporal extrication, only to begin a long and arduous journey to prevent a tragic future from unfolding.
Along the way, Crono and his friends encounter an exceptional cast of allies, including the heroic Frog, a medieval knight sworn to defeat the sinister Fiendlord who turned him into an anthropomorphic amphibian; Robo, a humanoid robot from the future with a penchant for gardening; and Ayla, the hotheaded and enormously strong chieftain of a prehistoric tribe. Together, these time trotters face down a memorable cast of villains, from the cold and calculating Azala, queen of a race of hyperintelligent dinosaurs, to Magus, the scythe-wielding sorcerer supreme better known as the Fiendlord, in their quest to defeat the evil entity known as Lavos. From beginning to ending (all 14 of them!), Chrono Trigger offers a deeply satisfying combination of storytelling and character development that few games have managed to top, and that even the most stone-hearted will find emotionally stirring.
To this day, Chrono Trigger is a fairly nonstandard role-playing experience due to a number of innovative design decisions, but this was especially true at the time of its release. Its combat system allows for your three party members to attack separately or to combine their skills to create double or triple techniques of enormous power. Given that enemies are not randomly encountered and instead appear to wander the various dungeons that you explore, it's very possible to skip the vast majority of your fights should you choose to. As a result, the world map, which is represented by an extreme birds-eye view of your party, can be peacefully explored without fear of ambush. Considering that Chrono Trigger deals with the concept of time travel, any decision you make can have world-changing--and often not immediately noticeable--effects on the future. For example, your every deed at the Millennial Fair in the very beginning of the game may potentially come back to haunt you not long afterward. This cause-and-effect gameplay forces you to consider the short- and long-term consequences of your actions, and is also used to great effect in completing side quests.
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