Replaying Chrono Trigger

Screenshot from the Steam version of Chrono Trigger.

I can’t remember if I played Chrono Trigger on the SNES, but I’m certain I played the PS1 port. I have vivid memories of those animated cutscenes and how much they felt like clips from a cartoon series.

I enjoyed Chrono Trigger when I first played it, but it didn’t leave an impression on me like Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy IX did. I’ve seen it espoused to be as close to near-perfect a game can get. I’d assumed a lot of that love was driven by nostalgia. I wanted to replay it to see for myself. Could it really be that good? I expected to enjoy playing it, expected it to be good, great even. But perfect? That’s a bold claim.

A COMPACT 20hr RUNTIME

I had forgotten how compact these retro SNES JRPGs were. Chrono Trigger’s runtime is a compact twenty or so hours. It kicks off at a fast clip and doesn’t let up, with a nonstop string of reveals, twists, and world changing events. There’s no excess in any of the storytelling.

We never linger in one area for too long. The player is in and out of dungeons without any meandering, and even the towns are devoid of the usual need to run-around and talk to everybody. The only buildings we get access to are the important ones, entering inns, shops, and homes of prominent NPCs directly from the world map.

It sounds odd to call twenty hours compact, but that’s how playing Chrono Trigger feels. It gets its hooks in early and pulls you along with ease. Like the video game equivalent of a page-turner.

ACTIVE TIME BATTLES ARE HECTIC BUT REWARDING

The consensus that I often see online is that static turn-based battles are superior to Active Time Battles. The argument being that static turn-based systems allow for more strategy. I used to fall into this category too, but after replaying Chrono Trigger, I’ve developed a new appreciation for ATBs.

ATBs can be hectic and feel nerve-wracking, but that can be part of the fun. It’s also apparent that you’re meant to be able to weather a few extra hits while you’re choosing abilities. This works great at ramping up tension in fights and makes each decision feel urgent.

Recently I replayed Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy IX. Both have ATBs that feel cumbersome in regular fights, not moving along fast enough and making these basic encounters drag on. Conversely, both really shine in boss fights, where the extra time is needed to adjust to big hits and stay alive. This makes FF4’s and FF9’s combat feel off-balance, with regular fights being burdensome but boss fights being thrilling and intense. Chrono Trigger doesn’t have this off-balance feel, the regular fights are quick and snappy, while the boss fights are still intense and nerve-wracking, but not so much so that they ever feel unbeatable or unfair. This is why Chrono Trigger turned me around on ATBs, it hits the right balance across all its encounters.

SKIP THE LOST SANCTUM

The Lost Sanctum is a side area that was added to the DS port and then carried over to the Steam port (I think it’s in the mobile version too). It’s dull, repetitive, and just not worth your time.

In The Lost Sanctum you hop through a time portal to find a peaceful reptite village. These reptites give you a handful of fetch quests spanning two eras. That means not only are you running around uninteresting dungeons, but you’re leaving and re-entering the Lost Sanctum over and over in different time periods to run around these uninteresting dungeons.

If you look up anything about it online, you’ll immediately find people complaining about running up and down a mountain. Said mountain is a criss-cross path of rope bridges that spans multiple screens, and the fetch quests have you running up and down it like twelve times, back and forth through different time periods.

The reptite village is bland brown cave walls, with holes that are meant to be “houses” (which you can’t enter), and one table and chair plunked in the corner. All the other villages in Chrono Trigger are on the world map, the only buildings you can enter are the important ones, usually with a packed lived-in (and often cozy) interior design. We don’t need the whole village, we know it’s there, just give us the important buildings. The reptite village doesn’t benefit from having a wide open, empty expanse of a cave system that’s devoid of personality. Just plop us in the tavern and leave the exterior village to our imagination.

It's dull, tedious, and uninteresting. The Lost Sanctum seems to miss the point of what makes Chrono Trigger such a compact and tightly woven experience. Skip it.

STILL LOVABLE 25 YEARS LATER

I don’t have to espouse how great the story is, chances are if you’re reading this you’re already familiar with it. Suffice to say, the story holds up. With lovable characters and a plethora of time hopping storylines, it’s an absolute joyous romp from beginning to end. I get it now, Chrono Trigger really is near-perfect.

If you haven’t played Chrono Trigger, go play it. It’s a phenomenal experience and well worth your time.

Sea of Stars Looks Awesome

Sea of Stars is a turn-based RPG from Sabotage Studio, a Québec based indie developer. Their Kickstarter smashed through its original goal, accruing a total of $1,628,126 CAD.

The early demo released on August 20, 2020, and will be open to backers until September 20, 2020. It follows two Solstice Warriors, Valere and Zale, as they search for [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS] (this is actually used in the demo) who has presumably been taken by the game’s villain, the Fleshmancer.

Shades of the Past

Sea of Stars is heavily influenced by retro JRPGs, but the most notable influence is Chrono Trigger. Sea of Stars features beautiful hand-drawn sprites, vibrant backgrounds that are filled with life, and an overall style that will feel familiar to fans of old school RPGs. Maybe most notable, no separate battle screens. All combat happens directly on the dungeon map.

And there are team attacks, which will also be familiar to Chrono Trigger fans. These allow Valere and Zale to combine their abilities to make them stronger. Team attacks work differently from Chrono Trigger’s Double Techs. They use Assist Points, which are gained by breaking enemy ‘spell locks.’ Spell locks require you to hit an enemy with specific damage types (lunar, solar, physical, etc.) before the counter reaches zero. If successful, then the spell is interrupted and you gain an Assist Point.

Linking team attacks and Assist Points to spell locks is a great way to add an extra challenge to combat, and I really loved trying to plan out my attacks so I could break spell locks before their counter reached zero.

It’s one of the ways the folks at Sabotage are taking from the old but adding the new. The game’s aesthetics, sound, visuals, and story all feel reminiscent of retro games many of us love. But they aren’t beholden to any of it, there might be glimpses of JRPGs like Chrono Trigger, but there’s a whole lot of new innovative ideas in Sea of Stars that shine all on their own.

Elegant Simplicity

Sea of Stars also features ‘timed hits,’ similar to Super Mario RPG. When making an attack, you can press the A button (or X button on a Dualshock-style controller) just as the attack is about to hit, and do bonus damage. When enemies attack you, pressing the A button just before the attack lands will reduce the damage.

This also applies to special abilities, where getting the timed hit just right will increase its damage or boost an ability’s healing. The special abilities are especially fun though. Valere’s Moonerang is a great example, when she tosses it out, it’ll bounce off enemies and back to her. Press the timed hit just as it touches Valere and she’ll launch it back at the enemy. It’ll go on for as long as you can get the timed hits right, gaining speed with each strike, becoming an extremely fun form of pain volleyball.

I love how all this is mapped to one button. It makes it simple and straightforward, it’s easy to pick up exactly what you have to do for each attack and ability. Once you understand there are timed hits, the learning curve for each new attack type is quick.

I think of a few games that had Super Mario RPG’s style of timed hits, but tried to build upon what it started. Games like Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and The Legend of Dragoon. TLoD had combos for its basic attacks, which had the player hitting a variety of inputs at the right time. But these always felt like quick-time events, and could sometimes be more frustrating than satisfying. Paper Mario: TTYD had a whole range of inputs, everything from swirling the analog stick, to pressing the Z button along with the shoulder buttons, to full-on mini games in the middle of combat.

These were all fun at the time, but looking back I think they’d frustrate me now. Paring it down to the simplest, most straightforward form is an elegant solution that still allows for a lot of variance in combat.

And when combat in Sea of Stars gets rolling, everything clicks into place. Going from trying to get the timed hits right, to blocking multiple attacks one after another, to planning out your special abilities to break spell locks. It falls into a rhythm that’s both challenging and satisfying. I had the most fun in battles where the enemies would fling everything they had at you, forcing you to use every tool at your disposal.

But Gimme A Minute

Sea of Stars uses turn-based combat and doesn’t use an Active Time Battle system. A subset of turn-based combat, ATBs make a game’s flow entirely different. They became common among a lot of old school RPGs (Chrono Trigger used it as well), and lasted into the PlayStation 1 era. I’ve always preferred turned-based combat without ATBs, even though some of my fondest memories are of Final Fantasy games that use it (more on that in a future blog post 👀).

ATBs definitely instill a sense of urgency in combat, but don’t think Sea of Stars can’t match it just because you can take a second to think. When you’re trying to figure out if you can break a spell lock before the counter runs out, while also trying to get the timed hits right to both defend from incoming attacks and do more damage, the combat naturally creates tension without the need for ATBs.

All in All

Sea of Stars is looking amazing. The early demo is a lot of fun and already has a ton of polish. The game is expected to release in two years, and I can only imagine the things the folks at Sabotage Studio will do to truly elevate the experience. This is definitely a game you should keep your eye on.

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Interested in reading more about retro gaming?

Then I’d suggest checking out Aidan Moher’s work (Twitter). He just recently released “Timeless: A history of Chrono Trigger,” a monumental deep dive into the history of Chrono Trigger and the people that made it. I highly, highly, recommend it.