Crono Trigger
December 11, 2008
Well well I’ve finally managed to finish Crono Trigger DS which came out a while ago and I can finally review it.
Graphics 5.5/10:
Even though Square-Enix decided to retain the original SNES graphics I still maintain that the sprites in this game are masterfully made, some of the best on the SNES and honestly better than quite a few modern DS games. If this was a SNES review the I’d probably give the game a ten for graphics. As it stands however this is a DS review and I feel that Square-Enix could have done a lot better, I would have loved to see this timeless classic in fully rendered 3D that the DS is capable of. I mean four years ago a third party group took it upon themselves to try and recreate this game in 3d for the PC, the project was known as Chrono Ressurection and had to discontinue for legal purposes… but it was beautiful, the old website remains as a reminder of what could have been:
http://www.opcoder.com/projects/chrono/
Why couldn’t Square-Enix do this? Disappointing to say the least.
Sound: 8/10
The music is simply breathtaking, Chrono Trigger’s soundtrack has been a favourite amongst gamers for years and will continue to do so, I was thinking of giving a lower score but after thinking for a moment I realised that you can’t improve perfection, and thats what the CT soundtrack is.. perfection. I’d give the original SNES game a 10/10 for sound but again, this is a DS review and I feel that they could have probably made some voiceovers or something. Having said this its still an awesome soundtrack, countless tracks of melodic goodness.
Gameplay 10/10:
This game never fails to entertain, it has replay value that rivals any FPS or RTS and its an RPG! The concept of new game + and multiple endings that was part of the original SNES version is a genius invention. For those who don’t know new game + allows you to start a new game with the stats and items from a saved game file, so you basically start with your ending characters from the last finished game, the game features multiple endings (up to 13 I believe) which depend on when you beat the last boss, you can beat him right in the beginning with the first two characters thanks to new game +. Back in the SNES days I managed to unlock about 8 different endings although admittingly this was on an emulator which had a fast foward function. Other than this, the game features dual and triple techs that encourage the use of different character combinations, to this day I can’t decide which party combination I like best.
The battle system is typical ATB but unlike final fantasy games your characters aren’t all lined up on one side of the screen, this makes for a more battle-like feel in my opinion, even though its fundamentally the same system it feels different.
Story: 10/10
One of the best RPG stories I have ever played through, it keeps you intrigued and isn’t your typical good party vs evil party trying to take over the world. Add in the time travel element and you ahve one dynamite of a story, I don’t think I need to say anymore, its just that good.
Extra Features: 3/10
I really felt these were just an excuse for releasing the game on a portable console. Square-Enix released the DS version of Chrono Trigger with a couple of new features, 2 new dungeons, the arena of ages and a whole list of your typical bestiary, item encylopedia etc. The new dungeons may sound interesting but they’re so repetetive and unrewarding that I felt like just finishing the game several times rather than just go through those sidequests. The story would be quite interesting if the dungeons you have to traverse weren’t so annoying, every single map has a group of monsters you can’t avoid and so every time you go through the maps you have to fight. This becomes extremely frustrating when you have to go back and forth up a mountain 10 times because a stupid reptite can’t fetch his own things.
Now onto the Arena of Ages, its like pokemon but really nothing special, I didn’t even bother experimenting with it, it looked THAT boring. Its basically a place where you can ‘raise’ your own monster and battle it with other creatures or players. Yeah, I’m not going to say much else on that.
The only saving grace for these features are the extremely typical ones such as the bestiary and item list. Even though they are typical they’re presented quite well in quite a bit of detail, you also have a musicbox, a theater for the in-game cutscenes and an ending log. Nifty if you want to see which one’s you’ve unlocked.
Conclusion:
I’m a die-hard fan of CT, it was the first RPG I ever played and it set the bar pretty high. It would have been beyond awesome to see the world of CT rendered in glorius 3D. Sadly this isn’t the case and I had to settle for this re-port to the DS. Fortunately I was actually planning to play CT again since I hadn’t for such a long time so it wasn’t as if I was playing it for the millionth time, it was nice and refreshing. Overall I still enjoy the game even after its many years in the market its just such a perfect amalgamation of music, gameplay and graphics. The end score being short of ten is simply because I was disappointed with this game being simply a re-port rather than a re-make. One more thing worth mentioning is the change of script, its not a dramatic change but theres are some noticeable differences, some bad some good, I hated the renaming of robo’s skill ’shock’ to ‘electrocute’ I just couldn’t get used to it, other than that the script changes don’t really effect my opinion of the port.
Overall: 7.3/10
Unfortunately I don’t have the time to download and isntall a DS emulator and provide screenshots so heres a glance at what could have been: