Occasionally the stars are align and a unique group of creative people come together to make something spectacular and its time ahead. So Chrono Trigger Was made, a role -playing game for the SNES who came out this week 30 years ago and still blew me away. Playing was a formative game moment for me and one grateful that I experienced first -hand.
Classics determine the test of the time by definition, but that does not mean that they will always meet twice in the same way. Especially in games in which technological progress and innovation in relation to other media move at an exciting speed, playing of just five or ten years after its publication can change its effects dramatically. But I didn't have to fight to discover The virtues, stimuli and joy of Chrono Trigger'S round-based fight, pixel art sprites and 16-bit music decades after they became relics of the past. I was there before they were buried under massive open worlds, 4K textures and film stories. It is both mine Citizen Kane And my Rosebud.
The shortest version of history the legendary development of the game Is that. Talent of the two largest Japanese RPG franchise in the 90s –Final fantasy And Dragon Quest-If together to make a modern mashup for the SNES that would break new soil on several fronts. Dragon ball The creator Akira Toriyama made the art and Yuji Horii contributed to writing, while Star developers of Square such as Takashi Tokita, Yoshinori and Kazuhiko Aoki were directed and produced. Final fantasy The creator Hironobu Sakaguchi supervised the project, while Yasunori Mitsuda composed the game's unforgettable soundtrack.
For those who have never played before Chrono Trigger beforePresent It is an epic, time-hopping adventure that weaves in and from medieval imagination and futuristic science fiction while his characters are fighting to save the world from an extraterrestrial evil. In addition to time travel, there is a lot of magic and a focus on the indescribable will that remains, which can only be derived from deep ties of love and friendship. The events begin at the Millennial Fair, an event on the 1000th anniversary of the foundation of a kingdom called Guardia. Here a crooked science experiment of the past opens up a portal that sends the title Chrono on a collision course with the Apocalypse and begins a search, the twists and cleverly avoid the cliché and opposed the expectation. In a minute you fight a huge dinosaur dog, in the next in a floating kingdom in the sky. And in the end, with the aliens Lavos in one of the most epic wind-based multi-phase boss battles in the history of the genre.
The moments that were the most response for me as a disciple were the dramatic history and climatic battles. Very early on, save a princess just to be in court in court. The famous courtyard scene does not solve any costs. A threatening judge monitors the procedure with a massive glass sculpture behind him. Co -citizens cry and grumble in the wings with every new accusation. However, the verdict is ultimately the verdict of random, innocent actions at the beginning of the game, like regardless of whether they accidentally stolen a person's lunch or save a kitten. That they still inevitably go to prison, regardless of whether they were announced guilty or not only serve to underline the injustice of the whole. It's still one Master class in video game storytelling.
Screenshot: Quadratic Enix / Kotaku
Part of Chrono TriggerThe permanent heritage is that it is full of moments like this. Your party becomes much more powerful after learning to use elementary magical attacks that open new multi-character combos. Exactly the same attacks are then led against you in a fight against the evil magician Magus, which leads monsters against humans in their war. He has his own special boss music, which contains the 16-bit version of someone who laughs in the background. Only later do they learn that Magus is a temporal intruder hundreds of years ago, who was accidentally thrown through a time portal as a child because his mother was obsessed with the harvesting of Lavos. He is an asshole, but they feel bad for him. He can even join her party later if you hit him in a single duel. This happens after Chrono has died and before they bring him back to life unless Chrono Trigger'S many hidden endings.
The lesson here is that things in this game go very quickly from the rails and then keep going into unexpected, unknown territory without ever falling. Chrono Trigger Never feels like a series of fetch quests or tasks that are sewn together, while their real goal is repeatedly mocked from the horizon. Every time there is a wild shit that you think, you know where things go, then there is a little more wild shit that you indicate a completely different, but also reminding and convincing direction, and every time it deserves and makes you full meaning. Everything is conveyed with beautiful art, razor -sharp writing and a flawless score.
When I get older, I appreciate other aspects of Chrono Trigger Even more: all his little nuances, innovations and details that still feel nimble, fresh and unique. For example, the struggle is revolved, but there are no random encounters. Everything goes smoothly in the area when the exploration is shifted to fight, including the enemies, each of which has animated attacks instead of just being static sprites. While some scenes are written, another dialogue flashes over while you can explore and move freely, even if some of the hardest lines are delivered in the game.
Then there is the time travel mechanic. While the story continues until the final, the act of postponement of epochs full of small allusions in the past and the future that make Chrono Trigger Feel like a complicated, living world. This sensitivity leads to details that range from special treasure chests that only offer the most powerful objects if they are opened as far as possible in the future, right down to entire side quest users who change the future or reveal the past (I have spoiled a lot in this tribute, but I will not spoil them). And of course there is the fact that Chrono Trigger Was ready to kill his title hero and let the players at the same time to beat Lavos less than half of the game. It turns out that it feels incredibly liberating that the trip of the traditional hero is relieved, even if you keep it out.
Chrono Trigger Is one of these games that have a special magic that the fans keep waiting for someone else to be recreated. Why did it never happen? Even games that look like Sea of stars Are only echoes (albeit great alone). There are all kinds of theories that could be positioned, including the possibility that my pink cola bottle glasses cover my view of the past. However, I suspect that the result of a group of masters who worked together in a small team and develop for great hardware that they were closely familiar with. You cannot make the past, and although we always get a lot of games that are so good or better than Chrono TriggerWe will never get the top fusion of technology, art and design again. And 30 years later I still can't believe how good it is.
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