Chrono Trigger – Part 37: End of an Epoch

Summary: Some of my final thoughts on Chrono Trigger.


Protagonists

One of the game’s best aspects. A broad and diverse array of characters who are (mostly) given delightful and unique personalities. Exceptionally well-developed.

Ayla: YES SHE’S MY FAVORITE!! Stong and assertive. Fun. Outgoing. A beautiful and joyous human being. Even thinking about her makes me break out in smiles. What a physical presence! I adore the catlike style. A queen of pre-history. Leader through and through.

Found on etsy, by bitsandblurbs.

Perhaps my favorite part of Ayla’s strength is her positivity. There’s a character I’m reading about in “Worm,” Funqbjfgnyxre,” who emphasizes strength by scoffing at those who lack it and using it to make the weak suffer. Ayla on the other hand approaches strength from a place of respect, respecting those she defeats and using her power to protect. I’m thinking especially of how she treats the fallen Azala.

Frog: YES HE’S MY FAVORITE!! There’s a chance I MAY ship Frog/Cyan. Noble, sense of honor. And insecure! That’s the icing on the cake. We got to see him as a scared kid and then a squire in the shadow of his friend. Grew into the powerhouse that broke open the path to Magus in one of the most badass fist-pump moments in this entire FF playthrough.

Marle: YES SHE’S MY FAVORITE!! Such a wide emotional range, from joy (heeee jumping for joy Marle . gif) to despair to righteous anger. Angry Marle may be my favorite Marle. Loved the storyline with her father. The chills from her busting through the stained glass!

Lucca: YES SHE’S MY FAVORITE!! SCIENCE! But not always science. Her backstory was a crushing (sorry) touch and fit her well.

I feared early on that she and Marle would compete romantically for Crono and snipe at each other, but maybe I should stop worrying about that. That’s a dynamic I see in pop culture frequently, but it hasn’t come up in the FF series really. Not in FFVII, nor in FFVIII, nor here.

Robo: YES HE’S MY FAVORITE!! (Crap. Too many favorites.) How does this robot companion get so many good stories? The Mother Brain thing. The rejuvenation of Fiona’s forest. Literally everything about his friendship with Lucca, and his emotional development.

Crono: The silent protagonist. The most boring of the characters because he was a blank slate. This sounds snarky, but I mean it at least a bit sincerely: the most interesting thing Crono did was die.

”Fate of the World,” by spicyroll.

Did NOT expect that. And he died for the sake of others’ character development. A worthy sacrifice.

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Side Characters

Not a huge number of side characters I feel the need to comment on, but a few jump to mind:

Schala: One of the saddest aspects of the game. I loved Zeal, and she seemed to represent the best of it. The most magical and empathetic that kingdom had to offer. The most doomed too. I hoped we’d get her as a party member instead of having to see her die in the Ocean Palace.

The Gurus: Wise old men. Helpful, some humor.

Kino: Second fiddle to Ayla and totally happy with that role. No struggle for power. A bit of jealousy, but he admitted it, apologized, and grew. Solid supporting role.


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Antagonists

While they weren’t groundbreaking of my favorites, they filled their roles well.

Magus: I learned that he could’ve been in my party, but in my playthrough he was just an antagonist so he goes in this slot. I thought he’d be the Big Bad pulling Lavos’s strings. No go. In an interesting twist, it wasn’t like Lavos was pulling Magus’s strings!

Queen Zeal: A bit one-dimensional corrupted queen. Wish I got to spend more time in Zeal and see how she ruled the dream Kingdom. I’d give a lot for a game focusing on life in Zeal at the kingdom’s zenith.

Lavos: Sort of a cross between the Creator in FFIV:TAY and Jenova in FFVII. Spent so much of the game thinking he was a mindless beast the oozed corruption.

Lavos, by zerocartin.

I’m not sure still how I feel on learning that he’s a malicious humanoid alien. His roar will haunt me forever.

Yakra’s Line: Hee. Sorry, just had to mention the bloodline of evil vengeful yaks.

Magus’s Lieutenants SO MUCH FUN! A bunch of goofballs, especially Ozzie, but I have to give a special shout-out to Flea. I was terrified that the game would mock him or use his feminine gender presentation as a joke and it never happened.

Flea, by carpenoctem.

It was just a part of his personality and style. Bless CT for that, small though it may be.

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Story

The story of Chrono Trigger is delightful in its malleability. The past was meant to be changed! And because of the Epoch and the gates, you could change something and almost immediately see the impact of those changes by zipping into the future.

Chrono Trigger maintained quite an air of mystery to it, which I liked. I’m a notoriously bad guesser, but even so the plot was well-masked while still engaging throughout. Kept me interested throughout to learn who Lavos was, what his deal was, and how to stop him.

The overarching Lavos plot felt less than the sum of its parts. The whole thing was fine enough, if a bit of a standard alien-monster-threatens-the-world. The way the story was told was unique though! I loved bouncing around to its origins and perhaps even more to his ending. One of my favorite tropes is when the villain wins. Loved it in FFVI, and loved it here by seeing life in 2,300 AD.

My favorite parts of the story were the individual character stories.

Lucca and Robo, by Tyler Edlin.

Frog’s arc and Lucca’s arc and Marle’s arc and all the relationship building.

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Gameplay

A glorious highlight. This is my favorite combat system in any of the FF games I’ve played.

Positioning: Varied positioning made each fight feel fresh. I had to watch enemy positioning and my party’s positioning and adjust accordingly.

Techniques: HUGE variety of techniques. Single, double, and even some triples. GOD THESE WERE SOOO MUCH FUN! And very few crap techs. Almost any given party composition provided the tools necessary to deal with each situation. Some were stronger than others, such as wanting to have lightning for dinosaurs, but I never felt weak.

Sure, techniques lacked the customizability that’s been present in many FF games, but I’m kind of okay with that. I liked the linearity of FFIV’s spell system more than many, so not having materia or whatever is fine by me here.

Leveling: The best leveling system in any of the games I’ve played. The characters leveled up together. I didn’t have to swap out characters. I didn’t play with certain characters only to have the ones on the bench get weaker and more useless. This meant that I could enjoy the story more, since I could play the characters that I felt fit best for a given part of the story rather than just “the best” characters.

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Music

Brilliant set of music! Evocative for a range of settings and emotions. Some personal favorites:

-Green Memories
-Secret of the Forest
-Frog’s Theme. Makes me want to hold a sword aloft and watch light shoot out from it and CHARGE AT A FUCKING MOUNTAIN WALL AND DESTROY IT AS I COME INTO MY POWER AND CONFIDENCE ON MY WAY TO AVENGE MY FALLEN FRIEND WE’RE COMING FOR YOU MAGUSSSSSSDFLSHFLSKL

Found on theartofanimation tumblr.

sorry I get a bit carried away with this theme

-Ayla’s Theme! (Like most things relating to Ayla, it’s hard to not involve exclamation points.)
-Strains of ********. Spooky af, especially with that laughter/crying in the background.
-Zeal Palace. The definition of ominous.
-Ocean Palace. Perfect intensity builder for a dangerous dungeon.
-The Final Battle. While it’s not my favorite boss music (still probably “The Extreme” from FFVIII), it’s damn solid. And two words: Lavos’s roar. JESUS.

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Art

Enemies: The combat system means they built enemy units with a different style than FF. They never had the static combat art that most SNES pre-FFVIII games used, so less detail and more big cartoony features. Which is fine! I really enjoyed it, and it fit with the tone of most areas. Nothing like the Evil Masks of FFIV.

Environments: Not a ton to say about the environments, but I’ll comment on two areas I especially liked. 2,300 was so cold and bleak and full of despair. Wonderfully post-apocalyptic. The Kingdom of Zeal in the Dark Ages is the other area that jumps out to me. It seems a bit like a prototype for my favorite artistic area in the series, FFVIII’s Esthar. Floating islands? Futuristic technology in an unexpected place? Yes please.

Party Sprites: So much personality. Little things. Like, Marle’s joyous victory poses.

Frog’s gun show, and the way Frog’s throat palpitated when he was especially excited.

Techniques: These looked so frigging cool! Too many awesome ones to count here, but the art on the techniques made me want to use them even when I didn’t strictly need to in combat. Bright and energetic and colorful.

Couldn’t find the original source, but the credits in art seem to be “JMU.”

Personal favorites include X-Slash, Frog Flare, Slurp Kiss, and Volt Bite.

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Length

Length is always a weird thing to judge. The main thing I ask is: did it drag? Did it feel rushed? Did I want it to end before it did? No on all fronts. Perfect.

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Replayability

I honestly don’t know. I could play through and experiment with different party compositions and techniques – and get Magus the next time around – but I didn’t feel like I missed much compared to pretty much every FF game since FFIV. The main value in replaying seems like it’d be more about enjoying the unique combat system and gameplay rather than discovering new secrets.

And the characters. Down the road, I could see replaying this game just to get to spend some more time with the Ayla, Lucca, Frog, and company.

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A Brief Ranking of the Main FF Games I’ve Played It’s Just One Small Opinion Please Don’t Kill Me

While Chrono Trigger isn’t an FF game, I’ll add it into this list because it seems to fit thematically within the playthrough. FFVI is still far and away my favorite, but it was really tight between Chrono Trigger and FFVIII. I keep wavering back and forth between the two. I enjoyed the stories in each pretty comparably, and liked how each played with time, but ultimately I go with CT above FFVIII because I like its combat systems a thousand times more.

Actually, I like the Chrono Trigger combat system more than FFVI as well, but I like the FFVI character and stories more.

1. FFVI
2. Chrono Trigger
3. FFVIII
4. FFV
5. FFVII
6. FFIV
7. FFIII
8. FFII
9. FFI

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Final Thoughts

SO GOOD! I started this game initially to kill time until FFIX and ended up with one of the most fun experiences in this series. I can see why Chrono Trigger is so highly regarded in the canon of RPGs.

I also have literally no frigging clue why its combat system hasn’t been replicated in the games I’ve played up to now. [Note: of course, please do not tell me if it gets used in another FF game. I want to be surprised. ]

The characters, the music, the art, the goofiness and the emotional gut punches all rolled into one 16-bit package.

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And Thanks

Thank you everyone for reading and lurking or commenting. It’s such a treat to get to play and write and engage.

And thank you thank you THANK YOU for not spoiling anything! I’ve taken a look at some CT LP parts, and the comments are full of crap like “I’m so happy to find this unspoiled playthrough! I think you’ll especially enjoy getting Magus as a teammate later, so be sure to not fight him.” I never have to worry about that posting on Mark Spoils.

p.s. I’ve started backtracking through some of the rot13 and y’all continue to be sadistic and evil.

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Next time: no more posts the rest of this week, but starting FFIX next Sunday WHEEEE NEW FF!!