Chrono Trigger Review

Okay, today’s review is gonna be big. I mean, we’re talking about one of the two best RPGs to come off the Super Ninetendo. Are you curious what the other one is? Well, you’ll have to wait a good while, because I’m not reviewing that game so soon after Chrono Trigger! Oh, I’m so happy they re-released this game as part of Final Fantasy Chronicles. Never mind the added cut scenes (though those are nice) this game is a ton of fun. Without further ado, Chrono Trigger.

The story starts with Chrono, typical silent protagonist, going to the fair. There, his friend Lucca’s newest machine sends him into the past, where he learns many secrets affecting the future of his world. To save the world from its current future, he has to change events in the past, and entirely remove something from the world. Something big. This summary doesn’t really do the plot justice, because every time you think you’ve got things figured out there’s a new twist. Some of them you’ll see coming, some will be genuinely surprising. My plot summary is vague precisely so that I don’t inadvertently spoil the plot for anyone. Ultimately, I think Chrono Trigger’s plot is one of the few truly original plots for an RPG.

The characters you meet in the game are mostly pretty cool. Chrono’s a bit bland, but Marle is a refreshingly robust tomboy princess, and Robo the robot is remarkably likeable. But Frog, the human knight turned amphibian, is probably my favorite of the non-secret characters. There’s a secret character, but don’t worry, it’s pretty hard to miss getting them.

Part of what makes the characters fun is the way in which they can perform special attacks together. Each character has their own set of special attacks, which they gain by reaching a certain level. Some of these techs can be combined with other characters’ special attacks to form double and even triple techs. It’s not too outrageous to say that mastering the appropriate use of techs is the key to beating the game. It certainly makes party selection vitally important. For example, two of the main physical attackers, Frog and Ayla, have a double tech that restores lots of hp, making them great healers. Anyhow, when you’re walking around in a dungeon, you can usually see the enemies coming, and sometimes avoid them. However, there’s times when you’ll get ambushed at a certain spot, so you can’t avoid all battles. Still, it’s a refreshing change from random battles. Also, in battles, there’s some interesting dynamics. Some monsters will attack or eat other monsters, rewarding you for observing your enemies and deciding, “No, I’m not going to attack you until you’ve eaten all of them.”

Replay value? Chrono Trigger defined replay value for RPGs. The New Game + feature was absolutely revolutionary when it came out, and has become a trend for games that want serious replay value. But did it really work for Chrono Trigger, or was it an idea ahead of its time? Well, there’s a lot going for Chrono Trigger. The multiple endings to the game give a pretty good reason to play things through another time, and add a little bit of a puzzle element to the game. It’s tough to figure out how to trigger some of the endings. It’s nice that the game saves them for you, and saves your stats, so that you can focus on blasting through the game rather than power leveling or anything. Heck, you can even try out different combinations of characters, though with story mandated pairings that you’ll have to work with at various points, there’s not many that you’ll never have tried before. So, yeah, the New Game + system worked pretty well for Chrono Trigger, all told. I’ll give it a “Play it normally once, and then New Game + until you can beat Lavos with just Chrono.”

Well, gosh, already to the rating? Time flies. Chrono Trigger is an older game, which does tend to mean a little bit of a shorter playtime. It’s not unreasonable to expect 30 hours or less to a playthrough, and new game+s are even faster. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just that Chrono Trigger will likely leave you faster than you might like. Then again, there is some good stuff in further replays. I think that I’d give this game a 9.1 out of 10. It’s a great game, and there’s a lot going for it, but it feels a little too short for my liking. I don’t know why, I’ve played shorter games, but this one feels like it should be longer. Not like there’s a lack of sidequests either. Oh well.

Quick Tip: If you encounter sealed chests in the past, examine them, but don’t open them! You’ll get a better item if you open the same chest in the future. After you’ve done that, you might head back to the past for the goodies.

Fun Fact: Ozzie, Flea, and Slash are all named after musicians, from the bands Black Sabbath, Guns N Roses, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, respectively. And Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball, did the character designs for this game. Really, you should know these already. There’s another fun one. Listen to Robo's Theme ("instrumental"). Now listen to "Robo's Theme". Yes. That’s right. They Rick Rolled people years before it was popular. They must be able to travel through TIME! (Or perhaps they just sound kinda similar, happens all the time. Oh well.)

If you liked this game, you might want to try one of these games. Chrono Cross, so long as you think of it as a completely separate game, has a few cameos and some similar battle elements. Breath of Fire III has a lot of the interesting monster dynamics type things. Suikoden also has a bunch of characters who have combination attacks, though most only have one or two at most.

Grandia

Heyas, rpg fans, today I’m gonna talk about one of my all-time favorite games, Grandia. Ugh. What a name. It brings to mind burly muscle men, blood, sweat, and all the plot of dead rat. I mean, really, what kind of guy thought up the name? I get that you want to make your game sound cool and all, but this name practically screams delusions of grandeur.

Or, so I thought before I played the game. The opening cinematic was the first thing that tipped me off as to what this game really was. Sure, there’s lots of destruction and huge mechs or whatever, but there’s also a bunch of kids. Oh, that must mean this really is a JRPG. It’s a good opening though, with a great piece of music (the theme of Grandia) and some cool cg scenes… too bad they’re all just clips from in-game cutscenes.

Right, well, on to the story. Grandia is about a spiky haired guy named Justin who has to save the world from a power hungry bastard who unleashes the power of an ancient evil. Fortunately, Justin is helped during his journey by a number of unlikely allies. Yeah, it’s a standard story, one you’ll see repeated fairly often. However, Justin starts out not as an adventurer, but as a kid just looking for some fun. The first quest of the game is running around the first town finding some pieces of legendary gear which consist of the “warrior’s helmet” a.k.a. battered pot, “shield of light” a.k.a. pot lid, and the “spirit sword” a.k.a. wooden sword. It’s kinda cute, and Justin really does feel like a 14 year old boy. While the game can get serious at times, it doesn’t ever really lose the sense of humor evident in your first quest.

Most of the characters are similarly interesting, with the main love interest, Feena, being a spunky older girl, who has a lot more experience and sometimes acts as the voice of reason. There’s a few characters who are not so great, like Liete, who is completely flat, with no real development or distinct personality. And the main villain is nothing special. “Rar, I will unleash ancient evil to rule the world. I sure hope nobody decides to explore outside of their hometowns ever.” Not the greatest planner or schemer. Some of the sub-villains are cool enough, like Nana, Saki, and Mio, the trio of sadistic girl army officers. On the whole, the characters aren’t original at all, but they’re well portrayed.

A RPG must be a game, and though likeable characters or good story can cover for a lot, if the gameplay is bad, there’s not much hope. Grandia’s battle system is pretty solid, especially considering that battles only occur when you run into an enemy on the field. It’s actually possible to avoid a fair number of fights entirely, though that might leave you hurting when you have to fight a boss. But maybe not, because this game is not actually that hard. When involved in a battle, there’s a bar that your characters’ icons move along, as well as the icons of the enemies. There’s a space on the bar where you enter a command, but you have to wait a little while your character’s icon gets to the acting spot on the bar. When there, they execute the command, either in real time for a normal attack, or stopping time, for a magic or special attack. You can cancel an enemy’s attack with a powerful attack (special attack, magic, or the simple critical command) made while a character has selected an action but is still waiting to execute that attack. Also, the level up system for magic is exploitable. You gain experience in one or two of the four elements for using spells of the corresponding element, even outside of battle. Likewise, you gain experience when you do an attack with a certain type of weapon equipped, but this isn’t possible outside of battle. Once you get 100 experience, your magic or weapon levels up, granting you more mp at each of the three levels of magic, and an ability boost related to the weapon or magic used. Each character has a list of magic and special skills. You can see what level of what element or weapon type you need to have achieved to obtain the next special attack or spell.

As far a replay value goes, if we consider a scale from “No.” to “Take this game on a journey to deep space, it’s seriously that much fun to play through again and again,” Grandia gets “one, maaaybe two plays through.” It’s a good game, and it’s possible you might miss one or two things the first time round, but there’s no particular incentive to go through the game again. No “New Game +” feature or anything like that.

Wait, you want to hear an evaluation of the graphics in this game? I know I’m going to have to say this again, but I don’t think graphics are particularly relevant to rpgs. Sure, there’s some cases where the graphics really do get in the way of enjoying the experience, and there’s a few games where the art actually has a major effect on how good the game is, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. Am I to say that Grandia is a worse game than Grandia Xtreme (more on that thing later) simply because Grandia is several years older? I don’t think so.

Okay, down to a numerical rating. I should warn you, I love RPGs. That’s my thing, after all. So, on a ten point scale, I pretty much give every RPG a 5 at least based solely on the fact that I like the genre. So I guess you can think of this scale as a five point scale, from 5 (offal) to 10 (sirloin). And for Grandia… 8.9. It is one of my favorite games of all time, but there’s some issues. No replay value to speak of, the Playstation port freezes with some regularity (I had to beat a certain boss several times because the game froze before I could get to a save point), and a lack of sidequests (there are three bonus dungeons, that’s it), and a few other niggling features (like questionable voice acting) prevent this game from being top of the pile.

Quick Tip: Rotate the camera aggressively when you play this game. There’s a lot of semi-hidden treasures that you won’t see unless you look really hard. Also, don’t forget the left hand rule of maze solving.

How I Broke Game: I took the time in the Dom Ruins and got resurrection magic (Water 16) before any of my other magics were above like 7.

If you enjoyed this game, you might want to check out the following games. Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, which both have a similarly light-hearted approach, and somewhat similar battle systems. Grandia II has a fairly similar battle system, and a decent plot.

Introduction

Howdy everyone! This is probably a good place to put some basic information down. This blog's purpose is to review Jrpg's from the point of view of a player of jrpgs. When mainstream video game reviewers deal with rpgs, they deal with it for the general video game playing crowd. What I'm doing is "preaching to the choir" of already infatuated rpg nuts.
Now, to start off, what is an rpg? It's always a tough question, but here's my basic answer. An rpg is a game where it is possible, at least to a certain point, to increase the abilities of a character without the necessity that the player get better at the game. What this means is that any game where your character(s) can become permanently and inherently more powerful than they previously were is an rpg, so long the player does not necessarily have to improve their skills to make significant use of this power up. An over shield, à la Halo, doesn't qualify, as once the over shield takes enough hits, it disappears. The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, however, does count, since heart containers don't go away. A J[apanese style] rpg, is one where the arc of the plot is basically pre-decided, though multiple endings may still exist.
That said, I've got a few minor housekeeping things to say. All games are copyright their respective owners, distinctive images likewise. If you want me to review a specific game, great! Despite the name of this blog, I'll also review W[estern style] rpgs upon request. However, I only own a Playstation 2, a Nintendo 64, and a pc with Windows Xp. If the game does not appear on one of those systems, and/or I don't already own that game or have ready access to a copy that I can borrow, you'll have to send me a legitimate copy of the game in question and the relevant system, if applicable. I'll give ship them back after I'm done with the game of course. I do not support roms or any illegitimate hacks or copies of any games.  Please send any hate mail, love letters, and solicitations to noyesge@yahoo.com. I look forward to ignoring your badly spelled, incoherent and irrelevant tirades. You can also send any polite response to the same e-mail address, but I might read it and respond to you as courteously as I can, so you are forewarned.