Twenty-three years, eh? Some of you reading this are probably younger than that. Well, you whippersnappers had better sit up and pay attention, because a genuine, no-qualifiers-necessary JRPG classic just popped up on Steam, over two decades past its original Super Nintendo debut.
While others such as Square's own I Am Setsuna have attempted to recapture its spark, there really is nothing quite like the original time-travelling classic Chrono Trigger. For the first time, us PC folk can experience it without having to go emulate old consoles, though perhaps not without some issues.
CHRONO TRIGGER – Launch Trailer [multi-language subtitles] Watch on YouTube
The good news is that this looks to be the largest, most feature-filled version of the game to date, taking the handful of anime cutscenes from the PlayStation edition, as well as a pair of optional new dungeons from the Nintendo DS version, one set during the prehistoric period and the other offering a random dungeon crawl that spans every time-period in the game.
The less good news is that this appears to be a port of the Android/iOS version of the game, with some worrying touchscreen-esque UI elements visible in the trailer. More scars seem to remain from the porting process, including slightly overly filtered textures and - if the trailer above is to be believed - some rough edges visible between sprite layers. Nothing that would undermine the game greatly, but it does make me wish that every retro update offered a pixels n' all nearest neighbor filtering option.
Square have released a few wonky mobile ports of RPGs to PC before, including Final Fantasy 6 and Romancing Saga 2. Both of those had their own issues at launch, and while the former was partially fixed by modders, the latter was officially patched into a better state. If Chrono Trigger on PC is plagued by strange hybrid controls, I'd expect to see that patched up before too long, although the slightly off-kilter sprite filtering seems liable to stay as-is.
Port issues aside, for those who have never played Chrono Trigger before, it's a perfect example of a JRPG for people who don't normally enjoy JRPGs. There are no random encounters, the combat is fast but tactically satisfying, the cast are a likeable bunch of dorks designed by Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, and there are a multitude of possible endings based on just how thoroughly you choose to complete the main story arc. It's a tightly designed little thing that has aged far better than most of its contemporaries.
It's not a sprawling, incomprehensibly huge adventure either, as nobody has the time for a 70+ hour epic anymore (he says, while planning on putting a few more hours into Final Fantasy XIV tonight). While the main story wraps up in 20-25 hours of consistently paced adventuring, if you want to see the best possible ending for your band of time-travelling weirdoes, you'll have a few more hours of optional quests ahead of you, featuring some of the most memorable moments in the game.
Chrono Trigger is available now on Steam for £12/$15 right now.
