Chrono Trigger

Chrono Trigger takes place in an Earth-like world, with eras such as the prehistoric age, in which primitive humans and dinosaurs share the earth; the Middle Ages, replete with knights, monsters, and magic; and the post-apocalyptic future, where destitute humans and sentient robots struggle to survive. The characters frequently travel through time to obtain allies, gather equipment, and learn information to help them in their quest. The party also gains access to the End of Time (represented as year ∞), which serves as a hub to travel back to other time periods. The party eventually acquires a time-machine vehicle known as the Wings of Time, nicknamed the Epoch (this default name can be changed by the player when the vehicle is acquired). The vehicle is capable of time travel between any time period without first having to travel to the End of Time.

Chrono Trigger's six playable characters (plus one optional character) come from different eras of history. Chrono Trigger begins in 1000 AD with Crono, Marle, and Lucca. Crono is the silent protagonist, characterized as a fearless young man who wields a katana in battle. Marle, revealed to be Princess Nadia, lives in Guardia Castle; though sheltered, she is at heart a princess who seeks independence from her royal identity. Lucca is a childhood friend of Crono's and a mechanical genius; her home is filled with laboratory equipment and machinery. From the era of 2300 AD comes Robo, or Prometheus (designation R-66Y), a robot with a near-human personality created to assist humans. Lying dormant in the future, Robo is found and repaired by Lucca, and joins the group out of gratitude.[15] The fiercely confident Ayla dwells in 65,000,000 BC. Unmatched in raw strength, Ayla is the chief of Ioka Village and leads her people in war against a species of humanoid reptiles known as Reptites.

The last two playable characters are Frog and Magus. Frog originated in 600 AD. He is a former squire once known as Glenn, who was turned into an anthropomorphic frog by Magus, who also killed his friend Cyrus. Chivalrous but mired in regret, Frog dedicates his life to protecting Leene, the queen of Guardia, and avenging Cyrus. Meanwhile, Guardia in 600 AD is in a state of conflict against the Mystics (known as Fiends in the US/DS port), a race of demons and intelligent animals who wage war against humanity under the leadership of Magus, a powerful sorcerer. Magus's seclusion conceals a long-lost past; he was formerly known as Janus, the young prince of the Kingdom of Zeal, which was destroyed by Lavos in 12,000 BC. The incident sent him forward through time, and as he ages, he plots revenge against Lavos and broods over the fate of his sister, Schala.[15] Lavos, the game's main antagonist who awakens and ravages the world in 1999 AD, is an extraterrestrial, parasitic creature that harvests DNA and the Earth's energy for its own growth.

In 1000 AD, Crono and Marle watch Lucca and her father demonstrate her new teleporter at the Millennial Fair in the Kingdom of Guardia. When Marle volunteers to be teleported, her pendant interferes with the device and creates a time portal into which she is drawn.[16] After Crono and Lucca separately recreate the portal and find themselves in 600 AD, they locate Marle, only to see her vanish before their eyes. Lucca realizes that this time period's kingdom has mistaken Marle (who is actually Princess Nadia of Guardia) for Queen Leene, an ancestor of hers who had been kidnapped, thus putting off the recovery effort for her ancestor and creating a grandfather paradox. Crono and Lucca, with the help of Frog, restore history to normal by rescuing Leene. After the three part ways with Frog and return to the present, Crono is tried and arrested on charges of kidnapping Marle and sentenced to death by the current chancellor of Guardia. Lucca and Marle help Crono escape prison, haphazardly using another time portal to evade their pursuers. This portal lands them in 2300 AD, where they learn that an advanced civilization has been wiped out by a giant creature known as Lavos that appeared in 1999 AD, and find the last remnants of humanity living in undergrowth domes subsisting off of machine energy in place of food.[17] The three vow to find a way to prevent the future destruction of their world. After meeting and repairing Robo, Crono and his friends find Gaspar, an old sage residing in an atemporal space known as the End of Time, who offers them the ability to travel through time by way of several pillars of light. (The party is able to challenge Lavos at any point after this scene, with completion of the game prior to its final chapter unlocking one of twelve different endings.)

The party discover that a powerful mage named Magus summoned Lavos into the world in 600 AD. To stop Magus, Frog requires the legendary sword, Masamune, to open the way to the mage's castle. In search of ore to re-forge the sword, the party travel to prehistoric times and meet Ayla, the chief of an ancient hunter-gatherer tribe. The subsequent battle with Magus disrupts his spell to summon Lavos, opening a temporal distortion that throws Crono and his friends to prehistory.[18] The party assist Ayla in battling the Reptites, enemies of prehistoric humans. The battle is cut short as the party witness the true origin of Lavos, who descends from deep space and crashes into the planet before burrowing to its core. Entering a time gate created by Lavos's impact, the party arrive in the ice age of 12,000 BC. There, the utopic Kingdom of Zeal resides on islands raised above the icy surface using energy harnessed from Lavos's body beneath the earth's crust via a machine housed on the ocean floor. The party are imprisoned by the Queen of Zeal on the orders of its mysterious Prophet, and are ultimately banished, with the time gate leading to 12,000 BC sealed by the Prophet. Seeking a way to return, the party discover a time machine in 2300 AD called the Wings of Time (or Epoch), which can access any time period at will. The party return to 12,000 BC, where Zeal inadvertently awakens Lavos, leading the Prophet to reveal himself as Magus, who tries and fails to kill the creature.[19] Lavos defeats Magus and kills Crono, before the remaining party are transported to the safety of the surface by Schala, Zeal’s princess. Lavos annihilates the Kingdom of Zeal, whose fallen continent causes devastating floods that submerge most of the world's landmass.

Magus confesses to the party that he used to be Prince Janus of Zeal, Schala’s brother, and that in the original timeline, he and the Gurus of Zeal were scattered across time by Lavos's awakening in 12,000 BC.[20] Stranded as a child in 600 AD, Janus took the title of Magus and gained a cult of followers while plotting to summon and kill Lavos in revenge for the death of his sister. Magus tried once more after the party's battle in his castle returned him to Zeal, where he disguised himself as the Prophet. At this point, Magus is either killed by the party, killed in a duel with Frog, or spared and convinced to join the party. The ruined Ocean Palace then rises into the air as the Black Omen, Queen Zeal's floating fortress. The group turns to Gaspar for help, and he gives them a "Chrono Trigger", a device that allows the group to replace Crono just before the moment of death with an identical doppelgänger (doing so is optional, and the game's ending will change depending on the player's decision). The party then gather power by helping people across time with Gaspar's instructions.[21] Their journeys involve defeating the remnants of the Mystics,[22] stopping Robo's maniacal AI creator,[23] giving Frog closure for Cyrus's death,[24] locating and charging up the mythical Sun Stone, retrieving the legendary Rainbow Shell, unmasking Guardia's Chancellor as a saboteur, restoring a forest destroyed by a desert monster,[25] and preventing an accident that disabled Lucca's mother. The party then enter the Black Omen and defeat Queen Zeal, after which they battle Lavos. They discover that Lavos is self-directing his evolution via absorbing DNA and energy from every living creature before razing the planet's surface in 1999 AD, so that it could spawn a new generation to destroy other worlds and continue the evolutionary cycle. The party slay Lavos, and celebrate at the final night of the Millennial Fair before returning to their own times.

If Magus joined the party, he departs to search for Schala. If Crono was resurrected before defeating Lavos, his sentence for kidnapping Marle is revoked by her father, King Guardia XXXIII, thanks to testimonies from Marle's ancestors and descendants, whom Crono had helped during his journey. Crono's mother accidentally enters the time gate at the Millennial Fair before it closes, prompting Crono, Marle, and Lucca to set out in the Epoch to find her while fireworks light up the night sky.[26] If Crono was not resurrected, Frog, Robo, and Ayla (along with Magus if he was recruited) chase Gaspar to the Millennial Fair and back again, revealing that Gaspar knows how to resurrect Crono; Marle and Lucca then use the Epoch to travel through time to accomplish this. Alternatively, if the party used the Epoch to break Lavos's outer shell, Marle will help her father hang Nadia's bell at the festival and accidentally get carried away by several balloons. If resurrected, Crono jumps on to help her, but cannot bring them down to earth. Hanging on in each other's arms, the pair travel through the cloudy, moonlit sky.

Chrono Trigger DS added two new scenarios to the game.[12] In the first, Crono and his friends can help a "lost sanctum" of Reptites, who reward powerful items and armor. The second scenario adds ties to Trigger's sequel, Chrono Cross.[12] In a New Game Plus, the group can explore several temporal distortions to combat shadow versions of Crono, Marle, and Lucca, and to fight Dalton, who promises in defeat to raise an army in the town of Porre to destroy the Kingdom of Guardia.[27] The group can then fight the Dream Devourer, a prototypical form of the Time Devourer—a fusion of Schala and Lavos seen in Chrono Cross. A version of Magus pleads with Schala to resist; though she recognizes him as her brother, she refuses to be helped and sends him away. Schala subsequently erases his memories and Magus awakens in a forest, determined to find what he had lost.[28]

Chrono Trigger was scored primarily by Yasunori Mitsuda, with contributions from veteran Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu and one track by Noriko Matsueda. A sound programmer at the time, Mitsuda was unhappy with his pay and threatened to leave Square if he could not compose music.[3] Hironobu Sakaguchi suggested he score Chrono Trigger, remarking, "maybe your salary will go up."[45] Mitsuda composed new music and drew on a personal collection of pieces composed over the previous two years.[12] He reflected, "I wanted to create music that wouldn't fit into any established genre ... music of an imaginary world. The game's director, Masato Kato, was my close friend, and so I'd always talk with him about the setting and the scene before going into writing."[3] Mitsuda slept in his studio several nights, and attributed certain pieces—such as the game's ending theme, To Far Away Times—to inspiring dreams.[45] He later attributed this song to an idea he was developing before Chrono Trigger, reflecting that the tune was made in dedication to "a certain person with whom [he] wanted to share a generation".[46] He also tried to use leitmotifs of the Chrono Trigger main theme to create a sense of consistency in the soundtrack.[47] Mitsuda wrote each tune to be around two minutes long before repeating, unusual for Square's games at the time.[37] Mitsuda suffered a hard drive crash that lost around forty in-progress tracks.[48] After Mitsuda contracted stomach ulcers, Uematsu joined the project to compose ten pieces and finish the score.[3] Mitsuda returned to watch the ending with the staff before the game's release, crying upon seeing the finished scene.[48]

Yasunori Mitsuda composed the bulk of the music for Chrono Trigger and would later serve as composer for Chrono Cross.

At the time of the game's release, the number of tracks and sound effects was unprecedented—the soundtrack spanned three discs in its 1995 commercial pressing.[4] Square also released a one-disc acid jazz arrangement called The Brink of Time by Guido that year. The Brink of Time came about because Mitsuda wanted to do something that no one else was doing, and he noted that acid jazz and its related genres were uncommon in the Japanese market.[47] Mitsuda considers Chrono Trigger a landmark game which helped mature his talent.[49] While Mitsuda later held that the title piece was "rough around the edges", he maintains that it had "significant influence on [his] life as a composer".[46] In 1999, Square produced another one-disc soundtrack to complement the PlayStation release of Trigger, featuring orchestral tracks used in cut scenes. Tsuyoshi Sekito composed four new pieces for the game's bonus features which weren't included on the soundtrack.[47] Some fans were displeased by Mitsuda's absence in creating the port, whose instruments sometimes aurally differed from the original game's.[47] Mitsuda arranged versions of music from the Chrono series for Play! video game music concerts, presenting the main theme, Frog's Theme, and To Far Away Times.[50] He worked with Square Enix to ensure that the music for the Nintendo DS would sound closer to the Super NES version.[48] Mitsuda encouraged feedback about the game's soundtrack from contemporary children (who he thought would expect "full symphonic scores blaring out of the speakers").[12] Fans who preordered Chrono Trigger DS received a special music disc containing two orchestral arrangements of Chrono Trigger music directed by Natsumi Kameoka; Square Enix also held a random prize drawing for two signed copies of Chrono Trigger sheet music.[47][51] Mitsuda expressed difficulty in selecting the tune for the orchestral medley, eventually picking a tune from each era and certain character themes.[46] Mitsuda later wrote:

I feel that the way we interact with music has changed greatly in the last 13 years, even for me. For better or for worse, I think it would be extremely difficult to create something as "powerful" as I did 13 years ago today. But instead, all that I have learned in these 13 years allows me to compose something much more intricate. To be perfectly honest, I find it so hard to believe that songs from 13 years ago are loved this much. Keeping these feelings in mind, I hope to continue composing songs which are powerful, and yet intricate...I hope that the extras like this bonus CD will help expand the world of Chrono Trigger, especially since we did a live recording. I hope there's another opportunity to release an album of this sort one day.[46]

Music from the game was performed live by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra in 1996 at the Orchestral Game Concert in Tokyo, Japan. A suite of music including Chrono Trigger is a part of the symphonic world-tour with video game music Play! A Video Game Symphony, where Mitsuda was in attendance for the concert's world-premiere in Chicago on May 27, 2006. His suite of Chrono music, comprising "Reminiscence", "Chrono Trigger", "Chrono Cross~Time's Scar", "Frog's Theme", and "To Far Away Times" was performed. Mitsuda has also appeared with the Eminence Symphony Orchestra as a special guest.[52] Video Games Live has also featured medleys from Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross.[53] A medley of Music from Chrono Trigger made of one of the four suites of the Symphonic Fantasies concerts in September 2009 which was produced by the creators of the Symphonic Game Music Concert series, conducted by Arnie Roth.[54] Square Enix re-released the game's soundtrack, along with a video interview with Mitsuda in July 2009.[55] In 2022, the main theme continued to feature in the setlist of The 8-Bit Big Band, led by Charlie Rosen.[56]

Ayla, as shown in an animated cut scene in the PlayStation release

Square released an enhanced port of Chrono Trigger developed by Tose in Japan for the Sony PlayStation in 1999. Square timed its release before that of Chrono Cross, the 1999 sequel to Chrono Trigger, to familiarize new players with the story leading up to it.[42] This version included anime cutscenes created by original character designer Akira Toriyama's Bird Studio and animated at Toei Animation, as well as several bonus features, accessible after achieving various endings in the game. Scenarist Masato Kato attended planning meetings at Bird Studio to discuss how the ending cutscenes would illustrate subtle ties to Chrono Cross.[42] The port was released in North America in 2001—along with a newly translated version of Final Fantasy IV—as Final Fantasy Chronicles. Reviewers criticized Chronicles for its lengthy load times and an absence of new in-game features.[74][75] This same iteration was also re-released as a downloadable game on the PlayStation Network on October 4, 2011, for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable.[76]

On July 2, 2008, Square Enix announced that they were planning to bring Chrono Trigger to the Nintendo DS handheld platform. Composer Yasunori Mitsuda was pleased with the project, exclaiming "finally!" after receiving the news from Square Enix and maintaining, "it's still a very deep, very high-quality game even when you play it today. I'm very interested in seeing what kids today think about it when they play it."[48] Square retained Masato Kato to oversee the port, and Tose to program it.[12] Kato explained, "I wanted it to be based on the original Super NES release rather than the PlayStation version. I thought we should look at the additional elements from the PlayStation version, re-examine and re-work them to make it a complete edition. That's how it struck me and I told the staff so later on."[12] Square Enix touted the game by displaying Akira Toriyama's original art at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show.[77]

The DS re-release contains all of the bonus material from the PlayStation port, as well as other enhancements.[78] The added features include a more accurate and revised translation by Tom Slattery, a dual-screen mode which clears the top screen of all menus, a self-completing map screen, and a default "run" option.[79] It also features the option to choose between two control schemes: one mirroring the original SNES controls, and the other making use of the DS's touch screen.[80] Masato Kato participated in development, overseeing the addition of the monster-battling Arena,[81][82] two new areas, the Lost Sanctum and the Dimensional Vortex, and a new ending that further foreshadows the events of Chrono Cross.[83] One of the areas within the Vortex uses the "Singing Mountain" song that was featured on the original Chrono Trigger soundtrack. Additionally, one of the dungeons absent from the original game was remade within the Vortex. These new dungeons met with mixed reviews; GameSpot called them "frustrating" and "repetitive", while IGN noted that "the extra quests in the game connect extremely well."[84][85] It was a nominee for "Best RPG for the Nintendo DS" in IGN's 2008 video game awards.[86] The Nintendo DS version of Chrono Trigger was the 22nd best-selling game of 2008 in Japan.[87]

A cellphone version was released in Japan on i-mode distribution service on August 25, 2011.[88] An iOS version was released on December 8, 2011. This version is based on the Nintendo DS version, with graphics optimized for iOS.[89] The game was later released for Android on October 29, 2012.[90][91] An update incorporating most of the features of the Windows version—including the reintroduction of the animated cutscenes, which had been absent from the initial mobile release—was released on February 27, 2018 for both iOS and Android.[92]

Square Enix released Chrono Trigger without an announcement for Windows via Steam on February 27, 2018. This version includes most content from the Nintendo DS port besides the arena mode, as well as the higher resolution graphics from the mobile device releases, support for mouse and keyboard controls, and autosave features, along with additional content such as wallpapers and music.[93][94] The PC port initially received negative reception due to its inferior graphical quality, additional glitches, UI adapted for touchscreens, and failure to properly adapt the control scheme for keyboards and controllers.[95][96][97][98][99][100] In response, Square Enix provided various UI updates and several other improvements including adding an original graphics option based on the original version's graphics and font, fixing glitches introduced, and the addition of true 16:9 widescreen presentation for the first time, to address the aforementioned complaints. In total, six major updates were released—the first on April 10, 2018 and the last on March 10, 2022—all of which have substantially improved its overall reception.[101][102][103][104][105][106]

Chrono Trigger inspired several related releases; the first were three games released for the Satellaview on July 31, 1995.[171] They included Chrono Trigger: Jet Bike Special, a racing video game based on a minigame from the original; Chrono Trigger: Character Library, featuring profiles on characters and monsters from the game; and Chrono Trigger: Music Library, a collection of music from the game's soundtrack. The contents of Character Library and Music Library were later included as extras in the PlayStation rerelease of Chrono Trigger. Production I.G created a 16-minute OVA, "Nuumamonja: Time and Space Adventures", which was shown at the Japanese V Jump festival of July 31, 1996.[172][173]

There have been two notable attempts by Chrono Trigger fans to unofficially remake parts of the game for PC with a 3D graphics engine. Chrono Resurrection, an attempt at remaking ten small interactive cut scenes from Chrono Trigger, and Chrono Trigger Remake Project, which sought to remake the entire game,[174][175] were forcibly terminated by Square Enix by way of a cease and desist order.[176][177][178][179] Another group of fans created a sequel via a ROM hack of Chrono Trigger called Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes; developed from 2004 to 2009; although feature-length and virtually finished, it also was terminated through a cease & desist letter days before its May 2009 release. The letter also banned the dissemination of existing Chrono Trigger ROM hacks and documentation.[180] After the cease and desist was issued, an incomplete version of the game was leaked in May 2009, though due to the early state of the game, playability was limited.[181] This was followed by a more complete ROM leak in January 2011, which allowed the game to be played from beginning to end.[182]

Square released a related Satellaview game in 1996, named Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki. Having thought that Trigger ended with "unfinished business", scenarist Masato Kato wrote and directed the game.[42] Dreamers functioned as a side story to Chrono Trigger, resolving a loose subplot from its predecessor.[43] A short, text-based game relying on minimal graphics and atmospheric music, the game never received an official release outside Japan—though it was translated by fans to English in April 2003.[183] Square planned to release Radical Dreamers as an easter egg in the PlayStation edition of Chrono Trigger, but Kato was unhappy with his work and halted its inclusion.[42]

Square released Chrono Cross for the Sony PlayStation in 1999. Cross is a sequel to Chrono Trigger featuring a new setting and cast of characters.[184] Presenting a theme of parallel worlds, the story followed the protagonist Serge—a teenage boy thrust into an alternate reality in which he died years earlier. With the help of a thief named Kid, Serge endeavors to discover the truth behind his apparent death and obtain the Frozen Flame, a mythical artifact.[184] Regarded by writer and director Masato Kato as an effort to "redo Radical Dreamers properly", Chrono Cross borrowed certain themes, scenarios, characters, and settings from Dreamers.[43] Yasunori Mitsuda also adapted certain songs from Radical Dreamers while scoring Cross.[185] Radical Dreamers was consequently removed from the series' main continuity, considered an alternate dimension.[186] Chrono Cross shipped 1.5 million copies and was widely praised by critics.[6][187][188]

There are no plans as of 2023 for a new title, despite a statement from Hironobu Sakaguchi in 2001 that the developers of Chrono Cross wanted to make a new Chrono game.[189] The same year, Square applied for a trademark for the names Chrono Break in the United States and Chrono Brake in Japan. However, the United States trademark was dropped in 2003.[190] Director Takashi Tokita mentioned "Chrono Trigger 2" in a 2003 interview which has not been translated to English.[191] Yuji Horii expressed no interest in returning to the Chrono franchise in 2005, while Hironobu Sakaguchi remarked in April 2007 that his creation Blue Dragon was an "extension of [Chrono Trigger]."[192][193] During a Cubed³ interview on February 1, 2007, Square Enix's Senior Vice President Hiromichi Tanaka said that although no sequel is currently planned, some sort of sequel is still possible if the Chrono Cross developers can be reunited.[194] Yasunori Mitsuda has expressed interest in scoring a new game, but warned that "there are a lot of politics involved" with the series. He stressed that Masato Kato should participate in development.[45] The February 2008 issue of Game Informer ranked the Chrono series eighth among the "Top Ten Sequels in Demand", naming the games "steadfast legacies in the Square Enix catalogue" and asking, "what's the damn holdup?!"[195] In Electronic Gaming Monthly's June 2008 "Retro Issue", writer Jeremy Parish cited Chrono as the franchise video game fans would be most thrilled to see a sequel to.[196] In the first May Famitsu of 2009, Chrono Trigger placed 14th out of 50 in a vote of most-wanted sequels by the magazine's readers.[197] At E3 2009, SE Senior Vice President Shinji Hashimoto remarked, "If people want a sequel, they should buy more!"[198]

In July 2010, Obsidian Entertainment designer Feargus Urquhart, replying to an interview question about what franchises he would like to work on, said that "if [he] could come across everything that [he] played", he would choose a Chrono Trigger game. At the time, Obsidian was making Dungeon Siege III for Square Enix. Urquhart said: "You make RPGs, we make RPGs, it would be great to see what we could do together. And they really wanted to start getting into Western RPGs. And, so it kind of all ended up fitting together."[199][200] Yoshinori Kitase stated that he used the time travel mechanics of Chrono Trigger as a starting point for that of Final Fantasy XIII-2.[201]

A free mobile game called Another Eden was released in 2008 as a collaboration between writer Masato Kato and music composer Yasunori Mitsuda. The game was heavily inspired by the Chrono series with several characters inspired by Chrono Trigger present in the game, and contains a cross-over story arc with Chrono Cross.