Chrono Trigger Break

By -

I've been a little quiet here for a couple reasons.  The main one is that I got laid off from my job and went into overdrive looking for a new one.  For the moment I'm doing freelance web development for a start-up agency and loving it, so don't worry about me.  Once that was under control, I looked at what was next up for The Final Fantasy Project (FFVII!) and decided that maybe I should take a break and enjoy a non final fantasy game before I make the leap to the Playstation era.

Thanks to some twitter and blogger friends - like Syl and TishToshTesh - I decided it was time to finally play Chrono Trigger.  I don't know how I've avoided this game my whole life.  I obviously love a good JRPG and Chrono Trigger always makes it into the top lists of best RPGs ever.  So, it was time to get to it.


I'm so glad I did!  Chrono Trigger is a fantastic RPG.  I'm not even done with it yet but it's easily in my top two RPGs of the SNES era.  I'm not sure if I like it or FFVI more.  It's hard to form an opinion like that before I finish.  It does a lot of really smart things that just weren't commonplace at the time.

Coming from playing a bunch of Final Fantasy games in a row, the biggest difference in Chrono Trigger is no random battles!  Let me say that again, NO RANDOM BATTLES!  It's so nice to be able to actually see the enemies and choose whether or not to engage them in battle.  It also goes a long way toward making the world more immersive since it doesn't kick over to a separate battle screen.  Combat all takes place without any transition or load time.


I don't want to try to write a comprehensive review right now, but a few key things stand out:
  • Large sprite characters look really good on screen.
  • Time travel is so cool when it's done right, I wish more games would get creative with it.
  • There is no grind at all.
  • The music is extremely well done.  I could probably write a whole post about it.
  • The characters are diverse and unique.
I might come back and write up more about these things later but also maybe not.  I'm close to finishing the game (I think) and I'm excited to jump into FFVII.  I just want you to know, if you've ever wondered if Chrono Trigger is worth your time, the answer is yes!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest Board Gaming

By -
Image
Besides video games I also regularly play board games when I'm hanging out with people face to face.  My brother, my wife, and I end up playing a lot of 3 player board games, but sometimes we get other players involved too. I realized I haven't talked much about what I've been playing in the world of board games, so here goes: Ticket to Ride - We own 3 different base versions of Ticket to Ride, 2 expansion sets, and an extra map set.  We love this game.  This is the game that gets the most overall table time when I'm playing board games with friends.  It's super accessible but still holds fun for people who have been playing the game for a long time.  I recommend this as a great beginner board game for anyone. Masquerade - A hidden role game where roles are constantly switching hands.  You're limited in actions on your turn and can only take one action.  This means that a lot of the time you're not entirely sure what role you currently have.
Read more

S2E22 - E3 2017 - “Who doesn’t want to be a dinosaur?!”

By -
E3 Hype! E3 2017. Not comprehensive. Not VGNN.  Only talking about things we think are interesting enough to talk about.  You have video game news sites for the rest :) We’re talking about Press Conferences, if more news comes out throughout the rest of the week it won’t be here because we’re recording on Tuesday night! http://e3recap.com/ has been my friend Overall trends Esports being forced onto games that aren’t even out yet “Influencers” being put front and center BJ: torn on the current “influencer” boom. Feels like a bubble that’s totally disingenuous Shorter press conferences with less big game announcements Really hard to tell what is actually exclusive Microsoft “Console Launch Exclusive” Most of these press conferences would have been better pre-recorded as just a series of trailers instead of having a stage show, honestly. Updates on games we already knew existed.  This is what we get for so many years of announcing games way ahead
Read more

What is Blaugust? 2023 Edition

By -
Image
I jumped right into the previous post without actually explaining Blaugust.  So... what is it?  Blaugust is an excuse to get people blogging... in August.  Hence, Blaugust! I'm not the best person to pitch it, but Blaugust is put on by a long time friend of mine, Belghast.  Here's what he had to say about Blaugust for the 2023 kickoff: Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place in August each year that focused on blogging and other serialized content. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. For years blogging has been dwindling, and in part, Blaugust was my attempt and reversing that course by compiling a bunch of veteran bloggers in one place and making it super easy to ask questions and get answers. The idea is that this festival of blogging can help reignite dwindling fires for the next year and give folks a sense of kinship as a result. Ea
Read more