The Foundary: Chrono Trigger
Possibly the greatest of all Square creations. Learn from the classic.
Tags: FOUNDARY EDITORIAL Categories: Features, GBA Features, Game Cube Features, N-Gage Features, PC Features, PS2 Features, Tech Features, Xbox Features
Posted by Harold Foundary on Apr 13th, 2004
Chrono Trigger.
That name shakes walls. It’s the single greatest old school console RPG. Naturally, you can’t call it the greatest RPG of all time because Diablo 2 would come into the arena, followed by a whole boat load of the pixelated masterpieces bearded PC geeks argue about in the hallways during Star Trek conventions. But on that great list up in the sky of the five best RPG’s ever, there’s at least one spot reserved for Chrono Trigger.
Right from the beginning, Chrono Trigger takes ahold of your soul. You’re free to go anywhere when the game begins. Wander the continent completely safe from random encounters. Visit the Millennium fair and play mini games. Win prizes for equipment that will make life easier down the road. And make decisions that are thrown back in your face later in the game.
Chrono Cross sucked rancid banana paste. Where was the freedom there? Freedom to play the whole game over again and find new secrets? Freedom to get stuck with no idea where to go? Give me the original any day.
Game companies can take their Final Fantasy clones and shove them. If I want random encounters, I’ll play Diablo 2. At least there the randomness of play is the result of hard work, long hours, and intense programming. In Final Fantasy and it’s ilk, random battles are simply a sign of programmer laziness. It’s not too hard to make a 100+ hour game if you can just create a map and set a ratio to make it into a game.
But in Chrono Trigger, you control your destiny, right from the start. While the game is quite linear, it doesn’t come off as being so. The Millennium Fair offers numerous opportunities to commit acts that are later read back in a court case against you: Eating a man’s lunch, grabbing the princess when she takes too long at a shop stall, helping find a kitten. Though these decisions you make have no effect on the game itself, the actions when initially committed, stick out in the player’s mind as having been seemingly pointless initially.
And therein lies the ultimate point of today’s rant: proper spacing between causes and effects can create tension as well as immersion.
Place a switch in a hallway next to a door. The player comes across it and knows it will open the door. Place the same switch in a hallway alone, and the player will assume one of two things: the switch will trigger a door, or the switch is one of _ number of other switches which must be triggered in order to open a door.
What if pushing that switch does nothing. But three levels later, a large door that is otherwise locked, is opened.
Long spans of continuity.
This sort of thing is like an inside joke you’ve got going with the player. it will make them remember an earlier moment in the game fondly. To be nostalgic.
This is why Chrono Trigger is so passionately loved. We’re nostalgic for the time we spent within it’s confines. We remember distinct moments instead of “the 35th time I shot 10 monsters and moved into the next room.”
Of course, the amazing sound track doesn’t hurt either. Great music NEVER hurt a game.
As I write this, Chrono Trigger’s sound track plays an average of every 5th song on Gamingfm.com’s Classic playlist. It’s not as frequent on the combined station, but it does come up often there too. I’m sure this drives the people who’ve never played the game insane.
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Tags: FOUNDARY EDITORIAL
Posted by Harold Foundary on Apr 13th, 2004 and is filed under Features, GBA Features, Game Cube Features, N-Gage Features, PC Features, PS2 Features, Tech Features, Xbox Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
