On Chrono Trigger

The new Call of Duty is out so this is a perfect time for me to talk briefly about Chrono Trigger.

This doesn’t come completely out of nowhere: really, rather than focus my own thoughts on the game for now I’m just linking some things I found recently that proved interesting.

This is a recent piece from Game Career Guide: Chrono Trigger: Narrative Review.

Note that the article contains spoilers but I don’t think that this matters considering the age of the game. (In general, when I discuss games I will spoil them.  Newer games notwithstanding that’s my common practice.)  I don’t agree with the author on one point, which is the resurrection of Crono. I think that sequence should be taken as a standard “Hero’s Journey” situation with death and symbolic resurrection. It’s a textbook example and shouldn’t be excised. Also Crono’s death had less impact than Aeris’s because he was a silent protagonist and he was male, not because it was reversable.

Something else I noticed in this article was the “critical reception” bit on the third page.

Game journalists: if you review Chrono Trigger and mark it down on the criteria of “the graphics are outdated,” you are a jerk. Here is Tycho to tell you why. Also here, in more exacting detail. Thank you.

Here, another article from a blog called “Every Game Ever.” Some fun stuff in there, but their article on Chrono Trigger isn’t just about Chrono Trigger, rather On Chrono Trigger and the SNES JRPG Experience. It summarizes a lot of how I also feel about this game and why it was the right game at the right time for me and a lot of other people. Their reviews of Earthbound and Final Fantasy VI are similarly insightful in this respect (and, in the case of the latter, glowing, but deservedly glowing in my opinion).