Chrono Trigger for Playstation
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Chrono Trigger - The best RPG game ever
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Finally, Square announced the US version of CT to playstation.
Although this is one of the best rpg games ever made, many people don't
know it. So what's so cool about an old snes game?
Keep reading this review if you want to learn all about the game itself.
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To start with, the battle system. There aren't random fights at all,
you can actually see the enemy walking near you and try to avoid them
(if you played Chrono Cross you know what I mean). The fight only
hapens if you get too close to the enemy. And here is another great thing:
the fight takes place on the same screen as you walk! You don't have to
wait for the battle screen to show up like other rpg games, you can
start fighting in about 1 or 2 seconds after you touched the enemy :). You
just have to wait for the characters and enemies to take position on the
screen.
The battle system is the same as most of rpg. You can either
attack, use a technique, use an item or run away. The techniques are
the cool part: each character has its own techniques, wich includes magic.
To use a technique you need your MP bar to have at least the amount
necessary to use that technique. You can recover your MP's with itens only.
When you win a fight, you gain experience (to raise your level), gold
and AP, like experience points but for the techniques, wich means that
in order to learn a stronger technique you have to win AP's through the
fights.
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Also, there are some special doubles and triples techniques,
special moves that requires two or three characters to attack together.
To learn these techniques, you need to use the characters you want to learn
the double techniques in the fights together, so after a while the 2
characters learn the ability.
Whatever you want to do in the combat, you have to wait for the power bar
to be full. The atributes of each character determines the speed of
the bar. The enemy continues attacking even if you stop, so you
have to be quick.
The animation for the battles are great. In most RPG games, the characters
stay still, and when they attack they simply move their hands (I have
no idea how someone can cut a monster with a sword standing about 20 feets away).
In CT, all the characters and foes have an animation, either for staying
still, in battle position, or attacking. The position of the characters
also has influence over the fight. Some magics can reach only one
determined area, like Lucca's magic "napalm", for instance, wich does
not reach all the enemies if they're far appart, but can hit a whole
group of enemies at once if they're close to each other.
In some fights, you can choose where to hit the enemy, like the picture bellow.
Instead of just destroying the main body, you can destroy some part
that contains a strong magic, like Cure or magic attacks, leaving the enemy unarmed.
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You can see all your characters when you are walking around, just like CC.
You can have up to 3 in your party. When walking around the world maps, there aren't
any fights at all.
Now about the plot; for those of you who don't know it yet, the main
plot is about a few people who travels in time to save the world. It may
seems like a too simple idea, but as you progress in the game you see
how rich is the game's story. Not only the quests related to the main
plot are great, each character has also its own story and goals in life.
In fact, you only discover your real mission after a few hours of gameplay.
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Some actions you make in the past times may affect things in the future.
For instance, in a certain time you can see monster admiring Magus,
a powerfull wizard, but if you can defeat him in the past, when you
return to the present the monster will be admiring someone else.
Instead of a dark atmosfere, that most stories about time travels
contains, CT has a more humorous atmosfere, remembering some
popular TV animes. But some scenes in the game are really dramatic,
like the final scene between Ayla and Azala.
One "beautiful" thing in CT are the locations. As you are aways
time travelling, you always find new places to go, and you never
take too long in one place. Prepare yourself to meet dinosaurs,
kill giants robots, take a ride in a gigantic spaceship, walk over
the clouds, climb a snow mountain, race against a motorcicle man...
A cool thing is the New Game + option. If you beat the game, you can start it
over again but with your level raised, as you finished the game. That's
great if you want to see the alternate endings.
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The music is excellent. Created by Yasunori Mitsuda, they create
the perfect atmosphere for the game. Unlike other rpg games, CT doesn't
have any boring music made for background, all musics sounds like
classics (except for the drum beats in the pre-hystoric ages, but that's
cool also :) ).
Some musics are just variations of other songs, changing the atmosphere
according to the mood of the game.
The battle song? Relax! I can't tell how many times I was playing another
rpg game and every time I entered a battle I turned the sound off.
But don't worry, in CT things are diferent. The battle song is
very nice and is very easy liking it (specially if you like bass).
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Another thing that can spoils the fun are the big boss musics.
In some games, when you get in a part supposed to be "scary",
like the battle with the last boss, you start listening to a
"psicose" type of song, without any rythmn, just some ramdom notes
supposed to create the mood. I'm not saying that's not cool, but if
you like music that's like a bug in your ear (:P). In CT, even these
kinds of songs are cool and listenable.
The characters design is made by nothing less then Akira Toriyama,
the same of DragonBall series. That's why they have a manga look.
The game doesn't have too many characters, but each one is very well
designed, and as I said before, each one has its own objectives.
Actually, I prefer to have a little number of characters to choose,
but each with its own abilities and spells, and good purpoises to join
the group, rater than having over 40 characters to choose, but
almost all alike (sorry CC fans).
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The playstation version of the game will be almost the same, except
a few things: it will have animations made from Akira (tanks god
they won't put CG's in the middle) in the begginin, end and in some
parts of the game; It also will have a place where you can have
sound tests (listen to the songs), see a list with enemies, spells,
and so on. The graphics won't change a bit (like it needed) and as
Square announced the gameplay is very smood, and there was no flaws
when adapting the game from snes to playstation.
I'm not sure but the game may have some more endings. The original
game has eleven.
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The only thing people seens to complain about the game is
the difficulty, wich could be higher. Maybe if you're a real
rpg addicted you can find it easy, but for most people it can be
a real challenge. The battles are very variated, and some boss battles
takes many time to beat.
Well, that's it. If you own a playstation and like rpg games, buy
Crono Trigger, wich means buy "Final Fantasy Chronicles" (I don't
know what's CT doing on a FF package, but wathever). You won't be disapointed. :)
If you got something to say, or ask,
e-mail me.
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