Chrono Trigger Still Blows Me Away 30 Years Later | Hacker News Reader

Chrono Trigger Still Blows Me Away 30 Years Later

kotaku.com

73 pointsPaulHoule33 comments

It’s funny how the internet and search has changed gaming, when I was 10 I discovered this game (was fairly new at the time), ran into lavos way too early where you’re not really supposed to beat him but it feels tantalizingly within reach. Tried leveling all my characters and every cheese imaginable but still failed. concluded that I just couldn’t beat it and put it down til my 20’s, lol. a simple google search had it been available would’ve told me what was going on. back in those days if you didnt know how to beat a game you had to ask a friend, buy a game magazine, or hope to get lucky.

First time playing chrono trigger I was playing on an emulator, exclusively using a single save state. Went into the early lavos area, saved, got my ass beat. Discovered I couldn't go out again, save bricked :( took years until I gave the game another go

I somewhat miss those days of endless time I could dump into gaming. Nowadays if I’m stuck for 5-10min I google because my playtime is limited and I don’t want to spend it looking for the wrong thing or headed in the wrong direction.

I feel this wholeheartedly. I remember booting up games like Morrowind just to walk around towns I like, explore the wilderness for hours, spend absolutely unreasonable amounts of times on quests and just generally not give a damn about how efficient or optimal my build/skills/gear or way of doing things was. I'd just pick what sounded cool and bumble my way through things.

Now when I do find the time to play games I feel like I'm always beelining between any two given points, not stopping to take in the sights or enjoy the atmosphere, worrying about doing things "right"." It's definitely diminished my enjoyment of video games. If I could I'd find a way to trick myself into viewing games the same way I did back then regardless of the fact that I'm not putting in anywhere near as much, or as frequent, amounts of time into a savefile.

I had a very similar experience with Castlevania's Symphony of the Night. Bought it when it came out, but quickly got one of the bad endings and that really soured me on the experience. Was years later when I found that I had literally missed over half of the game.

But you formed a memory and a story around that experience, practiced the skill, and stretched your mind trying to achieve a goal.

I don't know if you're making the point that a search at the time would have been a better or worse experience. Either way it shows that internet search has come at a cost. I don't know if it's actually best for us to further optimize and streamline it.

I think search has killed experiences like this but enabled other areas that have made it better, such as allowing communities to figure out things years after release (like speedrunners for instance). It only takes self control not to search, so I don’t see it as a problem or a black/white thing. It’s just way different.

I bombed early on in links awakening and sat it down for years. When the first Pokémon came out I did the wildest things. So glad my mom would let me buy gaming magazines.

Around 2014 when I was doing full-time business development I got a Playstation Vita and became a real JPRG addict and GameFAQs was my wingman.

By 2020 or so it had been displaced by video walkthroughs on YouTube and today I would not expect a new game to have a good walkthrough (almost bought Visions of Mana on sale last weekend, turns out it has a text walkthrough but it isn't comprehensive like the old ones.)

Generally I don't like video walkthroughs, I mean who wants to scroll to the right point in 40 hours worth of videos for a 40 hour game? (There was one case in Megadimension Neptunia VII where I just couldn't figure out how to get through a certain world, turned out there was a place where it was possible to make a jump but it wasn't obvious to me that it was possible and the video made it clear.)

Better part of my high school evenings were spent struggling through Seiken Densetsu 3 multiple times over with the class-changing guides on GameFAQs.

There's something about some of the 80's and 90's games that showed exceptional love and art from the game makers.

I bought my 5-yo daughter an arcade for her birthday and we have been playing Bobble Bubble non-stop for months, finally beating the game with a single credit!

As we played the game, we discovered new patterns, tricks and pathways to beat impossibly-looking levels safely, and we discovered portals, bonuses and secrets galore. We also got to know each other better, as we play together better than we would play with other people.

The game pushes you constantly between competing to get power-ups and extra-lifes to collaborating to beat asymmetric levels.

There is one power-up that turns the level into a bonus where you have a score board and whoever gets the most bonus items wins extra points. But if you do even scoring, you both get the max bonus. The game is testing you!

It is when you beat the game at the end that the secret of the universe is revealed: Love & Friendship.

I loved playing this game as a kid round at my friend's house on his SNES. The same era as Final Fantasy VI, Legend of Zelda, Secret of Mana and Earthbound. And that's just the fantastic RPG's that were on that console...

A truly golden time.

I remember seeing it in an enclosed plastic end cap at toys 'r' us. It was $80, so I assumed it wasn't for a kid like me. Marketing at the time did not do a good job with it in the US.

One might say our memory of this era is.. pollyannish - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-QFRdHv61s

> [Magus] can even join your party later if you beat him in a one-on-one duel.

Actually, if you choose to duel him, Magus will die. You specifically have to not fight him. :)

Recently replayed it as a full-grown adult after repeatedly playing and beating it as a kid; its whimsical but barely coherent story is definitely more enjoyable as a persistent childhood memory. But the music and gameplay hold up very well even 20-30+ years later.

We have to remember this was a time where text was still kind of expensive, so making the story more than barely coherent required losing enemy variety and such. The advantages of the switch to CD-ROM wasn't really the pre-rendered cutscenes, but the fact that there were no practical limitations to how much text you want to use. Every bit of text also lead to harder localization, which was still a part of the industry in its infancy.

So from where I stand, the coherence of Chrono Trigger is already kind of a miracle, given cart sizes

I agree completely, playing it now feels very primitive. But at the time, even into the 2000s, it was a revelation.

I dunno; I haven't played a JRPG in years that has the same sense of immediacy and emotional connection. I feel like there is a lot invested into overbearing systems of inventory management and skill progression that doesn't, for me at least, have the same draw.

CT is basically just pressing A for 5-10 hours though. The characters are pretty well done (albeit pretty hardcore 90s archetypes) and the artwork is gorgeous, but, given the shallowness of the dialogue and the gameplay, it doesn’t hit me like it used to.

I dunno that the dialogue is any more shallow than what's present in the vast majority of JRPGs today, quite frankly, but it's quite likely that this is because it isn't voice (over)acted.

Tremendous game, and probably my favorite soundtrack, but my favorite feature was the lack of random encounters.

I said this was the best game I had ever played after I first played it ~1996, and when asked today about my "favorite game", it's still top of mind.

The original Chronotrigger soundtrack is one of my go-to coding soundtracks.

I still hold out hope that Square-Enix will either remake this or release a new game in the series.

Chrono Chross was fun, but a different style. Radical Dreamers was completely different.

You know what I've always wanted for remakes? When it has something tangible to improve the game with

People like the FF7 remake but it's in a wildly different frame than the original game, whereas I maybe would've liked to see some of the glitches fixed and more to the point the translation

FF6 should also fix the glitches, but the GBA version has a worse translation (arguably more correct but more boring) and worse music

Square-Enix did pixel remasters as well as remakes. There are mixed opinions on them but what you’re looking for exists.

> People like the FF7 remake but it's in a wildly different frame than the original game, whereas I maybe would've liked to see some of the glitches fixed and more to the point the translation

The worst part is that they have all new authentic assets for the original game being used in an installment-based mobile game with a simplified battle system. They could have done that with the real thing. Shrug

> I still hold out hope that Square-Enix will either remake this

My dream is for a remake using the octopath engine, with a few new goodies. I don't think it needs the full FF7 remake treatment.

There's room for a sequel to CT or to finish the trilogy. CC left a lot of unanswered questions.

My younger brother played this on an emulator in high school. He would just grind and grind to get all the endings and unlock all the character combos - eventually beating the game twice a night using frameskip to play through it faster.

frameskip plus attack macros in the future on the conveyors!

Chrono trigger is absolutely gorgeous.

And there's still quite a few fan sites and forums around!

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