Chrono Trigger Is Timeless
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I have never played Chrono Trigger, but I am currently spending some time playing old classic games. However, some games don't age well and are mostly appreciated due to nostalgia. How easy is Chrono Trigger to get into for someone without the nostalgia, and is the Steam release worth playing?
If you've played and enjoyed any 2D JRPG, you'll be fine here.
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There is an optional party member that you can either recruit or fight based on which dialogue option you pick. You'll know it when you see it though, so it's easy to make the right choice.
There are 12 endings (13 in DS and subsequent rereleases). You can easily see all of them in just two playthroughs. Theoretically you could even do them all on the first playthrough, but it's much easier to do in NG+.
The only caveat is that you have to see them in order, you can't backtrack if you miss one, which is why I recommend starting with the final and true ending on your first playthrough, then do all the others on NG+. NG+ makes it pretty easy to speed through things as well, your second playthrough will be much shorter.
There is also one (three?) party members that you can potentially lose due to story related reasons and not recover before endgame.
And yeah. With a guide and some save scumming you can definitely optimize your routes. But that also kind of defeats the purpose of "enjoying" the game, at least to me.
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CT is one of the all time great JRPGs... if you put the effort in.
But it is very much a product of its time between missable party members and even mechanics that penalize you for opening treasure chests too soon.
Conceptually it is cool as hell that there is something like five or six main endings and then a bunch of variants and special/joke endings. But... this is a 20-30 hour JRPG and ain't nobody got that much time. Although, different re-releases have helped speed those up.
All in all? The big set piece moments are some of the greatest in gaming. The moment to moment are... from the early 90s. I would probably recommend grabbing a totally legit dump of your SNES cartridge, playing until you get bored/annoyed, and then watching a lore video.
mechanics that penalize you for opening treasure chests too soon.
Unlike all the other chests, the ones that “penalize you” have an event and prompt asking if you want to open them, and in a game about time travel, it’s not too hard to figure out what’s intended.
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I played it for the first time about 10 years ago on a SNES emulator (because it kept on popping up in "best game of all time" lists), and I wasn't disappointed. Well, I don't think it is the best game ever, but I really enjoyed it, so I don't think it's a game that's propped up only by nostalgia.
Sounds promising. I've seen other posts of people who played it "recently" and enjoyed it.
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I don’t have nostalgia for the game, tried it a few years ago but bounced off. Not sure why, just wasn’t in the mood for a HRPG at the time I guess.
I recently gave it another go, been playing it on my Steam Deck and it’s been great. I’m a few hours into it in the future currently and I think it’ll stick this time, it’s great.
Only thing is the game feels like it was really made with CRT behavior in mind. Like the game has some amazing shading and almost 3D depth to a lot of the art but without CRT shaders you don’t see it at all. If you play the Steam version, reshade goes a long way. I’m using a combination of CRT-frutbuhn, EasymodeCRT, and vibrance and it looks amazing.
Edit: quick comparison with default look vs. with shaders:
Thanks for the suggestions of the mods. I can image it works well on Steam deck since it exists a DS version.
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CT is one of the all time great JRPGs... if you put the effort in.
But it is very much a product of its time between missable party members and even mechanics that penalize you for opening treasure chests too soon.
Conceptually it is cool as hell that there is something like five or six main endings and then a bunch of variants and special/joke endings. But... this is a 20-30 hour JRPG and ain't nobody got that much time. Although, different re-releases have helped speed those up.
All in all? The big set piece moments are some of the greatest in gaming. The moment to moment are... from the early 90s. I would probably recommend grabbing a totally legit dump of your SNES cartridge, playing until you get bored/annoyed, and then watching a lore video.
20-30 hour was less than I expected. On other comments it sounds like several endings can be seen in one playthrough which makes it easier to see many or all endings.
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I got a bit worried after your first sentence but it sounds like Chrono Trigger should be more than okay.
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20-30 hour was less than I expected. On other comments it sounds like several endings can be seen in one playthrough which makes it easier to see many or all endings.
Yeah. I also assumed it was closer to 40 but figured I would check howlongtobeat.
And yeah, if you know what you are doing you are going to be closer to the golden ending than not on any given run. But if someone is doing a genuinely blind run (rather than following gamefaqs) they have good odds of missing out on the truly optional character, missing a lot of good loot, possibly missing out on the semi-optional character, etc. Which turns "1-2" runs into "2-3".
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Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross and Xenogears are the holy trinity of JRPGs for me. Every fan of the genre should play them at least once in their lives.
I really need to play Xenogears. How is the OST?
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I really need to play Xenogears. How is the OST?
The soundtrack is fine. It works very well in its context and I still hum some of its tones every now and then, but that's mostly it imo. The end credits song is one of the best end themes I've ever heard in a videogame, though.
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