SquareSoft pulls out an amazing hit to follow up on after Final Fantasy 3's huge success. This game had it all: a great plot, cast of character that you could care about, huge world to explore, a soundtrack that was excellent, magic, combos, tons of endings, it was everything you wanted in an RPG.

Now for the review itself, I could just show you the ratings that I gave it, and they'll speak for themselves, but this game had so many areas that went far past the standards set by other games. The graphics in Chrono Trigger went far past previous Square games. Each map in CT was beautifully deatiled; each and every world was vastly different from the next, and had many areas that were there own. The characters in CT were animated to no end, with poses galore. Like the maps each character was fully 'developed' (for you people with sick minds, not that way) and had abilities they could call their own. The spells and combos (I hate repeating but it's true!) were like the rest of the game, wonderfully animated.

When RPGs came into the 16 bit world of gaming a great soundtrack became a necessity. Playing a crappy song in an intense scene will do nothing to add to the affect of the game would it? Chrono Trigger has one of the Top Video Game Soundtracks ever created. Each and every song/sound effect are perfect in their location. They not only add to the gameplay, they make you want to visit certain areas just to hear them. That tells a lot about the game.

Now those 2 above paragraphs talk about areas that help make a RPG a classic, but without a story all the flash is nothing. CT provides one of the most engrossing stories ever written, it's like your in a book, and want to keep going to the next page. Each area has so many places to visit, and so many characters to interact with. In the beginning you save Marle, only to come back and find you on trial, and no matter what you do your going to jail. (Great Thanks Huh?) Then you eventually hear about Magus, and you think he's the main enemy, but nope. After Magus is defeated you find out a lot more about Lavos, and your quest after it begins. One cool thing is how the time periods interact with each other. One nice example of this is in the Fiona's Forest sub-quest. After you kill the monsters in 600 AD, the area in 1000 AD will now turn into a forest. So much background is given throughout the game, that no area of the game is left untold. Each character has a little sub-quest that will basically define them and their past. Two of these are very strong and emotional, one being Marle finding out about her mother, and what happened when she died, and the second one is when Frog finally avenges Cyrus. The only gripe that I have with this game is the fact that Schala was so under used. She would have made a great character to have in your team.

CT is no where short of innovations. New Ideas are shown throughout the game. I think this is the first game in history to have a parade, and actually make it fun. Now much of this paragraph are going to the Combo system, and rightfully so, seeing how awesome it is. So without further adeu, the combo system. This is by far the coolest thing in CT. Each character has so many combos with other character. The combos range from using 2 people to using 3. Most are obtained by leveling up, but the truly great ones like Dark Eternal, and Omega Flare are obtained by finding rocks. Most of these are well hidden, and since I played this game long before I had access to the internet, or using a players guide, they were quite hard to get. Each combo is wonderfully done, and shows the time taken in creating this game. There were so many other innovations that I could have talked about, but hey this is a review not a research paper. ;)

I don't even think I need to go into the replay area. With 13 different endings, I think a safe bet is that you will replay it, especially since your items/stats are carried over thanks to New Game +. Now being the persistent gamer, I went looking around for flaws in this game. I only found one minor flaw! This flaw is a little glitch that happens in the desert cave (600 AD). Take Marle, Ayla, and Lucca into there, and when you come to one of the sand catepillar type guys, do a double charm on it. If your lucky an un-pronouncable sword will be stolen. A bunch of weird items will now be in your inventory, nothing really good, but hey it's unique. :( This is nothing compared to the infamous FF3 glitches though. One more area I will touch on is humor. Ayla was set to be the comedic character (cavewomen go figure) and her Speaches and constant hitting on Crono will make you laugh.

Finding a copy of Chrono Trigger is very hard to now. The cart alone can go up to $60 and finding one with the maps, box and manuals have gone as high as $90! Yikes I'm glad I got mine back when it came out :P. As usual, if you got money to spend ebay will have it.

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