Holy Crap, Chrono Trigger for DS!!

I know I shouldn't be this excited about what is essentially a port of a game I played the crap out of more than 10 years ago, but come on...Chrono Trigger is on my short list of "best RPG ever."
I sometimes regret trading in my SNES and the fine RPGs I had for it (complete copies of Earthbound with strategy guide, Final Fantasy III (VI), and Chrono Trigger!!) but it allowed me to buy and enjoy the ill-fated Dreamcast, which was hugely enjoyable. Still, I miss my SNES and the awesome packaging mid 90s RPGs came in.
How can you not love this cover?? Sure, it's inaccurate--Marle doesn't cast Fire magic, and I don't think you fight Heckran in the snow--but it gives you a pretty good idea of what's in store. That is to say, a kick ass RPG. Between the Diablo III announcement and this, I guess I need to put off those suicide plans for another few years, ho ho ho!!

The Videogame Solipsist: SNES

Classy, elegant...Super.

I came to the SNES like a late guest arriving in Paris for a party in 1940 just before the Germans took over. That is to say, I was there long enough to get a feel for a very specific time and place before it changed forever. In this case, the late SNES era represented the high water mark of Nintendo before they fumbled with the N64 and never managed to fully turnover the car with the Gamecube. Also, my metaphor implies that Sony's Playstation was analogous to the Nazis and therefore it's a mess. Anyway!!

If you're a student of videogame history (and, really, why would you not want to be??), you'll know that 1995/1996 were right about the time Sega was fragmenting their Genesis player base with the 32X and Sega CD. And the Sega Saturn, which had been released months ahead of schedule that summer in a "surprise" launch that angered developers, publishers, and early adopters alike. Meanwhile, everything sailed smoothly out of the Nintendo port: no crappy add-ons, and the 'Ultra' 64 suffered delay after delay until it would be released in the fall of 1996. It wasn't hard to think that the next Nintendo system would be awesome, mainly because Sega was doing such a great job of shooting themselves in the foot. And arm. And face.

Then there was that weird Playstation thing, but Sony was just some dumb Walkman CD player company. No, Nintendo was videogames.

I got a SNES specifically for Chrono Trigger. Oh, sure, when I got mine it came with Super Mario All-Stars as well as the Super Gameboy, but the only games I really went out of my way to buy for it were all the awesome RPGs--as well as Demon's Crest, but that game is pure awesome. The only console that can rival the breadth and overall quality of the SNES in terms of RPGs is the Playstation. Consider for starters that the SNES had, arguably, three of the best Final Fantasies (though the middle one wouldn't be released in the U.S. until a Playstation port in 1999), cult classic Earthbound (which, if you bought it at the right time, came in a big honking box with the strategy guide), possible best console RPG ever Chrono Trigger, the insane mash-up of Super Mario RPG, and Secret of Mana, perhaps the best use of co-op in a console RPG pre-Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.

My friend Dave and I, being the Shining Force fanatics that we were, would often look through Nintendo Power at our local library. The Epic Center section that appeared in it, which featured RPGs, was the closest we could get to porn at such a young age. We literally lusted after Chrono Trigger, going so far as to try to draw our own versions of the characters as classes in a Shining Force game--for the sake of interest, we made Lucca into a "Sky Princess" and Frog into a "Frog Lord." Otherwise, it was kind of the beginning of the whole "Japan is awesome, 2D is awesome, RPGs are awesome!!" phase we went through for a long time, largely because all we had to go by was our imagination as well as cryptic screenshots and descriptions from the magazine.

Other than the fact that they were awesome, what strikes me as most memorable about those games, and the SNES in general, was the quality of the sound. The system is commonly regarded as having one of the best sound chips, especially for its time, and the music of those games is still much loved today. It was the first and only time in my life that I used a boombox to record music off my TV and unto cassette tapes. Cyan's theme from Final Fantasy VI and Love and Peace from Earthbound still give me chills when I hear them.

I fully admit that I missed a lot of games during the 16 bit era because I only got a SNES toward the end. But I still think of this time as one of the happiest of my life largely due to the great RPGs on the SNES and the fun, more action-y Genesis library. Funnily enough, the Playstation would offer us the best of both worlds in due time. But first, all my friends and I had to buy tickets for the curiously beloved Nintendo 64.

The Videogame Solipsist: Genesis

I forgot the thing originally had a headphone jack...

Today is my birthday. I'm 24 years old, and it's occurred to me that the 16 bit era was probably the happiest time of my life. The era began, roughly, when I entered first grade and ended sometime around when I was in middle school, so the SNES and--especially--the Sega Genesis are irrevocably tied up with the happiest of times. I also tend to be a 16 bit fundamentalist because I think the early to mid 90s were the golden era of videogames, both on PC and console.

Anyway, it's my birthday and I want to talk about the Sega Genesis. Which my sister and I actually got for Easter. I know, right?? It was strange. Sometime during the NES era we began to see and hear about the Sega Genesis. For whatever reason, we didn't want a SNES. Mostly, I think, the Genesis had a lot of games we wanted. A neighbor came over and hooked up his Genesis and we were completely blown away by the first Sonic game. Once we saw the other games for the system in Toys R' Us (for that was videogame mecca for children at the time), especially Streets of Rage 2 and Golden Axe 2, my sister and I begged our parents to get it for us. So, instead of any Easter candy, we got a Genesis. It must've been Easter of '92, because by then Sonic 1 was a pack-in with the system.

Looking back on it now, owning a Genesis was when I became a serious gamer. During the NES era, nobody really thought in those terms because everybody had the fucking thing. Sometimes you would go to clean your chimney and you'd find three NES's inside, black with soot. But during the Genesis era, I was a bit older and a bit nerdier, and I became what the kids today call "hardcore." I had a subscription to the Sega Visions magazine and would look forward to releases, sometimes even knowing their release date and going to find them on said day. All of my friends made the move to Genesis, and it's now I pause to emphasize the significance of the name. For the U.S., this was the beginning of Sega. I had a friend who owned a Master Sytem, but he was a bit off, and hid the thing under his bed in shame. Sadly, Sega would squander all momentum they had built up with the Genesis, so in the end I guess the name the rest of the world knows the system as (Mega Drive) was a bit more apropos.

My fondest memories of the Genesis are easily the Shining Force games and playing various games co-operatively with friends and my sister. I used to rent Sega games based on how cool they looked on the boxart and screenshots on the back, so Shining Force II fell unto my lap during 1994. My friend Dave and I latched unto this game like addicts, and between the two of us we probably paid for it in rental fees. It remains my favorite strategy RPG because I love the way Camelot designs interfaces, and I think they hit the sweet spot between simplicity and complexity in the gameplay/battle system department. One of my best memories is going to some mall in another part of Ohio for a flower show for my Mom and begging her to buy me the first Shining Force for $35. That seemed like so much money at the time, but I had never seen it for sale anywhere, so...

I digress.

Playing Genesis with friends seemed like a huge deal. It was a moment of pride to show off a new game to friends, either playing together or passing the controller around. General Chaos was probably our favorite because, at the time, we were all military fanatics. However, Genesis was also the last time my Sister ever devoted time to videogames. We routinely kicked ass in Streets of Rage 2 and Golden Axe 2 together, though she had to be the cliche and always play as the girl character.


Toward the end of the Genesis's lifespawn, you got the feeling that Sega had lost their fucking minds. The Sega CD seemed cool, but it was so damn expensive your parents would never spend that much on an add-on for a console that was perfectly fine on its own. I never knew anyone who had it, and the only game I've ever played for it was some shitty Dracula FMV adventure game that my friend Dave bought years later with the system, all under the intention of eventually getting Shining Force CD. As for the 32X, well, I actually played a few games for it, but that was always on the demo station at one of the videostores. It was just another expensive add-on my parents would never go for, and what made it worse was that by the time I might have convinced them to get it for me, a combination of wanting a SNES for Chrono Trigger and the announcement of the Saturn effectively killed any small interest I had in the 32X.

So it goes.

The Melancholy of Chrono Trigger

If you asked me what my favorite RPG of all time is, I would hem and haw and say that I couldn’t decide. Go ahead, ask me.

Greg, what is your favorite RPG of all time??

“Well,” I’d say, after hemming and hawing, “I can’t decide, but Chrono Trigger would make the top three.”

For all the various reasons I love Chrono Trigger—and you can find better written accountings of its greatness elsewhere—I think the one least mentioned is the palpable sense of sadness that is always bubbling underneath the surface. Obviously most RPGs have the whole mechanic of “go to town, find out town and townspeople have a problem and are bummed out, solve the problem and make everything better for everyone forever” but to my knowledge only Chrono Trigger goes a step farther and shows you what will happen should your quest to defeat Lavos fail.

There are different sad moments in the game, from Frog’s backstory to Robo’s beating to Schala’s sacrifice, but the 2300 A.D. era you visit early in the game is basically an entire time period wherein Lavos has emerged and destroyed civilization. Humanity clings on, shivering and starving in scattered domes, but all in all people are pretty well fucked in this era.

For whatever reason, the parts of the game that take place in 2300 are my favorite. Actually, I think I know the reason: I respond to melancholy. Even though through your actions you bring hope to this era by helping out and providing the survivors with a potential future food source (see plant below) it’s still going to be a rough time.

What’s more, there are little touches here and there that help drive home the fact that this place is close to death, from the corpse you discover clutching the plant seed to the howling wind sound on the overworld map to the insane inventor who gives you the Epoch. There are RPGs where you can get “bad” endings or do bad things—see most American developed PC RPGs—but entire chunks of Chrono Trigger take place in a world you’re actively trying to prevent.

Of course, my favorite little bit is the way that, even with advanced technology, humans still couldn’t stop Lavos. I tend to be a fatalist about a lot of things on top of my aforementioned melancholy preference, so the fact that technology couldn’t help makes my black, cynical heart pump with slightly warmer ichor. Plus it makes me wonder if the Reptites had won out over humans whether they could have fared better.

Anyway, there’s this device called the Enertron which is effectively a free, instant Inn—it restores all your HP and MP to full. Your characters step out of it striking victory poses, but then the text intones the following and your characters stare down in disappointment at their empty bellies:

Mankind may have advanced rest machinery (imagine how it must’ve revolutionized the trucking industry!!) but they still can’t overcome hunger, one of the most basic drives.

Then, of course, there’s the predictable “robots that were created to aid and defend mankind end up turning on him” thing.

PROTIP: Most robots in the game are weak to Chrono’s Lightning techs.

The future is a bummer, but on the bright side, I guess things can get worse than they are. Errr I guess that’s a bright side.