Chrono Trigger, first released in 1995 for SNES, is still considered by many one of the greatest games ever made, but even with the huge legion of fans as well as critical and commercial success the game was never released in Europe. 14 years later, Square-Enix brings Crono and his companions to PAL shores for newcomers and veteran players to enjoy, but does the game really deserve the undying love it gets or was nostalgia getting in the way?

Like the Playstation version, Chrono Trigger for the DS is an enhanced port of the original SNES game which some might view as laziness, while others might sigh with relief as developers leave the original design mostly intact. Being an enhanced port however, means there are new things that even the fans that already finished the previous versions 76 times want to know about, but surely new players want to know about the whole game, both the new and the old things.

Chrono Trigger was developed by the aptly named "Dream Team" composed of big names like Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuji Horii (who pretty much created the JRPG genre as we know it with Dragon Quest) and Akira Toriyama, best known for Dragon Ball and his work on Dragon Quest as well. In true RPG fashion, you explore, level up, find new equipment and party members and fight your way through a myriad of enemies. Even so, Chrono Trigger's innovations from 14 years ago still make the game stand out from the crowd, free from the shackles that hold down most games in the genre.

Battles use the now well known Active Time Battle System (ATB), where characters have to wait for a bar to fill up to perform any action. While combat is still turn based, ATB makes it a very fluid experience, especially seeing as the enemy doesn't wait for you to make your decisions to attack, although there's an option to "freeze time" while you're in the selection menus. Asides from the usual special attacks and magic, called Techs, there are also double and triple-techs where characters with full ATB bars can combine Techs to perform fantastic Combos that deal massive amounts of damage or heal your party.

From the 6 available characters, only 3 can be used in your party, with each one obviously sporting different abilities and magic elements. Thankfully, the game doesn't punish you for not going with a specific party, with every character having its uses and every possible party standing a good chance. Of course that certain levels and battles benefit from using certain character specific techs, but you're always free to look the other way and choose whoever you want. Another important aspect of battle is that the characters' and enemies' position on screen makes a difference, despite not being able to move them directly. Certain attacks work in a horizontal line, others work in a straight line from you to the chosen enemy and others within a certain area around you as well as some enemy counter-attacks only working if you're stood next to them.

Chrono Trigger also says no to constant random battles with invisible enemies that make you want to break the wall in rage when you're just trying to reach that damned chest. Although some enemies jump out to surprise you, you can usually see them on the map and choose to avoid or confront them, in which case the battle will immediately take place with no separate battle screen to slow things down.

Crono and Lucca battle on a bridge with a stunning view.

While boss fights require, or at least are made easier by a good strategy and knowledge of what magic you should use and protect yourself against, the game never requires you to grind or master an obscure secret from a strategy guide to defeat enemies that dole out 99,999 damage points. That doesn't mean you can just spam the attack button or use random techs though, because as said before, having the right equipment is very important for the big battles and can make the difference from being plastered, or owning a boss. Getting good equipment doesn't mean boring side quests as in most RPGs, but interesting ones that flesh out the story and the characters, making side quests and the journey to find the best weapons a pivotal part of the game instead of a job reserved only for the players who like to 100% a game.

The new quests exclusive to the DS unfortunately don't keep up with the level of quality the rest of the game provides. If played in one sitting they can become quite tedious with all the back and forth and unavoidable enemies, something that's in stark contest with the rest of the game design. But played between the rest of the game's many quests, the new areas can be somewhat interesting and add to the time travelling mechanics, although they're still mind numbingly boring at times. Some laziness from the developers' part is also obvious due to the recycling of assets from the rest of the game. Still, the game doesn't suffer because of these new additions, as they're obviously optional and add more replay value, not to mention a new ending and the new, more powerful items.

As you can deduce from the title, the game involves time travel, an overseen and overused mechanic both in gameplay and story, yet, without sci-fi aspirations and crazy gameplay concepts, it's not a hindrance to Chrono Trigger, much the opposite. The portals that allow you to travel through time, Time Gates, are located on specific points throughout the world and each will transport you to a specific era, meaning that before you have more means to time travel, you'll be stranded on a world completely changed by time. Although the game doesn't saturate the player's mind with action and consequence, story elements aside, what you do in the past affects the future, creating some unique quests and story elements.

Where we're going we don't need roads.

Chrono Trigger proves that a game doesn't need to have hours of endless dialogue and cutscenes, a trillion characters, overcomplicated scripts or angsty teenage dramas to create an enthralling story. With just the right amount of dialogue and filled with small details, Chrono Trigger will to connect you to the characters and their journey ripe with emotions, twists, tragedies and victories.

The game's text was revised to provide gamers with a translation closer to the original Japanese story, although long time fans needn't worry, as the story remains the same, although Frog no longer speaks in pseudo Olde English, which didn't make any sense in the first place considering no one from his era speaks like that. Other noticeable changes were the names of some items and enemies, but nothing that should send anyone into a rage.

Another unique thing about Chrono Trigger is that you can fight the final boss whenever you want from pretty early on (if you're up to the task of course), something that coupled with the various time travelling antics of our heroes creates a very open game with 13 different endings (14 if you count losing to the final boss as an ending), one of them DS exclusive and each requiring very specific conditions. Finishing the game allows you to start the now normal in RPGs New Game+ where you transfer your items (except some key ones) and character stats from the finished game, making it easier to get every ending. However, with only 3 save slots, it's a little harder than before to manage the saves in order to quickly get every ending.

A normal playthrough would last you around 25 hours, but with the new game+ together with all the different endings, extras and new dungeons, you can squeeze quite a lot more out of it.

Accompanying the thrills of battle, the creepy dungeons and all the ups and downs is a superb soundtrack composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, with some tracks done by Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. Always fantastically timed and with a variety of rhythms and styles, the music in Chrono Trigger magnifies whatever feelings the game wants to transmit to the player and although subjective, it's no stretch to say that it's one of the best soundtracks ever and one that players won't forget.

When a song is played for the first time, it's unlocked on the Music Box, another novelty, along with an Art Gallery, a Dojo where you can view details about all your attacks, a Treasure Atlas, a Bestiary and an Ending Log.

The graphics are exactly the same as the original SNES game and even if they show their age here and there, they still put a lot of 2D games to shame, not to mention that now you have the option to put every menu on the touch screen leaving the game screen completely free and uncluttered, so you can enjoy the beautifully-drawn backgrounds with no pesky bars to block your view, which is one of the biggest advantages of the DS version.

Straight from the PlayStation version of the game come the anime cutscenes drawn by Akira Toriyama and Studio Toei that appear in pivotal parts of the plot and endings, although purists can turn them off and watch them later from the main menu in the Theatre.

Also new to DS is the Arena of the Ages, an area outside the flow of time where you can train a monster to pit against other critters. At first you're in charge of a bland smidge which you need to send to different eras with an attached item to train specific aspects like strength or defense. As your monster grows, some statistics grow while others dwindle, requiring a little thought to balance him out. Eventually your smidge will come from training taking the form from any enemy in the game.

The monster battles don't have a lot of input from the player, they just fight to their hearts content. Your only task is to choose an item for him to use when his turn comes. However if he doesn't trust you enough, he won't use the items, so you need to win some battles between the training sessions to strengthen those bonds with your Pokémon monster. Asides from battling NPCs you can also duke it out with a friend via wireless, but unfortunately Wi-Fi isn't supported. Arena Mode isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's a cool little mode that's nice to be played between your journeys and can even be accessed from the main menu. And of course, it's completely optional.

You can battle using classic controls instead of the touch screen.

On the subject of options, the game allows you a good deal of customization, asides from the battle speed and window color choices, you can choose to play just like you would in a SNES using only the top screen and no touch screen controls or you can free up the game screen and put the battle controls on the bottom screen, accessible with both touch controls or the d-pad. You also have the choice of health bars appearing on top of your characters in case you tend to lose notion of how much HP is left if it's just on the bottom screen. During battle touch controls work pretty well with big buttons making everything easily accessible. When exploring the bottom screen has a map, useful to know what parts of a dungeon you already visit or to spot secret locations and menu shortcuts which you can configure at will to make navigation much faster and seamless.

Controlling your character with the touch screen works, but it doesn't feel very tight, so luckily you can use the d-pad as well with no need to change anything in the options. It's easy to combine the best of both worlds as you see fit and with so many options, there are enough control methods to please everyone.

Chrono Trigger can still stand proud as one of the best games ever made and the DS version doesn't bring its legacy down. For people who have never played the game before, this is an absolute must have, and for those who have already played it, while the new features certainly don't transform the game into something completely different, it's still a masterpiece deserving of your money and most likely, the definitive version of the game.

It's impressive how a 14 year old game still has so much to teach to developers and not just when it comes to RPGs. Chrono Trigger doesn't just stand the test of time, it transcends time itself.

- João Lopes
N-Europe Staff Writer

For a second opinion from Sam Gittins and to read Joao's final verdict, head over to page 2!

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Sam Gittins weighs in on this timeless RPG with a second opinion.

While I did not play Chrono Trigger back in the day, mainly due to its unavailability and the high price of import gaming, I did aquire an original copy recently and I can honestly say that it's a worthwhile purchase even in its original form; it has everything you could want from an RPG including an instantly likeable host of characters, a massive amount of terrain to traverse, brilliant boss battles, gorgeous graphics, a sumptuous score... Oh, and you can, y'know, travel through time and all that jazz.

There are many things which separate Chrono Trigger from most of the other RPGs available, such as the Active Time Battle system which delivers combat in a fantastic fusion of both real-time and turn based combat. However it is the actual time travel that really elevates the experience to new levels of greatness; the concept is exploited to such a level of greatness never before seen in a game and it's this aspect alone that will keep you playing as you travel through different periods of time to prevent the end of the world. Whilst this threat has been used many times in games, in Chrono Trigger it feels truly believable.

Personally, I could go on about so many things that makes Chrono Trigger such a standout title but all you really need to know is this; it has been a most worthy purchase in its original SNES format for years but now being re-released in enhanced form and on the DS - a portable, more accessible system - at less than half the price of what the original now sells for there really isn't a better time to experience one of the best RPG's ever created, and quite frankly, there's no excuse not to either.

- Sam Gittins,
N-Europe Staff Writer & Retro Reviewer

Our scores lie below the comments. Scroll, scroll like you've never scrolled before!