I find it hard sometimes to find video games that have stories that aren't part of a series. Well, at least in a series where I would need to review all of the in a row in the span of a month. Thankfully, there are those few video games that I can split up and talk about separately at another time. Speaking of time, Chrono Trigger!
(Brought to you by the guy who drew Dragon Ball Z)
Chrono Trigger, at least in my mind, is considered quite the epic story during its time. Developed and published by Square back in 1995(before it was bought out by Enix and became Square Enix), it was a tale of time travel and Armageddon, traveling from the far past and into the distant future. The characters are rather memorable, the designs seemed to pop, and the mythos that would help launch the 'Chrono' series was started here.
It was created from the mind of what was known as the 'Dream Team': Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series, Yuji Horii, the creator of Dragon Quest, and Akira Toriyama, who drew the Dragon Ball series. There was also Masato Kato who wrote most of the plot, Hiroyuki Ito worked as a game designer and animator, with music supplied by composers Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu. With this kind of talent backing the project, its no wonder 'Chrono Trigger' has been considered one of the greatest games of all time. It was first released on the SNES in 1995. In 1999, it was released for the 1st Playstation along with 'Final Fantasy IV' and on the Nintendo DS in 2008.
The gameplay definitely had a part in its design, with it deviating from most RPGS at the time. Random encounters were taken out and enemies roamed around the map, requiring the player to carefully avoid them if the players wishes to. Battles took place in the same level as the map and tech attacks can be employed by the party to take out enemies in more ways than usual. Other features included time travel, allowing the player to travel through different overmaps in time and was one of the first games by Square to have a 'New Game+' mode.
Alright, enough about the gameplay and development. Its time to focus on the story. No place better to start than the beginning...
(Uh...I meant the beginning of the story. How do babies fit in this?)
Anyway, its starts in AD 1000, with the main character Chrono, a silent protagonist who wields a katana (and looks like Goku from DBZ), attending a fair in his town. There, he meets Marle, who is actually a princess hiding her royalty as she ventures into the outside world. They both come across an attraction involving Lucca, a childhood friend of Chrono. Lucca has been working on a teleporter that has gotten Marle very interested into trying it out herself. However, her pendant reacts weirdly with the device and opens up a portal in time. As Marle is sent back in time, Chrono and Lucca follow her, ending up in AD 600. After fighting a few monsters, they realize that Marle was mistaken as the princess of this time, which creates a grandfather paradox. Time travel isn't really my thing and this will confuse me one way or another. Best just to move on as is.
Marle gets kidnapped during this stay, with Chrono and Lucca getting the aid of a squire-turned-anthromorphic-frog named...Frog. They rescue Marle from her captor, with Frog saying goodbye to the trio as they return to AD 1000. Upon arrival, Chrono immediately gets captured and is accused of kidnapping Marle. Good to know that even back then, heroes somehow manage to end up as bad guys through miscommunication. Of course, Chrono is set free thanks to Marle and Lucca, with the trio opening another portal which actually sends them forward in time. They end up in AD 2300, which turns out to be rather post apocalyptic. Think Terminator: Salvation, only actually good. From survivors, they learn about a creature known as Lavos who appeared in AD 1999 and wiped out the advanced civilization during that time. The three heroes vow to stop Lavos once they figure out how to travel through time. After traveling to a mechanical dome, they come across a damaged robot figure...
(They should be fine. It doesn't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger)
Lucca helps rebuild the robot, who goes by the name Robo, and they end up finding another portal. This time, they end up heading to the End of Time and meet with an old man named Gaspar. He grants Chrono, Marle, and Lucca some magical power, giving them control over Lighting, Ice, and Fire respectively. They then use portals set up in the End of Time to travel to the other periods. One of them sends them back to 65,000,000 BC. They encounter some reptile men and soon encounter a future ally...
(And they said cavemen were just the hunters and gatherers)
The group is joined by Ayla, a cavewoman, who helps them return back to the End of Time. When they head back to AD 600, Frog needs help in repairing a sword known as the Masamune. Apparently, Frog was a human known as Glenn and fought alongside another knight named Cyrus. The two were confronted by Magus, a power sorcerer, who killed Cyrus and turned Frog into his current form. Eventually, the Masamune is reforged once more (even getting help from its original creators, Masa and Mune). Frog rejoins the party, telling them that he believes that Magus would be the only controlling Lavos. They head out to Magus' castle, which is blocked by a mountain of all things. Fortunately, Frog has them covered...
(Still manlier than 80s He-Man)
They arrive at Magus' castle, even fighting against some of Magus' best warriors: a fat green blob named Ozzie, a gender-confusing mage named Flea, and a dangerous swordsman named Slash. (They should form a band. :D) Of course, all 3 get defeated (Ozzie's defeat is rather embarrassing for him) and Magus gets confronted once and for all...
(Bit of mood lighting helps set the tone)
So the heroes fight Magus, who decides to be a dick and send them back to the past, way past. I mean 65,000,000 BC past. With Ayla, they discover that the reptile men, actually referred to as Reptites, planning something with with several members of Ayla's tribe. They decide to mount an attack on the main Reptite stronghold, and decide to do so in style...
(Too bad it doesn't catch on. Would've loved to fly a pterodactyl)
Once they reach the Reptite stronghold, they discover the origins of Lavos. It is there that they discover that Lavos has been on the planet for millions of years, having started to absorb the DNA and energy of every living being since its arrival. Another time hop, skip and jump to 12,000 BC, where a kingdom known as Zeal has discovered Lavos and intend on absorbing its power through the use of something known as the Mammon Machine to grant them immortality. Crono and his friends try to stop them, but Queen Zeal catapults them out of the timeline and sealing off that point in time. Undaunted, the heroes travel back to 2300 AD, where they find a new machine would help them travel through time without a portal. It is called the Epoch, also known as the Wings of Time...
(When this hits 88 miles per hour, we get to see the serious shit Dr. Brown promised)
They manage to make it back to 12,000 BC before the Mammon Machine is activated. Unfortunately, they get delayed by a general named Dalton, who stalls them long enough to get the Mammon Machine activated without fail. Lavos appears before them, and Magus is there as well, having disguised himself to kill Lavos. However, Chrono makes his stand against the creature with the ultimate sacrifice...
(Magus-Piccolo probably wondered why Chrono didn't dodge that attack)
So yeah, Chrono is dead. Not the usual thing to see the main hero get killed like that. The rest of his friends survive, but end up being captured by Dalton. They manage to get free, Dalton gets his just desserts, and they recover the Epoch. At this point, Magus can be recruited as well, if the player chooses. From there, Magus tells the story of how he was known as prince Janus and actually lived in Zeal. When Lavos was summoned, he was scattered through time and ended up in the Middle Ages. He created the entity of Magus and vowed to kill Lavos and avenge his sister, Schala, who had died when Lavos appeared.
Soon, the Ocean Palace, which was part of the Kingdom of Zeal, gets turned into the Black Omen and rises above the ocean. The heroes seek help from Gaspar, who states that they could save Chrono through the use of a 'Chrono Trigger' (I see what he did there). The device helped save Chrono at the moment of his death, bringing him back to the land of the living. Before setting out to fight Lavos, a few missions are introduced by Gaspar, telling the heroes how there were ways that could help them in the coming battle. Some of these missions included finding the legendary Rainbow Shell, returning a forest that became a desert and even visit the grave of Frog's friend Cyrus...
(Jeez, that's really depressing...)
The last mission involves attacking Black Omen and taking out Queen Zeal. The fight is pretty tough, but can be done. From there, they use the Epoch to take on Lavos at its source, destroying its outer shell and pushing in further, deeper into the core of Lavos' being. More fighting ensues and in one great climax, Lavos is finally killed. Now onto the celebration!
(For those who didn't notice before, Vegeta took out Frog, dyed his hair green and took all of his glory. That bastard.)
And that is the end of Chrono Trigger. I'm still not surprised that this video game is considered one of the best video games of all time. The story, the characters, the gameplay: all mesh up into one nice package. Thankfully, its still remembered after so many years, thanks to loyal fans and some rereleases. There have been 2 sequels to it: Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross. I'll review those two at another time, but it will happen.
Until next time...
Chrono Trigger was developed and produced by Square (Now Square Enix)
Thanks to EssiMonsterEvolved, VGCutsceneTV, StyxNL, QuovakSA, DarkSpartan4, majikos, littlesephiroth, and guitmm for all the Youtube videos.
No comments:
Post a Comment