video game reviews

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past

Posted on by Remy G.

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past

The only island in the world…or is it?

One of the final RPGs I played for the Sony PlayStation was Enix’s Dragon Warrior VII, titled Dragon Quest VII: Warriors of Eden in Japan, which was the first entry of the series I played on a console since the original Dragon Warrior on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Throughout the 2000s, the franchise would undergo a translational renaissance in the West, culminating in retaining the Dragon Quest name outside Japan. However, success in the Anglophone world would vary drastically. Thus, the seventh Dragon Quest remake for the Nintendo 3DS seemed doomed to remain in Japan when released in the next decade. Mercifully, it would be rescued and localized as Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past.

The rerelease opens on Estard, the only island in the world, with the protagonist, the son of a fisherman and his wife, working with Prince Kiefer, the kingdom’s reluctant heir, to delve into the world’s mysteries, which may lead to clues as to why their isle is all alone in the first place. The town mayor’s daughter, Maribel, joins them, with the party getting the help of individuals like the scholar Dermot the Hermit to investigate the Shrine of Mysteries, populated with pedestals that can contain the subtitular fragments scattered across Estard, which hold the key to their world’s “forgotten past.”

The scenarios the hero and his allies encounter throughout the game are endearing, developed well, have backstories, and explain why Estard seems all alone. Some texts from bookshelves add background and philosophy, with many relatable themes abounding, like unsupportive parents, rewriting history, burying inconvenient historical facts, etc. While the periods and connections between past and present scenarios aren’t always explicit, they are still intriguing. Drawbacks include glacial pacing, methodical story structure, predictable and derivative plot points, and vague narrative direction. Regardless, the narrative is an excellent draw to the game.

Prince Kiefer prevents his father from Making Estard Great Again

The localization, characteristic of previous series entries translated into English, breathes life into the dialogue, with the PlayStation version’s script having amounted to more than ten thousand pages, which could have explained the long translation period. Regional dialects return in full force, representing linguistic groups like the English (Renaissance and contemporary), Scottish, British, Cockney, French, Germans, Russians, and more. Clever naming conventions also abound, like renaming Prince Kiefer’s father King Donald in honor of the Sutherlands, numerous pun-based identities for individuals and enemies that include Cardinal Sin, Dermot the Hermit, the forky pig, the tongue fu fighter, etc.

However, the translation retains countless irritating conventions of Japanese RPG dialogue, including a chronic overuse of exclamation points and ellipses, spelled-out laughter (like “ha, ha, ha,” which today only sounds natural if done sarcastically), other onomatopoeia rendered in English (like sleepers saying “Ah-phew! Ah-phew!”), and so forth. Occasional awkward dialogue abounds as well, which encompasses the franchise’s staple encounter quote “But the enemies are too stunned to move!”, and a few punctuation marks are misplaced. There’s also maybe one inconsistent spelling of a character’s name (Autonymous instead of Autonymus), but the localization overall shines.

As a testament to the glacial pacing, players don’t encounter their first enemies until over an hour into the narrative. However, the tempo of the game mechanics beats in the opposite direction. At first, they seem like standard Dragon Quest: the player inputs commands among up to four characters, like attacks with equipped weapons, defense to reduce damage, MP-consuming magic, or various skills that may or may not require MP. The standard rules of traditional turn-based Japanese RPG combat exist, with characters and the enemy, after the players input their party’s orders, exchanging commands in an order allegedly depending upon agility, but this can be random and lead to occasional incidents of things like healing allies low on HP coming too late.

The player can attempt escape from combat, but as with 99.99% of JRPGs (except maybe Chrono Cross), this doesn’t work all the time. Other features include AI options for all characters except the protagonist (alongside a manual selection of orders), which players can set for individual allies or the entire party. These include not using MP when selecting commands, going medieval against enemies, focusing on keeping HP high, and emphasizing stat-boosting abilities and defense. While AI, of course, can often be artificially incompetent, I found this handy (especially “Don’t Use Magic,” since dozens of excellent free skills come later in the game), and methinks it shaved a few hours off my total playtime than if I had always selected skills myself.

Victory results in all characters still alive acquiring experience for occasional leveling, money, and occasional items. I should add that the remake ditches random encounters (except in one late-game dungeon, the Multipleximus Maximus) in favor of visible enemies, who charge the player’s party when their levels are lower than or equal to theirs and run away otherwise. One spell, Holy Protection, can temporarily make enemies on fields and in dungeons other than those higher in level disappear, nullifying the possibility of accidentally bumping into weaker foes. The difficulty for the first part of the game was fair for me, and I often needed to use consumable healing items in a few tough boss battles.

As is the class system if you play your cards right

When the player unlocks Alltrades Abbey (after Kiefer leaves your party permanently, so don’t waste stat-increasing seeds on him or worry about constantly upgrading his equipment), the fun truly begins. Then, players access an engrossing class system, with their party able to select from many base vocations; mastery of these unlocks those of higher tiers. Every class increases and decreases all a character’s stats by a certain amount. Fortunately, players need not keep tons of spare equipment available for job changes like Final Fantasy V. As in Dragon Warrior VII, characters acquire experience for their vocation after triumphing in an enemy encounter, but only if the foes’ levels are on par with or higher than theirs.

One improvement over the PlayStation version is that class levels rise quicker, but at the same time, characters can now only access abilities in intermediate and advanced classes if in the former or the latter if the middle-tier classes are prerequisites for those upper-tier. Monster classes from the original return (their respective hearts acquired from treasure chests or battle) and allow them to transform into these adversarial vocations to learn their skills. Unlike Dragon Warrior VII, enemy vocations are no longer divided into a hierarchy, with all skills learned from them remaining with the allies who learn them regardless of their current job.

Returning to the matter of free skills, which characters will learn frequently, many can be incredibly useful, like Hatchet Man, which has a 50/50 chance of dealing unblockable critical damage to enemies and can be handy at making mincemeat (or mincegoo) of metallic slime foes that run away quickly but reward ludicrous experience when killed. However, this can be a double-edged sword since it can consequentially level characters to the point where they don’t advance in their classes (but in most late-game areas, enemies will reward class experience regardless of strength or weakness).

To sum up, the game mechanics work surprisingly well, especially with the pacing of combat contradicting that of the narrative. I could end most standard battles on the highest speed setting within a round or two without half a minute passing. Furthermore, with character class paths planned carefully, I blazed through the final boss fight without dying. However, many issues from prior series entries recur, like the inability to target specific enemies in groups, the randomization, no telling of when beneficial spells (except Oomph) expire, and the AI not being foolproof. Late-game, furthermore, when the player has five party members, the extra can’t come along, which is a step down from previous installments where one could have everyone and switch them in and out of battle on the fly from reserve.

Everybody was tongue fu fighting

Control has rarely been a strong suit in the Dragon Quest series, and the seventh entry’s remake continues that trend. Endless dialogue and confirmations when performing simple tasks like shopping and saving your game? Check. Frequent vague direction on advancing the main storyline, even when talking to everyone? Check. Needing constantly to reference the internet regarding said poor direction and other things like hidden secrets and puzzles? Check. However, conveniences like instant teleportation among visited towns and exiting dungeons return, though these have issues, with the former only working in the present and the latter not always readily available. Furthermore, when acquiring the second nautical ship late-game, I couldn’t figure out how to get off the thing without using Zoom to a town, and the in-game clock was slow.

Even so, the fragment finder, which indicates whenever the subtitular fragments are nearby, is the best improvement over the PlayStation version. The fairy at the Shrine of Mysteries also often clues players about the location of the next one necessary to access a new area in the past. However, this did fail me at one point later in the game since I had to talk to a nonplayer character to get the detector to work in a respective area. Other improvements include maps for towns and dungeons (but in their case, players can’t swap among maps within and without floors to see how they’re connected) and an always-convenient suspend save in case reality calls. Overall, the interaction aspect doesn’t fail miserably but could have been far better.

The late Koichi Sugiyama’s soundtrack, gloriously orchestrated in the remake, excels as always, with the return of the standard series overture, staple franchise tracks such as the save menu theme, and others that fit the various moods and settings. However, many moments are without music, and the franchise’s dated sound effects return in full force.

Gives meaning to the phrase “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”

The remake’s visuals are far better than those in Dragon Warrior VII, fully rendered in three dimensions and taking advantage of the Nintendo 3DS’s glasses-free 3-D capabilities. The environments have vibrant hues (but frequent blurry and pixilated textures, characteristic of most three-dimensional graphics), and the illumination effects are superb. The character models fit the late Akira Toriyama’s character designs, including lip animations (but facial expressions mostly remain happy), and different vocations yield alternate costumes for the player’s party. However, Toriyama’s standard enemy reskins commonly recur, horrible collision detection abounds, and environmental elements frequently, abruptly, and unnaturally appear during overworld navigation. Regardless, the 3DS version’s graphics are a sight to behold.

Finally, finishing the main quest can take players as little as sixty hours (my final playtime clocked somewhere over eighty), with sidequests galore like countless subplots, completing the monster compendium, and two postgame dungeons, which can pad playtime further. However, the game excessively overstays its welcome, with other detriments to lasting appeal like fixed difficulty, minimal narrative variations, no New Game+, and the constant need to reference the internet to complete anything and everything.

With tight and enjoyable game mechanics, an intriguing narrative, and solid audiovisual presentation, Dragon Quest VII on the Nintendo 3DS is both an excellent remake and one of the far better entries of a series whose quality has ranged from okay to decent. However, issues like the need for foresight in character class path planning, retained dated series traditions, and glacial and vague narrative direction detain it from masterpiece status. Regardless, I enjoyed the time I spent with the game and wish others the same positive experience. Lamentably, events like the Nintendo 3DS eShop’s closure and the worldwide gaming industry’s apathy towards the preservation of video game history (enforced by American groups like the Entertainment Software Association) have made herculean the capacity to play it affordably and legally, but if it ever receives an enhanced port or secondary remake (provided they don’t screw things up), pick it up.

This review is based on a playthrough of a digital copy purchased and downloaded to the reviewer’s Nintendo 3DS to the standard ending, with none of the postgame content experienced.

Score Breakdown
The GoodThe Bad
One of the best, if not the best, JRPG class systems.
Engaging substories, with endearing localization.
Excellent soundtrack.
Visuals are a million times better than the PlayStation version’s.		Character class planning requires some foresight.
Retains franchise’s dated traditions.
Incredibly glacial narrative pacing and vague direction.
Good luck finding it at a reasonable price.
The Bottom Line
An excellent remake, but terrible narrative direction and overstaying its welcome prevent it from masterpiece status.
PlatformNintendo 3DS
Game Mechanics9.0/10
Control6.5/10
Story9.0/10
Localization9.0/10
Aurals9.5/10
Visuals8.5/10
Lasting Appeal6.0/10
DifficultyEasy to Moderate
Playtime60-120 Hours
Overall: 8.5/10

Review – Grandia HD Remaster (finally)

Posted on by Remy G.

Grandia HD Remaster

The Angelou Civilization, Minus Maya

Once upon a time, Sony had emerged as a competitor in the video game market with its PlayStation console, originally intended to be a compact disc add-on for Nintendo’s Super NES before negotiations fell through. Sega had also released its Saturn console to provide competition for Sony’s system, receiving a decent catalog of exclusive games like the Game Arts-developed RPG Grandia. However, due to Sega executive Bernie Stolar’s prejudice against Japanese roleplaying games, Anglophone gamers were denied a translated version, Stolar having had similar policies when he headed Sony of America.

Happily, Sue leaves during the quest.
There can be only one

However, Grandia would be ported to the PlayStation and receive a full English translation, seeing release in 1999 two years after the Sega Saturn version. Critics and audiences would extol it as one of the greatest RPGs ever made, given its unique battle system, but it had its share of detractors critical of various technical issues, the sloppy translation, and the horrible English voicework that would go for decades unaddressed, after which the game received a remaster, along with its first sequel, to the Nintendo Switch and Windows. This rerelease provided a prime opportunity to rectify the various issues of the PlayStation version, but does it?

Grandia opens in the city of Parm with Justin, an aspiring adventurer, having a “duel” with his rival Gantz that involves finding faux legendary pieces of equipment scattered throughout town. Justin also has an enigmatic artifact from his absentee father, the Spirit Stone. Thus, he searches the nearby ruins to gather clues, with the Garlyle Forces, led by General Baal and his son Colonel Mullen, expressing similar interest. The result is a grand adventure by Justin as he embarks on a quest to discover the mysteries of the ancient and hilariously named Angelou civilization with the help of others while dealing with the adversarial military.

The quality of the narrative is inconsistent, with the initial rivalry with Gantz being asinine, along with countless fetch quests that contribute little to the central storyline, not to mention countless tried tropes like an absentee father and an ancient civilization, as well as pitiful attempts at humor and glacial plot pacing. However, the game backstory is decent for Angelou and the inhabited world. Many plot beats work well also, like the different and sometimes animal races, a few decent twists, serviceable attempts at comic relief like the three female sergeants Justin and his party repeatedly encounter, and the satisfying ending. Regardless, the story is average at best.

While the Grandia series now falls under Square-Enix ownership, publisher GungHo sadly made no effort to update the sordid translation by Sony America that plagued the PlayStation version, intact and reused in the remaster. Terrible names such as Gantz and Tentz, compressed item names in the game menus, spelled-out laughter, crying, and grunting, overuse of ellipses and exclamation points, unnatural battle dialogue, lousy spell names like “WOW!”, poor writing like “I, (insert name here),” and so forth, heavily abound. The text is legible, and the translation makes some attempts at dialects for specific regions and races. However, the game localization is one of many areas where the HD remaster was a wasted opportunity.

The translation CHRONICALLY OVERUSES CAPITALIZATION in the dialogue.

The Game Arts franchise has received near-universal praise for its game mechanics, which remain unchanged from the original Saturn and PlayStation versions of Grandia. On fields connecting towns and in dungeons, visible enemies abound, with contact resulting in the game taking players to a separate screen for combat. However, rather than take cues from the visible encounter systems of previous RPGs like EarthBoundand Chrono Trigger, the inaugural entry instead has all foes that Justin and company draw near charge his party, regardless of how powerful they are, with a few enemies having cheap movement patterns such as disappearing from the field and reappearing somewhere else.

How contact between Justin’s party and the visible enemy occurs determines how combat begins. Justin contacting the foe when it hasn’t turned red to indicate alertness results in his party having the initiative, contact by the enemy on one of Justin’s allies results in them getting the upper hand, and contact by Justin with alert enemies results in battles starting standardly. Combat in Grandia is turn-based, with Justin’s party and various enemies populating the battlefield, and a gauge at the bottom of the screen, called the IP (Initiative Points) bar, indicates the order in which everyone will take their turns, its representative icons moving in real-time according to unit agility, meaning that the speed of their arrival at the Command segment can vary wildly.

When the icons representing Justin and his allies reach Command, the player receives countless options for whatever they want the character to do. These include two variations of standard attacks with a character’s equipped weapon: Combo, where they strike an enemy two times (or carry on their second attack to another foe if the first eradicates the original target); and Critical, which can cancel an enemy’s command if their icon is moving on the segment between the Command and Action points (units on either side carryout out their actions when reaching the latter). However, the timing of this is often incredibly tricky and requires excellent foresight regarding factors such as battlefield position, the rate at which an opposing unit is prepping execution of their commands, and so forth.

As with standard attacks, there are two types of defending against the enemy: standing one’s ground or evasively traversing the battlefield. Characters can also use items like in most other RPGs or attempt escape from battle, which is surprisingly reliable compared to other titles. The use of magic quickly becomes an option as well, with the player needing to acquire Mana Eggs scattered throughout the myriad enemy-infested fields and dungeons to grant a character one of four elements: Fire, Wind, Water, or Earth, which can hybrid into twin-typed spells.

Some issues abound with Mana Eggs. For one, finding the things in the first place can be difficult, given the frequent disorientation while exploring dungeons and fields, alongside the frequent loss of access to these previous areas as players advance the game. In that case, focus first on giving Justin and Feena all their elements, and only give them to Sue if you get more than three spare Mana Eggs since she eventually leaves your party. While players receive consumables to boost elemental skill levels when she and other guest characters leave your party, they are a poor substitute for an actual refund of the Mana Eggs. Regardless, if you follow this advice, the next permanent character, Rapp, will be at a huge advantage (and he joins with the Fire element). The final party member initially has all the elements, so there’s no need to worry about that.

Battles can require a lot of foresight, but regular weapon and elemental leveling and use of their respective skills can often circumvent things.

Leveling a weapon or spell level, alongside learning new spells with level conditions satisfied, gives characters a bonus stat increase, which can be a godsend given that standard experience levels (with typical JRPG experience points acquired after battle alongside money and items) rise glacially. The game mechanics work harmoniously, combat rarely dragging on aside from unskippable and overly lengthy ability and spell animations that frequently stop the action in its tracks, and other issues abound like the unclarity of if moves, be they weapon or magic-based, can cancel enemy actions (and those of certain foes, chiefly bosses, can’t be invalidated no matter what). Regardless, the battle system deserves the praise it has received then and today.

As mentioned, significant disorientation can abound when exploring dungeons, which is most common after battles. Given the dungeon design, Grandia would have seriously benefited from in-game maps, which would have singlehandedly shaved significant superfluous playtime from the game, especially for those who want to explore every corner of dungeons. Viewpoints come where the player can receive a skyward view of where they currently are but are a poor substitute. Other control issues include the inconsistent placement of save points (but these recover all health and magic), and whichever developer decided to place them after boss battles should never be allowed to work on video games ever again.

Other issues regarding the save system include the absence of autosaving when transitioning between areas and a suspend-save. Another is the parsimonious inventory limit, with players regularly needing to decide which items to dispose of and which to keep; while Stashes to place excess goods exist, the ability to send things directly to them without being at them would have been more than welcome. However, positives exist, like the remaster never crashing when I played from start to finish, the Switch Home button halting all the action and game clock, a soft reset, the ability to trade current equipment with newer gear at shops, and the always-welcome view of stat increases or decreases when shopping for new weapons and armor.

Alongside the game mechanics, the aural presentation is another high point of Grandia, beginning with a sweeping, epic central theme with numerous remixes, alongside countless other emotional pieces with superb instrumentation. However, many tracks sound unusual, like one where vocalists repeatedly shout “GUMBO!” and endless ambient themes. Lamentably, the same sordid janitorial staff-quality English voicework from the PlayStation version returns, but players can mercifully select the Japanese voices, which are a million times better. Ultimately, the aurals are good, but new rerecorded English voice acting would have been more than welcome.

One area the remaster luckily addressed, however, is the visual presentation, significantly upscaling and adjusting to widescreen the original’s graphics consisting of two-dimensional character sprites with three-dimensional scenery, which appear smooth and polished. FMVs that hybrid CG environments and anime characters also return in upscaled glory. However, there is still much environmental pixilation and blurriness, the sprites often look weird and have chibi aspects like line eyes despite their proportions, and countless character portraits look asinine and occasionally gross regarding things like Rapp picking his nose and Pakon’s nasal drippage. Still, the graphics do their job.

Move over, Joe Camel, here comes Joe…Giraffe.

Finally, the remaster is another Japanese RPG that puts quantity well above quality, with my final playtime a little over seventy hours; however, one can blaze through it quicker if lucky. Given the overdrawn longevity, alongside the lack of lasting appeal other than three extra dungeons, maxing every element and skill level, and the frequent absence of enjoyability due to the lack of numerous basic quality-of-life features and enhancements like in-game maps and the need to reference the internet to do everything (with no New Game+, no achievements, no narrative variations, no postgame content), one playthrough will be more than enough for a lifetime for most mainstream gamers.

Overall, Grandia HD has incredible aspects like its game mechanics and soundtrack. However, it is far from the masterpiece critics and audiences have extolled it to be, given its myriad issues regarding the control, narrative, English voicework, and localization, which the remaster sadly failed to address (and even the best aspects have notable flaws). Artificial longevity is another primary issue, inexcusable given the almost strictly linear game structure, with Grandia excessively overstaying its welcome. Regardless, the “iconic” Game Arts title demonstrates that video game quality, positive or negative, is a point of view. While it is often fun, it’s hardly a bucket-list game, and mainstream gamers can easily live without experiencing it.

This review is based on a playthrough of the version included with the Grandia HD Collection to completion purchased and downloaded to the reviewer’s Nintendo Switch.

Score Breakdown
The GoodThe Bad
Fun battle system.
Lacks PlayStation version’s technical issues.
Some decent plot beats.
Great soundtrack.
Remastered visuals show polish.		Requires foresight at times.
Very user-unfriendly.
Needs maps badly.
Awful translation and English voicework.
Finite lasting appeal.
The Bottom Line
Has many positive elements but is hardly the masterpiece critics and audiences have called it.
PlatformNintendo Switch
Game Mechanics7.5/10
Control3.5/10
Story5.0/10
Localization0.5/10
Aurals8.0/10
Visuals6.0/10
Lasting Appeal2.5/10
DifficultyModerate
Playtime45-90 Hours
Overall: 5.0/10

Gaming Update, 3/28/2024

Posted on by Remy G.

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past

Finally reached Chapter 3, Sir Mervyn is out of my party, and Maribel’s back in, yay. She was a Jester last I left her, and I’ll continue to have her master the classes necessary to reach Luminary before turning her into a Druid as well (she had mastered Sage before she left). Shouldn’t be too hard a task to pull off.

I’ve only made minor progress on my Grandia HD review…

Gaming Update, 3/25/2024

Posted on by Remy G.

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past

Did all the stuff involving the Divine Shrine and now can use the Skystone. A cave has opened up in an excavation site, so that’s my next destination. I’m still a Hero, Ruff one as well, Sir Mervyn a Druid, and Aishe a Paladin.

No progress on my Grandia HD review today, but hopefully I should be able to do some more significant work on it tomorrow now that a major commitment has transpired.

Gaming Update, 3/24/2024

Posted on by Remy G.

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past

All the islands are now in the present. Had to look at a guide to find out my next destination, the Divine Shrine, and I think I know where it is. I’m still ranking up the Hero class, Ruff is still maxed as one, Sir Mervyn is still a maxed Druid, and Aishe is still ranking up the Paladin class.

Making a little headway on my Grandia HD review…

Gaming Update, 3/23/2024

Posted on by Remy G.

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past

I’m in the past of Buccanham, after getting the moss from the dwarfs’ cavern. I’m a Hero now, Ruff has mastered Hero, Sir Mervyn is still a maxed Druid, and Aishe is a Paladin.

Finished one paragraph of my Grandia HD review. Since I got a lot of other stuff out of the way today, I should hopefully be able to do more work on it tomorrow.

Gaming Update, 3/21/2024

Posted on by Remy G.

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past

I’m in the past of Vogograd right now, and gained a ton of class experience searching for the treasure chest on the eastern peninsula. The Hero is now a Champion, Ruff a Hero, and Aishe a Gladiator. Sir Mervyn has mastered the Druid class, and I’m not having him go through any more vocations since he would lose access to said Druid abilities.

No work was done on my Grandia HD Remaster review…

Gaming Update, 3/20/2024

Posted on by Remy G.

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past

I’m in the past of Aeolus Vale and got the Sacred Stone from the sanctum, afterward returning to town for a few cutscenes, and I intend to make a pit stop back to the present to bank all the gold I earned. The Hero is a Paladin, Ruff a Armamentalist, Sir Mervyn a Druid, and Aishe a Luminary.

Getting a little work done on my Grandia HD Remaster review…

Gaming Update, 3/19/2024

Posted on by Remy G.

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past

Did some more class grinding in Traveller’s Tablet worlds before returning to the past Nottagen to finish the final quest. Maribel has left my party, replaced by Aishe, whom I made a Warrior since she has some ranks for that class. The Hero is a Priest, Ruff an Armamentalist, and Sir Mervyn a Sage. Maribel was a Jester before she left.

Grandia HD Remaster

Beat this baby. Expect a review eventually.

Chrono Trigger

Posted on by Remy G.

Chrono Trigger

The Temporal Epiphany

Before Square and Enix merged, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, along with Yuji Horii and Akira Toriyama, the respective architect and character designer of the Dragon Quest series, banded to develop an RPG under the former company’s banner heavily utilizing content excised from the planned debut of Secret of Mana on the Super NES’s aborted CD add-on when Nintendo sought partnership with Sony when their negotiations fell through. The final product was titled Chrono Trigger, seeing original release on the Big N’s 16-bit console and future ports to platforms that include the PlayStation, Nintendo DS, iOS, and most recently, Steam. Does it still hold up today?

The game opens in 1000 AD when the protagonist Crono’s mother awakens him on the day the Millennial Fair, which celebrates the founding of the kingdom Guardia, begins. At the festival, he bumps into a mysterious maiden named Marle, whom he takes to test his friend Lucca’s teleportation device, which strangely resonates with her pendant and mistakenly sends her four centuries into the past. Thus, Crono gives chase, discovering various temporal events and conspiracies culminating in the destruction of the world in 1999 AD by an entity called Lavos and recruiting others to secure the timeline.

Even in the original’s time, Chrono Trigger was not the first Japanese RPG to emphasize time travel, with that honor going to SaGa 3, which received the phony moniker Final Fantasy Legend III from Square’s North American branch when it was translated years before. However, the game weaves its story effectively, with the characters being endearing and often having intricate backstories, the various substories being interesting, events in historical periods impacting the future, a few plot differences dependent upon the player’s party composition, and different endings that depend upon actions taken throughout the quest.

Obviously must be important
The first of the Magi

However, many negative plot beats abound. Among them are Guardia’s soldiers leaving Crono with his weapon and armor on when incarcerated early in the narrative, the tale of a “legendary hero,” and elements derived from literature like the repair of a broken ancestral blade, a plot point from The Lord of the Rings. Other unoriginal elements include a dystopian future and an evil queen; other tropes from previous RPGs, like a character having to relearn all powers from scratch when joining your party and a doomed floating continent also appear. Additional “why” moments like cavemen in hiding emerging to glimpse an approaching tidal wave before returning to safety are also present. Fortunately, these don’t heavily dent an otherwise enjoyable plot.

The original translation by Ted Woolsey was one of the better ones in its era, receiving much of the polish it had when ported to the Nintendo DS. As is expected of any RPG released today, the dialogue is legible, and very few spelling and grammar errors exist. Most Japanese-to-English name changes were also for the better, like the names of the Gurus of Zeal, renamed after the Magi that visited the infant Jesus after his birth, with their original names being far more comical. Magus’ generals, furthermore, had the names of condiments in the Japanese dialogue, although Woolsey changed their names to Ozzie, Slash, and Flea after musicians well known to Anglophone gamers.

While Chrono Trigger features an overworld, it relegates enemy encounters to dungeons, with foes visible to fight in most of them. Contacting enemies or coming near them triggers combat, but many cases come where they’re hidden and emerge to engage Crono and his party. Battles bequeath the active time system of the Final Fantasy franchise, with the three frontline characters having gauges that, when filled, allow them to perform commands. As in Hironobu Sakaguchi’s flagship Square franchise, players can choose between active mode, where the battle action continues while they peruse Tech and item menus, or wait mode, where the action stops during navigation of said inventories.

However, the wait mode doesn’t work universally, for example, not while targeting monsters to attack or execute Techs against or anytime outside the Tech and item menus, even when all three characters’ active time gauges fill, which would have been welcome. Attacking using equipped weapons, using MP-consuming Techs, and consuming items are the primary battle commands, but a typical RPG staple, defending to reduce damage, is oddly absent. Players can escape by holding the L and R buttons on whatever input device they use, which usually works except during mandatory battles or standard boss fights.

Suck exploding spikes, human race!
Lavos parties like it’s 1999

Winning battles nets all participating characters experience for occasional leveling, money, TP to unlock more powerful Techs, and maybe an item or two. Depending upon the player’s party composition, characters can learn Double and Triple Techs that allow combination skills targeting all allies, one enemy, or all enemies, which can help hasten even the most daunting battles. Many bosses require a specific strategy to defeat them, whether exploiting an elemental weakness or offing boss units in the correct order (critical to the absolute final battle, hint, hint). Other issues aside from those mentioned include the existence of Techs whose range depends on a character’s current location but the lack of any means to move them across the battlefield. Regardless, the game mechanics form a satisfying whole.

In contrast, control is a mixed bag. However, the Steam port has numerous quality-of-life additions, like autosaving, a suspend save, and autodashing. Other positive usability features from previous versions remain, including diagonal character movement, an in-game clock the player can view at any time and not just while saving (which oddly seems endemic to many contemporary Japanese RPGs for some reason), the ability to walk around while minor NPCs are talking, sortable item inventory categories, being able to see how weapons and armor increase or decrease stats before purchasing them, item and magic descriptions, and overall polished menus.

However, those in charge of the Steam port could have addressed issues that include a potential glitch when booting the game that can prevent it from even going to the title screen, the absence of an auto-equip feature for the player’s party, the lack of dungeon maps, no pausing outside of battle, no fast travel in the early portion of the game, the inability to speed up increasing item quantity when purchasing consumables from shops, the pause feature in combat not muting the volume (and heaven knows I hate having to fiddle with my television remote), many secrets being tedious to discover without the internet, and a late-game missable sidequest dependent upon interacting with a minor NPC earlier in the storyline. Even so, the controls aren’t absolute dealbreakers when pondering a purchase.

Chrono Trigger marked the musical debut of composer Yasunori Mitsuda, who, with help from resident Square composer Nobuo Uematsu, provided an endearing soundtrack. The titular main musical piece has several remixes throughout the game, with each character also having a musical motif, including Marle’s lullaby, Lucca’s triumphant anthem, Frog’s whistle-along refrain (which somewhat resembles “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”), and Robo’s techno tune, whose resemblance to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” as Mitsuda noted when informed of it, was coincidental.

They do resolve it later, thankfully
It all started with a pendant and a teleportation device

Other notable tracks include the Fiendlord’s battle theme, which has an orchestral flamenco feel (as does that during the penultimate final boss fight), and “Corridors of Time,” the theme for the floating continent during the Ice Age, which utilizes digitized Indian instrumentation. The minor jingles have pleasant melodies, like the sleeping theme, with the sound team adding quirks like Frog’s croaking and Robo’s beeping and buzzing. However, the musical variety, especially regarding the standard battle theme, can often be minimal, many areas lack unique themes, and a few “why” tracks like Gato’s jingle and the prehistoric “Burn! Bobonga!” abound. Regardless, the aural aspect is a boon to the game.

Its original version having been of the final Japanese RPGs released on the Super NES, Chrono Trigger featured polished visuals with vibrant colors, beautiful environments, character sprites having reasonable proportions and emotional spectra, fluid animation by the player’s party and enemies, stunning battle effects, and the anime cutscenes introduced in the PlayStation port and onward, mostly readjusted for contemporary television screens. Akira Toriyama provided the character and monster designs, most being well-designed, even if most human characters have similar faces typical of the artist’s work, alongside many reskins among the latter.

Other graphical issues include countless recycled nonplayer character sprites, a few that have odd appearances such as those for the old green-haired women, hints of pixilation even with upscaling and smoothing enabled, character sprites not facing diagonally, many NPCs absurdly walking in place, and Mode 7 graininess especially evident during the ending credits. The porting team further left maybe a few anime cutscenes from the PlayStation and Nintendo DS ports out (but mercifully, the one appearing after the ending credits, which adds to the game’s story and slightly connects to sequel Chrono Cross, remains). Otherwise, the graphics serve the game well.

'Ayla strip for you!'
Ayla entertains a trio of pterodactyls

Finally, playtime will vary, depending upon the player’s skill, with 24 hours being an average time for an initial playthrough, even with most sidequests partaken in. Chrono Trigger was the first RPG to term and popularize the New Game Plus, even if a handful of Japanese games before featured similar modes. Combined with significant extra content, like potential plot differences, around a dozen different endings, and discovering every secret, the time-travel RPG is the epitome of replayability. 

Overall, Chrono Trigger, pun intended, does indeed stand the test of time, given its enjoyable aspects that include its solid game mechanics enhanced by contemporary features such as a turbo mode, the intricate narrative with potential variations and around a dozen different endings, the beautiful soundtrack, and the upscaled visuals. However, while inarguably a classic, “masterpiece” is an overstatement since there are numerous issues bequeathed from prior releases, like the slight inaccessibility to those experiencing it for the first time, given the difficulty of discovering helpful elements without referencing the internet and coasting through the game in general.

Furthermore, while contemporary quality-of-life features such as auto-saving and a suspend save exist, the game could have used more polish in the usability department. The localization quality is also inconsistent, musical variety can be lacking, and some aspects of the visuals haven’t aged well, even with the upscaling and smoothing. Regardless, it was in many respects a turning point for Japanese RPGs after its original release, especially with the significant lasting appeal that its various endings and New Game Plus feature contributed to the realm of roleplaying games, and, while imperfect, is easily a bucket-list title necessitating at least one playthrough from those with a passing interest in Eastern video gaming.

This review is based on a single playthrough of a digital Steam copy purchased and downloaded to the reviewer’s Steam Deck, played on a television through the Docking Station.

Score Breakdown
The GoodThe Bad
Great gameplay with new features like turbo mode.
Excellent story with variations on plot and different endings.
Enjoyable soundtrack.
Good graphics with choice of higher resolution.
Plenty lasting appeal.		Can be difficult to cheese through in initial playthrough.
Some usability issues.
Inconsistent translation quality.
Musical variety can be lacking at points.
Some aspects of the visuals haven’t aged well.
The Bottom Line
Not perfect, but definitely a bucket list JRPG.
PlatformSteam
Game Mechanics9.0/10
Control6.0/10
Story9.0/10
Localization6.5/10
Aurals8.5/10
Visuals7.5/10
Lasting Appeal9.5/10
DifficultyModerate
Playtime24+ Hours
Overall: 8.0/10