Chrono Trigger - DS

For the Lucky few of you who got to play Chrono Trigger on the SNES will know that this is one of Squaresoft’s favoured RPG’s and with good reason. The game featured a deep and involving plot, with great characters, lovely graphics and time travelling! What more could you want?

As in 99% of RPG’s you start out in your daily routine of life and get to name your character, in this instance you are late getting up for the Festival that is taking place to celebrate 1,000 years of the area. Upon entering the festival you get to look about and have some fun, but very quickly meet a female walking about by herself, you bump into each other and accept her invite to go see your friend Lucca’s new invention she is going to demonstrate. When you arrive you test it out for her and you get transported from one place to another, very successfully. However, when your new friend tries this she is thrown into a time portal after a reaction to a pendant that she is wearing. Unsure of what dangers await you take the dropped pendant and head off in the same portal to the rescue.

You arrive in an unknown place, or time. With monsters roaming the area. So as you battle your way to find your friend you find out she has been mistaken for the queen and must save the original due to changes in history affecting the future. You are not alone on your quest as you meet a frog who happens to be very handy with a sword! This is kind of like the introduction to the game, getting you accustom to the fighting, the puzzles and what you are install for. Once you have completed this you start to learn of things that need changing in the past and luckily your clever friend Lucca has made a handheld “gate key” which allows you to go through time at these gates which have begun to appear. You meet several companions along the way and unravel a world of adventure in over 5 different time zones – in the ultimate quest to save the World.

I found the story to be a refreshing change with the use of time travel and more fun due to the different era’s technology, enemies and characters. While RPG’s are not everyone favourite, this also has a nice adventure side to it. While you battle monsters and level you there is a bit more in picking your time than who you think is cool, because as your friends level up you gain combo moves that can provide some killer damage and can be crucial in defeating certain enemies and Bosses. On the DS version you can choose to have the battles constantly flowing, or so they stop when you are thinking about what to do. This makes it a bit easier of course, but as with more modern RPG’s you have to come in close contact with your enemies to commence a fight, and it is not just random encounters.

The graphics have been revamped a little but the original were great so of course on your DS this game looks fantastic, with some great Manga style cut scenes (looking a lot like Dragonball Z animation I assume it is the same person) I would have liked a few more cut scenes but then I guess I would be getting a bit picky to say this is a flaw. I am not saying there aren’t any flaws because I did feel towards the middle/end of the game, things became a bit stale and going back and forth in time was getting tedious. It does have a good story but a bit slow at that point, but at the end it picks it back up if your can go through the slight rough patch!

The controls are simple and that is what I like in RPG’s so I was happy with that, and all in all it is just a great RPG that was not that big in Europe until now, so if you did miss it or loved it back then, you should really be picking this up for like £20 as it will bring so much fun to you and your DS. The only other thing I could suggest it lacks is the use of the stylus, which a lot of DS fans really enjoy. It could have been released on any handheld and been the same or even as DLC on a console, but I’m glad it was Nintendo who brought it back because it made being on Holiday with my DS all the more enjoyable.

8/10 – Thanks for reading