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Just Finished Chrono Trigger

Duraframe300

Arcane
Joined
Dec 21, 2010
Messages
6,395
It is in the list of best selling JRPG's - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Japanese_role-playing_game_franchises
And as you can see it's not in the lower half of the table

But I should have emphasized the popular part
Because I don't know about you, but I still remember some 10 years ago browsing the net for JRPG's and it didn't matter what site I visited, what forum I read, what video I watched or what /v/ thread I shitposted in
On the subject of classic JRPG's, Chrono Trigger was always one of the highest recommendations (even more so than FF7 it seemed)

Yes!

I'm talking about Cross here though, not Trigger.

Quoting myself here

a lot of casual gamers don't even know Chrono Trigger had a sequel, while being fully aware of Trigger.

10+ years ago and even now, you didn't even HAVE to visit the web to ask people about Chrono Trigger. Just like Final Fantasy, even most casual gamers were aware of it.

Meanwhile, even if you visited the web you would find others that played Trigger, but didn't even know Cross existed. Thanks to Square ignoring Cross in re-releases that's often still the case (among casuals at least)

Edit: Also as already pointed out that list contains series and Trigger sold significantly more overall than Cross.
 
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Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
Does Cross raise the gameplay bar at all? It's 90s Squaresoft we're talking about so I still expect big things from them despite Trigger blowing me away with its mediocrity.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
Chrono Trigger is mediocre as fuck and the most overrated RPG of all time, if it even is an RPG at all (no). Pick any other 90s Squaresoft game at random and it's almost certainly going to be far, far better.
It gets plenty right in the set dressing (e.g art, story), but as a game it is the finest filter to determine who has standards and who does not, as it is kindergarten levels of engagement, depth, challenge and complexity. There is barely a game there at all, just the illusion of one.

Well said Ash. I get the love for it when it comes to it's charm, and most people are generally dumb and that's all it needs to create a "classic" for them. But you've hit the nail on the fucking head with "kindergarten engagement". You don't even face any remotely challenging battles until the games nearly over, it plays it's fucking self.

I just replayed it a few weeks back (for the last time) to make sure my opinion of it was fair, and I died once in a 24 hour playthrough, and that was because I forgot to re-equip a status negating item. I'd say around 90% of battles were simple press attack for each character. It's boarderline insulting.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
Indeed. Usually RPGs have multiple elements of gameplay that all play off each other (combat, character building strategy, navgation/exploration, resource attrition, puzzles). CT largely just has utterly basic mindless battles over and over, and the occasional super basic mini-game.

Gamers are mediocre as fuck.
 

Ysaye

Arbiter
Joined
May 27, 2018
Messages
771
Location
Australia
Thought experiment for the day; if Phantasy Star 4 had slightly better music, would it be regarded better than Chrono Trigger?
 

nlfortier

Esturia Games
Developer
Joined
Apr 28, 2020
Messages
128
Are there any other JRPGS designed as tightly as Chrono Trigger, or at least close to it? Feels like every jrpg has terrible pacing and tons of random encounters, or 20 hour long tutorials or whatever.
Not sure how it holds up today, but I remember having quite a bit of fun with Seiken Densetsu 3 (Mana series) when I was a teenager.

Legend of Mana was one of my favorite PS1 games as a kid. It had great artwork, a super fun co-op mode, and was extremely non-linear.
 
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Viata

Arcane
Joined
Nov 11, 2014
Messages
9,885
Location
Water Play Catarinense
Are there any other JRPGS designed as tightly as Chrono Trigger, or at least close to it? Feels like every jrpg has terrible pacing and tons of random encounters, or 20 hour long tutorials or whatever.
Not sure how it holds up today, but I remember having quite a bit of fun with Seiken Densetsu 3 (Mana series) when I was a teenager.

Legend of Mana was one of my favorite PS1 games as a kid. It had great artwork, a super fun co-op node, and was extremely non-linear.
That and the first Mana(for game boy, I have not played the remake for GBA so I can't comment on that) are the only good Mana games for me. Everything else is meh.
 
Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
4,099
Location
Chicago, IL, Kwa
I replayed the first half of it a few months ago. I loved the game as a teenager, but couldn’t be arsed to finish it this time through. Didn’t purposefully put it down because I was mad, but it’s just completely unengaging. The complete lack of any difficulty or complexity in the combat was just too much to maintain my interest. Art is really nice though. Definitely has aged into being one of the best looking games of its generation.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
Well said Ash.
Who the fuck plays JRPGs to be challenged :positive:

Ha. I'm not asking for Eliminate Down levels of challenge. Just something to prompt me to do more than press "attack" 90%of the game.

Turn based JRPG battles are essentially puzzles to be worked out. Good JRPGs constantly offer ones which prompt the player to think of things from different angles. Play an old school Final Fantasy game and you'll usually get 5 or 6 different groups of enemies in an area, each which prompts you to use different spells, items, jobs etc. Not CT. CT has enemies look different, but - apart from the odd one or two such as burning goblin mallets - most of the combat is literally equip right item and attack. Hell the Rage and Frenzy bands adding their counters do half the work for you. It's fucking auto-pilot and as Rich says above it's unengaging., and auto-pilot + unengaging is dull.
 

AngryKobold

Arcane
Joined
Aug 12, 2012
Messages
534
Destroying Lavos in prehistory, which allows reptoids to take over the world, gives the best ending. The rest of the game has no point.

:troll:
 

Grimlorn

Arcane
Joined
Jun 1, 2011
Messages
10,248
Chrono Cross is terrible. Nonsensical story that undermines CT's story. Basically all the main characters in 1000 AD are magically killed by a joke villain from CT. Although it's not really touched upon or explained and easy to miss. Maybe it would have made more sense or been better if they had more time to develop it but it isn't so it has to be judged this way. Too many characters which meant every character was shallowly written and interchangeable. They have no depth or personality unlike in CT. The combat system was huge step down. I know they went 3d because PSX, but the slotted magic system sucked. I think it ends up being more efficient to just auto-attack than use magic most of the time unless a boss had a certain vulnerability, but I'm going off 20 year old memories. It was almost like the entire battle system was created, in mind, for the single encounter of the end boss of the game, which doesn't save it in any way.

The dimensional idea was a good idea just not executed as well as it could have been. The soundtrack was also good for a RPG IIRC, just the battle music song sucked hard and you listened to that the most due to the constant random battles.
 

flyingjohn

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2012
Messages
2,944
I think it ends up being more efficient to just auto-attack than use magic most of the time unless a boss had a certain vulnerability, but I'm going off 20 year old memories.
Yup,and the reason for that is because you need to attack multiple times to build magic.But if you do a lot of physical damage ,you will kill your enemies before you even do any magic.Eagle eye+ vigora + any good weapon will just kill anything in seconds.
Add to that,that character color also is converted to psychical damage and you can get even more damage.

It is like stabbing a guy a hundred timed and then giving him a pistol.Dude,the guy is minced already.

So many bad ideas jammed into one game.
 

Grimlorn

Arcane
Joined
Jun 1, 2011
Messages
10,248
I think it ends up being more efficient to just auto-attack than use magic most of the time unless a boss had a certain vulnerability, but I'm going off 20 year old memories.
Yup,and the reason for that is because you need to attack multiple times to build magic.But if you do a lot of physical damage ,you will kill your enemies before you even do any magic.Eagle eye+ vigora + any good weapon will just kill anything in seconds.
Add to that,that character color also is converted to psychical damage and you can get even more damage.

It is like stabbing a guy a hundred timed and then giving him a pistol.Dude,the guy is minced already.

So many bad ideas jammed into one game.
Yeah it would almost be better if they had separated it from Trigger completely like a FF game. They had to do so much to connect it to CT while also trying to explain why no one from there was around to help. And then the shoehorned final boss. Oh and the ghost kids as well. Still thinking you could take what you did with the characters in CT who were beloved and upping that to a 40 party member count with each character just as fleshed out was absolutely delusional. You kind of begin to see what JRPGs begin to do to pad out their games and make them 60+ hours with their crazy ideas and twists that are soap opera level. It shows a bit with FF7 but definitely 8 and 9.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
I polled a Facebook group to get the normie angle on CT.......

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To extend on that, this was the same group's opinion on great stories in RPGs too.....

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So that's right, according to the vast majority, FF6, FF Tactics and Chrono Trigger (145 votes in total for 3 games) all total have better stories than Planetscape Torment, Fallout 1 & 2, The Witcher 1 & 2, Deus Ex, Lost Odyssey and Disco Elysium (16 votes in total for 8 games).

How can anyone not want to exterminate this mass of retarded cunts with extreme prejudice? They are the decline in flesh form. They are the reason we get force-fed souless capeshit whilst John Carpenter movies are relegated to the back of beyond. They are the scum who influenced what started as Baldur's Gate now becoming Tranny Age. They're a fucking disgrace to gaming and a blight on society and human evolution.

I think it's safe to say that CT is so well loved and so successful for similar reasons to Skyrim - it's a mong's game. That's not to say it doesn't have good attributes which none-mongs can enjoy or that there's anything wrong with enjoying it or certain aspects of it. But basically the retarded majority of society want something easy, unengaging, and don't have the capacity to process stories above the level of "kill big bad to save the world", nor combat above "press aweum button to win!"
 
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j2alg

Educated
Joined
Aug 8, 2021
Messages
80
Games from that time with open-ended exploration? Dragon Quest 1 to 5

If more modern games are allowed... hear me out. Atelier Totori.
 

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