Chrono Trigger Retrospective
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Developed by what Square called its '˜Dream Team', the game's illustrious line-up of creative minds united, for the first time, the two godfathers of the genre: Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Final Fantasy, and Yuji Horii, creator of Dragon Quest. Flanked by the likes of anime art legend Akira Toriyama and Final Fantasy's well-loved composer Nobuo Uematsu, the team's title, while boastful, was, in terms of RPGs, exact, and the fingerprints of their experience and insight touch the game like no other.
Set in 1000AD, the game draws back the narrative curtain on mute protagonist Crono (so called because limiting his name to five characters and removing the '˜h' of Chrono freed up valuable cart space). Joined by his best friend, nerdish scientist Lucca, the inventor of the teleporter-turned-time-machine upon which the entire game pivots, the duo travel back and forth between seven different time periods within the same geography, righting history's wrongs to bring about a peaceful future. By zooming out the narrative and gameplay lens, far up above history's tapestry, the game is able to explore, with unusual tangibility, the theme of generational cause and effect. While this mechanic drives the main quest Crono gathers together his ragtag team of friends from as far back as a prehistoric 65 million BC and as far forward as a post-apocalyptic 2300AD it's in the optional subquests that its worth is most strikingly revealed.
At one point we meet a greedy and foolish Mayor who governs the busy port of Porre. By visiting his family home 400 years earlier, speaking to one of his ancestral mothers and offering her an item for free, history is altered as she vows to bring up her children to believe in generosity and kindness. Upon returning to contemporary Porre, Crono discovers that the mayor is now a charitable man and the port of Porre is a far more useful town because of it. While the concept is perhaps a little too straightforward and idealistic, it's blossomed into all manner of clever and thought-provoking scenarios with a creativity few time-travel-themed videogames have since matched.
