Platypus of Truth

Characters.  An important part of any story is its Characters.  Great plot plus uncompelling Characters equals fail. In the 1990s, new technology was allowing video game designers to actually tell stories with their games.  Pong and Asteroids were left in the dust and new market for story-driven games opened up.  At the forefront of this movement was the company Squaresoft with its innovative Final Fantasy series.  As Squaresoft pushed the envelope in video game story-telling, a new problem arose; for the first time video game designers had to create believable characters.  The stories had just gotten that big. Building off the success of Final Fantasy II (Japan IV), Final Fantasy III (Japan VI) and Chrono Trigger featured large casts with sweeping plots, richly orchestrated music, and a myriad of varried locations.  To hold player's attentions, each character of the cast had to be unique with his/her own story arch and defining characteristics....

No, I haven't built a world-destroying mech powered by a mysterious orb.  Alas...  However, imagining a society in the throws of the Industrial Revolution that has also discovered magic is what Final Fantasy III (Japan VI) is all about. Final Fantasy III was developed by Squaresoft (now SquareEnix) as part of their hugely successful Final Fantasy Series.  In fact, I believe Final Fantasy XIII is just now coming out.  At the same time Final Fantasy III was in development, Squaresoft was also working on its hugely popular Chrono Trigger.  While the Final Fantasty series continued from one epic success to another, however, the Chrono Trigger series spluttered and died.  In fact, the re-release of the original game for the DS has largely been responsible largely for driving up the price of used copies of the orginal SNES release, rather than urging SquareEnix to create a sequel (which is what fans had hoped).  Why the two series took the paths they did...

No School like the old school. I miss old school video games. *insert cranky rant voice here* Back in my day, we didn't have any of this "first person shooter" nonsense. There was rules, and codes, and regulations! *end cranky rant voice* Ok, so there was Operation Wolf and Hogan's Ally . Video games have always struggled to come to grips with the boundary between entertainment and sadism via proxy. Still, about fifteen years back, a threshold was crossed in the area of how much violence is allowable in video games. My trip down memory lane drove this home to me. All but two of the enemies in Chrono Trigger aren't human. Some of them, like the mystics and the reptites are sentient, but bear little outward resemblence to us. We are also encouraged to empathize with them and humans and mystics can be reconciled at the completion of one of the side quests. Beyond that, when enemies are killed, they disapear; no blood or guts. Of the two human opponent...

Following my previous post, I want to address an aspect of the "story" of Chrono Trigger that makes it so compelling: community. Like Edwardian pulp such as "A Princess of Mars," or fantasy epics such as "The Lord of the Rings," Chrono Trigger presents us with a community of characters that gather around the hero and without whom the hero could not succeed. This community aspect stands in stark contrast to the "go it alone" figures we see in other video games such as Halo , Resident Evil , or Metroid . Adventure games and first person shooters naturally lend themselves to the "lone hero," while RPGs thrive on a fellowship of protagonists. Following this trend, Chrono Trigger presents us with a cast of vivd and eclectic characters that hold our interest throughout the game. Indeed, the title character, Crono, is rather flat and amorphous, inviting the player to project their own personality onto this "blank slate." Wit...

So I've played through two endings of Chrono Trigger for the first time since taking a 10 year sabbatical when my cartridge was hit by a sprinkler (don't ask...). The game is still as much fun as it ever was. Chrono Trigger is one of those rare games that makes you want to pick it right back up and play through it the moment you beat it. I've known a few movies like that; the Princess Bride , for instance. However, on to my question: whence this replay value? There's a long answer and a short answer. I'll spare you the long answer. The short answer is "story." Chrono Trigger tells a compelling story. Sure, there's plenty of melodrama, it's a video game after-all, but somethings beneath all the cheese that makes it work. I think that thing is friendship. Chrono Trigger tells the story of a band of misfits that form a community that crosses all barriers of race, gender, culture, and even time. Hurtling through the ages, this group ov...