Retro Byte - What to do after Chrono Trigger?

thelostsoul

Author: thelostsoul (Tuncay D.)
Date: 2018-12-26

A new updated article of this post can be found at: What to do after Chrono Trigger?

This is a part in a series of game focused articles, called Retro Byte. Each article will have a subject or theme and I will select games fitting that criteria. The only rule is, that these titles have to run at acceptable speed and with no minor bugs within the RetroPie emulation environment on a Raspberry Pi 3.

What to do after Chrono Trigger?

I am glad that you ask. Let me put you in a specific situation: You just finished Chrono Trigger and still feel hungry, somehow. Or you are an old man like me (actually, I am not that old) and want to revisit this old gem, just to memorize and experience it again. Now you search anything related to it and here is when I enter the game.

It is most likely that you don’t need any description about CT. I mean, I assume that you have a working emulation environment and you just finished that game and there must be a reason why you picked it up. I don’t need to tell you how brilliant every aspect of it forms that masterpiece we love so much. What I want to tell you are some options you have to feed your appetite.

Official Games

First things first. Unfortunately there isn’t any “real and official” successor as you would expect, no game called Chrono Trigger 2. Below are some official options, but might not be what you are looking for. Later I talk about romhacks and mods.

New Game+ and different endings

Play it again. Yes, like any good game, you can just play the same game again. In this case, there are even variations. See, there are multiple different endings you can get when you finish the game. When you once defeated it, then a new mode called “New Game+” appears. If you start a new adventure from this mode, then you will start with the stats from last game. That enables you to go to the end boss at any given point in the story, which unlocks a specific ending. If that is enough, then leave it behind and look what I have for you.

Radical Dreamers

Platform: BS SNES (1996)

Info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Dreamers
English Translation: https://www.romhacking.ne/translations/403/

Did you ever heard of this title? Officially it came out in Japan exclusively on the Satellaview hardware extension for the Super Famicom. So, you can guess just a handful of people out there could play it back then. But hey, that is one reason why emulation rocks. There is an fan made English patch to make it playable for the rest of the world.

Some refer this game as Chrono Trigger 2, but don’t expect that. The whole game concept is different, it is no rpg anymore. The game mechanics are very limited and mostly a text based adventure like story telling visual novel, with still images and a looot of text. The main experience of the game is the fantastic atmosphere and narrative, comparable to reading an interactive book. Now that you know this is different than the original games concept, you should not get disappointed by trying it out yourself. This game ended up being a short side story in the Chrono universe and served as an inspiration to Chrono Cross.

Chrono Cross

Platform: Playstation (1999)

Info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Cross

Well, officially this title debuted first on the Playstation and is seen as a sort of sequel to Chrono Trigger. It is set in the same Chrono universe and there are some references to the previous games, plus some influence from Radical Dreamers. There is even no time travel available, but two dimensions to switch between. The whole characters and story is completely different, the game concept got a full rework too.

While Chrono Cross have phenomenal graphics, sound, story and some interesting game concept, it is still very different. If you are a big fan of the original and want more, then this is not the final answer. Of course, go ahead and try it anytime you can. After all, it is one of the best jrpgs from its time and a very unique experience. There are 45 Characters to explore, two different worlds in contrary dimensions, a New Game + mode and more.

Romhacks and modifications

Now let’s enter the world of romhacks and mods, which are fan made alteration of the original games code. These aren’t officially praised by Squaresoft/SquareEnix, but are ok to spread, as they don’t include any copyrighted material. You should know how to patch the rom yourself, after all, its not difficult. I picked some of the better ones out and list them here.

But be aware, some of the mods can be problematic at a specific point of game with older Snes9x versions. There is no general rule to recommend. Read their descriptions, in example Prophets Guile should be played at least with Snes9x v1.53. Now go and have fun. :-)

Flames of Eternity / Crimson Echoes

By Giro / Kajar Laboratories

Info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Trigger:_Crimson_Echoes
Modification and info: https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/1gu6je/chrono_trigger_crimson_echoes_flames_of_eternity/

This is probably the most anticipated and biggest modification for Chrono Trigger. It all begun long ago with Crimson Echoes and just before the game was about to get a release, Squaresoft asked the developers to stop it. The game was around 98% complete, which consists of 23 chapters, 35h playtime and 10 endings. The developers paid attention to every detail, so the players from original game feel right home. Unhappy with this situation, years later another group took this and worked on it to complete the game. That branched out to Flames of Eternity. This “new” mod was very controversial and still is, as they did not have the permission to do and also changed a lot. At least, it got finished and a release. It is up to you which one you want to play, people on the internet are arguing which one is better.

So, what is it about? You can essentially think of the “real, but unofficial” Chrono Trigger 2. Story wise it acts between Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross and links those games. The gameplay is still the same and the whole game feels like its original model and with just extended story.

Which version you prefer is your choice. Because the original developers got sued 2009, many are afraid of hosting the romhack, even as a patch file. I hope the above link to a reddit page is allowed. Even Wikipedia have a link for download.

Prophet’s Guile

By Kajar Laboratories

Info: https://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Chrono_Trigger:_Prophet's_Guile.html
Modification: https://server.romhacking.net/hacks/362/

Here we have another great work of the same developers from original Crimson Echoes (described previously). This time around it got finished and a release. The game itself is short, comparable like 2 chapters from original CT and maybe only around 1-2 hours is needed to play through. You can see this as a side story in the events of the main game, about Magus coming back to Zeal after the events in the castle. You can see his perspective and how he became the Prophet of Zeal. Gameplay wise people say it’s difficult and not just a blind hack’n slash, so be prepared to be challenged. Given the nature of the short playtime, this is welcome aspect. The only character to play is Magus, as it is all about him and the structure is very linear. The dialogues are believable and close to the original games spirit and it tells a hidden part in the story.

Important note: Make sure you play this with Snes9x 1.53 or higher, as older versions makes it impossible to finish.

Level Zero / Frozen in Time

By Maelstrom

Info: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/snes/patches/111readme.txt
Modification: https://server.romhacking.net/hacks/111/

This mod is different from the previous mentioned ones. The whole game story and events are intact and mostly gameplay mechanics are changed. Chrono Trigger was always an easy game and this addresses that issue by removing the level up system and doing many tweaks to the stats. It becomes more challenging while playing the same old story. Now, the stats will not get changed by grinding, as there is no leveling system anymore. To make the game beat- and enjoyable, the creator balanced and tweaked massively every store, item, enemy and every tech power for the hero.

The result of this adjustments is a much harder to beat game and more player skill oriented. The player have to be very careful and suddenly every item, shop and every attack becomes immensely important. Now you have actually to learn the strategy of a boss and try to find its weak spots, instead of grinding to become over powered. This way the difficulty tends to be on the harder side and gives a new experience and life. Some even say this is how the game should have been in the first place.

Frozen in Time is the previous name for this modification and was renamed to Level Zero in the latest edition.

What else

If you are still hungry, you are lucky. The romhacking community produced and still produces mods with different ideas in mind and some of them are quite high quality and/or challenging. I just scratched the surface with my above recommendations, there is a lot more going on. Just a few days ago the Chrono Compendium released a surprise mod called “Chrono Trigger: Schala Edition” and the romhacking community also lists a lot more mods, in example “Chrono Trigger Coliseum”. The broadcasting extension Satellaview (BS for short) for the SNES also have official Chrono Trigger Specials available: “Jet Bike Special”, “Character Library” and a “Music Library”. There is an official braodcasted 16 minute anime for promotion called “Dimensional Adventure Numa Monjar” from 1996. Make sure you check it out (linked below).

Closing Words

Still today people talk about Chrono Trigger as one of the best jrpgs on the snes console, some even claim it to be the best game made ever! Since its debut in 1995, it got a few ports to other systems. Which version you play does not matter, the game is great on all platforms. There are some issues with the PC/Steam version and the Playstation port does have unnecessary loading times. The most baffling point to me is, that the game did not make it into the Super NES Classic. A shame!

Luckily we live in a world full of options and a cool romhacking community. I cherry picked some of those mods, there are more stuff out there. Enjoy and have fun. I originally wrote this article for the RetroPie community. Visit us there and say hello and post your favorite things to do after playing the original Chrono Trigger.

RetroPie: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/search?term=Chrono Trigger
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Trigger
Chonopedia: https://chrono.fandom.com/wiki/Chrono_Trigger
Chrono Compendium: https://www.chronocompendium.com/
Romhacking: https://www.romhacking.net/games/268/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Chrono+Trigger