The shoulder button: one often assumes this is but a trivial part of the gaming experience. After all, the majority of your operations are controlled via the face buttons! This has changed in recent years though. With the rising popularity of the first person shooter, the shoulder buttons have received more and more use. What was once an important button for throwing up your shield in smash brothers or reversing a strike in a wrestling game has taken on a whole new undertaking: shooting stuff. This would be fine and dandy except for one thing: due to the gamers’ love of shooters, the controllers themselves have undergone a radical shift.

Let’s take a look at the Dual-shock 3, shall we? While the dual-shock two had four shoulder buttons that were very operational and easy to command, the dual shock three has two that are operational and two that are complete wastes of space. If you happen to own a Playstation 3, you know exactly which two buttons I am speaking of. The R2 and L2 buttons on the Dualshock 3 are perhaps the worst buttons in the world. No, I’m not using hyperbole, I’m not making stuff up. I literally think you could scavenge the world three times over and not come up with buttons as miserable as the Playstation 3’s R2 and L2 buttons.

What exactly makes these buttons so bad? Well, first, they are triggers. The trigger button trend on consoles started primarily with the N64. The trigger on that system was fine and dandy. It was placed on the very back of your controller and if you needed to shoot something, you knew where it was. It didn’t get in the way, it was just there and ready to help! The Gamecube controller did away with said trigger button, but another system decided to dance with it. The X-Box. As we all know, the X-Box cast aside traditional console controls and decided that they would not have shoulders, but triggers. The popularity of console shooters such as Golden Eye and Perfect Dark helped usher this idea in.
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Chrono, Marle, Lucca, Robo and Frog

Take a setting like the middle ages, add some magic, some technology and  time traveling, and mix it up with characters designed by the famous creator of Dragon Ball and Dragon Quest Akira Toriyama, and what do you get? One of the most memorable games for the Super NES: Chrono Trigger.

With its multiple endings, side quests and a unique battle system, Chrono Trigger it’s still considered one of the best games in the Super NES library.

Created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, Kazuhiko Aoki, Final Fantasy Music Composer Nobuo Uematsu, Yuuji Horii and Akira Toriyama, (known as the Dream Team) and published by  Square (today Square Enix) on March 11, 1,995 in Japan and August 22, 1,995 in USA.

The story follows a group of young adventurers that were transported through time accidentally and discovered that the world will be destroyed by a parasite-like entity known as Lavos. Swearing to prevent this event, they travel through history to stop it.

There are 7 Characters to play with: Chrono (named Crono in-game), the silent Swordsman is portrayed as a brave and fearless boy; skilled in the use of the Katana. Marle, the princess of the Guardia Kingdom.  An active tomboy capable in the use of Crossbows. Lucca, the mechanical genius and childhood friend of Chrono, is the responsible of throwing Marle through a time warp by accident and starting the whole adventure in the first place. Her weapons of choice are guns (she uses some kind of hammer on close encounters). They compose the first party from 1,000 A.D.

From 600 A.D. we have Frog, the cursed Knight. He is really a Human named Glenn but was transformed into a frog by a Wizard named Magus after killing his friend Cyrus. Magus is a Wizard original from 12,000 B.C. He ends up in 600 A.D. after a portal sucks him up when he was a child.

From 2,300 A.D. we have Robo, a robot repaired by Lucca. He joins when they learn that Lavos destroyed the whole world and so, he has no more use there.

Anime Video from the game

From 65,000,000 B.C. we have Ayla, leader of the Ioka tribe and one of two evolved races sharing the planet (Human and Reptites). She’s incredibly strong, but (like Robo) can’t use any Magic.

The Story goes like this: Crono Meets Marle in the Millennial Fair, they go to a show where Lucca presents her most recent Creation: The Telepod. She uses Crono as a test Subject, then Marle tries it

herself. Her pendant reacts with the telepod, a portal shows up and she ends up in the past. Crono goes after her to bring her back. They mess up the timeline making Marle disappear. Crono and Lucca rescue the queen (who’s resemblance with Marle is uncanny) with the help of Frog to restore the timeline and bring Marle back. They go back to the present (minus Frog). Crono is arrested and put on trial for supposedly kidnapping Marle and sentenced to death. He escapes from prison and escapes with Marle and Lucca to 2,300 A.D. where they meet Robo. With the Help of Robo they discover that the future world was destroyed by a parasite-like entity known as Lavos in 1,999 A.D. Then, they get set to stop Lavos and change the future.

Ok, that’s not the whole story, just the basics; but now that the game has been re-released for the Nintendo DS (with a lot of extras), I don’t want to spoil the rest of the story.

This game has been released 3 times (as far as I know); in the SNES, as part of Final Fantasy Chronicles (along with a remastered Final Fantasy IV) for the PSX, and now for the Nintendo DS. Unfortunately, the game wasn’t remastered (like Final Fantasy III or IV), but it includes many new features like:

• The Anime Opening of the PSX Version
• Several New Dungeons
• Art Galleries
• Bestiary
• Music Box
• And many other things…

A Boss Battle

One of the main features are the Multiple Endings. It gives the game enough replay value because each ending requires different events to be triggered (even the main ending has two different versions). And the PSX and DS Version have one new ending each. Also, there are no random battles (like in Final Fantasy). You can choose if you battle or not because the enemies are in plain sight (like in Secret of Mana).

All the videos in the PSX and NDS version include animated movies triggered during special events (this can be turned of, however) created by Akira Toriyama and animated by Toei Animation

If you enjoy RPGs like I do, get this game and play it till the end. Of course, it may look short, but thanks to the New Game+ option, you can start again from the beginning with all your items, money, levels and ready to see each one of the endings.

I really enjoyed this game and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.

Fenixwing