Chrono Trigger

Title: Chrono Trigger
Year: 1995
Developer: Square
Genre: Console RPG
Platform: SNES

Review: Now this is a cool game of all times and a must play for anyone who loves RPG genre. Brilliant dialogues, cool graphics and cut-scenes, interesting plot, unique battle system, and nice music make this classic game stay juicy whenever you play it.

Let me start with plot. In this game Chrono and a group of his friends travel through time via teleport occasionally landing in the End of time. His (means your) goal is to save the world from destruction by changing some events in the past and in the future (although sometimes your doings may cause authorities toughen up the laws in the past and then find yourself in jail right after you return to your time). Meanwhile you'll need to solve many side-quests and play some mini-games like soup race at pre-historic age or catching the rat in post-apocalyptic future.

Gameplay is simple yet fascinating. There are 3 usual views: map view where you may travel from one location (building) to another. Area view friendly or hostile and battle mode. Talking to different friendly characters sometimes is as fun as fighting enemies - the game is full of funny quotes. No I won't tell you any.

As to battles and monsters.. first I was surprised why should I kill them they look so cute! I mean if you see two guys playing ball with another sphere-looking guy why should you attack them? Ok they have blue skin and maybe strange body shape but hey are you discriminating blue-faced guys or what? Same with mutants. When they sleep they look like a radish. Just ignore their size. And those cute volcano creatures sure throw stones and lava at you but look at their faces!

To win the game you must kill em all. Fighting with bosses is especially interesting because each boss is a riddle. You should figure out how to eliminate it, with which weapon and what is the best time for kicking it etc.

Battling the enemies you have a choice: to attack them physically with a weapon (sword, pistol, bow, crosbow...) to use a tech - a special powerful attack or magic. The latter two are shown with really cool visual effects. You may also use different health potions. If a character runs out of his hit points he cannot participate in battle but can be revived by a special potion. If all the characters die the game ends. If at least one survives and wins - all of them recover.

But again to me this game is not just about battles - it's about adventuring. The atmosphere is fun, the plot is well-thought and there are plenty eye-catching details in both dialogues, and interiors/landscapes. The whole universe is designed to arouse your curiosity and immediately draws your all your attention from the very start till the end of this wonderful game.