Today (March 11) is also the exact 30th Anniversary of the release of Chrono Trigger in the US! I came here hoping to find a thread about it, and this one's close enough, so I'll just say my piece here:
This is a hell of a game! One of the all-time greats. People still talk about it today, and still do covers of its music, and fanart of its characters. I'll never forget it.
Some of its moments are among the best in all of video gaming. Escaping from prison only to have to dive into a mysterious blue gate and finding yourself in a ruined future. Having a final showdown with the Reptites as they declare they have no future and are wiped out by the red star, while you escape to an unknown frozen wasteland harboring a diabolical secret. Lucca just casually creating life and/or resurrecting the dead, with no fanfare at all (other than "Lucca's Fanfare," lol), to add a new member to your party. Great game; great effort by all involved.
Apropos of the original topic of this thread, I don't know what, if anything, lies in store for the future of the Chrono franchise, and anything that does come is going to come too late for the "Springtime of Youth" for those of us who were its original fans, but I for one would love to see the Chronoverse get a little attention. At this point they could straight-up remake the game from scratch, like they're doing with FFVII, and it might reach a whole new generation. I'm not a fan of remakes, but Chrono Trigger is basically the quintessential time travel story in all of video gaming. It would be easier to retrace its curves than to conceive of something completely new. That said, a sequel would be fascinating also. I was looking just a couple weeks ago at some old Chrono fanfiction I'd written a zillion years ago. There are so many directions a sequel could go in, give or take including Chrono Cross (and Radical Dreamers) in the continuity. But it would have to be a standalone game, with Chrono Trigger relegated to the role of a hazy legend from the past, because new players would be very unlikely to have played the original game. Still, if done well, it could become a classic in its own right.
And of course I owe Chrono Trigger all of the friendships that I've made over the years through this site. Here's to ya, laddies and lassies and genderqueer et ceteras! 😁
