Take a look at any “Best SNES Games of All Time” list and you’ll find Square Enix’s 1995 classic Chrono Trigger near the top. In July 1995, Nintendo Power noted that the game “improve[d] on [the] Final Fantasy [series] in almost every area. …[Y]ou’ll wonder how you were ever happy with anything less.” But Chrono Trigger's 25th anniversary came and went this month with little fanfare.

Releasing between Square's much-loved 1994 hit Final Fantasy VI and its iconic 1997 game Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger has long been considered a masterpiece of gaming, both in the '90s and now. According to a 2019 Weekly Famitsu poll, Chrono Trigger is the best game of Japan's Heisei period, which lasted from 1989 to 2019. With optional, narrative-shaping side quests, an emphasis on player choices that actually mattered and (at least) 13 different endings, Chrono Trigger was ahead of the curve for its time, and it absolutely deserves the kind of new life that Square Enix is giving another one of its classics with Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Related: The Final Fantasy VII Demo Foreshadows a Great Remake of the Classic Game

What Is Chrono Trigger?

Chrono Trigger is the brainchild of what Square dubbed its “Dream Team,” which was made up of heavy-hitters Yuji Horii (the creator of Dragon Quest), Hironobu Sakaguchi (the creator of Final Fantasy) and Akira Toriyama (the creator of Dragon Ball). Years before FFVII was lauded for the unforgettable characters, complex world-building, innovative battle system and cinematic score and visuals that would earn it mass-market appeal outside of Japan, the SNES’s 16-bit time-travel adventure had all that and a bag of Gil.

The game follows the exploits of Crono, a soon-to-be tragic hero with red, Super Saiyan-esque hair who hails from 1000 AD. At the game’s onset, Crono mixes and mingles at the Kingdom of Guardia’s Millennial Fair. There, Lucca, his childhood friend and resident mechanical genius, shows off a new teleporter, and Marle, who’s secretly the kingdom’s princess, offers to be the guinea pig. However, the demonstration goes awry when the teleporter and her mystical pendant interact. Crono and Lucca follow Marle to the year 600 AD, where the princess is mistaken for her ancestor, Queen Leene. In order to prevent any damage to the timeline, the trio teams up with the swordsman Frog to save Leene.

Related: You Can Legally Stream The Chrono Trigger Soundtrack Right Now

Upon returning to 1000 AD, Crono is put on trial for allegedly kidnapping Marle, and (depending on your seemingly innocuous choices at the Millennial Fair) he’s sentenced to death. Lucca and Marle come to Crono’s aid, but another wayward time portal lands them in 2300 AD, where civilization has been all but wiped out by Lavos, an extraterrestrial parasitic creature that’s harvesting the planet’s energy for sustenance. The trio vows to use their time-traveling abilities to thwart Lavos.

Along the way, Frog, Robo (a robot with a near-human personality from 2300 AD) and Ayla (a warrior chief from a village in 65,000,000 BC) join your crew. Then there’s Magus, a dark mage and part-time antagonist with a mysterious past and time-travel connections of his own. Each of the five quest-filled epochs has its own plot line, and an action in one period can have a ripple effect on another. Each of these characters has their own arc full of surprising turns and emotional high notes. Chrono Trigger’s narrative approach was revolutionary, and, even by today’s standards, it more than holds up.

What’s Past Is Prologue

Apart from the game’s eye-catching, colorful design and spellbinding score by (primarily) Yasunori Mitsuda, Square’s JRPG played with how a game’s narrative could unfold. Hopping back and forth between time periods makes the game feel decidedly non-linear, even though a straight-forward end goal drives the overarching, eon-spanning plot.

Related: Final Fantasy VII Remake Demo Has a Secret Ending (Technically)

Above all else, the game put emphasis on player choice -- a rare move at a time when JRPGs were linear and narrative-driven. Unlike Final Fantasy games of yore, there aren’t any random encounters in Chrono Trigger. Aside from a few scripted battles, players can choose whether to fight enemies or skirt around them. Outside of battles, your interactions with NPCs matters too. At one point in the game, a quest requires you to either sell or gift a woman with spicy jerky. If you give the jerky to her for free, she promises to imbue her children (one of whom becomes a key character) with charitable mindsets, while selling it to her for a fine price causes its own ripple effects.

Seemingly unrelated events are linked thanks to the time-travel mechanic. Not only does this add more weight to your decisions, but it also creates a warped sense of time. As you travel back and forth to gather quest items, these epoch-spanning narratives seem to be squished together, much like when a movie juxtaposes a character’s memories with their present conundrum. This underscores their interdependency and the ways in which your interactions shape the world in a lasting way. With (at least) 13 different endings and a revolutionary “New Game+” mode, Chrono Trigger pioneered features gamers take for granted today.

Related: Final Fantasy IX Should Be Remade Next

“The Black Wind Howls Again” — We Hope

In 1996, Radical Dreamers, a visual novel that took place in the Chrono Trigger universe, released in Japan. Several years later, Square created a true sequel with the PlayStation game Chrono Cross. To catch PlayStation players up, the developer released Final Fantasy Chronicles, a compilation that included Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger. Since then, the 1995 SNES classic has landed on the Nintendo DS, iOS, Android and, most recently, on Steam -- though this particular port was infamously terrible.

Sadly, Square Enix hasn’t made strides to reinvigorate the series, and, though Square trademarked the name “Chrono Break” in 2001, nothing came of it. Chrono Resurrection, a fan attempt to remake the original game for the Nintendo 64, shuttered in 2004 after Square issued a cease-and-desist letter. Despite the game’s ever-passionate fanbase, Square doesn’t seem to have any plans to give Chrono Trigger the Final Fantasy VII Remake treatment.

However, of all the games in Square Enix’s impressive back-catalogue, it’s the one most deserving of a remake. Chrono Trigger doesn’t just skate by on nostalgia or its importance in canon. Instead, the innovations that made it groundbreaking in 1995 allow the game to stand on equal footing with recent releases. Simply updating the game with current-gen visuals and rescored music would underscore the fact that Chrono Trigger is truly timeless.

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