What to play after experiencing Chrono Trigger?

verycoolusername@lemm.ee to Patient Gamers@sh.itjust.works – 105 points –

Left feeling a bit empty after playing it for the first time a few months ago(why did I wait so long?) I am afraid no JRPG will be able to surpass it. Would love to have a discussion about similar games that reach the same quality level (Note: I have already played Final Fantasy VI ).

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Its not a very "patient gamer" recommendation, but Sea of Stars came out a couple of weeks ago, it is a modern game inspired by retro JRPG titles like Chrono Trigger. I haven't played it yet, but it looks super cool.

Finished it yesterday, can confirm, while it's not on par of course, it's a great game and an amazing tribute to old JRPG.

Nothing else reaches the same quality as Chrono Trigger in the same way. You have to settle for lower quality with similar pacing, or try to reach the same level of quality in a different way.

Similar pacing, lower quality: Phantasy Star IV, Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy IV
Comparable quality, different style: Earthbound, Final Fantasy VII (FF6 is the real answer, but FF7 is the most similar game to FF6)
Similar aspects, lower quality: Dragon Quest IV, Radical Dreamers & Chrono Cross, possibly Radiant Historia

I'm at the final boss of Super Mario RPG and can vouch for it being really fun. While it's not as epic in scale and story as Chrono Trigger, it's got good humorous writing, good pacing, and the difficulty is just right imo.

I also really like that if you lose a battle, the game resets you at your last save point and carries over any exp you gained, making grinding way less tedious.

Super Mario RPG is definitely worth playing. It was one of my favorite games on the SNES. I'm excited for the switch remake of it too.

More Chrono Trigger!

Have you seen all, IIRC, 11 endings?

Honestly, nothing ever hit the same for me. Even Chrono Cross, which I'm sure tons of people love and is supposed to be somewhat of a sequel to Chrono Trigger (I mean... Final Fantasy games did this too where the stories were totally unrelated but were still "sequels"), was unable to draw me in.

Something about the camaraderie between the characters in Trigger just also felt so much more special than in any other JRPG for me. Western RPGs tend to do this a lot; Baldur's Gate 3 is extremely good at making you want to hang out with the companion characters.

Quick note, Cross is very deeply, broadly, and extensively a sequel to Trigger.

Eh officially it is. In reality though they tacked all the references to Chrono Trigger in at the end of development.

I'm not sure I've read that anywhere. Are you able to provide any sources?

I watched a few making of and other types of history videos about the series.

I'd love to see those.
The only one I could find was about them cutting Magus's storyline out since the whole game, start to finish, tied directly into it, did so from the beginning, and would have required an immense amount of writing for a non-primary character, which is why they gave him a mask.

Masato Kato: To let the cat out of the bag, in the early stages of development, Guile was indeed meant to be Magus. In our original plan, the true identity of Guile was supposed to be Magus after the events in Trigger. (At the end of Trigger, Magus [a.k.a. Janus in Trigger and Magil in Radical Dreamers] disappeared into a Time Gate to go searching for his big sister, Schala, who was lost somewhere in time.) However, as the game's development progressed and we decided to use such a huge number of playable characters, we decided not to make him be Magus. We thought it was impossible to portray the relationship between Magus and Schala adequately in this game. So we changed tracks, made the colors of the Magus character design paler, and turned him into Guile, the magician. In a way, it's a pity, as I really would like to have seen the valiant figure of Magus come to life again.

Archived copy of a GamePro interview with Director/Scenario Writer Masato Kato

Interesting. Thank you for finding that. I guess the videos I watched were wrong. I couldn't tell you what videos they were, it's been a long time.

There has been a great deal of speculation down through the years. Some of these interviews weren't translated until relatively recently, so for a long time all we had was speculation.

Earthbound is fantastic. Also, Chrono Trigger has several different endings and secret things to accomplish along the way, so it is good for more than one play-through. Finally, I remember stumbling into a game decades ago around the same time I first discovered Chrono Trigger called Seiken Densetsu. I remember having a copy in English and really liking it.

Suikoden II is generally considered one of the best JRPGs on the PS1, and while the English translation isn't spotless the writing and setpieces have a similar quality to Chrono Trigger. It is a sequel to Suikoden and you'll enjoy the second game a bit more for having played the first one, but it's not a requirement. The original Suikoden wasn't nearly as polished and I'd hate for you to give up on Suikoden II because you burned out on it.

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That game was probably my biggest surprise in the last decade, I expected nothing and got one of my top 5 videogame stories and atmospheres of all time. The game does so much with so little. Couldn‘t warm up to the battles though lol

Dunno how anyone who likes JRPGs could play the first game and be like „you know what, I don‘t need to play the sequel.“

I can't believe it hasn't been mentioned much but Secret of Mana is definitely a strong contender as GOAT JRPG, as good if not better than Chrono Trigge imo.

Better? Never. I will say it is the by far the best real multi player rpg I’ve played.

multiplayer? would it be a good game for a couple?

Oh totally, and one player can readily dip in and dip out if you’ve got differing interest levels.

damn, never realized that's a thing. My SO doesn't have the time to game that much, so that'd be really helpful.

Can you recommend other games with similar multiplayer mechanics as well?

I agree. When I have my SNES nostalgia, I play Secret of Mana first, then Chromo Trigger for the withdrawals.

None of those reach the same level as Chrono Trigger in my opinion, but they're still great:

  • Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrals (SNES). Note: Lufia is best played out of order, since the start of Lufia I spoils the end of Lufia II.
  • Tales of Phantasia (SNES). Preferably through the DeJap translation, IMO better than the official.
  • Pokémon Fire Red or Leaf Green (GBA). Pokémon as a series decayed a fair bit, but Gen III was amazing.

ROM hacks of gen 3 games are pretty fun, and the most up to date ones are very high quality.

-Pokemon Gaia is my favorite, still feels like a classic pokemon game and its really polished. No postgame yet though, there's a big update thats been "coming soon" for a few years, but the devs say they're still working on it.

-Pokemon Unbound is by far the most complex pokemon game in existence, with content up to gen 8, side quests, mechanics from later games, and tons of postgame content. Also a more "adult" storyline, although I think that actually detracts from the feeling of a pokemon game

-Altered Emerald and Polished Crystal, if you want to play expanded versions of official games

-One that people usually recommend is Pokemon Glazed, but i don't really like that one. It's a big game but the balance and pacing of it is way off.

Echoing a few here.

Earthbound. Legend of Dragoon. Illusion of Gaia. Secret of Mana. Suikoden. Final Fantasy 6.

I liked Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age more than Chrono Trigger.

Super Mario RPG is pretty high up there, as well.

Lost Odyssey is a gem that doesn't get enough love. Chrono Trigger might be a bit higher on my list, by this is definitely worth a playthrough. Be prepared for some real pulls at your heart strings if you read through the short stories in the game.

Xenogears for PS1

Very different from all the later 'Xeno-' titles.

Same composer as CT.

Not as polished a game design, but overall outstanding and interesting in story, mechanics, and scope.

I just love everything about Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. The second game never came close for me. But most have already played it.

Curious, exactly the opposite for me. The direct battles in the sequel did it way more for me than the pokemon mechanic in the prequel. Absolutely loved the sequel, great art style (apart from the „clay/plastic“ overworld). I thought the prequel was alright but it didn‘t have me glued to the screen.

Haha that's so nice to hear! Glad you liked it!

If you want something more modern, but that still feels very classic, try Sea of Stars. It gives off major chrono trigger energy from my play through so far.

It's got that Chrono Trigger Feel™. The first time we triggered a battle, the party and enemies all jumped to their starting places on the map. I was so happy

Illusions of Gaia and Secret of Mana 100% - they're action JRPGs but have the same vibe in many ways.

My big 3 on that system were Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, and Mario RPG, in no particular order (though I generally lean toward Earthbound). I would throw Zelda: A Link To The Past as an honorable mention (not an RPG in the same sense of course). All classics and worthy of respect in their own light

Gotta say I want to recommend Zelda: LttP too, even though it's more action-y. One of those games that feels like you've really gone on an adventure.

Sea of Stars JUST dropped.

Sea of Stars

I've heard a lot of vague talk about it. I have Game Pass (which it's one). Does it live up to the hype? It might be my next try if/when I cool on Starfield.

It's directly Chrono Trigger inspired.

If this wasn't !PatientGamers, this'd be a lay up for Sea of Stars, and every comment would just say "Sea of Stars".

What I've heard is that it's very much like Chrono Trigger aesthetics-wise but very different regarding writing quality. Now, a lot of people play JRPGs not necessarily for their plot, story, character motivation/development and quality of prose but for their particular atmosphere crafted by their use of graphics, music, animation/sprites, etc and there's nothing wrong with that, so maybe it will be your vibe

I played the demo and liked it a lot. Beautiful looking game that feels good to control. The only reason I'm not playing the full game is that I feel like I owe Baldur's Gate III my attention, since I so rarely buy new games :p

I am only a few hours into Chrono Trigger so I don't know what metrics to assess quality but currently Xenogears, not mentioned at the time of this post was my absolute favorite go to game.

Its such a whirlwind of a story, and while the second disk is a bit of a let down playability wise, lots of story and exposition is still there. The last few fights are amazing.

And additionally Final Fantasy XIV, the MMO has one of the best story narratives I've ever experienced across the main game and it's expansions concluding with endwalker last year. I love Xenogears, but if I ever got to wipe my memory to experience something for the first time I'd pick FFXIV. It's a stout 150hrs ish though to get through it though at this point but all soloable/minimal party play.

Chrono trigger has a sequel, Chrono cross

Great game. Awful sequel.

I agree with this assessment a lot. The art and environmental design is gorgeous. The music is top notch (the battle theme is a bit polarizing though). In terms of production it's seriously well put together, for the most part. But, it suffers a lot of the worst excesses of 90s JRPG design, with a meandering, nonsensical plot and a battle system that's more interested in being fiddly than in being fun. It feels like one of the worst examples of a company just straight up not understanding the appeal of a game and making a "sequel" that could easily have been called something else. As a recommendation for someone just coming off of Chrono Trigger, I can hardly imagine something worse, oddly.

I disagree. As for the meandering, your nostalgia is blinding you to how bonkers Chrono Trigger's story is.
"You turn the corner and you're in a space station now but it's also at the bottom of the ocean and floating up in the sky at all times simultaneously and the guards are knockoffs of this one goofy karaoke cat machine your childhood friend made for some reason, now crash your TARDIS into it so you can go fight cyber god mom before she wakes up the ufo that's using our planet as an egg for the third time, your team is a super Saiyan clone with a samurai sword, the mechanic from dr slump, a cavewoman you abducted, an evil robot with memory loss, cyber god mom's goth son Dracula, tomboy princess and some frog"
The major plot points are "fighting a bridge zombie", "Ozzie's in a pickle", "showing a necklace to some treasure chests", "jailbreak", "oh no time is broken", "genre whiplash", "jailbreak again", "the time machine flies now", "did those two goblins just say by our powers combined", "eyes cream", and "time to kill god x5".
I love Chrono Trigger deeply. But the biggest sin Chrono Cross committed was that they just threw more things at the wall in their nearly identical "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach.

Sidenote: I will fight for Cross's combat system.

Whenever someone makes that claim I just assume they haven't actually played Chrono Cross.

I played CC.

Sure, the story is connected - Kid being raised by Lucca, the Time Devourer being Lavos, Guile being strongly hinted to be Magus, all that thing. But the loads of characters make you look at the big picture, instead of focusing on their individual personalities; the theme (dimensional travel vs. time travel) is different; and the battle system is nothing alike. Those things are actually improvements, but at least for me, they make it that CC doesn't scratch the same itch as CT.

And there's always that lingering melancholy in Chrono Cross that is at the same time beautiful and completely unlike the "happy" Chrono Trigger.

That's why I say that it's a great game, but an awful sequel. It doesn't have the elements that make you say "THAT is Chrono Trigger 2!", but it's fun and in certain aspects better than CT.

In fact one of the goals as stated by the team was that they very explicitly did not want to pump out "Chrono Trigger but it's got a 2 at the end of it".

Yup. In other words they didn't want to pump out a sequel. Even then that's what plenty people expected from CC, since it's "part of the Chrono series", and then got disappointed and an otherwise great game got this "but what about CT..." stigma. (I remember the outrage back then. And the kids distorting it into a SNES vs. PS fight.)

This is an interesting topic now that I think about it.

I'd like to give people in this thread the warning I wish they had given me about this game. Don't go into Cross expecting it to have anything to do with Trigger (or expecting it to be 10% as good as Trigger). They made a weird JRPG where every character is just a text filter and then decided in the last 3 hours that it was the sequel to Chrono Trigger. It has nothing in common with CT except a couple of place names and some dead characters, and would be a much better game if they called it Lynx Quest or Radical Dreamers 2 or what the hell ever.

Can't agree enough. My brother and I played through Chrono Cross together and that's honestly the only reason we even finished it.

It's tenuously connected to Chrono Trigger at best and those plot points are terribly written anyway. Combat is mediocre, the element system is annoying, and there's so many characters that only a couple of them get any screentime.

If you enjoyed CT, don't play CC; you'll almost certainly be disappointed.

I don't think it's fair to say not to bother with Chrono Cross but I do agree it's important to stress how unrelated to Chrono Trigger it is. As a sequel it fails. But as its own stand alone JRPG, I think it's great.

Personally I love Chrono Cross and how different it was. And the music is ridiculously good (Yasunori Mitsuda main Chrono Trigger composer.)

I think it's worth a go. It starts you somewhere in the middle of the story so you get action straight away. So anyone who tries it will know quickly if it will be up their alley without having to invest too much time.

Really good final fantasy of the era, but not a real sequel to Chrono trigger.

Pop quiz, who's the final boss of Chrono Cross?

As I recall it's the time devourer which is lavos after merging with part of schala, but it takes more than a final boss to make something a real sequel to another thing.

So the fundamental theme of scratching back our destiny from our own self-destructive nature isn't a 1:1 match?

You're free to disagree and think it's a perfect sequel that has everything you ever wanted out of a chrono trigger sequel. Lots of people like it. I just don't feel that it's a real sequel.

Hey so my rebuttal is just a really long list of spoilers for Chrono Cross, demonstrating how every corner of Cross is deeply connected to Trigger. Seriously, like, every aspect of the game.
I will always prefer an experiment that fails over an unending stream of bland clones.

I disagree with the extent of your warning, but only just. I also originally bounced off of Chrono Cross because it wasn't what I was expecting (3D Chrono Trigger). Once I went back to it like it was a brand new game, I grew to enjoy it on its own merits.

At least play it long enough to get the nostalgia whenever you hear the music come up on rainwave :p

For some newer ones, Chained Echoes and Sea of Stars have been fantastic.

Bravely default for the 3Ds or emulate it with Citra

Not gonna spoil anything, but I fell so hard for the twist and it absolutely made the game for me lol, big recommend.

Oh i have already played it. Yes same here, I went into it blind so it was great. Emulated it too so I could speed up the grinding

Live-A-Live is probably the best game similar to Chrono Trigger since the whole non-random battles element came from there (and the SaGa titles). That and several of the team members that worked on Live-A-Live worked on Chrono Trigger. Also, the whole OST is by Yoko Shimomura, the lady who did the osts for;

  • Kingdom Hearts
  • Street Fighter II
  • Super Mario RPG
  • Legend of Mana

The Remaster is well worth it and fixes a lot of RNG issues that the original SFC version had.

I'm kinda surprised how few people have mentioned Chrono Cross. It's not the same game, but it has a lot of cross over, and might help scratch that itch for "more chronotrigger".

I find the usual large and long SNES/PS1 era JRPGs quite bloated and grindy, to be honest. A while ago I played Phantasy Star IV, which is a lot more lightweight, linear and shorter than say, FF6, and I found that quite refreshing. Maybe you can try that as a change of style.

Phantasy Star II is pretty awesome too.

II is very good, but it does get VERY grindy right at the end.

This is true. I played it when it was new and I had fond memories of insanely grinding SMS PS1, so it seemed normal. The best thing to do is to go to Climatrol and farm Blastoids (they reproduce within a battle and you can get insane EXP by waiting for them to do that). Some weird slima-slug-somethings do that too.

Yeah, at the time it didn't seem so out of line. I guess I just feel like it hasn't held up as well against modern games as something like Chrono Trigger or FFVI.

That also shows up in the comparison between PS II and IV.... IV is way more cut-sceney, linear and streamlined with less grinding required. I guess I actually like the grinding!

I guess that depends on what you liked about it. Here are some other JRPGs I've enjoyed:

  • Golden Sun
  • Xenoblade Chronicles
  • Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

I personally prefer more action, so here are some ARPGs I really enjoy:

  • Ys series - especially Ys 1 and Ys Origin
  • Zelda series - currently playing Skyward Sword and loving it
  • Tokyo Xanadu Ex+

JRPG isn't my favorite category (I prefer ARPGs with minimal loot), so I'm probably looking for something different than you, but hopefully something here was helpful.

There are a lot of good jrpg recommendations in this thread, but more focused on the jrpgs of that time. If you are looking for something more recent, I can't recommend Persona 5 enough, you don't need to have played the earlier ones as the stories are independent from each other, it is as good as Chrono Trigger for me, and now quite accessible since persona 5 royal came to pc and all consoles. The recent dragons quest games are also pretty good.

  • Secret of Mana
  • Secret of Evermore
  • Suikoden 2
  • Suikoden 5
  • Suikoden Tactics
  • I am Setsuna
  • Okami

There are tons and TONS of amazing games on my list, these are just the few that come to mind immediately.

edit: pretty much any game in the Star Ocean series

Can you give me some tips?

I've come back to this game to give it another shot since it was originally released, I never really enjoyed it or got past the first entry into the future.

This time round I've just gained access to the prehistoric world, although I'm not sure I should visit here yet, and I have got parts of the Masamune sword, I beat the two kids recently,, but I'm basically lost and without a quest log in game I don't know what ime supposed to be doing next, any ideas?

If you have one part of the Masamune, go to Porre and ask around.

If you have two parts of the Masamune, an in-game cutscene told you to visit Melchior, near Medina.

The old guy at the End of Time will often give you a useful hint if you're lost.

Nothing surpasses chronotrigger even after all these years.

Two contemporaries of chronotrigger that were much different but still quite good are terranigma and seiken detensu 3.

Two games that claimed to be trying to do something similar mechanically that are RPGs are septerra core and anachronox. Both are for PC and should run on a potato these days.

The legacy of Kain series and in particular the soul reaver offshoot has a great story and time travel elements, but they're more action puzzle games.

To add to all the other great suggestions:

LIVE A LIVE

An rpg with multiple stories. Each in a different time period and with slightly different mechanics. It was first released for the snes only in Japan, but has recently been rereleased in the style of Octopath Travelers

The world ends with you

Part action rpg and jrpg. It's set in modern (at the time) Tokyo and has a great story. It was originally released on the DS and has been rereleased on the Switch. A cool but lacking sequel was released some years ago too.

CROSSCODE

Action rpg with an MMORPG setting (game is singleplayer)

Maybe that’s why I didn’t get into many of them after it and replayed it so many times.

Live A Live.

Forget trying to understand the title, just download the demo.

Octopath Traveler to an extent, too.

Oh yeah and the original Golden Sun has a great overall aesthetic, and some really interesting utility abilities, including ones that can be used in towns.

Oh yeah again, also Wild Arms is worth checking out (but not the remaster, I've been told). It does some really interesting things, and the plot feels similar. Combat is a bit of a chore, but I found it meditative. Enemy sound effects are tinny and repetitive and battle theme is divisive.

Chrono Cross (PS1). I've only played through it once but while very different and odd, I still had a good time. Despite being a sequel, it doesn't feel similar.

Phantasy Star IV does not reach the same level, but you should give it a try anyway. It has some neat things for its time, if you can put yourself back there. Like comic style "cutscenes" in a 16-bit game, and hidden combination attacks.

Phantasy Star 4 for Genesis. 2 & 3 were also really good but 4 was by far the best. I would not bother with the 1st.