Which Version of Chrono Trigger Should You Play? - All Ports Reviewed & Compared!

chrono trigger on super nintendo is another ted woolsey translation it's a beloved and legendary jrpg and the script and translation are a large part of people's nostalgia for the game despite its shortcomings the translation has some quirks grammatical errors spelling errors name changes like lala to laura confusing or even just straight up wrong item descriptions censored themes pertaining to alcohol sexual and religious themes and it also just straight up cuts some dialogue as well the ui had to be adjusted for the localization as well while there's no altered sprites to speak of one of the game's endings is mistakenly missing an accompanying image for it some of the more widely known glitches include overflowing hp values in the final battle to make it easier forcing characters to have no equipment on which breaks their stats differently depending on the region and various sequence breaks using a lot of menu trickery plus moving chrono while the screen is fading out for screen transitions these are glitches you'd really have to be aware of beforehand of course to utilize more predominant ones to anyone playing the game would include enemies programmed to target whoever has the lowest hp actually end up ignoring that character and there's a juror who will inexplicably always say you're guilty unless you play in a deliberate way and the shure isn't like this in any version going forward chrono trigger also suffers from seemingly random but extremely rare crashes even on original hardware and on official emulation like on wii virtual console so while keeping in mind the rare crashes and minor bugs unique to this version they don't really hold back the super nintendo experience in a significant way chrono trigger's next release was on ps1 and in the us it was a part of final fantasy chronicles the ps1 version includes a bunch of bonuses we've got anime cutscenes throughout the game on top of an anime opening and an extras menu containing a theater for the anime cutscenes art gallery music player tech gallery bestiary ending log and a treasure map so much detail is in here that frankly it's like a strategy guide that's built in and you have to unlock it you've also got 15 save slots in this version instead of three the most significant issue with this port is its loading times they're actually notorious for being some of the worst on ps1 among all the games i've covered on the channel so far the loading times cannot be mitigated much on ps2 or ps3 either it seems to me that the load times are intentionally programmed like this ps2 on fast disk raid did make a small difference though and it's possible that the speed up options on bsp and vita could help too the speed up options in fan emulators didn't seem to help significantly without side effects if anyone has had any success in basically removing the load times for this version they should let people know all in all you've got to commit to some longer load times no matter what if you want to play the ps1 version the ps1 version did fix some bugs too for example you can't move while the screen is fading out for transitions anymore or exploit the green dream accessory to use an item on enemies in order to overflow their hp value in the final battle unequipping your characters does still work though lastly the playstation 1 version has a slightly different sound to it from the different hardware the difference is subtle though so we'll keep the sample short [Music] [Applause] [Music] the next release for chrono trigger was on the nintendo ds the translation has been revised taking care of the issues we discussed earlier from grammar to item descriptions this means that items equipment moves locations and enemies may be renamed from anything that refers to the snes version one point of contention in this new translation is that frog no longer speaks with an older english dialect he still speaks in a unique way it's just not as enunciated i guess you could say now the ds version features a handful of new content first at the arena of the ages which is a mini game where you train and battle monsters to earn rewards and even have local wireless battles with other players next is the lost sanctum dimension which contains two optional mid game dungeons with a new village there's new side quests here too though they're generally criticized for their repetitive nature lastly there's the dimensional vortex a new game plus only post game dungeon with three versions of it to beat along with an additional new final boss that also provides a new ending that ties into chronocross however the dungeons retread assets from prior dungeons in the game so it's also criticized for being repetitive as well all this new content brings along new items equipment enemies and locations otherwise the anime cutscenes from the ps1 version return too and they are optional and there's also only three saves again additionally you can only remap the face buttons now as well the one gameplay change i did note is that atb build either slightly faster in this version or simply build as originally intended i'm unsure on the underlying variable so i can't confidently explain this but regardless we can say that combat is very slightly faster in the ds version visually many sprites and backgrounds had new details added and were slightly altered colors lighting and shading were added and there's some noticeable color correction in several areas as well additionally the aspect ratio of this version isn't adjusted to its intended look and is a bit squeezed on ds understandably this was the best way to handle aspect ratio it's just that it made editing these comparisons harder the reason i adjusted the super nintendo footage aspect ratio to match the ds version was to make the sprite changes easier to see and for the pc version later i'm going to have to stretch the ds footage the ui was adapted to the dual screens of the ds and there's even two options for battle ui one is a more classic style with your usual info up on the top screen with the battle while the other enables you to use the stylus to select actions and clean up the top screen otherwise the bottom screen gives you quick access to any menu option at any time along with customization options to move and disable the shortcuts plus a remarkably convenient minimap that is exclusive to this version of the game the music is a subtly different flavor thanks to the ds hardware it's a little more compressed as well but it's subtle so we'll keep this sample short too and of course on actual ds hardware it'll sound different as well [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] there were also a lot of bug fixes as well many of the original bugs were fixed like the unequipped glitch though one of the new bosses does have so much hp that you can overflow their hp to kill them thanks to them being able to absorb magic the ds version is simply the most complete version of the game it features the full extras modes before the future versions and all the extra content though the weight of all that differs depending on who you ask where it lacks is preference on music preference on the script and obviously whether you can find a copy of the game at a reasonable price if you intend to play it on actual hardware chrono trigger for imode compatible phones only released in japan and in two parts info on this version is exceedingly rare and hasn't even been available on the service since 2018. seemingly this version did include the ds content barring the arena of the ages and any extra modes though i don't have any concrete source on this if there's any info to be found on this version it'd have to wait to be presented for now we do at least have some visual comparisons thanks to square's press releases from the era and for those unfamiliar there is an initiative from the game preservation society to preserve eye mode games though it's exceedingly challenging for them due to legality de-listings and an active effort in japan to recycle phones that could have potentially held games now lastly we have the mobile and steam versions of chrono trigger the steam version of chrono trigger is a port of the mobile version though there's been so many updates to it that it's not what you'd expect nor is it what it was like when it originally came out we're going to address both the steam and mobile versions at the same time together though because they are being updated and patched together even if they aren't in parity with each other as we'll see all the info here applies to both versions unless specified the anime cutscenes are cleaner in quality than they've ever been before though two of them are now missing they're not optional anymore either the ds content is still here except for the arena of the ages mini game and there's 20 save slots plus achievements now the only four bonus modes left in this version are now a theater for the anime cutscenes art gallery music player and an ending log the only notable change to the core gameplay is that atv builds significantly faster than both the super nintendo and ds versions it's so fast that the fastest setting may be too fast for most people to keep up with even the slowest setting on pc is still faster than the default normal speed on both super nintendo and ds so don't be afraid to slow it down if you need to passwords you enter in the game were changed to tapping colors on mobile and on pc you may have the extra work of transcribing the given password to your controller's face buttons an auto battle option was added that repeats basic attacks while speeding the game up by 1.5 however you cannot hold a through battles or battle results anymore so now you have to mash you can also now move diagonally in the overworld and the game now auto saves every screen transition so now let's discuss visuals on the mobile version there's this unavoidable filter on the sprites which regardless of how you prefer it to look features this odd artifacting between the seams of tiles that's jarring next to the intended smoothing of the sprites if you don't like the filter you're out of options on mobile but this filter can be toggled off in the steam version so essentially the steam version sprites and backgrounds are one-to-one with the ds version the one exception being the overworld sprites now while the sprites are mostly identical the ui and effects like fog and time traveling will look like they're basically reconstructed using the original assets this leads to some minor differences like timing stretching opacity differences and inconsistent pixel resolution among the new assets the font on the mobile version is a plain looking sans-serif though the pc version uses a pixel font that fits the game's art style more albeit it's a bit small however the ui of both versions has this bilinear filtering over it you can use a mod to get rid of it on pc but the filter does help hide certain small anomalies like the drop shadow on text not filling space properly it's still visibly wrong under the filter it's just that it's slightly obscured on mobile the ui was heavily redone to be entirely playable with touch controls though this version still supports controllers on pc the ui is different and more conventional and controller friendly though the new ui assets do stick out among the sprite artwork like the auto battle icon and on the title screen the menu ui in general was also made much more conventional to other jrpgs additionally there's now interaction bubbles when you approach something you can interact with and the hp and atb bars below the characters return from the sdy neither of which can be turned off you can still only remap face buttons on the pc version and while the mobile version has control support you cannot remap any of the buttons on it at all the game also fits the aspect ratio of most phones without letterboxing and on pc supports up to 21x9 and was even properly adapted and updated to support it with additional details to the backgrounds minus the credits which are still 4x3 this version of the game seems to have more prominent new bugs than legacy bugs some are pretty apparent like the shaking you do when you move diagonally now which wasn't in this version until the most recent update so i expect this to be patched at some point additionally music resets after battles right now and this will hopefully also be patched as it was for the final fantasy games and of course with mobile games in terms of performance and stability your mileage may vary depending on your device i personally did run into some random freezes either while starting the game or with picking up items in my time recording the game on my phone this port has come a long way since its release a decade ago though as of right now its standout blemishes are how it handles various effects and its ey there's also just some odd unexplained quirks like those missing cutscenes and all that missing extra bonus stuff for some it may be enough and for others the original version or perhaps the ds version could still be the way to go then the rest of us that grew up on poor ps1 load times may be immune to them and won't mind them as of today though i can't handle them anymore so thank you for watching guys i'll be back with chrono cross sometime this month thanks to everyone among the chrono community and their documentation the cutting room floor legends of localization various wiki editors the chrono compendium and silicon era you can find me on twitter and patreon and until next time thank you again for watching

Channel: AustinSV

Views: 214,952

Keywords: AustinSV, chrono trigger gameplay, chrono trigger review, chrono trigger review pc, chrono trigger ds review, chrono trigger steam review 2021, chrono trigger steam review 2022, chrono trigger android review, chrono trigger ps1 review, chrono trigger steam gameplay, chrono trigger steam update, chrono trigger steam version, chrono trigger steam port, chrono trigger steam vs ds, chrono trigger steam vs snes, chrono trigger ds vs snes

Id: mxzFLfx0-tM

Length: 13min 32sec (812 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 04 2022