Chrono Trigger is at the way top. The greatest game of all time hasn’t been bested in 30 years. Telling the best narrative I’ve heard in my life, and packing it into 20 short hours, with timeless art and amazing music, and into FOUR GODDAMN MEGABYTES, this is one many try to beat, and none have succeeded. Not even Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
CrossCode comes right behind it. This game is much longer, but that’s okay. It’s essentially a single-player MMO with all the trappings of life within. A wonderfully smooth action combat system, more amazing music, and some of the most memorable facial expressions I’ve seen. It’s also written in freakin’ HTML5.
Zachtronics Solitaire Collection. Going purely by hours played and wins scored, this is on my favorites whether I like it or not. Every solitaire game from every Zachtronics title, right there. Special shout-out to Fortune’s Foundation.
Honorable mentions: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for the worldbuilding and music, Final Fantasy XIII for exactly the same reasons, The Talos Principle 2 for simply giving its NPCs the agency to say “nah, I don’t wanna go back, I’m staying home,” and Chaos Rings 2 for creating one of the most high-stakes yet viscerally unpleasant stories I’ve witnessed, wherein to proceed through the game, the protagonist ritually sacrifices his ever-shrinking party of people.
I wish I liked Crosscode more. I really enjoyed the writing and loved the puzzles, but the combat just didn’t feel that good to me. Ended up dropping it in the second dungeon and never picked it up again.
+1 for a Chrono Trigger ranking. For as popular as it still is in retrospect, I think people still don’t quite give it the full recognition it’s due for smashing pretty much every dreary console RPG convention that the genre had been persistently saddled with up until that point, while still remaining a console RPG. Believe it or not the developers had plans to make it even more ambitious at the beginning but they weren’t able to pull it off in the time allotted.
There are a lot of subsequent RPG titles (like even Final Fantasy goddamned Seven, not to mention Pokémon) that should have learned a bevvy of lessons from Chrono Trigger, but still didn’t. It was well ahead of its time.
CrossCode feels so much like chrono trigger to me (which is also my fav) I can’t even explain how, it’s a game on its own right with completely different gameplay but the chrono trigger essence is right there
There is one “No” she says in the story that is just … I swear they did such a good job of getting so much emotion through expressions and simple words alone, really impressive
XIII isn’t in my top 5 FF games. But the interpersonal dynamic is the absolute best in the series. The scene where Sahz discovers why his son was branded is one of the most impactful moments in gaming. Two of the most cheerful characters in the franchise, suddenly broken.
I don’t love how restricted the game is at the beginning. But each of their personal stories are magnificent, usualy leading to their Eidolon awakening.
Chrono Trigger is at the way top. The greatest game of all time hasn’t been bested in 30 years. Telling the best narrative I’ve heard in my life, and packing it into 20 short hours, with timeless art and amazing music, and into FOUR GODDAMN MEGABYTES, this is one many try to beat, and none have succeeded. Not even Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
I would lose the count of how many times I have read praises (well deserved) for Chrono Trigger, and it only makes me feel bad with myself because I left it unfinished (I am close to the 1st ending… I think) because I was lost all the damn time and needed a guide to move forward, something that I really don’t enjoy, and I didn’t have too many gaps while playing it to be fair.
I enjoy RPGs and jRPGs, even when they are not my favorite genres, but I don’t like to feel lost all the time.
Now, it should be obvious that I didn’t play this game back in its day, my last game session was about a year ago in my DSi XL (arguably the best way to experience it) so I have 0 nostalgia googles about it, although I am a Toriyama fan and I loved the art style, graphics and music, it is only the pace and the narrative that didn’t caught me completely…
I know I shouldn’t force myself to finish it as gaming is a hobby after all, but damn, I really want to complete it, at least one playthrough lol (I don’t like to leave stuff unfinished).
If anyone has tips to not feel lost all the damn time (aside of not stop playing for a brief time) I am all ears.
Unfortunately it’s a thing when going back to older games after being living in the map marker era for so long. This is a big part of why games back then came with annotated maps so you’d at least have a reference for all the locations.
I’d say at the minimum, don’t be afraid to pull up maps and take notes.
I didn’t know about this game, but honestly it is so good that others experience the same as I, of course I don’t think that I am the only one in the world that Chrono Trigger is not for him (not even sure about this myself), but definitely is so scarce to read comments of people struggling with the title compared with praises for it gets!
I love Chrono Trigger, but as far as SNES goes, Final Fantasy 6 and Secret of Mana 2 (or Trials of Mana or whatever we’re calling it now) both beat it for me.
Out of all retro JRPGs from that era, I'd say Chrono Trigger is the one that has aged the best, but it definitely is still a product of that era and that can be a bit of an acquired taste. If you haven't played any other modern JRPGs, I'd suggest checking out how the genre has evolved today, you might have an easier time getting into newer titles.
I actually started playing chrono trigger because of threads like this, but stopped playing close to the end because I wanted to do all the side quest but didn’t have the time to try things out and also played with a lot of breaks so I forgot a lot of things and therefore I started to look things up online but then it became tedious and also felt like cheating and now I can’t even motivate myself to finish it even though I am probably missing out on the best part of it.
I know these are very bland choices, but these games had a huge impact on me. I’ve only played disco Elysium recently, but it truly is a masterpiece. FNV gives me warm memories of [the good parts, at least.] of my childhood, and outer wilds… I don’t even really know how to describe it.
This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, and there are some other games that affected me on the same level, but I could only pick 3 :)
I adored Disco Elysium while playing it, but the ending felt kinda rushed/soured for me so it didn't quite hit top 3. However, the book Sacred And Terrible Air by Robert Kurvitz that was fan translated to English semi recently helped a great deal with unanswered questions about the world the game takes place in that I had which really helped brighten my overall opinion of the game in retrospect.
The book isn't very approachable I think with almost zero exposition, so it actually helps to have played the game first.
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