# Chrono Trigger - Work: Japanese RPG - Date: 1995 (Super Famicom, Japan, March 11; SNES, North America, August 22) - Made by: Hironobu Sakaguchi (Supervisor; co-creator of the original concept); Yuji Horii (Supervisor; general story outline); Akira Toriyama (Character and world design); Nobuo Uematsu (Additional music) - Houses: Square / Square Enix - Platforms: Super Famicom / Super NES, PlayStation (1999), Nintendo DS (2008), i-mode, iOS, Android, Windows (2018) - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/chrono-trigger/ > Square's 1995 time-travel epic, made by a 'Dream Team' from the rival Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest camps, in which a boy, a princess and an inventor cross millions of years to stop the world's end. **Why it matters:** Chrono Trigger fused the two great lineages of the Japanese RPG into one game and showcased battles fought on the field map, combination attacks, multiple endings and New Game Plus; it is routinely ranked among the greatest video games ever made. ## Quick answers **When was Chrono Trigger first released?** Chrono Trigger was first released in 1995 (Super Famicom, Japan, March 11; SNES, North America, August 22). **Who created Chrono Trigger?** Chrono Trigger was made by Hironobu Sakaguchi (supervisor; co-creator of the original concept), Yuji Horii (supervisor; general story outline), Akira Toriyama (character and world design) and Nobuo Uematsu (additional music). **Who published or developed Chrono Trigger?** Square / Square Enix. **What kind of work is Chrono Trigger?** Chrono Trigger is a Japanese RPG in the Japanese RPGs (JRPG) tradition, released for Super Famicom / Super NES, PlayStation (1999), Nintendo DS (2008), i-mode, iOS, Android and Windows (2018). **Why is Chrono Trigger important?** Chrono Trigger fused the two great lineages of the Japanese RPG into one game and showcased battles fought on the field map, combination attacks, multiple endings and New Game Plus; it is routinely ranked among the greatest video games ever made. ## Overview *Chrono Trigger* is a role-playing game developed and published by [Square](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/square/) for the Super Famicom, released in Japan on March 11, 1995, and on the Super NES in North America on August 22 of the same year. It follows Crono, a silent young swordsman; Marle, a runaway princess; and Lucca, an inventor whose teleporter misfires at the kingdom of Guardia's Millennial Fair and opens a hole in time. What begins as a rescue turns into a campaign across prehistory, the Middle Ages, a drowned magical empire and a ruined future, all to prevent the awakening of Lavos, a parasite from space that will scour the world in 1999 AD. The game is the purest expression of the 16-bit [Japanese RPG](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/japanese-rpg/) at its peak: brisk, colorful, funny and melancholy by turns, and tightly built. Its reputation has never faded. It placed near the top of repeated "greatest games of all time" lists through the 2000s, and all versions together had shipped more than five million copies by March 2025. ## Origins The project was conceived in October 1992 by three men who represented the two dominant traditions of the Japanese console RPG. [Hironobu Sakaguchi](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/hironobu-sakaguchi/) had created [Final Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy/) at Square; [Yuji Horii](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/yuji-horii/) had created [Dragon Quest](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-quest/) for the rival publisher [Enix](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/enix/); and [Akira Toriyama](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/akira-toriyama/), the *Dragon Ball* manga artist, was Dragon Quest's character designer. Square called them the "Dream Team." Toriyama's editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, later described the concept as "Dragon Quest plus Final Fantasy," and arranged for Enix to lend Horii to Square. Producer Kazuhiko Aoki joined the three, and development began in early 1993 with a team of 50 to 60 people. The time-travel premise came from an uncredited staff member; scenario writer Masato Kato at first opposed it, fearing repetitive play, then wrote most of the story, including all of the 12,000 BC era. Horii, a fan of time-travel fiction, shaped the general outline, suggested the grandfather-paradox scenario around Marle and devised Lavos as an ancient evil. The team originally aimed at Nintendo's planned CD-ROM add-on for the Super Famicom; when that was canceled, the game moved to a 32-megabit cartridge. The music was written mostly by Yasunori Mitsuda, a sound programmer who had threatened to quit Square unless he could compose. Sakaguchi gave him the score. When Mitsuda developed stomach ulcers, veteran [Nobuo Uematsu](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/nobuo-uematsu/) composed ten pieces to finish it. ## How it plays *Chrono Trigger* abandons the random battles common in the genre. Most enemies are visible on the map or lie in ambush, and when the party touches them, combat happens right there on the field, without cutting away to a separate battle screen. The fights use "Active Time Battle 2.0," a refinement of the [Active Time Battle](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/active-time-battle/) system Square introduced in *Final Fantasy IV*: each character acts when a personal gauge, driven by speed, fills. Each of the seven playable characters learns eight personal "Techs," and those with compatible skills can combine them into Double and Triple Techs; the menu offers a combination automatically when the characters involved have enough magic points. Because enemies move around during a fight, techniques that hit a line or a cluster reward watching the battlefield. Time travel ties everything together. Seven eras, from 65,000,000 BC to 2300 AD, are reached through time gates, an atemporal hub called the End of Time and, later, a flying time machine, the Epoch. Actions in the past change the future, and many side quests close personal stories, such as the knight-turned-frog Frog's grief for his friend Cyrus or the robot Robo's reckoning with his makers. Players can challenge Lavos at almost any point after reaching the End of Time, and the timing and circumstances of victory determine which of twelve endings appears. Finishing the game unlocks New Game Plus, which starts a fresh playthrough with the party's levels, techniques and equipment intact. ## Reception & impact Critics hailed the game on release; *Nintendo Power* called aspects of it revolutionary, citing the multiple endings, character-driven side quests, battle system and graphics. Reviewers compared it constantly with [Final Fantasy VI](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/final-fantasy-vi/), released the year before: several found *Chrono Trigger* easier and its cast less deep, while others praised its visuals and pace as superior. In Japan it sold two million copies in two months and finished 1995 as the year's second best-selling game, behind *Dragon Quest VI*. By March 2003 the Super NES and PlayStation versions had shipped 2.65 million copies, 2.36 million of them in Japan. The game's innovations spread widely. Square reused New Game Plus in later games such as *Chrono Cross* and *Final Fantasy XV*, and the term passed into the wider vocabulary of game design. Mitsuda's score is regularly counted among the best game soundtracks ever written; "Frog's Theme" and "Robo's Theme" were among the game music played at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Summer Olympics. ## Legacy Square followed the game with *Radical Dreamers* (1996), a text-driven side story for the Japan-only Satellaview service, and with *Chrono Cross* (1999) for the PlayStation, both written by Kato. *Chrono Trigger* itself was ported to the PlayStation in 1999 with animated cutscenes by Toriyama's Bird Studio and Toei Animation, reaching North America in 2001 as part of *Final Fantasy Chronicles*. A 2008 Nintendo DS version added a new translation, extra dungeons and a new ending; a 2018 Windows release was widely panned before a series of patches repaired it. Fans have kept the game alive with ambitious remakes and a feature-length ROM-hack sequel, *Crimson Echoes*, which Square Enix halted with a cease-and-desist letter in 2009. In hindsight, the collaboration that produced it — Square's cinematic flair married to the sensibility of Enix's star designer — looks like a preview of the 2003 merger that created Square Enix. For many players it remains the benchmark against which the genre's pacing, music and heart are measured, a companion to [Secret of Mana](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/secret-of-mana/) and *Final Fantasy VI* at the summit of the [Japanese console RPG's](https://www.lanternhall.org/chronicle/japanese-line/) 16-bit age. ## Facts - Its core creators — [Sakaguchi](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/hironobu-sakaguchi/), [Horii](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/yuji-horii/) and [Toriyama](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/akira-toriyama/) — were billed by Square as the "Dream Team"; Enix lent Horii to its rival for the project. - The game was released in Japan on March 11, 1995, and in North America on August 22, 1995. - It sold two million copies in Japan in only two months and was the country's second best-selling game of 1995, behind Dragon Quest VI. - The original release has twelve endings, depending on when and how the player defeats Lavos; later ports add a thirteenth. - Composer Yasunori Mitsuda, then a sound programmer, got the job after threatening to leave Square if he could not compose; ulcers later forced him to hand ten pieces to [Nobuo Uematsu](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/nobuo-uematsu/). - Translator Ted Woolsey was given roughly thirty days to localize the game into English. - Party members can combine their individual Techs into Double and Triple Techs, such as Crono's Cyclone and Lucca's Flame Toss merging into Fire Whirl. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Trigger) - [Chrono series (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_(series)) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.