You’ve probably never heard of this game, and even if I gave you a copy you probably don’t have a Super NES in your closet to play it on. If you did, however, you’d get a first-class lesson in storytelling for the video game market. A lesson I assumed was lost to the always-receding hardware horizon.
Today, however, I ran across a wonderful write-up and analysis of Chrono Trigger by Michael Brannan, who was participating in a contest in association with the IGDA Game Writers’ SIG. Here’s a sample:
Chrono Trigger’s story is a massive, sweeping story that spans a world consisting of several kingdoms across five distinct time periods (not counting the Day of Lavos in 1999 and the End of Time). In a nutshell, Chrono Trigger follows Crono’s journey through time, beginning the morning of the Millennial Faire celebrating the beginning of the year 1000 AD and follows Crono and the allies he meets on a quest to stop the Day of Lavos from occurring in 1999 AD.
If you’re interested in interactive entertainment, or in the history of the industry, or you were lucky enough to play Chrono Trigger back in the day, take a look. In an industry that often can’t be bothered to remember yesterday’s games, let alone the techniques that made them great, this kind of reference work is shamefully rare and desperately needed.
— Mark Barrett
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