CT is one of the all time great JRPGs… if you put the effort in.
But it is very much a product of its time between missable party members and even mechanics that penalize you for opening treasure chests too soon.
Conceptually it is cool as hell that there is something like five or six main endings and then a bunch of variants and special/joke endings. But… this is a 20-30 hour JRPG and ain’t nobody got that much time. Although, different re-releases have helped speed those up.
All in all? The big set piece moments are some of the greatest in gaming. The moment to moment are… from the early 90s. I would probably recommend grabbing a totally legit dump of your SNES cartridge, playing until you get bored/annoyed, and then watching a lore video.
20-30 hour was less than I expected. On other comments it sounds like several endings can be seen in one playthrough which makes it easier to see many or all endings.
Yeah. I also assumed it was closer to 40 but figured I would check howlongtobeat.
And yeah, if you know what you are doing you are going to be closer to the golden ending than not on any given run. But if someone is doing a genuinely blind run (rather than following gamefaqs) they have good odds of missing out on the truly optional character, missing a lot of good loot, possibly missing out on the semi-optional character, etc. Which turns “1-2” runs into “2-3”.
mechanics that penalize you for opening treasure chests too soon.
Unlike all the other chests, the ones that “penalize you” have an event and prompt asking if you want to open them, and in a game about time travel, it’s not too hard to figure out what’s intended.
There is an optional party member that you can either recruit or fight based on which dialogue option you pick. You’ll know it when you see it though, so it’s easy to make the right choice.
There are 12 endings (13 in DS and subsequent rereleases). You can easily see all of them in just two playthroughs. Theoretically you could even do them all on the first playthrough, but it’s much easier to do in NG+.
The only caveat is that you have to see them in order, you can’t backtrack if you miss one, which is why I recommend starting with the final and true ending on your first playthrough, then do all the others on NG+. NG+ makes it pretty easy to speed through things as well, your second playthrough will be much shorter.
There is also one (three?) party members that you can potentially lose due to story related reasons and not recover before endgame.
And yeah. With a guide and some save scumming you can definitely optimize your routes. But that also kind of defeats the purpose of “enjoying” the game, at least to me.
The character that leaves and rejoins the party is not permanently missable. It might be tricky to figure out how to get them back, but there’s no fail state.
You can and should do the first playthrough blind. Save the guide for NG+.
CT is one of the all time great JRPGs… if you put the effort in.
But it is very much a product of its time between missable party members and even mechanics that penalize you for opening treasure chests too soon.
Conceptually it is cool as hell that there is something like five or six main endings and then a bunch of variants and special/joke endings. But… this is a 20-30 hour JRPG and ain’t nobody got that much time. Although, different re-releases have helped speed those up.
All in all? The big set piece moments are some of the greatest in gaming. The moment to moment are… from the early 90s. I would probably recommend grabbing a totally legit dump of your SNES cartridge, playing until you get bored/annoyed, and then watching a lore video.
20-30 hour was less than I expected. On other comments it sounds like several endings can be seen in one playthrough which makes it easier to see many or all endings.
Yeah. I also assumed it was closer to 40 but figured I would check howlongtobeat.
And yeah, if you know what you are doing you are going to be closer to the golden ending than not on any given run. But if someone is doing a genuinely blind run (rather than following gamefaqs) they have good odds of missing out on the truly optional character, missing a lot of good loot, possibly missing out on the semi-optional character, etc. Which turns “1-2” runs into “2-3”.
Unlike all the other chests, the ones that “penalize you” have an event and prompt asking if you want to open them, and in a game about time travel, it’s not too hard to figure out what’s intended.
Missable party members? 5~ endings?
Is this really in Chrono Trigger?
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There is an optional party member that you can either recruit or fight based on which dialogue option you pick. You’ll know it when you see it though, so it’s easy to make the right choice.
There are 12 endings (13 in DS and subsequent rereleases). You can easily see all of them in just two playthroughs. Theoretically you could even do them all on the first playthrough, but it’s much easier to do in NG+.
The only caveat is that you have to see them in order, you can’t backtrack if you miss one, which is why I recommend starting with the final and true ending on your first playthrough, then do all the others on NG+. NG+ makes it pretty easy to speed through things as well, your second playthrough will be much shorter.
There is also one (three?) party members that you can potentially lose due to story related reasons and not recover before endgame.
And yeah. With a guide and some save scumming you can definitely optimize your routes. But that also kind of defeats the purpose of “enjoying” the game, at least to me.
The character that leaves and rejoins the party is not permanently missable. It might be tricky to figure out how to get them back, but there’s no fail state.
You can and should do the first playthrough blind. Save the guide for NG+.