[COLUMN] Video Games Peaked 30 Years Ago Today | by Marty Sliva

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but video games peaked 30 years ago today. Which is another way of saying HBD, Chrono Trigger! Square’s totemic RPG hit Japan on March 11th, 1995 for the Super Famicom, eventually making its way to the west later that year. And depending on the mood you caught me in when you asked, I might say that it’s my favorite video game ever made.

I’m sure a lot of that has to do with it entering my life at just the right time. I clock 1995 as the year that I fell in love with RPGs, spending that Christmas getting absolutely lost in both Chrono Trigger and EarthBound on the SNES. Both games would go on to become lifelong favorites that I’m happily able to revisit as often as possible, which is something I’m doing right now with Square’s birthday boy, replaying Chrono Trigger for the…honestly, I don’t even know by now. 15th time? More?

Every fresh replay shines a light on a different impeccable element of its design. This time around, I think the thing that’s standing out to me most is just how perfectly paced the whole thing is. There’s no fat, no padding, no meandering preamble. Within minutes we meet three of our main characters, are walloped over the head with the inciting incident, and then begin our grand adventure ping-ponging across time and space. There’s a confidence in this economy that’s rarely seen in our medium.

There’s a lot that feeds into this excellent sense of pace. Dungeons and combat zones never outstay their welcome, due in part not only to being able to see enemies on the field before engaging with them, but that fighting them in the exact same space you’re exploring makes every single screen memorable. The combat and exploration are tightly woven together in a way few other games in the genre manage, and that’s before you even bring in the fact that every hour or so, the adventure thrusts us into a strange new time period to uncover the mysteries of.

But it's not just this communication between the two gameplay styles that keeps the steady pace. No conversation about Chrono Trigger can go long before bringing up the late, great Akira Toriyama, who brought so much charm and character to the inhabitants of this world. I’m watching Dragon Ball Daima at the moment, which marked the final project for the legendary artist before his passing. No matter if it was a game from 30 years ago or an anime that just wrapped up its run a few weeks ago, Toriyama’s creative thumbprint exudes a warm, familiar call to adventure that I find eternally captivating. I’m going to miss him.

But for me, it’s impossible to see Toriyama’s characters in Chrono Trigger and the worlds they inhabit without immediately hearing the game’s iconic score echo through my mind. Yasunori Mitsuda’s work with help from Nobuo Uematsu is in a rarefied atmosphere that we don’t often see in games, and it’s wild how literally every single track holds up perfectly three decades later. 

I could go on and on about various elements of the game that feel so utterly ahead of its time. I love the small tidbits that end up paying off down the road, like hearing brief snippets of Fiona’s legacy right near the start of the game, dozens of hours before you have a chance to embark on her side quest. I love that it brought the idea of New Game Plus to the forefront, using its multitude of different endings as a reason for us to continually replay the game and try out new things. And I love that every hour or so the game seems to acknowledge just how gorgeous it is with a panning shot over a particularly beautiful screen – be it Crono’s trial, finding the trio of Dactyls to ride, or coming upon Magus’ castle for the first time. Legendary moment after legendary moment.

I’m genuinely curious to see how Square Enix celebrates this milestone for Chrono Trigger. Late last night, the company acknowledged the anniversary on their social media accounts, stating, “To mark the 30th anniversary and to express our gratitude to everyone who has played Chrono Trigger so far, we are planning a variety of projects over the next year that will go beyond the world of the game.” 

While obviously this could be something as small as pop-up shops around Tokyo and LA, I’m personally hoping for something bigger. I recently stumbled upon this short OVA featuring some of the game’s iconic critters preparing for the Millennial Fair – combine this with the short anime cutscenes released on the PSX version, and it’s clear that the game would make an excellent candidate for a full-on animated adaptation.

But beyond this, I truly believe that Square has been working on a 2D-HD remake/remaster of Chrono Trigger in the same style of Octopath Traveler and the recent Dragon Quest III Remake. It feels like this art style would mesh with the team’s original artistic vision much cleaner than a full-on 3D remake akin to the current Final Fantasy VII project.

And honestly, if this game were real, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it revealed in just a few weeks at Nintendo’s big Switch 2 event on April 2nd. When it comes to announced games, Square’s cupboards are barren, and given their strong working relationship with Nintendo over the past generation, I get the feeling they’re going to be a big partner with them moving into this new console. At the very least, Square needs to put a port of the original game on modern consoles – as of now, it’s only legally available on PC and mobile, otherwise you’re stuck digging through the racks for a used SNES/PSX/DS copy, or sailing the high seas.

Obviously the title of this column is a bit facetious – I could name hundreds of games I love that have been released at some point over the past 30 years, some of which were even developed by many of the same folks who worked on Chrono Trigger. But there’s something special about this project that’s hard to replicate – a confluence of generational talent coming together at the exact right moment in a medium’s growth to deliver an experience that remains, fittingly, timeless.