[h1]A poor port of a legendary RPG that’s still not great even with a plethora of patches.[/h1]
I got every ending/achievement because I am a stubborn Chrono Trigger diehard, but I cannot in good faith recommend this version of the game. Go for the SNES original or DS version instead. Chrono Trigger deserved a higher budget remaster and not this buggy, aesthetically-compromised DS-to-mobile-to-PC conversion.
[b]Pros:[/b]
+ It’s Chrono Trigger, one of the greatest 16-bit RPGs of all time. It's got great characters, dialogue, emotional storytelling, and a masterpiece of a soundtrack.
+ The Chrono Trigger Pixel Demaster 8 Final Hotfix 4 mod, CT Explore v1.4 mod, ChronoMod, and CText mod coupled with ReShade with shaders CRT-Frutbunn, EasymodeCRT, and Vibrance make this version less bad.
+ Auto-save and resume is a good feature.
+ It’s nice to see the game presented in widescreen and ultrawide, even some of the game area is cropped as a result.
+ The Dream’s End chapter from the DS version is included, which adds some connective tissue to Chrono Cross.
[b]Half Pro/Half Con:[/b]
+- The fast-forward toggle for battles is a welcome addition, but you cannot control the speed of it, and your characters are set to auto-attack with this feature enabled. There should have been a setting to allow different levels of fast-forward and without the auto-attack engaging.
[b]Cons:[/b]
- The game’s save data is volatile. I played primarily on Steam Deck, and on occasion I had lost progress because booting the game up a day later set my saves back to an earlier save. One time, I reached the end of the game, saved, and upon booting up the next day, ALL THE SAVE DATA WAS GONE. I found out it was randomly dumped into the OneDrive recycling bin, so I was thankfully able to restore it, but WHY on earth did this happen!?
- If your game crashes, which has happened to me a few times, your save data is at a high risk of getting deleted, even if you're not in the middle of saving.
- The default graphics settings that smooth and blur the sprites is awful and a completely unacceptable "replacement" for proper CRT/scanline filters.
- While having a sharp pixel option is nice, there really should have been scanline, CRT filter, and interpolation options since the game was originally designed to be played on old school tube TVs.
- The graphics of the game are inaccurately stretched. A properly-calibrated CRT would take the native 8:7 aspect ratio of the SNES original and stretch it horizontally by 8/7 and NOT 4/3 to achieve 64:49 aspect ratio. This port applies a 4:3 stretch on the pixel art, which is inaccurate.
- There is an issue with shimmering pixels as the screen scrolls; this could have been addressed with better display options, such as the aforementioned interpolation toggles, CRT/scanline filters, and even integer scaling.
- The new user interface for menus is cheap and tacky-looking and ruins the charm and aesthetics of the SNES and DS versions. I shouldn’t have to use mods to remove those poorly-drawn, hovering battle gauges, for example.
- The DS font worked well for DS, but doesn’t look so great here. I shouldn’t have to mod the SNES font via CText in just to get a good pixel font.
- When playing on PC and Steam Deck docked instead of Steam Deck in portable mode, I got occasional stutters while moving my characters.
- Ever since the August 2023 patch, diagonal movement results in an awkward jittering of the character sprites, and flying the Epoch diagonally on the world map also results in jittery movement/screen lag. TO THIS DAY, THEY HAVE NEVER ADDRESSED NOR FIXED THIS AND I HAD TO INSTALL A MOD CALLED CTEXT TO AT LEAST FIX THE DIAGONAL JITTERING FOR FIELD MOVEMENT.
- Unlike the SNES/DS versions, the field music no longer continues from where it left off after finishing a battle. CText mod fixed this.
- The Arena of Ages bonus area from the DS version is not included.
- The Lost Sanctum bonus area, carried over from the DS version, is monotonous and repetitive, requiring you to move between the same winding paths and areas and fight the same battles over and over as you go from one fetch quest to another. The rewards are nice, but it comes at the cost of fun.
