Chrono Trigger (1995)
The 'Dream Team' Temporal Odyssey and the Undisputed Masterpiece of 16-Bit JRPGs
Developed by Square in 1995 for the Super Nintendo by the legendary 'Dream Team'—Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy), Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest), and manga icon Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball)—Chrono Trigger is universally celebrated as the greatest role-playing game ever assembled. Spanning prehistory to a post-apocalyptic future, Crono journeys through time to avert the devastation of alien parasite Lavos.
Active Time Battle 2.0 and Seamless Combat
Chrono Trigger discarded random battles in separate encounter screens, allowing battles to unfold seamlessly directly on the map. Introducing coordinated 'Dual and Triple Techs' where party members combined elemental magic with sword strikes, combat was fast, fluid, and tactical.
13 Multiple Endings and the Invention of New Game+
The game formally coined the term 'New Game+', inviting players to carry high-level characters into past eras to challenge Lavos at different junctures and uncover 13 wildly divergent endings. Powered by Yasunori Mitsuda's haunting soundtrack, it stands as the gold standard of interactive storytelling.