“7 Reasons Why Chrono Trigger is a Final Fantasy”

All life begins with Nu and ends with Nu… This is the truth! This is my belief! …At least for now.

-Belthasar in “The Mystery of Life” Vol. 841 Ch. 26

We all know Chrono Trigger is officially part of the Final Fantasy franchise, right? We don’t?! Well, let me rectify and edify, my friends. Pull up a chair and let’s explore why one of the most revered 16-bit JRPGs is in fact an intimate part of the FF series.

But, someone says! But! But! But! There are many buts, folks, and most of ’em stink. But what about Mana? Remember Final Fantasy Adventure? What about the Saga series, aka The Final Fantasy Legend 1, 2, and 3? How about Bravely Default, Xenogears, or Octopath Traveler?

All intriguing cases in their own right, whether due to regional naming conventions and awkward localization or to the status of spiritual successor and/or spinoff. Clearly, it’s a big minefield to navigate but this article is uniquely about  Chrono Trigger and its position in gaming history. The others can get their own articles written by more interested writers.

Here are 7 reasons why  Chrono Trigger is a Final Fantasy game.

#1. The Nature of Final Fantasy

A fundamental question must be asked: what is Final Fantasy? What is the series about? What does it mean to be a Final Fantasy game?

But when taking into consideration even just the 15 numerical entries from 1987 through 2016, it’s clear there’s no easy answer. Final Fantasy XV couldn’t be more different in many ways compared to the first Final Fantasy.

Occasionally, fans attempt to construct a theory of relatability between the Final Fantasy games along the lines of combat (forgetting that combat has gone through turn-based, ATB, and ARPG systems over time), summons (forgetting that they didn’t exist in the earliest entries), jobs (forgetting that not all FFs utilize them) and so on. And then you take Final Fantasy spinoffs into account: you’ve got tactical RPGs, tower defense, racing, even snowboarding. To my mind, there is a central theme of Final Fantasy and it’s bound up in the name itself.

Clearly, there has been no true final game in this series, despite the title. The whole idea of Sakaguchi taking a last stand and creating one more game before bowing out may not even be more than legendary myth. Since its inception, the series has even seen direct sequels, so what does final even mean here when you can have a “Final Fantasy Ten Two?

I think it underscores the fact that the series is about innovation and change, simultaneously bound by tradition, not direct physical or metaphysical ties in some kind of strict chronology (fan theorists will hate me for that line). Looking again from 1987 to 2016, it’s clear that some traditions never change whereas the core systems themselves have changed dramatically. The series continually tests new waters, plays around with new ideas, introduces more mechanics, and, most importantly, changes hands in terms of creators, producers, directors, and developers.

All of this sets the stage for Chrono Trigger. How? By dismissing the suggestion that Chrono Trigger is not Final Fantasy-esque enough. If we cannot define what Final Fantasy is beyond what is partly tradition and what is partly transition, then Chrono Trigger actually fits rather nicely. Consider that its rampant similarities place it alongside its FF peers, as do its differences. It is not unlike FF for not having summons, let’s say. It is more like it for trying something different, for instance with techs, dual and triple.

There’s room in Final Fantasy for being different as well as being similar.

#2. ATB System

Nowhere is the mechanical resemblance to Final Fantasy clearer in Chrono Trigger than in ATB. Hiroyuki Ito’s Active Time Battle system is one that I consider to be among the greatest innovations in gaming history and one of the best contributions the FF series has made. It took the rigid turn-based formula in which player characters and enemies exchanged blows one by one like two people sitting down for a round of Chess and it introduced a real-time element to it, requiring the player to think on their feet, act with haste, and outpace the enemy as a timer represented by a gauge kept the time before a character could make each move.

The ATB system is distinctly Final Fantasy. It was invented for Final Fantasy IV where it took a primitive form. It appears front and center in Chrono Trigger with little to no modification made to it at all. A battle system that emphasized timing had appeared in a game about time, at home where it belonged if the title of the game was any indication.

Am I suggesting that a game merely possessing the ATB system makes it a Final Fantasy? No, of course not. FF is too complex for that. I am saying that there’s a line of tradition present in Chrono Trigger, but this is just one of several reasons I’ve got to list.

#3. The Daddy of Final Fantasy

This ought to need no introduction. It’s a well-known fact that Chrono Trigger was the product of the Dream Team, a collection of creatives that made it a truly unique combination of ideas and talents, the likes of which maybe can’t be perfectly replicated. Yuji Horii, creator of Enix’s Dragon Quest, Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball, Kazuhiko Aoki (of FFIV) as producer, Masato Kato as writer, Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu (notable for crafting the sound of Final Fantasy) on music, and Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of Final Fantasy, came together and shared ideas to create this celebrated game. It was one of the most significant crossover events in gaming history. Many of them even appear in one of Chrono Trigger’s endings!

Beginning with something as coincidental as traveling together, Sakaguchi, Horii, and Toriyama decided to create something together, “something that no one had done before”, kicking off what would become the kind of passion project you typically see more in the indie sphere these days.

The story of Chrono Trigger’s development, how it overcame hurdles, how it hospitalized Mitsuda, how it gathered up a large team of devs for its time, has all been neatly archived and discussed elsewhere, so I won’t belabor it here. I will only remind you that the father of Final Fantasy himself worked on this game. Not every Final Fantasy spinoff, pretender, clone, or knock-off can boast that. Heck, not even every numerical Final Fantasy can say it! But the man who created the series played a direct hand in the inception of Chrono Trigger, from day one. This time-traveling romp sprang from the same creative mind.

This leads me to my next point…

#4. Time Travel

I’ve heard it said that Chrono Trigger can’t be a Final Fantasy because it shares no thematic, conceptual, ideological motifs with Final Fantasy. I don’t think that’s the case at all! For instance, Chrono Trigger is a story about time travel in which a trio of young people find themselves wrapped up in an adventure to save the world from seemingly irresistible and unmovable adversaries. And what is the first Final Fantasy? It’s virtually the same thing.

Time travel isn’t unique to Chrono Trigger, either in Square’s JRPG canon or otherwise. Time travel is a thematic and mechanical trait that’s shared by Chrono Trigger and the very first FF, not to mention other Final Fantasy games. Other FFs play around with time travel themes, including II, VIII, IX, X, XI, XIII-2, XIV, and XV. Whether through memories, slumber, isekai, or actual temporal transport, characters travel into the future or the past, players explore realms that previously existed. The sentiment of time travel, it turns out, is actually a recurring theme in the Final Fantasy franchise.

#5. Cameos & References

Need more? How about cameos? Sure, you won’t find moogles and chocobos here, though it must be said that moogles didn’t appear until Final Fantasy III and they skipped Final Fantasy IV. Likewise, the humble chocobo wasn’t even present in the first Final Fantasy, either. Neither was Shiva, Ramuh, or Ifrit, materia, limit breaks, or interchangeable jobs. Bahamut and crystals (or “orbs) plus time travel were, though! Yes, time travel as a theme in Final Fantsay predates many other FF traditions.

So we clearly shouldn’t expect to see all those references that aren’t themselves totally ubiquitous to the numerical FFs. You won’t spot a red mage in Chrono Trigger. However, we are treated to a few references.

Biggs (Vicks in NA) and Wedge appear in Nortsein Bekkler’s tent, representing one of Square’s favorite Star Wars references. Doesn’t that laugh sound like Kefka’s, as well? Oh and the legendary Masamune (Grandleon in the Japanese) plays an important role in Chrono Trigger. Masamune is a weapon featuring in many other FFs. In fact, Masamune appears nearly as many times in Final Fantasy as Ultima (weapon, spell, or monster). Without going into spoilers, since so many people are (happily) playing Chrono Trigger for the first time, the game even has a fetish for permadeath just like the FF series famously does.

The Japanese version of the game uses サンダガ, Sandaga or Thundaga for Crono’s Lightning II spell.

The Final Fantasy series is really the story of the crystals, too. Occasionally known as orbs or spheres, these are mystical, typically elemental artifacts attuned to magic and otherworldly entities. Chrono has its own crystalline object central to its plot, too. The Dreamstone is an ancient mineral that triggers (heh) progress in the story. At one point, Crono and crew must secure Dreamstone in order to reforge the broken Masamune, which itself was made of Dreamstone, which transfigured it magically from a Ruby Knife into the spiritual sword when it pierced the Mammon Machine, which itself was also made of Dreamstone.

Although a naturally-occuring item perhaps symbolic of nature’s innate potential, Dreamstone reacts wildly to the invasion of the cosmic entity known as Lavos. The power exerted by Lavos in the heart of the planet can be absorbed by Dreamstone and this is how Queen Zeal planned to achieve immortality through her Mammon Machine. According to Chrono Cross, humans developed magic through interaction with the Frozen Flame, a shard of Lavos which is “very identical” to Dreamstone, according to Ultimania. Masato Kato himself stated that Dreamstone consists of shards of Lavos, perhaps fallen out of space themselves before the arrival of the big bad. Though some mystery surrounds the nature of Dreamstone, it is a sample of the earliest magical material found in this timeline.

It all began aeons ago, when man’s
ancestors picked up a shard of a
strange red rock…

And beyond all these references, it works the other way around, too, there’s a frog drop in Final Fantasy IX, Chrono Trigger tracks appeared as DLC in Theatrythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call, and JENOVA seems a heckuva lot like Lavos. This is due to shared concepts with FF and even shared devs (developers who worked on the original concept for VII were pulled for work on CT). FF, Mana, and Chrono projects in development simultaneously. None of these things individually prove that Chrono Trigger is part of the FF series, but you’ll understand they build a case that it is very much like a Final Fantasy, but speaking of development…

#6. Maru Island

Remember earlier I mentioned Final Fantasy Adventure? As it turns out, this game, clumsily renamed in the North America, bore the title Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden in Japan (known as Mystic Quest in PAL, to be even more confusing) and it wound up being both a Final Fantasy spinoff (with FF in the title) and the first Mana game simultaneously. This is often how spinoffs work. You may be interested to know that conceptually, Chrono Trigger shares a similar relation.

When it was initially being developed, Chrono Trigger was known as Maru Island and it was intended to be a part of the Seiken Densetsu series, a series that began closely tied to Final Fantasy (over time, some of its concepts were mixed and borrowed and traded with other FFs). As such, Chrono Trigger shares some similarities with Mana as well, for instance in the way its characters move and fight battles without transitioning to a dedicated battle screen.

And just look at the art design. You can spot Crono and Marle. The developmental fact that Chrono Trigger began as part of a series that Final Fantasy created but then became more than that speaks volumes as to its uniqueness while simultaneously bringing it closer to the possibility of being a true Final Fantasy game without strictly belonging to a sister franchise.

But the final nail in the coffin is this…

#7. Final Fantasy Chronicles

Square themselves called it a Final Fantasy.

They sold it as one. It’s not been bundled in a release titled “Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger” but Final Fantasy Chronicles in North America. A chronicle, a factual account of historical events or the act of recording such events, literally stemming from a Greek phrase meaning “book of chronology”, that which is of time and concerns time. Now fans may argue this was a marketing ploy or a gimmick for US audiences… “But they only did that to sell more games!” As if the goal of a commercial product isn’t to make sales? The simple fact of that matter is Square owns the product. Square calls it what they will.

There could be no more appropriate name for the release of the PS1 port. With it, Square decisively included Chrono Trigger as part of the history of Final Fantasy, once and for all. To my knowledge, there’s been no major bundling port of a Final Fantasy game with Brave Fencer Musashi or a Xenosaga. I believe what we’ve seen here is a series of points that illustrates just how uniquely aligned Chrono Trigger is with the Final Fantasy franchise so much so that they called it a part of the chronology of the series.

What’s important to note is that this isn’t necessarily a qualitative statement. It’s much more taxonomical in nature. I can hear the plaintive cries already so I’ll have to admit here that, no, I don’t think it really matters. But it sure is fun to think about!

I’ll leave you with this gem:

“Chrono Trigger is more Final Fantasy than every game after FFIX.”
–@scarmiglione4

Given its status, everything we’ve learned, and the crossover nature between Sakaguchi and Horii’s creative abilities… is Chrono Trigger a Dragon Quest? That’s a story for another day.

Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage or Mage Cast.