Chrono series

The Chrono series is a video game franchise owned by Square Enix. It began in 1995 with the RPG Chrono Trigger, which spawned two continuations, Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross. A promotional anime called Dimensional Adventure Numa Monjar and a port of Chrono Trigger were also produced. As of March 31, 2003, Chrono Trigger was, with 2.65 million units, Square Enix's 12th best-selling game based on copies shipped; Chrono Cross was, with 1.5 million units, the 24th.

Design

Chrono Trigger was produced in 1995 by Kazuhiko Aoki and directed by Akihiko Matsui, Yoshinori Kitase and Takashi Tokita. The development of the game was dubbed the "Dream Project", because it was headed by a "Dream Team" composed of supervisor Hironobu Sakaguchi, as well as freelance supervisor Yuuji Horii and character designer Akira Toriyama. Yuuji Horii worked on the general outline of the story; as a fan of time travel fictions he focused on a theme of time travel for Chrono Trigger. The outline was then finalized by story planner and script writer Masato Kato.

In 1996, Masato Kato and several other members of the Chrono Trigger staff worked on a minor project for the Super Famicom Satellaview extension, titled Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki. Initially, the game was intended to be a short, original text-based adventure developed in three months with almost no planning. Nevertheless, by the end of the development, Masato Kato had connected the game's plot and characters to Chrono Trigger, turning it into a side story. Since the platform of the game was not mainstream, the connections were however left blurred on purpose and were not advertised on the game's release.

In 1999, a continuation of Chrono Trigger, titled Chrono Cross, was announced as being in development. Although the "Dream Team" members did not participate in Chrono Cross, the game was developed mostly by the same staff as the first installment. In terms of basic system and gameplay, producer Hiromichi Tanaka made it clear that the new installment was not a sequel to Chrono Trigger; rather, the game designers' approach was to make the "gameplay evolve with the hardware", creating a completely new game while restructuring the former style so as to maximize the performance of the console. The gameplay focuses on the theme of parallel worlds rather than time travel, although the latter is still deeply involved in the game's plot. In terms of storyline, Chrono Cross was described by director and scenario writer Masato Kato in the linear notes of the Chrono Cross Original Soundtrack as "not a Chrono Trigger 2", but "a result of a pulled trigger", "another Chrono".

Music

Main articles: Chrono Trigger Original Sound Version, The Brink of Time, and Chrono Cross Original Soundtrack

The music of the Chrono series was mainly composed by Yasunori Mitsuda. Chrono Trigger was the first for which he had served as composer. However, after Mitsuda contracted stomach ulcers, composer Nobuo Uematsu was brought onto the project to compose ten songs. At the time of the game's release, the quantity of its tracks and sound effects were unprecedented. Additionally, a one-disc acid jazz arrangement called The Brink of Time was also released. Mitsuda went on to compose the soundtrack for Radical Dreamers, which was never commercially released as an album.

In 1999, Yasunori Mitsuda, now a freelance composer, returned to score the soundtrack for Chrono Cross after being contacted by Masato Kato. Mitsuda decided to center his work around old world cultural influences. Xenogears contributor Tomohiko Kira played guitar on the beginning and ending themes. Noriko Mitose, as selected by Masato Kato, sang the ending song, "Radical Dreamers ~ Le Trésor Interdit". Certain songs were ported from the score of Radical Dreamers, while other entries in the soundtrack contain leitmotifs from both Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers.

In 2006, Yasunori Mitsuda arranged versions of music from the Chrono series for Play! video game music concerts, presenting the Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross main themes, as well as "Frog's Theme" and "To Far Away Times".

Games

There are currently three main games in the Chrono series.

• Chrono Trigger
• Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki
• Chrono Cross

Chrono Break

Main article: Chrono Break

Other games

Additionally, three titles were released for the Satellaview in 1995. They were Chrono Trigger: Jet Bike Special, a racing game based on a minigame from the original, Chrono Trigger: Character Library, featuring profiles on characters and monsters from the game, and Chrono Trigger: Music Library, a collection of music from the game's soundtrack. The contents of Character Library and Music Library were later included as extras in the PlayStation rerelease of Chrono Trigger.

Dimensional Adventure Numa Monjar

Main article: Dimensional Adventure Numa Monjar

Reception

The Chrono series has been very successful in game rankings and sales. Chrono Trigger sold more than 2.36 million copies in Japan and 290,000 abroad. The first two million copies sold in Japan were delivered in only two months. The game was met with substantial success upon release in North America, and its re-release on the PlayStation as part of the Final Fantasy Chronicles package topped the NPD TRSTS PlayStation sales charts for over six weeks.

Chrono Trigger has recently placed highly on all five of multimedia website IGN's "top 100 games of all time" lists—4th in 2002, 6th in early 2005, 13th in late 2005, 2nd in 2006, and 18th in 2007. GameSpot included Chrono Trigger in "The Greatest Games of All Time" list released in April 2006, and it also appeared as 28th on an "All Time Top 100" list in a poll conducted by Japanese magazine Famitsu.

The music of the series has been very highly regarded and enjoyed wide popularity. IGN commented that Chrono Trigger has "one of the best videogame soundtracks ever produced."

The DS version of Chrono Trigger was the 22nd best-selling game of Japan in 2008.