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Few JRPGs command such robust devotion asChrono Trigger. We cannot name a single representative of the genre prior to Chrono Trigger’s 1995 SNES debut that is so nigh-universally beloved - not even titans of the era like Final Fantasy 6 and Secret of Mana. Nor are there even many successors to the throne of Trigger’s sway; Final Fantasy may sell more, be more well known among the gaming masses, but for some longtime enthusiasts, Square topped out with this time-sprawling adventure.
Speaking of Final Fantasy, what is the link here? You may have heard the full story already, and you’re here for a refresher course, or just to reminisce. Perhaps you know the production staff behind Chrono Trigger sported plenty of familiar Final Fantasy faces. Or maybe you’re simply browsing the web, stumbled upon this article, and have no idea at all about the game’s developmental origins. Whatever the case may be, we’re here to explain it all.
DQ+FF=CT
It wasn’t until Square, known internationally as SquareSoft, merged with Enix in 2003 that the publisher and developer known today as Square Enix was born. (The name rolls off the tongue just fine today, but surely there were some back then who wondered if the fusion could have been given a more creative name.) Square Enix has held the collective reins ofFinal Fantasy and Dragon Questfor longer than many fans of the two franchises have even been alive.
But in the 1990s, these twin giants of the JRPG world - one of which was significantly more popular worldwide, but both commanded sales in the millions in its native Japan - were viewed as the ultimate rivals of their genre. Yet let no one say that commercial rivalry prohibits creative companionship.Hironobu Sakaguchi,creator of Final Fantasy, met withYuji Horii,creator of Dragon Quest, as well as Dragon Ball creator (and Dragon Quest lead character designer)Akira Toriyama.
Titans of the Japanese entertainment industry came together with a dramatic vision for a game with strong roots in both FF and DQ - a tantalizing prospect even today, and certainly an incredible notion at the time.
Mythic Dawn
Masato Kato, whose later story contributions include Final Fantasy 7, Xenogears, and Chrono Cross, was given the role of story planner. The list of notable higher-ups continued with longtime Final Fantasy producer/director Yoshinori Kitase, JRPG musical mastermindYasunori Mitsuda(who had a little help from Final Fantasy’s foremost composer,Nobuo Uematsu), and more. It was, in Square’s own words,‘the dream team’.
It’s no wonder, then, that the myth persists that Chrono Trigger was originally slated to be a Final Fantasy. Yuji Horii’s and Akira Toriyama’s deep involvement in Chrono Trigger’s creation is a big reason for the game’s endless acclaim, but the number of Final Fantasy personnel involved is almost staggering. Nevertheless, Chrono Trigger was never destined to get the FF moniker; in fact, the original pitch involved the working title’Maru Island',and it would have been part of Square’s more experimentalSeiken Densentsu (Mana)series instead.
A Certain Point Of View
Even so, Square hasn’t exactly done much to curtail the notion. A collection of two SNES games for the original PlayStation came to the West in 2001 titledFinal Fantasy Chronicles. One of them was Final Fantasy 4. The other was… Chrono Trigger. One needn’t even squint to six years past Chrono Trigger’s 1995 release to see some striking similarities; for instance, it’s become a tradition among several Final Fantasy games to include characters namedBiggs and Wedge(so named in honor of the pair of Rebel pilots in Star Wars). There are, indeed, both a Biggs and a Wedge in Chrono Trigger.
Chrono Trigger also borrowed heavily from the style of battle system which Square had been using for its mainline Final Fantasy games throughout the SNES generation (and would continue to tap into throughout the PS1 generation as well):Active Time Battle. This isn’t even thinly-veiled; contemporary marketing heralded Chrono Trigger as employing ‘Active Time Battle 2.0’.
None of these things solidify Chrono Trigger as anactualFinal Fantasy, of course. Nor are the cameos of Biggs and Wedge so notably out of character for Square - there’s a Moogle Village in Secret of Mana, a chocobo in a Japan-only Front Mission spinoff, and plenty of other instances of something customarily ‘Final Fantasy’ popping into another of the company’s series for a lark.
But we can appreciate where folks are coming from. Chrono Trigger does have some tons of the franchise’s DNA in it, so to speak, from the bulk of its creative team and incorporation of the ATB system to the original stated purpose to combine Square’s Final Fantasy with Enix’s Dragon Quest. Given Chrono Trigger’s sterling reputation for going on three decades and counting, the only real question on our minds is why the heck Square Enix has allowed the Chrono IP to go so tragically unmined.
