Final Fantasy Chronicles: Final Fantasy IV with Chrono Trigger

The timing of Final Fantasy Chronicles is both ironic and immensely appropriate. With Square’s recent release of their graphically immaculate movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and their established reputation for eye-candy-full games: FF Chronicles serves to remind us of just why the Final Fantasy and Chrono series games gained the almost cult-standard they do today. These two classics are indisputably playable RPG’s which set  the standards that many platform RPG games would try to duplicate in the future.

Final Fantasy IV (originally released as Final Fantasy II for those of us who live on the U.S. side of the puddle) and Chrono Trigger have been brought back from their SNES origins and have been packaged neatly into Final Fantasy Chronicles for the PSX. These two Square RPG’s were both immensely innovative and popular during their time – Final Fantasy IV being part of Squaresoft’s trademark series and Chrono Trigger being a "dream team" of a co-operation between Hironobu Sakaguchi (of Final Fantasy), Yuji Horii (of the Dragon Quest series), and Akira Toriyama (of DragonBallZ).

Squaresoft didn’t stop at just repackaging the games on a new platform, they threw in some little extras and new features for long time fans of each series – giving both veterans and newcomers new things to see and do. It's been a long time since many of these games have been available and with sequels having been released for both, new gamers haven't had the opportunity to play them. That is, unless they went out of their way to acquire the SNES system and hunt down the cartridges through costly auctions and other sometimes equally costly and sometimes unreliable sources.

In Final Fantasy IV, you play Cecil, a dark knight. Cecil is ordered to seize the Crystal of water from the nearby Mysida, but the slaughter of innocent people has taken it's toll on Cecil's conscience. Why has the King ordered this uncharacteristically brutal attack? Due to such pangs of conscience, Cecil is stripped of his command and then sent on a quest to slay a dangerous beast in Mist Valley. Thus begins Cecil's journey where he and his party will meet new allies, encounter and defeat enemies, acquire items, learn new skills, and right the wrongs that have been taking their toll on the land.

Final Fantasy IV was the first in the series to use the Active Time Battle system which was to be, and still is, the standard of many RPG's to come. Basically, in a nutshell, this means battles were no longer straight turn based. A lot like D&D type systems, your agility scores will determine the order and how fast you, and the monsters are allowed to act. You are allowed to toggle between Active (monsters attack while you are picking your item/spell of choice) and Wait options in the configuration screen.

Gameplay moves fast, quests are fairly clear, and you have the typical assortment of random battles that are a trademark of many RPGs to help build your characters. As standard elements of the RPG, you gain experience points to level up and grow stronger, buy items (weapons, potions, armor), and gain control of different character classes and learn what their strengths and weaknesses are. There is quite a bit of cycling of characters - you can control up to 5 characters at any one time - placing them at the head or in the rear of battle. What's especially enjoyable is that you get the chance to team up with a second player to share control of the party (Why don't more games do this? I really enjoy having a second player in genres other than the usual sports and racing titles). Plot has also been improved with a re-translation which allows more insight into the in-depth plot of FFIV. I've played more than one game with poor translation; good translation really does make a difference!

So what's else is new, you ask?
- New CG sequences
- Originally the US version omitted parts of the story and gameplay. In this version, the missing elements have been completely restored.
- Increased difficulty and complexity from the original version 
- A wonderful dash feature that allows you to have less random encounters

All in all, FFIV will be fun for new players to FF, FF fans new to the IV (you'll recognize some of the music, chocobos (of course), and even more), and players who want to give it another whirl.

Chrono Trigger, as you might surmise from the title, has a great deal to do with time. Chrono, our hero, has just met a new friend, Marle, at the Millennial Fair. Part of the festivities includes a teleportation device made by the local inventor, Lucca. While the device works perfectly for Chrono, Marle is mysteriously transported to another time by the machine and our Chrono makes it his personal quest to save his new friend. Not only will he discover his new friend is a princess-in-hiding, but he will be thrust into an intergalactic peril that threatens all of life.

All that in a day's work, huh? Chrono Trigger didn't leave it at that! Throw in non-linear gamplay with 12 possibe endings, an easy to get into RPG format and truly likeable characters, and your "time" may get consumed faster and in larger quantities than you think! It's these qualities that earn Chrono Trigger the inclusion in the Final Fantasy Chronicles pack, even if it isn't part of the FF series.

Like many RPG's you will meet and gain new party members to help you out during battle. You will also be able to buy items and equipment to support your many characters. Encounters occur on what are called "field" screens, but not on your world map. You will also learn to use time warp points that take you to different time periods, as well as the time machine, Epoch. You can learn magic in Chrono Trigger, but this will have to be taught to you later in the game - you won't have this ability initially.

The battle system in Chrono Trigger gives players the chance to strategically place different types of attacks based on proximity and position of the enemies around them. This is where "Tech'" or techniques come in. As you progress through the game, you learn new techniques that can help you out immensely. For instance, Tech can allow you to expand and manipulate the direction of your attacks. Tech can also allow you to team up with one to two other team members to increase the power of your attack.

Battle is integrated into your field maps in Chrono Trigger. What this means is that you can see your enemies as you are walking on the field and there will be no screen change when battle is initiated. This helps to make random encounters somewhat more avoidable, and perhaps more manageable since you can see what you are going to be up against. 

Chrono classic veterans will immediately recognize new Toriyama CGI's  - some sequences will even supply some answers players may have had when they conquered the title on the SNES! There is also an "Extras" mode which players can unlock during game process in order to gain information about such topics as characters, endings, music, and more. This is an especially nice feature for fans of the series and those who like to get more involved with every aspect of their gaming experience.