Chrono Trigger establishes one of the most immersive RPG plots to date.
The plot of Chrono Trigger has that familiar "old-school" Final Fantasy feel. However, it's without the search for the MacGuffin crystals that got recycled into several FF games.
In Guardia 1000 AD, Crono, the silent protagonist, starts his day by checking out the much celebrated Millennial Fair. While enjoying the festivities, Crono meets the affable Marle. They become acquainted and make their way to observe Lucca's (Crono's longtime friend) and her father's teleportation device. Marle volunteers to help demonstrate, but her mysterious pendent causes something to go wrong, and she is flung through a portal. Crono and Lucca frantically scramble to open another portal and follow. Once they do, they find Marle, who turned out to be the one-and-only Princess Nadia, but they find they're too late, as she's whisked away by guards of what turns out to be the 400-year-old Guardia Castle! Thrown back in time, it's only the beginning of their journey finding their way back home in the present.
The characters are memorable, interesting, and likeable. This was before the time where heavily angst-ridden characters literally broke their brains trying to sound witty and sarcastic all the time. You'll notice they actually grow in various ways as the story progresses. Their growth actually ends up relating to in-game rewards, if you're diligent enough. Although time travel plots can seriously go off the rails, Square pulled it off nicely, and even uses time travel as a game mechanic and story element quite well. You'll notice the effects your actions have on the time line in both subtle and overt ways.
I enjoyed the combat system very much in this game. I like it more than pretty much every Final Fantasy game I've played. For one, I like how most encounters are actually avoidable. The field exploration map and battle maps transition seamlessly! So, when you do engage enemies, you're not teleported into a combat purgatory at the start of each fight. Chrono Trigger also makes excellent use of physical party formations. For example, certain attacks have a small AoE effect, so will only work when enemies are clustered together. Sometimes, enemies can even surround either side of your party. This does wonders in keeping encounters interesting. Also, you can do powerful special techniques by combining your party members' abilities, so there's an actual feeling of team work within your party. This brings about the need to consider whom to bring in parties more carefully, which I love. It's not so simple as having a white mage, warrior, red mage, etc.
I found this game's difficulty to be in the extremely rare zone of "just right." While some party combinations will result in overpowered healing (especially when coupled with leveling and good equipment), the boss fights remain unique and engaging. They do a good job in making certain dungeons feel like a hard climb without feeling overly frustrating. The only other game that stood out to me as having "perfect" difficulty was Portal.
All I can do is sum up by saying this game is just tons of fun. I no longer have the patience to 100-per-cent games like I used to, but I really did explore every nook and cranny of this game. The last time I did that was Windwaker.
It's been over a year since I've played it, and I've come to the conclusion this is my favorite RPG I've played (and I *have* played Final Fantasy VI). I love the characters (especially Lucca), the crazy and fun plot, and the aesthetics (which should look familiar to you if you've ever seen Dragonball (Z), created by Akira Toriyama).