Chrono Trigger vs FF6

Hank Scorpio

So I just woke up and wanted to post this. If this thread is more suitable for the jrpg forum feel free to move it there!

Yesterday I finished Chrono Trigger after a few attempts of playing it and just putting it down and not going back to it. Maybe my expectation was too high judging from reviews and other peoples opinions but it baffles me why the game gets way more recognition than FF6 does(or does it? maybe I just find CT a little overrated). IMO the two aren't even close. I was glued to playing FF6 for days on end never feeling the same urge for CT, it felt more like a chore to me even though I can see the game for what it is/was and it would be wrong of me to say It's not an excellent game.

Pros for FF6

Villain - It's amazing how they could build him up with those 16-bit sprites to be such a hated character, along with his infamous laugh. The final boss battle is a thing of beauty

Enemies - CT seemed to re-use alot of sprites, I found FF6's much more diverse

Characters - Much more developed in ff6. The amount of scenes building up each character throughout the game really adds to it. You actually care about the characters and their past story etc. In CT Chrono never talks and it just killed any development for me, aswell as very little back story for the other characters including bosses

Difficulty - Game is much tougher than CT. You can fly through CT without much grinding, in the middle to end of FF6 the difficulty really cranks up and one mistake on a turn you're in trouble

Freedom - Even though CT is about time travel the game still feels very linear. FF6 is the opposite you are free to explore every area in the overworld and in the second part of the game recruit back your team in whatever order you want. All the areas in CT are just recycled

Music - Music in FF6 is much better imo with Terra's theme being the pinnacle of any 16-bit theme I've heard

Espers - In CT new techs are learned by gaining experience and set in a particular order to unlock the new tech. In FF6 you can mould a character into whatever skillset you want

Item system - You can't unequip items in CT, what were they thinking! The armor system is really questionable. There's alot of heavy armor which is comparable to lighter armor, however the light armor can absorb fire/water/thunder etc so you're not sure which to equip/which is stronger overall. The only way to use the optimal armor is to enter a boss fight blind learn he has strong fire techniques, die, then equip fire armor. But since the game is so easy there isn't any need

Story - This is the main aspect for me between both games. FF6 story is easier to follow and much more intriguing. So many moments in CT a new main evil character arrives and remembering who they are all becomes mind boggling. Maybe on a second play through this would be different but I never had that problem on my first play-though of FF6. I struggle to think of any game old or modern that sucked me in like FF6 did. Everything that happened during FF6 made sense to me, in CT there was alot of moments I was like, uh okay. They felt forced and unbelievable, just some makeshift words to progress things

Would be wrong of me to say some aspects of Chrono Trigger aren't better

Battle system - FF6 random encounters can get really frustrating if you never get the moogle charm, which is really easy to miss. CT you fight enemies where you stand on the screen in ff6 a background for the fight is introduced

Battle techniques - CT introduced the duel and triple techs which is really innovative and fun. ( I would argue the unique abilities in FF6, like blitz,rage,dance helped create diversity between the characters )

Graphics - Even though ff6 has great graphics CT's are better

Multiple endings - Really innovative for the time and adds alot of replay value

Design - Game feels more polished and modern overall

That's my little rant over! Both are excellent games but for me FF6 is on another level. Would like to hear opinions of people who have played both games. I'm not trying to bash CT with the above but I expected it to meet the standard of FF6 but for me It didn't come very close

Retr0gamer

I love FF6 but have to disagree, Chrono Trigger is the better game. While there's aspects of ff6 that are better, namely the story, Chrono Trigger is something that all RPGs need to learn to be, namely faster paced. There's no messing around in Chrono trigger, it's a 20-25 hour RPG. Since its so short there's no messing around with pointless side quests over long dungeons or other filler. It reminds me of panzer dragoon saga. It's just a fun fast paced experience with never a dull moment.

Also random battles should have died with this game. I'm amazed square went back to them for so long, there's no excuse for them outside of hardcore dungeon crawlers.

The real question anyway is what is better, phantasy star 4 or Chrono trigger. I still can't believe nobody really pulls up ffvii for being such a rip off of ps4.

o1s1n

I'm right at the very end of FF VI now. Just two boss fights to go. Absolutely loved playing through it this time, the story is indeed brilliant. My favourite Final Fantasy story I reckon.

However, it does have some big problems - as Retr0 said, the pacing is one. The game has great pacing up until;

the apocalypse/world of ruin. It really captures a great sense of despair which I'll commend it for - but once you get over the initial shock it turns into a load of absolutely needless fetch quests and grinding. I really had to push myself to finish the game off at this point, really started to lose interest

And the random battles. My god, the random battles. I was delighted once I got the moogle charm (**** you, Fanatic's Tower!) - but then realized, half of the reason exploration is crippled by random battles is because there's just not really much to explore in the dungeons.

I did really love the battle/esper system once I got to grips with it.. but again, it did ultimately just lead to unnecessary grinding to unlock magic.

Chrono Trigger's battle system isn't as advanced, the story isn't as good, but it's the all round better game.

I would also rate PSIV higher than FF VI. But would struggle to pick between it and Chrono Trigger. So I'm not even going to try :pac:

Retr0gamer

I love the second half of ff6. I love that its a series of quests and you can tackle them in any order you want. It's probably my favourite part of the whole ff series. So many secrets

o1s1n

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I love the second half of ff6. I love that its a series of quests and you can tackle them in any order you want. It's probably my favourite part of the whole ff series. So many secrets

Seriously? I found the story extremely compelling and it was just drudgery having to wander around on all these random fetch quests so I could take up the main narrative again.

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I love the second half of ff6. ..... So many secrets

There's a Doge meme there for the taking

Retr0gamer

o1s1n wrote: »

Seriously? I found the story extremely compelling and it was just drudgery having to wander around on all these random fetch quests so I could take up the main narrative again.

They weren't really fetch quests though. Each one was a self contained little story that finished each characters story arc off and the reward for each was a whole new character to play around with. I loved the freedom you were given, it was very brave for the game not to railroad you like every other jrpg. If you remember the end of Chrono trigger it pretty much does the same thing with a little quest to finish each characters arc tat can be tackled in any order.

o1s1n

Retr0gamer wrote: »

They weren't really fetch quests though. Each one was a self contained little story that finished each characters story arc off and the reward for each was a whole new character to play around with. I loved the freedom you were given, it was very brave for the game not to railroad you like every other jrpg. If you remember the end of Chrono trigger it pretty much does the same thing with a little quest to finish each characters arc tat can be tackled in any order.

I think you may be giving it too much credit!

A couple of them were self contained stories (Terras one for example) and were definitely worth adding.

But most of them were just you fetching your party members back (ie - fetch quests!).

Gau you just picked up on the Veldt, Relm. Mog and Umaro you just find at the end of a dungeon, Strago you didn't even have to do that.

Just felt like I was playing Pokemon with my team members when I just wanted to go on and kick Kefka's ass. Ruined the flow of the game for me. In fact, the reason I stopped playing it the first time years ago was due to losing interest at this point.

A couple of side stories would have been nice. But they could have combined some of them (Strago and Relm for one)