Chrono (series)

The Chrono (Japanese: クロノ, Hepburn: Kurono) series is a video game franchise developed and published by Square, and is currently owned by Square Enix. The series began in 1995 with the time travel role-playing video game Chrono Trigger, which spawned two continuations, Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki, and Chrono Cross. A promotional anime called Dimensional Adventure Numa Monjar and two ports of Chrono Trigger were also produced. As of March 31, 2003, Chrono Trigger was Square Enix's 12th best-selling game, with 2.65 million units shipped. Chrono Cross was the 24th, with 1.5 million units shipped. By 2019, the two games had sold over 5.5 million units combined. The games in the series have been called some of the greatest of all time, with most of the praise going towards Chrono Trigger. The series' original soundtracks, composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, have also been praised, with multiple soundtracks being released for them.

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, of Final Fantasy fame, as well as freelance supervisor Yuji Horii and character designer Akira Toriyama, both of Dragon Quest fame. Yuuji Horii worked on the general outline of the story; as a fan of time travel fictions, such as the TV series The Time Tunnel, 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. 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 as "not a Chrono Trigger 2", but "a result of a pulled trigger", "another Chrono".

Chrono Trigger is a role-playing video game which was released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on March 11, 1995, in Japan and on August 22 in North America. The game's story follows a group of young adventurers led by Crono, who are accidentally transported through time and learn that the world will be destroyed in the distant future. Vowing to prevent this disaster, they travel throughout history to discover the means to save the planet. It is regarded by critics as one of the greatest games of all time. Chrono Trigger was ported to the PlayStation in 1999 as a standalone title in Japan and in 2001 as part of the Final Fantasy Chronicles compilation in North America. An enhanced port was released for the Nintendo DS handheld platform on November 20, 2008. which itself was later released on iOS in 2011, Android in 2012, and on PC via Steam on February 27, 2018.

Additionally, three Chrono Trigger related applications were released for the Super Famicom's Broadcast Satellaview extension the same year: Character Library, a database featuring profiles on characters and monsters from the game, Jet Bike Special, a racing game based on a minigame from the original, and 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 re-release of Chrono Trigger.

Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki (literally "The Jewel That Cannot Be Stolen") is a Japanese-exclusive text-based game released in 1996 through the Super Famicom Satellaview extension. The player takes on the role of Serge, a young adventurer accompanied by Kid, a teen-aged thief, and Gil, a mysterious masked magician. It is a side story to Chrono Trigger, wrapping up a loose end from its predecessor's plot.

Chrono Cross was released on the PlayStation on November 18, 1999, in Japan and on August 15, 2000, in North America. The story is partly a remake of Radical Dreamers, and as such replaces it as Chrono Trigger's successor. The protagonist Serge, faced with an alternate reality in which he died as a child, struggles to uncover his past and meets Kid, a thief seeking the mysterious Frozen Flame artifact. Serge and Kid's fates are ultimately revealed to find their roots in the events of Chrono Trigger. A remaster, Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamers Edition, was released in 2022.