Chrono Trigger's Anime Cutscene Selection

When you stop to think about it, Squaresoft’s choice of placement and priority for the cutscenes in Chrono Trigger’s Playstation 1 rerelease is...not all that great.  Like, look at the first anime cinematic in the game.  Not the obligatory opening, mind you--the first one in the game.  It’s the scene in 2300 AD, when Crono, Marle, and Lucca first discover Robo.

I would like you to think about that for a moment.  The first cutscene shown in Chrono Trigger is meeting Robo.  That’s, what, a quarter of the way through the entire game?  A fifth at the very least.  20 - 25% of the game will have passed by before you see its first cinematic.  By that point you’ve forgotten that the game is supposed to have them; it takes you by surprise.

And also think about what exactly has transpired by that point.  Not to say that meeting Robo isn’t an important event in Chrono Trigger’s narrative, but they didn’t make a cutscene for meeting Marle, Lucca, or Frog.  There wasn’t one for the sudden, jarring turning point in which Marle is erased from history before Crono’s eyes.  You see no anime representation of the moment that the party first beholds the ruined world of 2300 AD (normally I feel that establishing shots are a waste of FMV, admittedly, but 2300 AD’s setting is a rare case where it’s warranted), nor the dramatic exit Crono is forced to make from the trial after his sentencing.  By heavens, there is no cutscene for the moment in which Marle is transported through time, nor when Crono follows her!  The monumental, dramatic moment in which time travel is first introduced to this game, the beginning of all that is to come, arguably the most fundamentally significant event in this world’s entire history, and Square decided that it wasn’t worth special commemoration.  Mind-boggling.*

And while the middle of Chrono Trigger is generally good about emphasizing the really important plot moments with a cutscene, the cinematics go weirdly silent in its last quarter/fifth, too.  The very last anime FMV you see in the game, aside from its ending, is Crono’s demise.  Everything after that is in-game portrayal only, for so long that by the end of the game you may have once again forgotten about the anime FMV altogether.  There’s no cutscene for the cataclysm following the Ocean Palace disaster.  Nor for the moment the new Epoch is revealed, or when the heroes find Magus at the cape.  There isn’t one for Robo confronting Atropos or Mother Brain, or the party entering Fiona’s Shrine and finding Robo at its center.**  There’s no special scene for the ghost of Cyrus emerging from his grave, or Marle leaping through the stained glass window of the courtroom to save her father.  The Rainbow Shell, the Sun Stone, the Green Dream...all denied the fanfare of a cinematic.  Likewise, there’s no animation devoted to the emergence of the Black Omen, the final confrontation with Queen Zeal, or the revelation of Lavos’s inner heart.  Squaresoft did not see fit to commemorate Crono’s salvation!

And sure, yeah, I get it.  The Playstation 1 had limited space on its discs.  FMV was expensive.  And Akira Toriyama is, for some reason, a highly respected artist, so I can only assume that he’s expensive, too.  There could only be so much anime footage put into the game; the line had to be drawn somewhere and cuts had to be made.  

But did 1 of those cuts really have to be the first time portal opening and drawing Marle into it, starting the whole epic adventure?  You’re telling me THAT is less important than seeing Ayla jump on a dinosaur and fly off?  Squaresoft didn’t have the resources to iconize Crono’s friends overcoming death itself and holding all of time within their hands for a moment, to bring him back to the world...but it COULD justify animating an inappropriate, classless prophecy of Guardia’s fall that has nothing to do whatsoever with THIS game to begin with?  Neither Marle nor Lucca, respectively the heart and mind of the party, and arguably the 2 most indispensable characters to the entire story, have a single damn cutscene to call their own within the game, but Squaresoft did take the time to needlessly, hamfistedly cram a portrayal of Janus’s prediction of doom into Chrono’s death scene?  Hell, the animated opening’s good, but it’s just an opening--I’d have gladly traded it for the chance to use its comparatively extensive length on seeing a full portrayal of Marle disappearing into time, Lavos arriving on the planet as he crashes down onto Tyrano Lair, Lucca and Taban unveiling the Telepod at the Millennium Fair, and the moment in which we’re introduced to Schala.  You know--stuff that’s actually significant.

Also, not for nothing, but the Playstation 1 wasn’t the last time Chrono Trigger was rereleased.  It’s come out a few times since.  While admittedly SquareEnix has predictably botched its newer rereleases with their signature incompetence for smooth adaptation of gameplay and aesthetic mechanics, it’s not like there hasn’t been opportunities for them to call up Toriyama, throw some money and animators at him, and have him whip up a few new cutscenes for the game.  Frankly, distracting him from producing Dragon Ball Super could’ve been SquareEnix’s generous gift to the world.  What, they could code superfluous bonus dungeons that add nothing and further inflict the harm of association with Chrono Cross on the later releases, but adding something actually enjoyable for the players was out of the question?  But of course, that would require SquareEnix to treat Chrono Trigger and its fans with the barest shred of respect, so of course it’s impossible.  I wonder if we’ll ever know why the company perpetually seems to resent this game so damn much.

Look, it’s not like Chrono Trigger wasted its FMVs like so many other RPGs of the era did (with the exception of the crappy fall of Guardia one, of course).   Stuff actually happens in its cutscenes, that stuff is animated well, and the events portrayed are significant to at least some degree.  I haven’t had reason to say this sentence often in the past 20 years, but: Square could have done much worse.  And further in fairness, CT’s Playstation rerelease got a HELL of a lot more dedication and quality in its FMV additions than the contemporary rereleases of Final Fantasy 4, 5, and 6 did.  Their new cinematics were restricted to openings and endings, and they certainly didn’t look as good; FF5’s CGI portrayal of its cast was actually ugly as hell.  I may not be impressed by Toriyama’s limited style, but I’ll take it over Yoshitaka Amano’s world of indifferent tow-headed barrow-wights any day.

Still, the pacing of Chrono Trigger’s anime cutscenes IS jarring with their lack of presence in the game’s end and especially beginning.  And even if none of their scenes are undeserving of an FMV, a lot of other moments in the game were undeniably more significant than some of the ones that got animated.  CT’s cinematic gallery is certainly good, but it definitely could be better in this regard.
















* You may notice that I neglected to mention what might be the most important scene in the entire game, that of the discovery of Lavos and his actions in 1999 AD.  Well, while I can believe the other major events prior to finding Robo could be portrayed well enough by a newer anime cutscene, I think that the moment in which Crono, Marle, Lucca, and perhaps even ourselves all watch in dawning horror as the end of the world unfolds before us is as perfect as it can be in its original form.  Anything embellished, anything given better visuals or dramatized, would lessen the scene’s power, make it more alike to things that have been seen before in other stories, other media.  Much like the scene of Crono’s demise, the subtle, flawless makings of this moment are Chrono Trigger’s alone, and I cannot believe it could ever be adequately replicated.


** Hell, if they wanted to use Robo’s only dedicated cutscene on him sitting around deactivated, couldn’t they at least have given him the dignity of making it this moment in Fiona’s Shrine? Robo sitting as a monument unto himself, his long work done and Fiona’s dream realized through his labor? Would’ve been a lot more respectful to the guy than just surrounding his scrap heap ass with rats in 2300 AD.