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This was a fun way to revisit Chrono Trigger, and now I'm excited to play through the vanilla game again (and Radical Dreamers).

Having only a finite number of healing/MP restoring items made me feel a bit anxious during combat, but there's enough plus a few extras if you play efficiently and don't waste them.

But the dialog and story are the stars here, and they're very well done. It's interesting to see Magus's journey, and the interstitials of the other party members brought back a lot of memories of playing the vanilla game. I do wish that his motivations were better explained though: he goes from seemingly wanting to see the world burn, to wanting to help stop it and I had trouble understanding why.

It's a short playthrough of an hour or so, and unfortunately for me the experience was quite marred by the crashes that I ran into and subsequent googling.

For those having trouble with the game crashing before the Ocean Palace, using the now-ancient ZSNES emulator version 1.53 (the final version) worked for me. You probably want to keep playing on the emulator after that point because there's also a crash during the ending sequence otherwise.

When downloading ZSNES, be sure to download the *DOS* version as this actually contains the Windows executable (and vice versa).

I'd like to have another go at this one in a couple of years and just do it in the emulator the whole time to get the intended experience.

Gotta say, I didn't expect it to be as in depth as it was for such a short game. Any fan of Chrono Trigger should play it at least once. However, I do have a small complaint. Once I reach the Tyranno cutscene, the screen goes black and never comes back up. Does this game have problems with specific emulators? I'm sure it doesn't just end there. I was playing it on SNES9xTYL on PSP. Never got to play the Ocean Palace. Tried on two different versions of the hack with same result. Advice?

Overall, this hack is extremely well-done.

The style, dialogue, new music and even some new graphics are nice to see, read and here. The game plays exactly like CT, so if you're a fan, you'll probably enjoy it. The hack's focus on story and not battles is something I'm okay with. But, the biggest problem with this hack is how short it takes to complete, as it takes usually up to an hour for me. It's still very good and worth a playthrough, though.

This serves as an interesting midquel to the original "Chrono Trigger", transpiring between the events of Crono and friends defeating Magus in 600 A.D. to Crono and friends arriving the Magical Kingdom of Zeal in 12000 B.C. (obviously making it a very short, but fun playthrough). It nicely explains how Magus became the hooded "Prophet" for Queen Zeal and goes into a bit more detail on his rivalry with the villainous Dalton. Without spoiling anything, I will just simply say that this is a MUST-PLAY for all CT fans! In fact, I HIGHLY recommend playing 'Prophet's Guile' directly AFTER you defeat Magus in 600 A.D. (save your game first once your party wakes up in 65,000,000 B.C., of course) and once you beat it, continue playing the original CT. That way, you will be able to see how well the events from the perspectives of the characters tie-in so well together (which truly adds more to the overall experience). Kudos to Kajar Laboratories for putting together one of the greatest CT hacks of all time!

First off, I definitely recommend this hack. Why?

The characterization, dialogue, progression, etc.. fits exactly with how Chrono Trigger originally was. The dialogue is my big kicker on this. Magus was their 'best' writing examples throughout any kind of Chrono Trigger hacking and it really shines here!

If you want to see a brief history of what Magus dealt with during Zeal when he was thrown there, by all means play this. It will do justice.

The 'only' thing I do have to complain about is the game's insane difficulty. It's overall not TOO horrific, but not having the ability to buy items while getting slammed, running out of MP and only being able to gain items is mainly through battles really knocks you off your rocker a bit.

Be warned, save often and strategize as much as possible but be prepared for one hell of a well done hack.

This hack is a must-play for anyone who likes Chrono Trigger. It's a pretty short side-story in which more is elaborated on Magus story. Neat hacking and totally believable as an original side-story to Chrono Trigger.

Some other reviews talk about this hack being to hard. I had no huge problems with the enemies I encountered. It all depends on a bit thinking and trying which magic to use. The balance was good in my opinion.

You'll be through the whole game in less than 2 hours. Those two hours are well worth your time though!

Prophet's Guile is awesome in many ways.

Dialogue Intelligent, well-written, and fits the characters well.

Story Fantastic and fits in very well within the game mythos.

Characters You play as Magus only, but you get to see brief cutscenes of what the 'main party' are up to. The non-playable characters of Schala, Queen Zeal, and especially Dalton, they're very well-done and true to their Chrono Trigger roots. No odd accents or wierd characterizations, they do just what you expect them to do. :)

Gameplay Primarily the gameplay is heavily linear and structured, and since it is based on Chrono Trigger, this is a very slight disappointment that they wouldn't let you explore a bit more freely. For example, never once do you even use a timegate or time-travel. However, this structure does have the benefit of allowing a very cohesive story to take place and enhance the already well-done CT saga.

Difficulty VETERANS ONLY NEED APPLY! I'm a pretty great gamer, and have even been playing a CT 'hardtype' hack, yet this hack bumps up difficulty to near-insane levels! How? No money, no shops, no ways to purchase any items, and only getting items after very hard-fought battles, just with regular mobs! Magus has all 3 elemental spells (fire/ice/lightning) yet oddly no shadow (considering he IS Shadow element and they mention his impressive 'dark aura' many times in the dialogue). Then he has a medicore melee attack that is only effective against very few enemies (mostly magic-resistant ones). So the only way to heal yoursef is to get Tonics (regular/mid/full), however the only way to get tonics is via battles. But you'll almost always end up losing more hp and spending more mana just to get them that 'farming' them isn't even an option (and probably was done that way on purpose to discourage it). Leaving you scrambling to progress from one story spot to another. One particular boss battle had me stumped until I figured out the 'trick' to it. There are a few of them like this. Just, beware...its HARD, and then some. You will die many times before you figure things out.

Overall Play this game only if you've played Chrono Trigger from start to finish, it isn't really meant otherwise, and you'll be terribly lost if you haven't finished Chrono Trigger yet. And despite what the other reviews say, don't worry about getting the 'hidden coins' or whatever. It only unlocks a developer message and the main theme from FF6. Some prize :P

Complaints?

• Insanely high difficulty for those who aren't used to trial and error or having to make do without gold/shops. One shop lady actually tries to sell Magus stuff but he actually refuses her! Wow...again though the difficulty is probably by design but still, replacing all the tonics (which heal TEN HP!!?) with midtonics (which heal 50 HP) would've done much to balance things easier.
• Excessive linearity (you only ever have to be on the planet exactly twice, rest of the time is exclusively in Zeal), plus it stopped right when things would've gotten interesting, though its still gonna take you about 2 hours or so to complete it.
• Some of the music remixes (for the underwater Black Omen) are out of place. Leave the original music PLEASE!

Recommendation? Download and play it after you've beaten CT in order to expand the story. Be prepared for frustration but if you talk to everyone and get the full story of Zeal, its quite satisfying.

..is almost revealed. Hack shows the events after the incident in Magus castle.

It ties up some loose ends in his back story: How he become Propheter and how he got trust of Queen Zeal.

The hack starts with a really nice intro, but I think it would much better if you had to PLAY it instead of WATCHING it.

The hack provide us with some new graphics, a custom menu, and unused music.

Overall, the hack is very good for Chrono Trigger fans. Also look for 3 coins while you play, it gives you something special!

Pluses:

• Some new graphics
• Some unused music is playing
• Explains lots of loose end in story

Minuses:

• Short...

Partial Score:

• Gameplay: 9.5/10
• Audio: 8/10
• Video: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: Overall: 8.5/10

It took me an hour to beat this. It is not really a "full" game in itself but something like this should have been in the original game to tie up some loose ends or some things that just didn't make sense.

The game takes place right after the events in Magus' castle. Instead of taking on the role of Crono you take on the role of Magus when he is sent to Zeal and becomes the Queens Seer.

There's plenty of things explained in this short entry but you should play it instead of me spoiling some of what happens. Still, with all that gets explained you are left wanting much more. I always thought Chrono Trigger was a great game but most of the actual game is left unexplained and you only find out certain plot explanations in Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross. It would be nice to see more fan hacks like this.

Certainly worth the hour or two from your day. Look also for hidden coins. If you find all three of them something unique will happen.