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Everything you could want out of a romhack for Chrono Trigger, that adds a wealth of content and QoL improvements that takes an amazing game and elevates it to a new level of awesomeness.

With a fully playable Glenn, expanded lore in 1999 AD and so much more, Chrono Trigger + is one of the best examples of what rom hacks can do to elevate a classic.

Like FFIV - Ultima Edition and FFVI - Divergent Paths, Chrono Trigger + is the type of rom hack that doesn't just improve on the original, but replaces it.

Do yourself a favor and play it today; you won't regret it!

I was blessed to be a playtester for this version along with Andrew Clunn for The Great Ben. I must say this existing is an amazing feat in romhacking. Every issue we found Ben fixed very fast. The work shows and I believe this is the definitive Chrono Trigger. It retains everything that made the last version great but now we have a playable Human Glenn amongst other additions. I must say you need to experience this for yourself to understand how amazing it is. He is literally a dream come true. He has his own animations and techs. The way you aquire him also fits well. I don't want to give too many spoilers but I experienced many endings and put in well over 100 hours with this version and I'm about to hop back in, Highly recommended.

Update to review;

Version 2.6 is the result of refinements and ideas cultivated over the last few years. Some of the changes add all new experiences to this already excellent work, while other changes dial in what was already there. In my personal opinion, this is one of best projects of it's kind. I believe the original Chrono Trigger Development team would admire this work and would be proud of it. The comments in my previous statements still apply!

Fans of Chrono Trigger have something new and fun to play while still being the classic game we know and love!

Rock on Ben & crew! Rock on!

Original review; This review has been incoming for some time as the mod has been a ton of fun since version 1.0. However I was aware that big things were coming and thus wanted to wait til 2.0 was out. The wait was worth it! ThegreatBen and Mauron with the help of andrewclunn, should be proud of the hard work that has gone into this excellent mod! No spoilers, but I can safely say that when you discover that you can visit and explore the "1999" time point you will not be disappointed. That is far from the only fun new feature that can be discovered!

Well done folks, well done indeed!

Players, grab this and enjoy. Highly recommended!

I'm a huge fan of how much more open world things feel thanks to the changes Ben made, from being able to get Magus early, to being able to get Ayla early, to even being able to do every side quest super early. Even re-adding the unused items just fits much more naturally into the game than one would ever think.

It's a huge shame that he feels the need to flag this as non-compliant, thus disabling the ability for people to play this masterpiece.

Huge Chrono Trigger fan here, wanted to do my annual Chrono Trigger playthrough, specifically the Super Nintendo version because the Steam version is a POS, thought I might try a hack to spice things up a bit.

Off the bat, I can say... not sure what was the thought process was for this hack. Why is Gato so damn strong at the beginning of the game? I need my 15 silver points! The massive nerfs to Heal spells kinda hurts in the beginning, but once you get Robo/Frog and start pumping some levels and Magic Tabs, it's about the same-ish more or less give or take 50-100 or so HP. Speaking of Frog... why? Why would you remove SLURP and replace it with a generic magic heal "Invigorate"? What the hell is this "Grapple Cut" nonsense? There is a massive lack of SLURPING in this game. At least they let us keep Slurp Kiss... but still, I am giving this hack massive negative points for the removal of Slurpage. I cannot justify these changes to one of my favorite characters. Oh yeah, in the future when you go to the factory with Robo... you actually have to do the other side of the factory and get the "XABY" password to progress. That annoyed the hell outta me because I basically have never bothered doing that since 1995 lmao.

One of the major things that really bugged me was the nerf to Ayla's Charm. Felt like alot of enemies weren't worth Charming anymore, on top of that, the nerf to Charm Rates really sucks, they really want you to use both Ayla and Marle (Actually using Marle? Are you nuts???) together for Double Charm, but thankfully seems at high enough level, Ayla charming on her own, even without a Charm Top works just fine as I was able to nab all the Magic Tabs and goodies from the bosses of the Black Omen without a hitch.

Another bothersome change is the dialogue of every NPC in the Middle Ages outside of Magus' Castle. The King's ye olde English Speak does not lend itself well, especially to characters like Toma, the Chef, also the Carpenter and his boys. Some of the new dialogue added to scenes comes off as strange, along with some of the changes to dialogue in the confrontation with Magus. At the very least, Ayla is pretty consistent.

The most controversial changes I think is the powercreep. The level experience tables have been cut a huge chunk, so you level much faster, but stat growths are spread further apart, and tech points you acquire are greatly increased. I didn't even bother grinding and by the time I reached Magus' Castle I already had Uzzi Punch on Robo and Tail Spin on Ayla, which IMO is overkill, normally I'd have these acquired by Mount Woe or Ocean Palace give or take. Sadly, ddespite being in the 70's, my poor Robo didn't have 999 HP yet, so Crisis Arm went unused... what a shame.

The adjustments to enemies isn't very noticeable outside of like Gato early game, Ozzie Trio being a bit harder to chew, and then the Lavo's Shell, and boy... Lavo's Shell is something else. The Lavo's Boss Gauntlet Mode is gone (thank god, doing a minimal party member run and bashing on Nizbel for a half hour with no Lightning damage sucks lol), but the Shell is way stronger than before, even with buffs and best equipment, Chaotic Zone was dishing huge numbers (600+ to all), and Lavo's was prone to doing double Rain of Destruction in succession. I ended up just sacrificing the Epoch to go straight to the core - which was more or less about the same as the original, with the exception of Robo not getting one shotted by the core's magic for a change.

The positives I can say about this hack is being able to make Ayla a permanent party member soon as you reach the end of time is wonderful - Having her present during the Middle Age events up to Magus is a huge game changer, completely dumped on the Dark Mystic Lord so hard he only got to cast Dark Matter once. Having access to some late game sidequests earlier is nice too, you can do Ozzie's Fort much earlier and even take out the Son Of Sun by accessing the Sun Palace in 12,000 BC at it's original location in the Kingdom of Zeal. Picking up (Or Killing) Magus before the Dalton and Upgraded Epoch events is welcome as well.

I dig the acquiring of the hidden triple techs over having to use an accessory slot to get them, now you get to enjoy them at FULL POWER. I think my favorite thing is that Frog gets a replacement for Frog Squash, his ultimate tech. Now he gets "NirvanaX", which is basically just Crono's Confuse or "Frenzy" reskinned for Frog (and it looks incredibly silly), but hell, way more useful than Frog Squash ever was outside of being needed for the Frog Flare Duo Tech.

Lucca's Protect and Magus' Magic Wall are also party buffs now, so only 1 turn is needed to get everybody beefed up. The notes mentioned Haste also having a full party effect, but that was not the case when I used it. But... I probably still wouldn't use Marle even if that was the case. Sorry! Marle is not good!

Finally, there's the new content... well you can fight Johnny in the future, and he's kinda rough, but Marle's Provoke actually proves useful for a change. Dinosaur Era has a Reptitle village you can visit, that's neat. 12,000 BC has some new areas, but it's nothing special outside of getting a triple tech and if you wanna do Son of Sun early. 600 AD has a forest new Magus Castle where you can battle the Frog King to get a Hero Medal power-up, but the fight itself is basically just a reskin of Hecckran. The future, 2,3000 AD has some new locations as hell, but they are... incredibly bland and not worth messing with. I spent like 15 minutes pounding on an unbelievably tanky and fast mushroom w/ Ayla, then entered some "Cult of Lavo's" place which is honestly the worst dungeon I have ever seen... there were zero treasure chests in sight (the entire point of rpg's is treasure chests!, the place was gigantic and way too many unavoidable mobs, so I peacee'ed outta there.

Overall, it's not bad or even the worst, it's really still Chrono Trigger at the end of the day, but honestly, I'd rather just keep it vanilla and retain the original experience. The end result is essentially the same, you just end up more OP a bit earlier, and by the end, very OP in terms of damage output, but defense wise, not nearly as tank-like. The new contents don't really add much to the game in my opinion, and the design of the new areas is just not well done - Lot's of faulty looking tiling, glitched sprites, weird target camera movement, feels lacking in polish, even compared to the new areas in the DS/Steam version of the game, which I loathe.

Really though, the original Super Nintendo Chrono Trigger is unsurpassed, and that's really all you need. I guess trying to teach an old game some new tricks never hurts, but really, you can't change the past.

It's very difficult for me to place this rom hack. On the one hand, it's more or less the vanilla game which is by default a stellar game and a must play for any fans of the RPG/JRPG genre. However this hack has a few things that really don't sit well, but it's not all bad.

The minor touches and QoL improvements are certainly welcome. The game progression does feel a little better, the biggest of which is not needing to waste an accessory slot on triple techs whereas now they are permanently learned when you acquire them. The updated item descriptions are also welcome, giving some much needed context to what some of the added effects are.

The extras in the game, while rough, are charming enough and are a fun peek into things like that were left behind. Songs such as the Battle 2 theme and Singing Mountain are welcome additions especially and are placed in great spots to really help immerse you in the situation. The added side quests are nice too, adding some fun extras. Though they are very rough with dialogue that doesn't stand up to the rest of the game (We can't all be great writers but it's worth mentioning to set expectations) and the tiling/graphics do get a little screwy. But a solid attempt for sure. The side quest areas ARE accessible for the most part as soon as you are able, but be warned they are insanely difficult and some even needing NG+ to even really complete.

My biggest gripe, and a serious turn-off for me was the random difficulty spikes. Perhaps that was a side effect of the difficulty balance patch, which was nice having to really conserve items and having some other small tweaks. Some bosses just require the extra grinding and that seems unnecessary, this isn't a case of just rework a strategy or party all the time. Sometimes you will just get party-wiped the second you enter battle. Twin-Golems being a frustration in the Ocean Palace being a big one, and Lavos in general as his big party attacks will kill almost everyone instantly or close to, leaving you little time to recoup before he goes for another attack.

It's moments like these that feel so radically unbalanced (whereas some fights seemed like a joke from what I remembered in the vanilla game) that it really takes away from the care put into the hack. Hopefully in future updates these get tweaked, as this really is a big barrier of entry for those who are more casual fans looking to have a fun revisit.

Lastly, the writing as stated earlier that was added in or modified isn't stellar. And the 600 AD Old-English medieval speak just isn't fun to read, but all in all it's passable and doesn't take much away from the game so no real knocks against it in that regard.

I do recommend this for fans of the game who are looking for a real challenge and to see some cool extras, but really can't recommend it over the original and some of the others I've played. Overall it still needs a lot of work, and hopefully future versions will remedy a lot of it if they are coming.

Overall, I believe this patch is worth your time, though I do have some minor criticisms. The gameplay changes and additions are largely welcome, and the new dungeons and locations, while a bit rough around the edges, are fun to explore. I'll try to break down my thoughts on individual elements below.

The adjustments to Marle's and Lucca's hit growth are very nice. These two are finally able to hold their own with basic attacks, so you don't have to spend MP every turn just to make them feel useful. Similarly, Protect and Magic Wall being party-wide buffs means it is much easier to get your squad set up for a hard fight (more on that later). The ReadMe also mentions Haste was made party-wide, but it still seemed to be single-target for me. I'm not sure if that was an oversight, or if the change was reverted and the ReadMe didn't get updated.

The early/mid game is definitely a bit scarier. Enemies hit harder, and your heals are generally less effective, so you need to stay on your toes. I had some serious trouble fighting Magus and Black Tyrano; the former's Dark Matter was almost a party-wipe (two characters got one-shot from full health, and the third only survived because of a Silver Earring), while the latter's fire breath brought a fully-healed party down to double digits, even with protection from Ruby Vests. Nothing insurmountable, but it took a few tries and some adjustments to strategy.

I didn't really notice the XP and TechPt changes. Like the vanilla game, I never really felt a need to grind, despite the tougher fights, so well done in that regard.

By far my favorite adjustment is the elimination of the Triple Tech accessories. These are instead learned permanently through events (sometimes from the same source), and the placement largely makes sense. For example, Magus learns his Triple Techs after witnessing the power employed by his former trio of minions, suggesting that perhaps working more closely with his allies is a good idea. It's very well-implemented.

The ability to explore the world of 1999 was quite enjoyable, though the color palette in a few cases was... definitely a choice. None of the rewards felt tedious to obtain, but neither were they simply handed over. They struck an acceptable balance, I think. And of course, the ability to buy Tab items was a nice addition. If you're worried about balance there, don't be; they're very expensive. I drained my account and still wasn't able to max out everyone's Speed.

The writing was... fine? It was fine. Not great, but serviceable. The universal application of "olde-timey speech" to everyone in 600 A.D. threw me off at first, but it wasn't terrible. I did quite enjoy the movie theater scene and the comment from the lady whose man becomes a mushroom.

My only real "complaint", if it could be called that, is with the change to the Enertrons in 2300 A.D. Rather than restoring both HP and MP, they simply restore MP, I guess because the hunger keeps you from healing. This is fine from the lore perspective, and I suspect that's what the author was going for, but in practice, all it means is the player dips into the menu to spend their MP on healing abilities, then restores their MP to full. So ultimately, it just ends up wasting time. Sacrificing player experience for lore reasons feels like a bad idea to me, but as I said, it's a minor inconvenience, so I'm willing to overlook it.

Nitpicks aside, I enjoyed this hack, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys vanilla CT but wants something a little... plus.

Haha... I am about to generate some hate. Time to be that stick in the mud! The party pooper no one likes. I apologize in advance.

So, let's begin. Firstly, I give this mod a 3 out of 5. A sideways thumb; not exactly a non-recommendee. It was made by people who really like the Chrono Trigger story and really wanted to improve on it by giving more lore to it and whatnot, and that energy is definitely good and appreciated. The problem is that the development didn't involve much creative talent.

In this mod, whenever you see player-generated content, you know immediately because of how sharply the quality drops off. Even with NPCs that weren't in the original game or have different dialogue, you can immediately tell the writing is flawed because of all of the COMMAS. So many commas, no periods, no apparent predicate to a sentence, much like this sentence structure here. And then there's the actual content of what they're saying, which is also just blithering.

Whenever I saw added dialogue from any of the main characters, it didn't feel written in a way where the character in question would actually say that. Chrono Trigger didn't exactly have great writing to begin with, though, so I won't dock too many points for that.

All of the player-generated mapping felt poorly done. I liked some of the ideas, like adding a tavern into the End of Time, but you immediately notice it's amateur because of how you enter and leave the building where there's no door, the walls on the left and right are immediately boxing the player in instead of adding blackspace. 1999 was egregious with bad mapping since all of it was player-generated. And again! Some of the idea were neat. They even had a movie theater scene which was kinda neat, although met with clear limitations.

The fact that they added some side quests was good. ...But low quality. The chip machine idea was pretty cool, though, hindered completely by the fact that there wasn't much actual combat content added.

I will say I also kinda dislike the overall idea they had with 1999 as a reachable area... I feel it probably should've been visited *after* Lavos attacked it, since that obviously didn't wipe out humanity immediately. You could've created more action-heavy sequences and whatnot based on that apocalyptic panic. Cracked domes, refugees, monsters pouring into cities, etc. Could've given the game way more boss content as a result.

My biggest gripe is the fact that while they definitely took NG+ into consideration by trying to break the linearity, there is very little incentive to actually go through with it because all of the added content is easy even with the combat adjustment patch. I have no desire to play through the game again just to see what happens when you save Zeal, because I've already had a taste of the bad writing and I don't expect it to be worth watching the cutscenes. I ended my game around level 83 with every single thing done except for that black box quest; couldn't get that one to start for some reason.

I feel like they should've taken inspiration from that FF6 T-edition mod, you know?

Ah well. Sorry if I ruffled any feathers.

The balancing is a nice change for someone that knows their way around the game, but you can't hand this mod to someone who's never played it before as a general improvement to chrono trigger. I played without grinding and felt most bosses were intense, usually killing me the first time and making me rethink my characters and strategy for the fights, eventually being able to overcome.

That was until I got to the twin golems at the ocean palace. This fight is so poorly balanced that it stopped me hard in my tracks and made me walk out of the ocean palace to go grind. Most of my characters had a 400-500 hp max, and the twin golems both follow the same attack order of doing a 1/2hp drop move and then blasting characters for ~350. Sometimes before I could even get a turn in at the start of the battle a party member would already be dead, and I would be game over soon after from getting steamrolled so hard on the first turn, I died like 10 times. I went and got a bunch of side quest gear, gained 10 levels, and came back and STILL got steamrolled hard by the golems. I just barely managed to beat it after finding a good strategy, and then everything after twin golems I felt like I was now over-leveled so there wasn't any more challenge that I was having before. Twin golems were the hardest boss in the game.

I was excited to see new areas on the map, but there are so many tiling issues and general ugliness that I kept thinking something was going wrong the ROM, none of these new areas look like they're actually part of the game and stand out like a sore thumb. Every time I gained access to one of these new areas I promptly died in them because I'm fighting end game enemies in early areas of the game. Areas like "cult of lavos" in 2300AD shouldn't have a bridge connecting them on the map because you won't be of level to go there until you have the epoch anyways, I walked in there with a 150hp max and got hit for 700 and that set the stage for mostly every other new optional area I found. Any new player to the game is just going to wander into these areas and promptly die when nowhere else in the vanilla game does this to you.

The new equipment, enemies and locations are cool, and the restored lines add a little more context to certain situations. Also, the idea of choosing alternate paths is great, at least on theory. And here's why: you become easily overpowered if you choose Ayla's scenario first. Let alone the big chunks of XP - which may be also gained in the vanilla, you get access to some really good equipment. On top of that, you can steal even better equipment like the Aeon blade, Magma hand, Dream bow and dream gun. And due to the new learning rates for the skills, it's pretty easy to get twin charm. You can even steal the items from Ozzie, Flea and Slash when you enters Magus castle.

The idea of spreading the level bonuses is good, and some rebalancing on characters was a nice touch, but become almost useless due to the gear you get and because you learn skills so fast, than all the difficulty it was supposed to bring, ends disappearing. Even if you don't grind, you still get some pretty powerful techs much earlier than in the vanilla. Magus fight was a joke cause I already had arc impulse. And I didn't even equip the powerful gear I've stolen.

Overall is one of the best hacks of CT, and I truly appreciate the effort put on it, but requires a little more balancing when it comes to gear and skill learning. Regardless, play it, cause it's a must play for CT fans, and you will be amazed to explore 1999.

Unbelievably well done. Love all the small minor details and QoL improvements. This has replaced the game for me moving forward. Great stuff.

One of the best hacks on the site. It started a bit rough, but the dev has worked pretty hard to bring it to fruition, and I just want to say that the new content feels right at home with the original stuff, with even what I would say are contemporary references similar to what you might have seen from Ted Woolsey.

Also, according to the author himself, SNES9X is the ideal emulator to use for this game, so if you give it a shot (which you should!) make sure you use it.

I played through it was fun. Lavo cult to go to 1999 was cool. I wish there was more detail here or explorable places in 1999 but it was still epic the time you put in. The drone you buy destroys enemies. I'm sure the developer will keep adding things to make this the ultimate version. I wanted to ride Diego after I beat him. I couldn't find the guy in Porre with a mission to go over. Keep up with the dungeons and easter eggs. Those things made it fun to playthrough again. Maybe a newgame+ feature too with added things after you beat the game.

I mean I'm ready to warp to 2020 already.

I've been meaning to replay Chrono Trigger for a few months now, and decided to wait on v2.0 of this hack.

I was not disappointed! This hack adds many great new features. Being able to travel to 1999AD adds depth to the story, as you can identify and interact with a world that is about to be destroyed.

Granted, by abusing what you are given in 1999AD you become this overpowered beast that can easily defeat Lavos, but that's part of the charm and it doesn't come for free.

Besides the obvious 1999AD addition, this hack adds a ton of smaller content to the game and, best of all, supports MSU1 songs!

I thoroughly enjoying replaying Chrono Trigger with the additions brought by this hack.

Definitely recommended.

This is a hack after my own heart: it keeps the core game intact but makes subtle tweaks and additions to fill in gaps and add to the experience in interesting ways.

The authors showcase a lot of good ideas. I liked having the item-based Triple Techs be permanently learnable, I liked the new optional areas in Zeal, and I liked exploring Choras right from the beginning of the game. There are lots of touches like this that add a welcome twist to a familiar game.

With that said, the hack is in need of some polishing. For example, there are instances where new equipment items are less useful than what you already have. This is especially frustrating in prehistory; I found myself spending time gathering items in the hunting range, only to trade them for dud equipment.

There are also a few areas where enemies are simply unbeatable for that stage of the game (bike race area, new Sun Palace area, etc.). This isn't a matter of strategy, it's a matter of picking a completely wrong enemy for that stage of the game, creating an element of frustration and confusion where there wasn't one before.

Some of the new maps are placed oddly on the screen, don't scroll properly, or use tiles that don't quite match up right.

It also has to be said that the sections containing new dialogue show a marked decrease in writing quality compared to the rest of the experience.

In all, however, this is a very cool project and I really enjoyed playing it, despite my critiques. Even if there are some issues with implementation, the project is moving in the right direction. I hope to see more updates on this hack and look forward to more projects from the talented group behind this effort.