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I have enjoyed replaying through "Chrono Trigger" since I was a teenager. It definitely remains as one of my favorite RPGs of the 16-bit era, consisting of beautifully designed sprites, entertaining battle animations, and a brilliantly crafted storyline that has truly stood the test of time (no pun intended). The SNES version was the one I first played during November and December of 2000 and I have so many fond memories of it! The PSX re-release in "Final Fantasy Chronicles" was also an interesting (albeit slow-loading) rendition, which introduced us to its amazing anime cutscenes and the NDS update not only contained the aforementioned from the PSX version, but also an improved English retranslation (courtesy of Tom Slattery) that corrected plenty of the noticeable spelling/grammar mistakes found in the original '95 Ted Woolsey translation (granted, the latter was pretty good, but still could have done more).

This retranslation released by Kakera Sorcerer keeps much of Slattery's script from the NDS port, while still maintaining plenty of the charm from the original Woolsey translation (including Frog's 'ye-olde-English' accent). The end result is the best of both worlds! Although there ARE still a few minor typos here and there and the anime cutscenes are (obviously) absent, this is still an outstandingly done retranslation that should appeal to fans of either Woolsey's or Slattery's scripts. Whether you are a veteran or newcomer to CT, this is definitely the DEFINITIVE retranslation that I HIGHLY recommend!

Here are my thoughts on this hack:

First, the added scene elements. Don't come in with the expectation that you are going to see a ton of new content-it's sparse and it's minor, but the good news is that it gels. The author of this hack has done a better job than a lot of official rereleases in the sense that whatever was added, albeit snippets of dialogue, fits congruently with the original product.

The second main element this hack offers is a revised script. It stays pretty close to the original translation-I'd say 80 percent of it seems intact by my rough estimate. Once in awhile, I found myself amused by the minor changes. Many times I couldn't notice them until I read the scripts side by side. In the end I'd rather have a conservative revision like this than the type of radical retranslation that most often results in a mess.

The one major change in the script is the incorporation of the frozen flame into scenes involving the mammon machine in 12,000 BC. Initially I thought the tie in to Chrono Cross was really cool but later I found that it felt a little tacked on. The original idea of the mammon machine being used to harvest the power of Lavos worked fine and if the author was going to incorporate this new concept I think they could have done a better job creating lore around it so that the idea is less dependent on Chrono Cross for elucidation.

If the author were to revise this work in the future, I would also love to see a revision of things like item names, monster names, tech names, etc. I haven't completed Chronosplit's bugfix hack that includes a lot of this (mostly because I'm waiting for a sense that he has completed the work) but I think his hack is doing a great job polishing the overall game. Not only does the complete hack not seem to include the bugfixes that are out there (I haven't tested but this is my impression) but I've also encountered two glitches in my play-through, both being a screen of jarbled text that occurs rarely at the end of battle.

Overall the hack is a positive and anything that adds character interaction in a way that fits the game's aesthetic is a major win. Great work and I look forward to any updates!

The bonus content and script revisions definitely improve upon the game. I only wish that a separate patch was included for changing Frog's dialogue to the DS version's. His speech is still strange seeing as the other characters in his timeline don't share the same patterns. Hopefully this can be addressed in a later update. If you don't mind this, you'll still like this patch.