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600AD alone is enough reason to play this. Truly, this is how it should have been written by Woolsey had he known there was space enough for him to do so with the script. I wish I could write "ye olde" style this well.

So, as an inveterate Schala enjoyer, this is one of my favorite romhacks.

I like the changes to balance, the extra plot details, the extra NPC dialogue is not intrusive, and the additions to the side plots and their conclusions, and even the cross tie-ins, are all good.

It's definitely higher quality than other hacks I've played with (looking at CT+ here) in terms of writing.

Also, while the new dungeons are interesting, they are quite straightforward. Schala, imo, is a bit too accepting of Janus later, you know, the guy who completely ruined her life with his Prophet shenanigans, lol. But that being said, I did enjoy the story regardless, and I'll take saving Schala any way that I can.

However, do be aware that there is no warning for the black chests when you try to open them in the future - they won't give you a vest, they'll give you useless store-items, so make sure that you visit them in 600AD first, then go into the future and open them.

CAUTION! This review contains spoilers for the hack! Read no further should you desire a blind play through! Likewise, please forgive any grammatical errors, proof-reading is not my strong suit and I typed this all in a .txt file (and we all know how well THEY transfer).

As of writing this review I have completed my run of this Chrono Trigger hack. Overall I look upon it favorably, and I do recommend it to any other Chrono fan. That said, let's go more in depth.

THE PROS: The best bits in my opinion.

1. New Locales.

I very much enjoyed the additional homes and villages and spots to visit scattered throughout the time periods. It tied a lot of the games events together nicely.

I am especially fond of the "Zeal remnant" with the corpse inside. Fittingly depressing and very much what the original game needed on that map, in my opinion.

I also loved having a third tribe off to the east in pre-history. Though I would have also liked to explore a Reptite village.

2. The majority of the new dialogue.

MOST of the new writing and additional dialogue was fantastic. Everybody in 600 AD speaks as expected (rather than just Frog), and in the same era the NPCs will react to Magus once he is in your party. Finally!

Some of the new lines are a bit corny, particularly I found some of Magus' new dialogue too upbeat; but for the most part it's all a nice addition.

3. New techs for Frog and Marle.

At last Frog and Marle get useful final techs. That's all there is to it. It's something that always pestered me greatly about the original game.

4. Chrono Cross references that don't suck.

A few nice nods to Cross are added that do not feel out of place or shoe-horned. I am fond of that. Too often Cross references in CT hacks feel... strained.

5. New equipment, and equipment adjustments.

There a few new weapons and accessories added to the game, as well as redundant accessories removed. Likewise, some treasure locations have been shuffled to accomodate. The "rock" accessories are now transformed into more useful equipment, actually offering a benefit alongside the proposed triple tech.

6. A few new monsters!

And they are pretty cool! No longer will you face the same monsters in the Rainbow Shell sidequest as you did in the cathedral. Now they will be a bit more on your level at the time.

7. Additional Clutter.

Extra trees, extra rock formations, and extra decorations on interior locations. Particularly Medina square. Loved this touch.

8. Changes made to Spekkio.

I LOVED being able to fight Spekkio's forms on my own time. BIG up on this one.

THE CONS: Yes, there are a few changes I did not enjoy so much, and here they are!

1. Respawning monsters in Heckran's cave.

Why? I always took the lack of re-spawn to signify that you wiped out Heckran's little cult.

2. NPCs no longer walk in place.

Again, why? This may seem like a good idea at first but the eerie stillness is noticable and is creepy. I did not enjoy this.

3. Frog's new Tech is boring.

So Frog's new tech (Nirvana X) is useful, but boring. It is just leap slash but stronger. I would have liked it to have some kind of flashy effect or maybe at least have repeated the hit animation thrice like Cyrus in the cutscene.

4. Robo Tackle is OP.

I have no idea why, but Robo Tackle is the gods own fist. It is, in fact, the games most powerful attack now. Uzzi Punch? Child's play. Useless. Delta Storm? Forget it. Luminaire? You MUST be joking! Robo Tackle kills the universe.

5. The new dungeons are very straight forward.

Now for the Blackbird crash site this is fine actually. It is a giant airship after all, it's going to be straight forward. However, I would have liked to see more variety in the forest.

6. The graphic change on the world map for 1000 AD north of Leene Square.

Now, I get it. I am pretty sure this little dirt patch was meant to be the plateau where the gate is, but it just looks odd. I would have preferred if the mountain was restored behind Leene Square instead. It always caused me consternation that an entire mountain vanished in so short a time. For that matter... where DID the island of Giant's Claw go?

THE THINGS THAT WERE NIETHER HITHER, NOR THITHER: Changes I found to not really add nor subtract from the experience were as follows-

1. Lack of Lavos' boss medley.

Eh... I never minded it. However having it gone doesn't bother me either.

2. Seeing the Frog King in 1000 AD.

Cute. Innocuous, pointless, but cute.

BUuDgS: Error

Bugs were minor as of version 2.1, only some graphic flaws here and there and a few lengthy loading times. Yes, loading times. The game can stall a bit between some cut scenes but don't panic! It is not frozen.

OVERALL:

I would not call this the definitive way to play Chrono Trigger. However if I were to assemble a definitive CT experience (through my own eyes of course) I would pull quite a lot from this hack. I give it a solid 4/5. Near perfect hack. Wholly recommended.

Before I started, let me say that the reason I don't recommend this mod isn't because of the whole "what if we saved Schala" scenario. That part is actually quite okay. More on that later.

The good. This patch have a lot of good things: Frog and Marle rebalance, ultimate accessories that also unlocks triple techs, "what if" scenario that's written quite well, Elizabethan English in 600AD, and so on.

Frog especially becomes my MVP comes lategame, and this playthrough I'm using him alongside Robo and Ayla. Their triple techs absolutely wrecks everything post-Ocean Palace. I also feel Robo Tackle especially is buffed a lot to deal 700 damage while the others are barely breaking 300, so Robo is also a big powerhouse here carrying me for the first half of the game. MP changes for techs also help everyone all around. Unfortunately I still don't use Marle because as a healer she doesn't even have a heal-all tech, so I skipped her in lieu of Robo. Her final tech does come in handy against Spekkio late game however.

I also particularly like the implementation of rocks being changed into ultimate accessories for everyone except Chrono and Ayla, who to be fair are already powerful enough. When trying Chrono Trigger Plus romhack I loved that that hack made triple techs permanently learnable from sidequests, and ultimate accessories, while not permanent, are basically the same system since they're so integral in buffing the characters.

The Schala cutscene is okay. It's not very good but it's serviceable. You'll be visiting several small single-screen maps that gives background stories on how future events came to be, and you'll be doing a few dungeons and bosses. Unfortunately those dungeons are very linear and the bosses are basically rematches from past bosses. These designs drags down the otherwise good writing. The events leading to Magus joining and the search for Schala, and what happens afterwards feel natural enough to be part of the game, but gameplay designs detracts a lot from immersion.

600 AD is rewritten so that people use ye olde English. I personally don't mind much, I find it charming in its own way, but some lines I feel too modern which also detracts from the immersion. Unfortunately 600AD isn't the only timeline where this specific problem happens. 65m BC also feels too modern at times. The new NPCs and Ayla's new dialogues can feel too long-winded and modern at times instead of the caveman talk they had in vanilla.

There's a small bug regarding inconsistencies in MP used for double and triple techs. Some of the listed MP requirement are inaccurate. I'd trust in-battle menu instead of main menu. Also, because I still remember the MP requirements for a lot of those techs, I could use my memory for reference. Not a game-breaking bug, but it's there.

Now for the biggest flaw, and the reason I can't recommend this hack. In spite of some of these dialogue changes, some parts most problematic parts are not touched at all, while changing a lot of dialogues that are already good. The earliest sign would be the removal of Crono's mom's "I want you to behave yourself today" line, which serves as the setup for the trial. Why is it removed? Isn't it already what moms would typically say to their son? Meanwhile almost every minor NPCs in 1000AD are now given names in their dialogue. These writings feel very inconsistent and they are the biggest problem.

In 600AD, when you're about to return to 1000AD, you can bring Lucca to meet her ancestors. In the original it's a subtle nod that not everyone will notice the first time around. Now you have Lucca outright say that these are her ancestors, removing all subtleties. The same thing also happens multiple times throughout the game. After Fiona's forest quest, Lucca is teleported back to the past to see her mom's accident. There are multiple notes now, outright saying that the password is Lara, again removing subtleties. This part is already made repeatable if you fail the first time, why would you even need to rewrite these lines? Not to mention Lucca's mom's dialogue when you first see her in the beginning of the game, heavily hinting that she had an accident, wink wink, nod nod. That feels too on-the-nose, and I doubt someone playing Chrono Trigger the first time would install this hack anyway that you need to put a heavy hint.

Some of the more noticeable changes including Belthasar saying he missed home instead of Schala (this line is iconic, and changing it just to be technically more correct isn't good enough reason), Spekkio saying magic got too bad that everyone else but Mystics are forbidden from using it (it was translation error, it's supposed to be everyone else destroyed themselves with magic and only Mystic survives), 65m AD when Ayla challenged Crono to drink pork soup (censored line from liquor that this hack amplifies), 65m BC when Ayla addressed Lavos with a different name, and so on. A lot of the rewrites feels like change for change's sake, just so the maker could put their fingerprints on the hack, but ended up just inconsequential as a whole.

(also, fun fact, a new NPC gives Ayla an item after some dialogue. The dialogue and the item given is very inappropriate by today's standard, but it's a good joke, even if unintended)

Meanwhile, the parts that needs to be changed but aren't, involves 2300AD in Trann Dome where someone said "if you're looking for food, you lose" (should be "you won't find any"), Spekkio again during the whole introduction (it's not that humans are forbidden from using magic, but magic-using humans died out), Ayla again (just uncensor it instead of rewriting the censored version), Magus before the fight against him (same issue, rewritten censor instead of being uncensored), Gaspar at the end of time with the whole "someone close to you is in trouble" mistranslation. There are tons of dialogue that could be improved and yet aren't, while the creator rewrites tons of dialogues that are already perfectly fine just because.

These writings break immersion the most. Not the Schala part, that part is fine. But the "everything else" part. And this is the biggest reason I can't in good faith recommend this mod. It fixes what's not broken while it also doesn't fix what is broken. The result is a rewrite that ranges from "meh, it's fine" to "why would you even change that" while some parts are firmly "why would you NOT change that". These rewrites, in turn, makes it feel like you're reading a rough draft of a book with the editor's notes all over the place. It's jarring. None of the other reviews even mention this even though it's something very noticeable. They all mention how this is the best improvement patch ever and it's perfect. It's not. It's average. To be honest, I'll take just the gameplay and map changes without any of the script changes. If I were to see mistranslations anyway, better that I see the original script instead of this one.

The creator, Fauntleroy, writes in the readme that he doesn't want the writings to feel like weird fanfiction. To that I say he doesn't succeed. Not yet. And ironically, not in the parts where he's most concerned about. My biggest advice for the creator would be to stop fixing what's not broken and focus on the mistranslations from the original script. Don't rewrite a perfectly good script but then gloss over the errors. It's sad because there are lots of good gameplay changes here but the script heavily weighs it down. If you absolutely must replay Chrono Trigger but want some twists, then go ahead and give it a try. For a more passing interest however, I'll say skip this one.

If you haven't played Chrono Trigger in a while and you're looking for a deja-vu that can surprise you, this is an excellent hack to play. The creator has done an excellent job maintaining the feel of the original game while subtly inserting new details and experiences.

The tech changes are huge improvements, though I wish some of the animations had been more... ambitious. Unfortunately none of the changes address Ayla's and Robo's problems with proximity attacks, or Magus's inability to single-target. Frog and Marle got the most re-balancing and the adjustments feel good to play.

I encountered two typos: Dalton says "...Will Shall...", indicating the author was contemplating both terms and forgot to delete one, and Marle's "Wake up, Crono" is attributed to "Mom", probably because the two scenes share the same string. There was also one incorrect name-pointer: at the End of Time, "Depart the Epoch" says Epoch regardless of the ship's given name. These slips can gladly be overlooked for the amount of charm added to Truce and the Middle Ages; in the former every NPC is named (as Crono would know the people of his home town) and in the latter every NPC speaks in a period accent (often to hilarious effect). Text with character attribution is always hanging-indented as well, which makes it easier to read.

The hack does take a dark turn in Antiquity, which I suppose is appropriate considering it was originally called the "Dark Age". It's the only segment of the game where the creator introduced profanity (one pejorative "crap") as well as the only segment that had direct threats of death or murder (jarring compared to the generally G nature of the rest of the script). The added content in that segment of the game was good, though, both in world-building and for getting your party's techs up to par.

Overall, my play-through of this hack was quite enjoyable.

I made my account specifically to make this review, because this is absolutely one of the best hacks on the planet.

Chrono Trigger was the first game to ever straight up break my heart, and the biggest source of that heartbreak was being unable to save Schala.

This hack, obviously, fixes that.

In addition, the additional dialog, story, and inclusion of Schala is incredibly well written. Where many might have written some obvious fanfiction, this is far from that... It holds up to the original, which says everything you need to know.

10/10 worth going through the early game to see any of the changes. Please. Do yourself a favor and give it a go.

This is really a fantastic update to the game. Out of the new parts they added, some are just cute little additions and others are totally new parts to the game (particularly with Magus/Schala). They did a great job keeping the original dialogue and only interspersing new/updated text when it made sense. Really the only complaint I have is that they changed "Tonic" (and variants) to "Potion" like the DS version. That's literally the only complaint I have. This thing is a must-play.

And yes, it's worth trudging through the majority of the early game to get to the good stuff.

This hack has a lot of work put into it and it definitely shows when playing. There's new places, NPCs and dungeons added as well as some revised dialogue (most notably in the Middle Ages) which adds a refreshing new twist to a timeless classic. There are also some changed items, techs and stats that helps rebalance the gameplay. The new ending also ties up some loose ends which are present in the original version of the game (namely the fate of Schala after the Ocean Palace disaster). This provides a much more positive and fulfilling ending that many players will enjoy.

Unfortunately, there are a few typos present, but nothing major. The name of the Epoch is still displayed as such even when renamed (at the screen asking if the player wishes to disembark at the End of Time). There's also a bug present that is literally fatal, namely the dual tech "Cure Wave" performed by Frog and Robo. When used, said tech damages the party for a large amount instead of healing as it's suppose to. Hopefully, this bug will be fixed in a future patch revision by the author.

Overall, non of this should stop anyone from playing and having fun with this hack. I would definitely recommend this patch to any fan of Chrono Trigger without a doubt. So give it a try and see what you all think of it. You won't be disappointed!

Pro: You can rescue Schala now in game!^_^

Con: New Game+ seems to have vanished away.:(

There are plenty of good Chrono Trigger hacks. Translations as good as or better than the Game Boy Advance version. Augmented stories that use elements from Chrono Cross. Changes to the gameplay to make it more interesting.

Like Fauntleroy's Final Fantasy IV & VI Golbez and Leo Editions, Schala promises to give Chrono Trigger player's the story that they have always wanted to see. It is well written and not weird fanfiction. I've seen that!

There are plenty of fun gameplay changes added in for longtime players to enjoy while waiting for the major changes. I am looking forward to the additions to the original dialogue and the new areas to explore.

It might have been possible to trade out one of the existing characters to make Schala playable, but there are too few to select from. In addition, each one has major storyline arcs throughout the game.

I, like most who will play this hack, am a Chrono Trigger fanatic. It was my first ever rpg and it sent me down the rabbit hole of jrpgs. I have played every single CT rom hack that you can think of including: the Pre-Release, Crimson hoes, Flames of Eternity, Arena/Colosseum, Prophet's Guile, Lavos' Awakening, and almost every single hardtype. I own SNES, PS1, DS, Steam, iOS, and repro carts of both Echoes and Flames, as well as the original import JP versions on Super Famicom and PSX.

It's safe to say that I love Chrono Trigger. I think this hack holds up to the standards that were set by some of the other more memorable hacks. ___

Positives:

The original difficulty has been adjusted and bosses will provide you with new challenges and different strategies. However, if you are looking for a hardtype challenge, don't overlevel.

The text and translation has been changed, and I really enjoy it, especially the overall new feel of 600 A.D. It really breathes life into an already vibrant era.

Items and weapons have had both some prices and chest locations change, however, the pacing feels very natural which also keeps you on your toes.

I would be lying if I said I didn't get a little bit emotional when the pivotal moment happens. My older sister passed away when I was a child, and as you can tell, this game holds a special place in my heart. I had Frog in my party, and his comments almost brought me to tears. ___

Critiques:

There are a very small number of few typos, but I don't feel that they take away from anything in my opinion.

There is a softlock that ends the game completely in Arris dome after the pivotal scene. Once you've reunited Janus and Schala, but before you go to rescue Chrono, if you head back down into Arris dome and take the new left exit in the storeroom, you are unable to move and the game softlocks.

___

Overall, very well done. 9.0/10. If you are a Chrono Trigger fan you need to play this. You won't regret it.

Without offering spoilers, I can say that anyone who always wanted to see the possibilities on offer by this mod will not be disappointed. Great fun and my new favorite version of Chrono Trigger!

I will offer one slight tidbit of info; Anyone who always found Frog's speech mannerisms enjoyable and charming will be delighted by one of the bigger changes made!

Highly recommended for any fan of Chrono Trigger!