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Chrono Trigger for Android gets update, is a little less awful

One of the greatest games of all time, Chrono Trigger got a buggy and flawed release on Android in 2012. Now some of those issues are finally fixed.
By
February 28, 2018
TL;DR
  • Chrono Trigger, one of the greatest games of all time, got a very flawed port to Android back in 2012.
  • Slightly updated in 2014, the game just recently got a complete set of updates that fixed a lot of issues.
  • Many flaws remain, and reviewers are longing for a true, 1-to-1 port of the original.

Chrono Trigger is one of the greatest video games of all time, for any console, of any genre, in any decade. This isn’t just us saying that.It’s practically set in stone by the gaming community.

You can imagine if the game got messed with in any capacity, there would be a lot of angry nerds. It would be like the Special Editions of the original Star Wars trilogy all over again.

That’s exactly what publisher Square Enix did in 2012, when it released a port of Chrono Trigger to Android phones via the Google Play Store. It was, shall we say, not too well received.

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Poor sound, forced aspect ratios, a hard-to-read font, and little-to-no support for gamepads were the chief complaints from reviewers when the 2012 port popped up in the Play Store. Then things got even worse when people found out that upgrading above Android 4.2 Jelly Bean made the game unplayable. The game was left like that, for sale in a broken state, until it was finally fixed in 2014.

Now, to tie-in with the surprise port of the mobile version of Chrono Trigger on Steam, the game has gotten a new update on Android, which fixes some of its glaring issues.

Unfortunately, even with these fixes, the game is still woefully mediocre compared to the original SNES version. The font is still hard to read (Arial? Really?), the music is still poorly transferred, and the beautiful sprites are rendered in a weird, fuzzy hue.

The update adds an autosave feature, which is nice. It’s new achievement function could be fun for those who have played through the game more times than they’d ever admit (like yours truly).  There’s now finally gamepad support, too. Best of all, the new upgrades are free for people who purchased the original 2012 version.

If you buy this game and enjoy it as you should, please get your hands on a Super Nintendo and play the original version, or at least get an emulator and do it that way. Experiencing this game in its original state is an absolute must