Chrono Trigger was produced in 1995 by Kazuhiko Aoki and directed by Akihiko Matsui, Yoshinori Kitase and Takashi Tokita.
[4] In 1996, Masato Kato and several other members of the Chrono Trigger staff worked on a minor project for the Super Famicom Satellaview extension, titled Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki.
Nevertheless, by the end of the development, Masato Kato had connected the game's plot and characters to Chrono Trigger, turning it into a side story.
[6] In terms of basic system and gameplay, producer Hiromichi Tanaka made it clear that the new installment was not a sequel to Chrono Trigger; rather, the game designers' approach was to make the "gameplay evolve with the hardware", creating a completely new game while restructuring the former style so as to maximize the performance of the console.
[7] The gameplay focuses on the theme of parallel worlds rather than time travel, although the latter is still deeply involved in the game's plot.
[8] Chrono Trigger is a role-playing video game which was released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on March 11, 1995 in Japan and on August 22 in North America.
The game's story follows a group of young adventurers led by Crono, who are accidentally transported through time and learn that the world will be destroyed in the distant future.
[9] Chrono Trigger was ported to the PlayStation in 1999 as a standalone title in Japan and in 2001 as part of the Final Fantasy Chronicles compilation in North America.
[14] Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki (literally "The Jewel That Cannot Be Stolen") is a Japanese-exclusive text-based game released in 1996 through the Super Famicom Satellaview extension.
The player takes on the role of Serge, a young adventurer accompanied by Kid, a teen-aged thief, and Gil, a mysterious masked magician.
[16] The protagonist Serge, faced with an alternate reality in which he died as a child, struggles to uncover his past and meets Kid, a thief seeking the mysterious Frozen Flame artifact.
"Time and Space Adventures: Nu-Mamonja") is a 16-minute humoristic and promotional Chrono Trigger anime which was broadcast at the Japanese V-Jump Festival of July 31, 1996.
The series follows Mamo and Nu, who are joined by Johnny and Spekkio (in the form of a frog), as they continue their adventure through time.
In 1999, Yasunori Mitsuda, now a freelance composer, returned to score the soundtrack for Chrono Cross after being contacted by Masato Kato.
[10] Mitsuda decided to center his work around old world cultural influences, including Mediterranean, Fado, Celtic, and percussive African music.
Noriko Mitose, as selected by Masato Kato, sang the ending song, "Radical Dreamers ~ Le Trésor Interdit".
[41] Chrono Trigger has placed highly on all six of multimedia website IGN's "top 100 games of all time" lists—4th in 2002, 6th in early 2005, 13th in late 2005, 2nd in 2006, 18th in 2007, and 2nd in 2008.
[50] In a separate piece about Japanese RPG composers, IGN named Yasunori Mitsuda the second best out of ten behind Nobuo Uematsu.