Thirty years ago today, Chrono Trigger hit the SNES in Japan, delivering one of greatest RPGs of its generation—a reputation that has only endured as time has gone on. Mechanically, narratively, graphically, Chrono Trigger has wowed generation after generation of players, but part of that indelible success goes beyond its pixelated aesthetic, and the vision of its world brought to us by the legendary mangaka Akira Toriyama.
Chrono Trigger wasn’t Toryiama’s first credits in games—he was a staple designer on the Dragon Quest series since the mid ’80s alongside several of the developers he would work with again on Chrono Trigger, like producer Yuji Horii. But even though stateside Toriyama’s visual style wouldn’t be the vanguard for a new generation of anime fans until the year after when Dragon Ball Z would begin airing in syndication, to many his work on Chrono Trigger would be some of their first introductions to his trademark aesthetic.
Working off initial ideas and sketches for Chrono Trigger‘s main cast by story planner Masato Kato, Toryiama gave the world of Chrono Trigger a bold and brash identity, befitting its cross-time adventure dragging the titular Chrono and his friends from ancient history to apocalyptic futures. The hallmarks many would come to know through his work on Dragon Ball were felt keenly in Chrono Trigger‘s heady sci-fantasy blend. Crono, Aayla, Marle, and Lucca all evoke archetypes that people would come to see more famously from Toriyama’s manga and anime work, Robo wouldn’t look out of place in the Capsule Corp lineup—even Frog fits in with the legacy of anthropomorphized animals like Puar and Oolong. That’s not to say they were derivative of Toriyama’s work, anything but: they were simply the latest evolution of his visual design, capturing a joyful, exaggerated stylization that oozed charm.
And it’s a charm that elevated not just Chrono Trigger‘s character work, but its visual design. Chrono Trigger might have been a 16-bit, sprite-based RPG, but the Toryiama’s finger prints are felt all over its aesthetic. The way the characters animate in the overworld or in the battle field, the fact that his trademark stand out even in their chibi-fied, pixelated forms—the sheen of Lucca’s big glasses, Crono’s shock of spikey hair, the rounded edges of Robo’s armor plates—all speak to this lighthearted, bold sensibility that Toriyama championed, one that’s felt throughout the game’s adventurous tone and sense of humor.
It’s a tone that’s felt beyond the game itself, in the promotional work Toriyama made to be plastered over posters, box art, game guides, and more. Regardless of whether or not he was depicting the party at rest or ready to fight, there’s a kineticism and sense of joy in every piece he did for Chrono Trigger that just immediately evokes a sense of wanderlust and adventure within you. It’s perfect RPG art, drawing you right into a world you want to traverse and spend hours in alongside all these bright and brilliant looking characters. So many elements of Chrono Trigger have helped it stand the test of time these past three decades, but perhaps the most enduring of all can be found in Toriyama’s vision for its characters and world.
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