Passing Time

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In 1995 when Chrono Trigger came out, I would have just turned 12. I stayed up through the Summer nights of Sacramento, playing until 5 in the morning on the cracked naugahyde couch in my dad’s living room. 20 years ago I became unstuck in time, and I’ve never really fit into place again since. I left some piece of myself in that game; it left some piece of itself in me. Same thing.

A week ago I watched someone play through Chrono Trigger as part of the Summer Games Done Quick charity speedrunning marathon, and it brought that little piece of myself back to me, and I still don’t quite know what to make of it. It’s still the most beautiful game I’ve played in so many ways, but so much time has passed since those Summer nights. I don’t really replay the game because I get bogged down in the details, the specifics of battles and equipment, and lose interest long before I get to the end – which is sad, because near the end is where it becomes strongest.

I’ll never be able to describe what it is about Chrono Trigger. It’s the wistfulness, something not quite sad but that can never be happy. It’s the distance, the story told like a legend or memory, slightly unshaped, always uncertain, unreliably narrated by a memory unstuck in time. It’s the beauty, the sunrise, the floating palace, the red star, the dead world, the egg containing possibilities. It’s the dying flashback of regrets of an unknown entity.

Because it was a charity marathon, the characters were named via donation bid wars: The main character ended up being named Iwata, in honor of the recently passed Satoru Iwata, much beloved president of Nintendo. It probably didn’t occur to the people donating to name the character, but this took on a rather strange dimension when the main character, as part of the story, would inevitably die. If this were a run designed solely to beat the game as quickly as possible, that would have been the end of it, but because a donation incentive had been met this was a 100% completion run – so, the runners dutifully collected the titular Chrono Trigger, which looks like an egg, went to Death Peak, a snowy mountain in the husk of a post-apocalyptic world, and they went back in time and saved Iwata from death.

It was a strange and quiet moment.

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I’ve been thinking about regrets and forgiveness. Time travel always brings to mind the unshakeable chains of causality that bind me to my history.

I’ve been thinking about what we want as creators and what we want as audiences. We want conflicts, battles that never really end. We want loss and agony and bitterness and forgiveness. We want everything to go wrong, we want to see the world broken so that we can see it rebuilt. We want to see everything ruined so we can see it fixed. We want to believe that fixing a broken world is possible, and so we sow the seeds of destruction in our art. We are creator and audience, villain and hero. We are Lavos, the disaster, falling from the sky to catalyze a world of conflict and suffering that gives rise to the art we want to see. We consume the emotions, the conflict and energy and sadness that we foment in our apocalypse, the heroism that requires our tragedy to flourish.

And then we feel remorse. And we want to set things right. We want to burn our effigies and then we want to unburn them and pretend not to smell smoke. So we travel through time. We sow the seeds of the happy ending, the threads that knit together to destroy us, to free the world of our malign influence.

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The same day I watched the Chrono Trigger run I read this article,  originally addressed to the Aspen Institute’s Action Forum, discussing the ways in which focusing on reparative action distracts from the causal role the wealthy have in creating the iniquities they propose to address. While SGDQ is an admirable event, I can’t help but wonder to what degree it is a bandaid on gaming’s battered self-image. How much of the impetus driving the donations is, rather than a belief in the cause, a desire to show that games are admirable, are worthwhile, can be a force for positive change? It’s hard not to notice how many donations are none-too-subtly self-congratulatory, talking about how inclusive and helpful gamers are, talking about how they’re changing the world, and I wonder who they’re trying to convince.

This is not to criticize the Games Done Quick events. They’re great entertainment for a good cause. I’m just wondering if part of the engine of their growth is games culture’s unwillingness to look at its own issues, its history of self-esteem problems and of exclusionary practices.

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When we’re young, we break so much without noticing. And, as we get older, we want to fix things. But repaired objects are seldom good as new: Most show their cracks, their frayed wiring, their chipped paint, their missing screws. We want to go back and time, and make them never broken. We want to unpollute our sky and sea, to have never been cruel to our friends, to have not started the war, to have apologized in time. We want to repent our transgressions rather than refrain from transgressing. We want to beg for forgiveness instead of asking permission.

Maybe it’s growing too late. Maybe the sadness I feel from Chrono Trigger is knowing that we’ll never be able to make things right, never go back and save Iwata, never stop the red star from falling.

Maybe, maybe. We’ll see.

 

72 Comments

  2. While I did enjoy playing Chrono Trigger back in the day, my personal favorite has always been with the Final Fantasy series. I could replay any of those over and over. Thanks for this, good reading!

  3. Chrono Chross and Chrono Trigger were one of my most influential games ever. Nowadays the story is not so important, everyone is focussed on graphics and action. Thanks for sharing!

  12. Somehow this missed my radar. But I can relate with other games of my past. Bushido Blade was one in particular. And Driver. With both, I became one with the game. A zen like trance would make deft with the blade in the former and tight on the turns with the latter. Reading this makes me want to get on an emulator immediately. Cheers brave warrior.

  20. I was 14 when Chrono Trigger came out. Like you, I cannot describe with words the immense emotional impact it had on me. But why so sad about playing such a beautiful game? If anything characterises us humans, is that we *can* put things to rights, even after doing wrong. We were born to mistakes. Admitting them and learning from them is the only way to move forward, and it takes a lot of courage to do so, not making mistakes in the first place. Cheers to all the Chrono Trigger fans from me.

  21. My first comment in wordpress will be for u…. i really love ur words, they may seem neutral for some, but i can feel how deep they are… having something in ur life which u belong to is incredible, hope this alliance will last and give u hope in bad times for the cominh days…. much love

  23. I remember that game. The german title is “Secret of Mana”. My brother used to play it, since I was way too young (10 yrs) and I didn’t own a SNES myself. I only remember that little dragon you had to free from it’s prison which was a cave or something like that . Later you could ride on it and reach other places. Thanks for this very beautiful written post. Please ignore my bad english 😉 many greets from Germany

  24. I know nothing about gaming… but the meat of this piece and the message is strikingly parallel to what is popular nowadays in the TV drama genre, YA books and movies… i.e.: dystopia societies, Vampires/ Werewolves, apocalyptic story lines, etc…
    I enjoyed the read! Thanks for posting! 🙂

    • Exactly right! 🙂 This particular game is called an RPG (role playing game) which you play as the character and meet other people as you travel the fantastical world. I enjoy watching the artistic rendering of the locations and environments. Such imagination!

  25. I’ve loved video games from a very young age and I really appreciated reading about Chrono Trigger. I never got to play that game (not sure how I missed it) but I hear nothing but great about it. Video games have always stirred great emotions and I think everyone has a game that will forever be etched in their brains as an experience they will never forget. For me, it was Final Fantasy 10 and I will always remember all that it meant to me. And the day the Iwata died, I felt like I want to take some bereavement time. He will truly be missed.

  35. I have never played Chrono Trigger, which i just googled up after reading your blog. Wikipedia says it is touted to be the best Nintendo game ever. (forgive my ignorance, but i was just a month old when the game released.)

    I agree with what you say about the human’s thirst to see destruction. This is visible in some blockbusters, comics and other popular media. And i feel it is humane to do so. After all who does not love to fantasize about rising back after falling, being the hero and saving the world. Such themes are just a realization of human motives and what drives them forward.

  37. I hope you don’t mind if I repost on my blog. This article really spoke to me. I’m not surprised that this post had so many likes and comments. Wonderfully written! Thank you for bestowing your literary bounty where I was able to come across it.

  43. Omg, I love it. By the way, there is a video games expo happening at my city, Aracaju-Brazil, bringing the best consoles and games of all times and new projects as well. Chrono Trigger stand was there, and lots of people around!
    #nostalgy

    My blog: englishonme.wordpress.com/

  44. Brilliant post. Beautiful message. I grew up similarly, strongly influenced by video games (Final Fantasy 3 was the big one for me), but Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana were up there. I often think how much of who I am was formed by the strong role storytelling played in my young life. Thanks for your writing ,dude.

  45. Chronological Cross and Chino Trigger was a big part of my childhood. Good music, good story line. They don’t do that anymore. Kids these days don’t have it nearly as good as we did. Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed what you wrote.

  46. This was a thoughtful post and I liked reading it. Finding meanings in games is one of the great reasons to play them. We all have that game that stirs up emotions and stays with us long after we’re done playing.

  48. Incredible writing! I feel similarly about Chrono Trigger, I grew up with that game and it seemed so epic and larger-than-life to me, so much more than just a video-game or a story; I think you described it perfectly. Wonderful post and your writing is phenomenal! I think I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone to “get” Chrono Trigger and to describe it in that way, I’ve never been able to describe it so aptly! Thank you!!

  51. This piece is incredible. Wow. I think the way you have described the dynamic between creation and destruction and so well weaved an understanding of our desire and inability to go back and fix things is so insightful. This piece has great depth of feeling and place and feels very of the moment we are living.

  52. This was an amazing post, and not at all what I was expecting when I saw the Chrono Trigger screenshots. You actually gave me goosebumps when you started talking about how we want conflict, because as a writer I see exactly what you’re talking about, and it’s a little bit scary.
    Thanks so much for sharing this. It was absolutely amazing and to use one of my favorite video games of all time in this way was so surprising and different. You are quite a talented writer and one hell of a thinker.

  56. This is excellent! I too loved the old school JRPGs 🙂 Chrono Trigger being in the top three all time favorites! My favorite will still have to be FF3

    I just started my own blog – check out my writeups on non-RPG content here:

    alwaysbechanging.net

  58. Final Fantasy is my favorite also. But my first FF game was Mystic Quest-I think it was the one that upset a lot of people because of the dumbed-down, simplicity of it, but I loved it still. I even love the music. I think part of what makes that series survive and stand out is the character design and the music 🙂

  59. I feel you bro. I end up playing Suikoden 1 and 2, for uncountable times because everytime I finished it, a piece of my heart left in the game. And it is still there, in the game. Maybe this kind of rpg games who brought me to who I am right now. Just like the game, every actions-every options you clicked- bring you to the future. And there is no way back.

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