Magus's three generals, Ozzie, Slash and Flea, took their names from famous musicians: Ozzy Osbourne, former vocalist of Black Sabbath; Slash, guitarist of Guns n' Roses; and Flea, bassist of Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The game's Japanese dialogue explained the Planet's involvement in the whole story much better; the Reptites worshipped the Planet, the "Entity" the characters mention was the Planet, and moreover the final chapter was not called "The Final Battle" but "At The Edge of our Planet's Dream." This is why Chrono Cross, the game's sequel, is full of Planet references that are meaningful with the original Japanese dialogue.
The character Ayla is a reference to Jean M. Auel's book series about a woman named Ayla in prehistoric times.
The game's character design and illustrations were done by Akira Toriyama, known for the Dragon Ball series.
There are more than a dozen possible endings.
The game has a special Programmer's Room where many developers left messages for players.
At the time the game was translated into English, there were very strict requirements regarding adult content in games. As such, scenes involving alcohol in the original Japanese version were changed in the script, so that your character drank soda (the carnival at the start of the game), and in some cases soup (at Ayla's camp in prehistoric times).
The Super Nintendo (1995) and PlayStation (2001) versions were never released in Europe. The PlayStation version included anime cutscenes and bonus features, but it also suffered greatly from pre-battle loading times. In 2008 the game was released for the Nintendo DS with a new translation and several new features, containing the best elements of previous versions. The same version was re-released in 2011 as a downloadable game for PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita and PlayStation Portable via the PlayStation Network. The game was available on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console channel from 16 May 2011 until the closure of the Wii Virtual Console on 26 March 2018. A Microsoft Windows version was released via Steam in 2018.
In PlayStation's re-release, composer Yasunori Mitsuda was not listed in the music credits, which were given to supervisor Nobuo Uematsu. When the Nintendo DS version was released, Uematsu's credit was once again given to Mitsuda.
Although it was not the first game to include this mode, this game coined the term New Game Plus.
Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes, an unofficial fan game produced by Kajar Laboratories, is a Chrono Trigger Rom hack that is not officially supported or approved by the company Square Enix. The game takes place between the events of Chrono Trigger and its sequel Chrono Cross. It is set 5 years after the events of Chrono Trigger. The Crimson Echoes project was started by ZeaLitY in 2004 and was planned for release on 31 May 2009. The game was completed after 98 percent of it was finished. The company Square Enix threatened Kajar Laboratories with a copyright lawsuit and sent a cease and desist letter, leading to the game's cancellation. Despite this, there are unofficial ways to play the cancelled game online or by hacking a USB drive.
When the game's original SNES version went out of print but before a reprint was made, the value of the SNES version rose rapidly. It was not unusual to see copies priced above 100 dollars on sites like eBay.
The three gurus, Balthazar, Melchior and Gaspar, took their names from the magi of the same name in the Bible.
It was Hironobu Sakaguchi who suggested that Yasunori Mitsuda compose for the project. Mitsuda was working at the company as a sound engineer and programmer at the time, and was considering quitting due to his dissatisfaction with his salary and his desire to write music.
Rumors of a possible third game in the series began when Square Enix filed a trademark application for "Chrono Break" in 2001. Various team members of the original Chrono Trigger project came forward over the years in interviews, mentioning other projects or the difficulties that prevented team members from reuniting for a third project. In a 2014 interview, Hironobu Sakaguchi stated that he hoped to move forward with a third Chrono project, but that differences between himself and Square's upper management prevented this from happening. In December 2017, Takashi Tokita stated that he had reworked various ideas of the Chrono Break project as Final Fantasy Dimensions II (2017).
Ted Woolsey was given only one month to localize the game for North America, and he had no help from a modern translation team. Woolsey memorized the scripts and looked at drafts of commercial player's guides to put the dialogue in its context. Nevertheless, Woolsey still regards Chrono Trigger as one of the most satisfying projects he has worked on.
Many musical pieces from the game were sampled by other pop artists; a notable example is Schala's Theme, which was sampled by Wiz Khalifa in "Never Been."
The game was initially planned for the future Nintendo Disk Drive and was to be connected to the Secret of Mana series. However, the cancellation of the add-on forced the team to scale down the project to fit the cartridge-based Super Nintendo (or Super Famicom, as it is known in Japan), and as a result the project team started from scratch to create a new concept.
Masato Kato was initially against the idea of time travel in the game and feared it would lead to boring and repetitive gameplay.
Early feedback from game testers complained that the game was excessively difficult.
Yasunori Mitsuda lost several music tracks that were in production due to a hard drive crash.
It is famous that Marle uses fire magic instead of ice on the box art. Akira Toriyama based this on the first prototype screenshot of the game, in which Marle used fire magic.
The game uses a variation of the Active Time Battle system that Square first used in Final Fantasy IV.
When the Super NES Classic Edition was released, the game was left off the mini console despite its popularity. However, there are hackers who have hacked the console to include the game.
In the iOS and Android versions of Chrono Trigger, there are two significant pitfalls in the design concept that did not translate very well from the original SNES and other platforms. One of them is in Arris Dome, where the player must catch the mouse to get the password code. Many players find the game very difficult because the player must operate Chrono with touchscreen controls and then quickly tab, which makes succeeding very frustrating. Later, at Death Peak, the player must hide behind the tree to prevent flying off the mountain. Because the player is walking or running, staying behind the tree can be very difficult. When the wind blows hard, continuing to run behind the tree can be very difficult, which has frustrated many iOS and Android players because they are using a touchscreen.
This game is famous for its button-mashing minigames; one of the optional ones is the soda-drinking contest at the Millennial Fair, and along with the soup-drinking contest at Alya's prehistoric dance party, it is a game that must be played. In the Super Nintendo version, if the player had a turbo controller, winning the soda-drinking and soup-drinking contest game became much easier. However, on the Nintendo DS and the Wii Virtual Console version, the player does not have a turbo button option, and therefore it is much harder to win, especially in the unavoidable soup-drinking contest with Alya, where you must mash the A button until the player finally wins and continues the game.