31 Years Later, Square Enix's Greatest RPG Remains A 10/10 Masterpiece
Square Enix is easily the gaming industry's finest purveyor of RPGs, with the sheer number of iconic IPs within the genre tucked neatly into its belt far surpassing any other developer and publisher in terms of both impact and quality. From Dragon Quest to Final Fantasy and absolutely everything in between, there is no shortage of brilliance and genuine masterclass design to be found in Square Enix's long history of incredible, meaningful, and impactful RPGs.
However, nestled within all of Square Enix's greatest RPGs is one particular title that stands out above all of the rest. It isn't merely a great game, or even an amazing one, but a true masterpiece, a game that has inspired several generations of RPGs and JRPGs and continues to influence the direction the genre takes to this very day. Despite having been released over 30 years ago, Square Enix's greatest RPG remains a triumph in game design, narrative work, and soundtrack composition, and is a must-play for absolutely everyone who has even a passing interest in the genre.
Square Enix Rarely Misses When It Comes To RPGs
Of course, as important as it is to praise absolutely everything about Square Enix's greatest masterpiece to date, it is first necessary to acknowledge just how phenomenal the studio has been at delivering consistently great RPGs well into the modern era. While one could reasonably criticize the company for failing to adjust as fast as other developers to the numerous much-needed changes the genre has undergone, and can easily criticize it for failing to modernize a long-dormant franchise in much need of restoration, Square Enix has done a lot for the JRPG and RPG genres over the past several decades.
Even in 2026, Square Enix continues to deliver not just amazing new entries in existing RPG franchises that have long dominated the genre's charts, but also brand-new IPs that offer expansive new experiences that are just as worth playing and just as impactful as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were when they came out. One only has to look at the likes of Octopath Traveler or even the recent The Adventures of Elliot games to see how far Square Enix has come and how much it continues to contribute to the genre.
However, that being said, it is hard to deny that among all of Square Enix's best legacy games and phenomenal new entries stands a title so good that, even after a whopping 31 years, it remains a highlight of the genre. I am, of course, talking about Chrono Trigger, the game designed by the genre's finest creatives, the game that revolutionized many of the genre's weakest systems, and the game that continues to prove that JRPGs are the very best at delivering meaningful and genuinely emotional narratives in video game form.
Chrono Trigger Is As Important Today As It Was In 1995
When Chrono Trigger was released in 1995, it was hailed as a revolutionary masterpiece that ostensibly fixed the biggest issues facing the genre at the time. Its story was profoundly moving, filled with phenomenally written and multidimensional characters that left an impact on the player, it abandoned random encounters in favor of enemies that appeared on the map, it's pacing was swift and lacked any of the mind-numbing filler that featured in so many games of the era, and its soundtrack was one of the greatest in the genre, if not all video games at the time.
30 years have past since then, and one would be forgiven for assuming that it has aged poorly or feels less special by today's standards. However, Chrono Trigger not only remains one of the most essential turn-based JRPGs of all time, but also the gold standard for the entire genre. This is, largely, thanks to it featuring the talents of Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy's creator), Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest's creator), Yasunori Mitsuda (Xenoblade composer), Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy composer), Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball creator and Dragon Quest character designer), among several other prolific and prominent JRPG creatives.
This dream team pooled together everything they had learned through the creation of all the aforementioned incredible RPGs to deliver an experience that was truly genre-defining, an experience that would set the bar so exponentially high, that even Square Enix's best efforts today fail to come even remotely close to encapsulating its brilliance. Chrono Trigger remains just an important game today as it did 31 years ago, but for different reasons. In 1995, it symbolized progression and innovation, and in 2026 (and beyond) it symbolizes the power of unbridled creativity and the benefits of creative-led design over committee-led design.
One can only hope that Chrono Trigger continues to resonate with fans and that newcomers have easily accessible ways to play it. It is confoundly perplexing that Square Enix hasn't ported its greatest RPG to modern hardware (beyond PC), or even remade or remastered it, considering its dogmatic fanbase have long been requesting it. Hopefully, Square Enix gets the memo and eventually does, at the very least, port Chrono Trigger to preserve it and ensure its legacy lives on, if only to inspire other developers to pour everything into their projects and offer up something just as revolutionary.