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Jenny Creeg Don't even start, you know how many times people ask me that? View all articles | Contact author

The problem with remakes and ports for the critic, especially those of old beloved games, is emotional baggage. It's difficult to give a cold, measured critique of something you've loved since childhood. How can you give an objective appraisal when every time you hear the game's start-up melody your mind soaks happy in memories of warm endless school holidays, and that delicious, pure, all-encompassing escapism unique to children who play videogames? This game's story is also a part of my story, so it's impossible to get much distance between the two.

But for fans of the original game, there is no risk in coming to reassess those long-held opinions. Chrono Trigger is a masterclass in RPG design, its execution so far beyond the quality and poise of contemporary JRPGs it's embarrassing. It represents the work of a company at the very top of its field, a team of designers so confident with the rules that they helped establish that they felt free to subvert and invert them to glorious effect. While this is a game presented in simple 2D sprites and count-the-frames animations, its underlying maturity and creativity is somehow all the more potent for it. And in this DS update, everyone has the chance to turn back the clock to see how, in many ways, the Japanese RPG's brightest future still lies in its past.

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