Marcel Winatschek

Chrono Trigger Again

Grabbed the DS remake of Chrono Trigger after hours of trudging through the Berlin rain. Got home soaked through, turned it on before I even changed, and fell straight back in. Three seconds and I’d remembered every path, every detail—the weight of that whole world.

I was thirteen when I played the original on my SNES. The save system was broken, or I couldn’t figure it out, so I just stayed up and played through the entire thing in one long push. Three days and nights without sleeping, basically. That’s the kind of thing that burns itself into your brain at that age—you have nowhere to be, nothing else to do, so the game becomes the entire world. Soundtrack. Characters. Every detail.

I rename them as I go through this time. I’m Marcel. Becca gets to be the character with actual agency, which tracks because she’s my friend and she actually makes things. Hannah’s the spoiled princess. The frog I still haven’t named. Frog’s too obvious, but maybe that’s okay.