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Chrono Trigger's Box Art Still Makes My Head Buzz

I've never been a big fan of Chrono Trigger's box art. I love the game to pieces. I love its story, its music and its character designs. “Akira Toriyama” will be the last words to burst from my mouth in a bubble of blood when Mouseketeer revolutionaries, seeking to empower western animation, unsuccessfully try to force me to renounce my love for the manga-ka.

But I just don't dig on Chrono Trigger's cover illustration. It certainly doesn't rank anywhere in Mega Man's Hall of Box Art Horrors, but it's too busy, there's an inflated sense of intensity, and it was a jarring change from the quiet RPG labels I was used to in the 16-bit era. The boxes for Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III on the SNES weren't as stylish as their Super Famicom counterparts, but they were recognisable. The “T” styled as a sword in the American Final FantTasy logo, though not especially creative, was iconic. Square RPGs outside of Final Fantasy still featured calm box art that carried a hint of mystery about the contents within. Secret of Mana, for instance.

Chrono Trigger's box art, on the other hand, is bold and loud. Though it's obviously a finished piece of work, it feels like a piece of concept art that was randomly selected to represent the entire game. I look at it and I'm helpless to stop my mind from wandering into Geekville.

I start thinking, “Why is Heckran on Death Peak? Why is Crono alive on Death Peak? Wait, maybe that's 12,000,000 BC? Those winter clothes are actually kind of badass, but we never see anything like them. Why would Frog even bother to look for a contact lens that's buried in two feet of snow?” (I know, I know, it's the Arc Impulse Triple Tech—for which Marle is incorrectly casting a Fire spell).

The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History, Part 1

More than any other creative medium, videogames rely on sequels. Unlike serial fiction (television, comics) or film franchising focused on continuing narrative and familiar characters, videogame sequels — at their best, mind you — are not just the next chapter of a story or the return of a popular protagonist. The most successful gameplay designs are perfected through revision. Practice, as they say, makes perfect. And while sequel-as-business-model more often than not leads to stagnation, sometimes pandering to the audience reveals a vein of creativity richer than that found in the source material. Sometimes, a good idea needs to be demolished and rebuilt over its original foundation to become great. This week, 61 Frames Per Second takes a look at gaming's ten most adventurous sequels: direct successors that significantly alter the fundamental design, aesthetically and mechanically, of their predecessors. Some of the entries on this list are great successes, others failures. But they all broke the mold to change our ideas about play. — John Constantine

Adventure Island IV

Even as an old-school die-hard I've always been pretty indifferent to the Adventure Island series. Sure, it's solid hop-and-bopping, but without much aesthetic or architectural distinction. Does anyone feel passionately about Adventure Island, really? More people might if Adventure Island IV had come out in the States. IV melds the series's standard run-around-whacking-stuff-with-other-stuff mechanics to an ambitious Metroid-esque superstructure, in which newly acquired items must be used to open previously inaccessible sections of a large, continuous map. (The snowboard you pick up in one area gives you passage through a snowy field, and so forth.) This is a familiar tactic today — see recent Castlevania games, for example — but at the time it was unusual, and certainly not where you'd have expected a staid platforming series to go. — Peter Smith

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.