Square Enix Is Fixing Chrono Trigger's Awful PC Port

Back in February, Square Enix made a bunch of JRPG fan very happy by finally bringing Chrono Trigger to Steam. That excitement was quickly quashed by the realization that the PC version was actually a port of Chrono Trigger's mobile release. While the mobile version of Chrono Trigger worked well enough on phones, it didn't translate all that well to PC, and fans of the game were quick to lodge their displeasure.There are a lot of things wrong with Chrono Trigger on PC. The game's otherwise beautiful sprites have been subject to questionable filter work, remnants of the touch controls Square Enix created for mobile remain on PC, and the PC version even retains the game's mobile UI, making it look like a mess on larger displays.

Those who have played Square Enix's mobile games (which frequently get ported to PC later) are no stranger to these attempts at "modernizing" classic titles. Square Enix has done some curious things with other JRPG greats like Final Fantasy VI, which went over about as well as Chrono Trigger did with the PC crowd. In short: Square Enix has a lot of great, classic titles in its repertoire, and these re-releases on PC very rarely do them justice.

Today, however, things took a surprising (and rather happy) turn. In an update posted to Chrono Trigger's Steam page, Square Enix revealed that it will begin fixing the problems fans have with the PC version. In patch coming up in the first half of this month, Square Enix will "include an option to switch between the current high-resolution graphics, and the original graphical style of Chrono Trigger."

Full patch notes will follow once we get closer to its release, but this news is exciting enough on its own. Chrono Trigger was one of the best-looking games of the 16-bit era, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a fan who would say its graphics needed updating in modern re-releases. This is just the first of "a number" of patches Square Enix will release over the next few months in order to address the complaints fans have made.

There will still be more problems with the PC version of Chrono Trigger after this patch is applied, but hopefully those get sorted out in the coming months. The hope is that Square Enix eventually gets rid of the mobile UI as well (or that a UI rework will be included in this patch), but there's no guarantee that'll happen. At any rate, we'll keep an ear to the ground for more, so stay tuned.