Do you have a game in your history as a gamer that you didn't grow up loving, but seemingly all of your friends did? I grew up playing the GameBoy and Nintendo 64 primarily, which are both great consoles that left me with lifelong memories, but they're both lacking in one major genre- JRPGs. My first JPRG was probably Golden Sun, all the way on the GameBoy Advance, or maybe Final Fantasy VI, also on the GBA. But all this time, I had heard from friends about this incredible game for Super Nintendo called Chrono Trigger, but used cartridges were expensive, even back then. So in the end, Chrono Trigger fell into that list of games that I would have liked to play, but thought I wouldn't get the chance.
Fast forward to 2020, when I was looking through the iPhone App Store for a game to play on my lunch breaks at work. Square Enix had ported some Final Fantasy games for iOS, but lo and behold, there was Chrono Trigger! So I bought it, played on my lunch breaks, thought it was fine, and put the game down. It wasn't until a few years later when I realized that I just don't jive with RPGs on my phone- too tough to pay attention. Chrono Trigger ended up getting a second chance on my new (used) 3DS- and the rest was history. An episode of Tales from the Backlog was bound to happen.
Joining me for episode 43 of Tales from the Backlog is Josh Covel, host of Still Loading. Still Loading is a video games variety podcast, self-described as "a podcast on video games, their culture and their history", with episodes ranging from game reviews, retrospectives, developer interviews and podcaster interviews. Josh has been doing Still Loading for a long time, and this is a professional show with great insights into game development, storytelling and content creation. You can find Still Loading on Twitter, Instagram, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Twitch.
You can listen to episode 43 of Tales from the Backlog (Chrono Trigger) of Tales from the Backlog in the player below, or you can follow the links to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podcast Addict, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or search "Tales from the Backlog" in your favorite podcast app!