Characters

Chrono Trigger is perhaps best defined by its characters, and their interactions with each other. There's a lot that goes into making a good party. This page will give you a quick overview of each character to make that decision easier.

Crono

A fairly strong fighter with some decent magic techs. While Luminaire is less impressive than its competitors, Dark Matter and Flare, it's still fairly good and reliable damage. Crono is generally more item dependant than the rest of the cast, however it's not hard to find a good weapon for him in most cases. Crono, being the main character of the game, has many combo techs with other characters. Most of them are decent to pretty good, but the standouts are Ice Sword 2 with Marle, Fire Sword 2 with Lucca, and Falcon Hit with Ayla.

Marle

The closest thing Chrono Trigger has to a "dedicated healer", Marle has many powerful restorative techs. Her best tech arguably is Haste, which often doubles the speed at which a character's ATB fills up. Needless to say, this is often quite powerful, especially on high offense characters. Ironically, the main downside to using this is Marle's base speed, which is quite slow. Life 2 is also incredibly strong, since it revives characters at full HP, which helps avoiding a revive/cure spiral. Cure 2 not only heals characters to full, it also cures them of any negative statuses. Marle's offense on her own is sketchy, her best offensive option is Ice 2 which just doesn't scale up well for the late game. However she has some great combos with other characters. The most notable one is Antipode 3 with Lucca, however Cube Toss with Ayla and Glacier with Frog are also pretty powerful and worthwhile.

Lucca

Chrono Trigger's dedicated wizard, Lucca comes with many powerful offensive techs. As you might expect, they are all fire oriented. Hypno Wave is situational, but extremely effective for the right situations. Protect is a good defensive spell, cutting physical damage taken by 1/3rd. The rest of her offensive techs are pretty self explanatory. Lucca struggles a little with focused single target damage, however a certain gun and various combos with other characters can help out with that. A very powerful character, though not without downsides. The most prominent one being her low speed. Recommended combos are Ayla for Blaze Kick, Marle for Antipode 3 and Crono for Fire Sword 2.

Robo

Perhaps the most versatile character, Robo can heal characters, dish out a ton of physical damage, and also inflict aoe magic damage. Of these, he perhaps excels at physical damage; while his healing and magic damage are passable, they are greatly dragged down by his low magic stat. Thankfully, enough magic tabs can shore both up decently, with healing being improved considerably more that way. Robo also has many potent combos with characters, just like Crono. They are sometimes limited by range, but they are still worthwhile to cast if lined up right. Keep in mind that Robo has a low starting speed, so if you're having problems with fast bosses and enemies, you should reconsider using him. Recommended combinations are Super Volt with Crono, DoublevBomb with Lucca and Beast Toss with Ayla.

Frog

Frog is akin to Robo in many ways, but he focuses on healing and gimmicky damage techs. Frog is easily the best healer in the game, with strong aoe healing with Heal and good single target heals with Cure 2. His physical and magic damage techs don't scale very well, but Frog Squash is very potent damage if you can set it up, especially with a Earring on. However this is quite tricky to pull off. If you find Frog's Hero Medal and Grand Leon, he can be a great conventional fighter, but that's a big if. Frog's best combos are Frog Flare with Lucca, Drop Kick with Ayla and Glacier with Marle.

Ayla

Chrono Trigger's monk, Ayla excels at raw physical damage. Naturally, her damage is more dependant on level than other characters, but with a little care in that direction she's quite potent. Tail Spin is solid(for a monk) magic damage that ignores target defense, Rock Throw is great for the enemies affected by it. The rest of her techs are fairly self explanatory. Ayla's best combos are Blaze Kick with Lucca, Beast Toss with Robo, and Glacier with Marle. Special mention must be given to Boogie with Robo: aoe Stop is quite potent when it works.

Magus

Magus is a second offensive wizard, however he's dramatically different from Lucca. First, he focuses on versatility more than power, with Fire 2, Ice 2 and Lightning 2 all present in his arsenal. They are less strong than the equivalent spells from the original characters, however they still come in handy for situations requiring specific elements. Second, rather than peaking in power like Lucca does, he tends to overshadow her with his spells, and gradually fall off later. For instance, DarkMatter is certainly powerful, but noticeably less effective than Flare. Similarly Dark Bomb is great, but considerably weaker than Mega Bomb. Thirdly, Magus hates cooperating with anyone. He simply doesn't have a single dual tech, and even his triple techs depend on rocks. Lastly, Magus actually starts with pretty good gear and can get both good physical and magical defenses. The most notable piece being the free Amulet. Much like Lucca, Magus is bad at focused single target damage, with his only real tech there being Anti Life, a potent yet risky spell that kills him on use. Overall, Magus is a very dependable character for magical offense, and worth putting in any team that needs a dash of magic.