Chrono Trigger (Japanese: クロノ・トリガー, Hepburn: Kurono Torigā) is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. Chrono Trigger's development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, a freelance designer and creator of Enix's popular Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, a freelance manga artist famed for his work with Dragon Quest and Dragon Ball. Kazuhiko Aoki produced the game, Masato Kato wrote most of the plot, while composer Yasunori Mitsuda scored most of the game before falling ill and deferring the remaining tracks to Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu. The game's story follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe.
Square re-released a ported version by Tose in Japan for the PlayStation in 1999, later repackaged with a Final Fantasy IV port as Final Fantasy Chronicles in 2001 for the North American market. A slightly enhanced Chrono Trigger, again ported by Tose, was released for the Nintendo DS on November 25, 2008, in North America and Japan, and went on sale in Australia on February 3, 2009 and in Europe on February 6, 2009. The game was never released in PAL territories before the Nintendo DS version.
Chrono Trigger was a critical and commercial success upon release and is frequently cited as one of the best video games of all time. Nintendo Power magazine described aspects of Chrono Trigger as revolutionary, including its multiple endings, plot-related sidequests focusing on character development, unique battle system, and detailed graphics. Chrono Trigger was the third best-selling game of 1995, and the game's SNES and PlayStation iterations have shipped 2.65 million copies as of March 2003. The version for the Nintendo DS sold 790,000 copies as of March 2009. Chrono Trigger was also ported to mobile phones, Virtual Console, the PlayStation Network, iOS devices, and Android devices.
