On The Bookly Reads Chrono Trigger by Michael P. Williams

Written By: Tyler
Go Here To Buy: http://bossfightbooks.com/

Rating: 5.5/10
Verdict: It's a serviceable book, and there are some inspired parts. There are also parts that I feel take up way too much time, and he reaches sometimes for his allegories and analysis.


Welcome to the first ever On The Bookly. This is an idea I've had since Earthbound by Ken Baumann, where I take a book about video games and review it. I really love reading, and I figure this is a good way to blend the world of gaming and literature. So with that said, let's get on with the review.

Chrono Trigger by Michael P. Williams is part of Boss Fight Books, which is a neat concept where authors take a game they love and then they write about it, combining their experience of replaying it with tying the themes and allegories into the real-world and their own life. Chrono Trigger tackles the SNES JRPG classic, and discusses things like the translation issues, how religion impacts the world of Chrono Trigger, time travel and a couple other things.

My main problem with the book is that some of the transitions and comparisons of the real-world to the game are just bad, or at the very least hokey. Above all, him talking about a catastrophe in Japan one paragraph and then flipping to a fictional catastrophe is an example of hokey. I understand what he was going for there, but it just didn't work.
Some of the comparisons are just him reaching way too far to find something. Some can be chalked up to limitations of a game cartridge. Chrono Trigger was a big game, so obviously some things had to be simplified. He harps on about how underpopulated the game world is a few times, but it was 1995 and there were more important things in the game to consider.

How he dissects religion and its impact in Chrono Trigger was fine, but wasn't overly in-depth. It was thrown in there but it did make logical sense, so I give him props for that at least.

Another point of contention for me is his personal life. Don't get me wrong, his life is more interesting than mine, but I criticized Earthbound -- the book -- for the same thing. Only this is worse because at least Earthbound -- again, the book -- had a heart-warming tale of the author becoming close to his brother again. I wasn't particularly intrigued enough by his life to want to read about it.

I knew this going in, but there's a lot of talk about the translation issues. He even brings in two translators to talk about their versions. I'm sure there are people who will really enjoy it, but I don't think it was interesting enough to dedicate so much time to. I couldn't believe he spent so much time in such a short book talking about it. I get it, the translation affects certain themes of the game, but it didn't actually go into a lot of detail about it. One guy gave some things more religious names, okay, cool.

If Earthbound was a love letter to the game, than Chrono Trigger seems more negative. I wondered if he even liked the game anymore. Unless I completely misunderstood, it seems like he just didn't want to play it anymore because he's played it so much. He talks about moving on from being a perfectionist and wanting to get everything, to being more casual about it. I can actually sympathize a little bit with the first part of this paragraph. I love Chrono Trigger, but I don't think I want to play it anymore. I spent a lot of my youth playing it, but this book seems to pick a lot of it apart.

What I did like was the chapter about the Lavos destruction in 1999, but his best writing was when he dissected stereotypes within the game, and it's the only time I felt like I learned something about the game. I didn't look at it in this way, but that's probably because I was a kid when I last sat down and seriously played it. It was an interesting look into how Chrono Trigger played with stereotypes of gender and sexuality, though tying in his own sexuality seemed a little meaningless, if I'm being honest.

I'm disappointed by the book, but at the same time I wonder if it was just my expectations going in. Maybe I just desired certain things from a book about one of my favourite games. It's a really short book, so maybe with more pages it could be better because he'd be able to dive deeper into the whole thing... or he'd just focus more on the bad aspects of the book. I don't know, all I can say is that the book is only okay.