Chrono Trigger has had quite the checkered past on Android. It originally released on the Play Store back in 2012. Later that year Android version 4.3 was released which broke the game. Square Enix left it broken until it was finally updated with a fix sometime in 2014. It has had a few updates since then, but none of them were of substance. The good news is that it appears Square Enix is finally showing some love to this classic JRPG since it was just updated with some new and useful features in order to bring it in line with their freshly released PC port.

Okay, so you are probably asking yourself "what exactly changed with this update?" Well, the graphics and sound have been improved along with new touchscreen controls, gamepad support, an auto-save feature that includes cloud saving, and a new achievement function. Surprisingly these are all features people have been asking for, and Square Enix has delivered.

Sadly not everything is sunshine and rainbows with this new update. Yesterday many users on Reddit and the Play Store pointed out that there were quite a few compatibility issues with a wide range of devices. The good news is that this appears to have been mostly sorted overnight. I did some digging, and the majority of popular Android phones are now listed as compatible, which is good to see, but your mileage may still vary. Sadly there is a lack of any Android TV support despite the new gamepad compatibility that was added in this update. Oddly enough the changelog on the Play Store yesterday listed ATV as supported and users on Reddit have confirmed that it did indeed show up as compatible. This appears to no longer be the case as the ATV feature has since been removed from the changelog and compatibility list.

It's also worth considering (since this new update is supposed to bring parity between the Android and PC release) that there are a lot of Steam reviews that haven't been very kind. Most of the complaints bring up the new graphics filter. It apparently makes the original sprites look worse. There are also complaints about blurry fonts (which match up with complaints on the Play Store) and a bad UI. With how close the Android and PC versions are to one another, these issues pointed out on Steam may also be worth contemplating before you purchase the Android version.

Now, for those of you who already own Chrono Trigger on Android, you will receive this update free of charge since it is still the same Play Store listing. All you need to do is update the app to get all of the new features. And hey, at the very least Square Enix did its older customers right by not choosing to release this as an all-new game. Credit where credit is due.

So yeah, it's great to see Square Enix adding in new features to Chrono Trigger that fans have been asking for, though it would appear many people are mixed on some of the new interface and graphical elements. It also didn't help that the game released with a wide range of compatibility issues, but luckily they appear to have been mostly sorted in a quick enough fashion. But what do you, the readers, think? Is this a good update in your opinion, or is this just more of Square Enix's expected odd behavior when dealing with their mobile games?

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