In this video essay I analyze Chrono Trigger as one of the high points of the 90s JRPG: not just a game, but a self-sufficient symbolic world, a real interactive epic.
Starting from the context of the console war between the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis, I explore the differences between Square’s and Nintendo’s philosophy, comparing Shigeru Miyamoto’s “akoniwa” design with the epic and cosmological approach of the “Dream Team”.
Through a reading inspired by Jean Baudrillard, the video proposes a thesis: JRPGs as simulacra, autonomous worlds that do not represent reality, but rewrite it in mythological form, offering the player a space for escape, interpretation and meaning.
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