Here’s the new member of our cross-stitch crew: a Roly-Poly from Chrono Trigger. He’s not here because I have any particular appreciation for him personally, but basically just to represent for Chrono Trigger as a whole. I have played a lot of Japanese RPG games in my life; of the few that I’ve actually bothered to finish, Chrono Trigger is right up at the top. My top three JRPGs would probably be Chrono Trigger, Shadow Hearts: Covenant, and… well, let’s make it a top 5 and say Mother 3, Wild Arms 3, and Final Fantasy 6. And Skies of Arcadia. Anyway, Chrono Trigger is just a damn good game.

Unfortunately, it’s a damn good game with piss-poor character design. The sprites for your actual party members are pretty decent, but this is a no-humans-allowed cross-stitch. So just try and name a cute, iconic monster or mascot character from Chrono Trigger — one that isn’t a dull gray blob. The Nu, which looks like a giant blueberry with Down Syndrome? The imps, who are little green men with, no exaggeration, asses for heads?

It’s all Akira Toriyama’s fault, of course. He’s the guy that did the character design. He’s also the guy who created Dragonball Z. You know, the anime that people who have never seen anime watch for five minutes before thinking “What the hell is this terrible bullshit?” and deciding that they hate anime? They brought him back for the DS rerelease of Chrono Trigger, to do some anime cutscenes for important game events. He gave all the characters little squinty eyes and gigantic foreheads, just like in Dragonball Z. They’re unwatchably grotesque.

But anyway, apart from that, Chrono Trigger is an excellent game, and you need to play it if you haven’t.