Good morning, amazing Chrono Trigger advert!

The point of minimalist advertising is that it stands out. People reading magazines tend to expect every page to be packed full of information and images. When they turn the page and see an entirely black page with that line on it, it'll catch the reader's attention more than a "conventional" advertisement. Those that notice and get the reference, like you said, are probably already going to buy the game. But the rest may remember seeing the advert later and visit the site, and possibly buy the game. Hence, good advertising.

I disagree. I think minimalism is overdone these days, and while the basic idea of it is to be noticed for being so plain, these plain ads are just about everywhere, and as such, are unremarkable, and worse yet, completely unmemorable because they are so damned minimalistic.

And yeah, this ad is only for people who have played the game before. And those people have already pre-ordered it, and the matching Crono Trigger bed sheets and curtains. Do they think that this game just won't sell? And if so, are they mad? It's a brilliant game. It just needs to be promoted in a way that doesn't appeal strictly to people who have already played it and won't care about the adverts!

I've never played the original Chrono Trigger, (though I've heard of it, and read an old review in Nintendo Power,) but I'd easily get, from the view of someone who hasn't played the game, that it's a remake of an old game (pixelated font) and that it involves time travel somehow (2008 *A.D.*).

"Awesome" "Toriyama"

Does not compute.

I haven't played Chrono Trigger, but from what I gather about it the skips in time throughout the game are so drastic that times have to be categorized as B.C. and A.D. It seems to be a little in-joke for the fans.


Anyway, I'm going to have to agree with those who are critical of the ad. Ports/remakes are generally made for those who played the original version of a game when it was out, so these kind of game references seem kind of redundant. It's possible that there are Chrono Trigger fans who aren't aware of CTDS yet, but I think Square-Enix's main concern should be trying to convince people who have never played the game why they should. Do they honestly think Toriyama's art for the game is so repulsive that a whole page of black is better?

It's "CE" and "BCE" nowadays.

For myself, I'm not changing my vocabulary to bend to someone else's political correctness.