Chrono Trigger

Combat works differently from the RPGs of those years. There are no random encounters, the enemy is visible on the same map you walk on, and the fight starts right there, without a fade-out or a switch to a separate screen. The positions are kept, so area attacks hit whoever is standing nearby, and the enemy's position becomes part of the calculation. The readiness gauge runs continuously, so you don't wait for your turn in silence. Techniques combine: two or three characters spend their ready actions on one shared move, and the set of available combinations depends on who is in the party right now.

Time travel works as switching between layers of the same terrain. The eras are linked by gates, the forest and the mountain stay where they are, what has grown on them changes, and something done in the distant past turns up thousands of years later. There are several endings, and they depend on the stage at which the player decides to take on the final battle. A finished game can be started again while keeping what the party has accumulated, and a second run stops being a replay: it's there to see the other outcomes. The character designs were by Akira Toriyama.