Chrono Trigger True Cast

		True Cast
		Crono: He's a true silent protagonist. Crono does a great job as the silent protagonist, too. The characters have several visual displays of emotions in this game (surprise, laughter, umm, lifting your left hand...anything at Bekkler's Lab) and Crono's, as a silent protagonist, are all very exaggerated. It's great because you can really tell what he's thinking by his actions and reactions. The best part about Crono is that he's a silent protagonist with some personality. And could anybody else take his position as main character? Naw. He's solid. Other characters are important, but Crono is the team's driving force (even in death).
		Lucca: Lucca caused it all! She's to blame for all the time travel and all the robot fixing and...everything. She's a really important role in the game and without her, you = screwed. But she does a good job at staying behind Crono the whole way. She doesn't have the heroic aspect to her that would make her the main character; she's just the mad scientist of the group. She has a stake in all of this. Her invention nearly killed Marle and the entire royal family, so she helps you save her. Then after that, her invention has an after-effect of putting Crono in jail. And after that, they see that the future is crappy and decide they have to save it. But still, both Lucca and Marle see that the world ends, get upset, and it's Crono that finally says "Nope, we're gonna save the world." Well, he doesn't say it, but you know him. Lucca pipes up and such, but Crono is still the decision-making man.
		Marle: She's the third "basically always in your party" person of the game and she also fits for being very vital to the plot. Without her, you wouldn't have as much tie to the royal families of 600 A.D. and 1000 A.D. and the royal family has a huge stake in both of those eras. She's also a vocal driving-force for your team since she constantly shouts at you or asks you to save the world. Why? Because she says so. I like that Marle is a free-spirited young woman, but she's also a princess, and both sides of her are very apparent in the game. She is spoiled, but doesn't really know it because she thinks she's a rebel. But to the task at hand: she is definitely a True Cast. She's involved in all aspects of the game whether you take her or not (she does suck in battles, though not at first).
		Frog: Frog is the only one not part of the trio that I feel makes a decent contribution to the story. One of the biggest plotlines of the game, possibly bigger than Lavos, is Magus (the villain). Frog's story establishes all of the past with Magus and unlocks, well, everything. Aside from the fact that you can't get into Magus's palace without his sword, Frog is generally a good plot contributor. He fades out a bit toward the end, but there are always sidequests like powering up the Masamune that bring him right back into it.
		Secondary Cast
		Ayla: As much as I wanted Ayla to make the True Cast, I just don't think she does. She's a village chief in 65,000,000 B.C. and she helps you the couple times you're down in that time zone, but after that, she kind of disappears. In the long run, she gets you a shiny red rock and a few dactyls to get to the Tyranno Lair. She could almost be an Unnecessary Cast, too, which is odd since I wanted to boost her to True Cast, but I think her role in the game is important, partly because this game grabs representatives from different time eras and she's the only one from the B.C. times (shh, leave Magus/Janus out of this).
		Robo: R66-Y holds little purpose in the game. He helps you activate the doors in the dome of the future, he zaps your group to the End of Time by being a fourth party member, and after that, he's background noise. Yeah, probably Unnecessary Cast, but check the Final Remarks for more on why I don't like classifying him as that.
		Unnecessary Cast
		Magus: Magus was a truly awesome villain and he had a lot of influence on the plot. The big problem is that he's a villain, not a hero. He can join you toward the end of the game, but he really shouldn't. It makes no sense. And when he does join you, he's suddenly a lot nicer and more hero-like. I use Magus quite a bit (until I get Crono back), but the fact of the matter is that by joining your party, Magus's character goes straight to the toilet. He starts out as a totally awesome villain, but ends up a useless waste of potential.
		Final Remarks      I took a little bit of gameplay into account for this True Cast, which I try not to do much, but this game has a different style than a lot of games. There aren't many times when your whole group comes out and has a conversation like some Final Fantasy games do. Once somebody officially joins your party, they are given their own unique responses for each situation. Ayla will speak broken English, Frog will speak oldschool English (and frog noises), and Robo will make clicks and beeps (and...something about English). So even though characters like Frog, Ayla, and Robo will become irrelevant right after getting them, it's different because if you take Frog, Ayla, and Robo more often than Lucca and Marle (which I often do), then you'll think that the cast is reversed because Frog and Ayla will contribute more.      The general idea of the game is that you meet all these people and you all come to the conclusion: Lavos must be stopped for the sake of the future. The only thing that makes Lucca and Marle more important is that they're around prior to that revelation. Same with Frog, only he joins you thinking that killing Magus will stop Lavos. This is a game that establishes characters, then let's you do whatever you want with them. Do you want the raw fighting power of a Crono/Frog/Ayla team? Maybe the magical powers of a Crono/Lucca/Magus team? Maybe you just like to take the 1000 A.D. crew with Crono/Marle/Lucca. There isn't a special team that if you bring them you get the best possible telling of the story. Each character will contribute in their own way. And as a game with 10 different endings, it's hard to even judge by who's more prominent in the endings because some end strangely like with everybody turning into reptites, so...who's the main character now? With such a varying gameplay, I think Crono might be the only real True Cast, but...he dies! So...ugh! They like to be complicated, but the above is how I think they belong.