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The legacy of Akira Toriyama will always be associated with Dragon Ball, and for good reason. Few properties (manga, comics, or otherwise) have had the same pop culture penetration that Dragon Ball has. However, Toriyama made an undeniable mark on the video game world when he did the designs for the Dragon Quest series and, much later, the iconic Chrono Trigger. To me, Chrono Trigger represents a moment when Akira Toriyama was at the height of his skills as an artist.

If you ask JRPG fans which game they want to see remade or given a new sequel, chances are good that they will mention Chrono Trigger. It was innovative in many ways, introducing multiple endings and a New Game+ mode to the genre, but it has always been the characters that made it such an enduring entry in JRPG history. Characters that were designed by none other than Akira Toriyama.

This wasn’t Toriyama’s first foray into video games; he had started working with the Dragon Quest series back in 1987, just a few years after Dragon Ball originally launched. But Chrono Trigger came several years later. It launched in 1995, the same year that Dragon Ball’s original manga run would come to an end, though Toriyama’s involvement in Chrono Trigger development began in 1992. In fact, he was involved in the game from the very first brainstorming session and would stay involved throughout its development. With nearly a decade more experience and a position as one of the most well-known mangaka in history firmly in place, Toriyama was free to leave his undeniable style on the game in a way few other character designers can.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see Dragon Ball’s influence in places like Crono’s hair or Marle’s face. You can pretty easily see how Arale became Lucca over time. But there is more that makes it clear that Toriyama was given pretty free rein to design the world of Chrono Trigger. His love of designing vehicles gave us Robo, the Epoch, and the fight against the Dragon Tank. Heck, Ayla is running around with a tail and an insatiable need to fight things. This feels like a Toriyama-created world, even when so many people also had their hands in it.

The thing that is so impressive about the artwork on Chrono Trigger is the immediate sense of life and energy you get from each character. Remember that this was after Toriyama had been making manga weekly for well over a decade. Dr. Slump ran from 1981 to 1986, and Dragon Ball ran from 1984 to 1995. By the time Chrono Trigger came around, he was at the very height of his power. You can see it in the way Crono’s arm is posed, as though he were ready to leap into an attack. The look of mischief and fun in Marle’s eyes. The humanity in the inhuman face of Robo. The mocking sneer of Magus. It only takes a quick glance to understand these characters, even if you don’t know anything about the game and that is because Toriyama knew what he was doing.

We’re about to close out 2025, which marks the 30th anniversary of Chrono Trigger’s original release in Japan. While it represents a lot of things to me as a JRPG fan, it is also something of a time capsule for the incredible talent and influence of Akira Toriyama. It is a snapshot of a moment when he was at the pinnacle of his talent and influence. Dragon Ball will forever be Toriyama’s legacy, but Chrono Trigger is perhaps the purest example of his skills in his long career.

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