One of the biggest reasons why Chrono Trigger has been so influential is because it had no random encounters. Instead, it has a large set of encounters that fire when the player reaches them in the dungeons. A lot of these are skippable if desired, some require a degree of pathfinding to avoid, and some aren’t avoidable. The gameplay flows around this, and being among the first to do it, there are a couple of slow areas.
A player that knows what they are doing can proceed through the dungeons without having to stop and grind, although there are some difficulty spikes along the way (especially if you swap out to a character you haven’t been using). The endgame sidequests are technically optional, though you’ll probably want the xp/tech points/loot.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 10 months ago
It’s not grindy at all. There are no random encounters and if you just get through the encounters you can not skip, you should still be appropriately powerful to defeat the bosses.