I've only played bits of Chrono Trigger so I'm probably not gonna make the best contribution to this thread, but first I wanna say nostalgia probably isn't as big an aspect as some might think.
I messed around with a bit of the middle back when the game came out and I found a copy at a friend's house. I thought the graphics and time travel aspect were really impressive. Later I bought the DS version in 2008 and played a little bit into it and was really impressed. The UI felt a lot smarter than even many then-recent JRPGs (probably new to the DS port), the setting at least felt interesting without resorting to florid dialogue and hours of cut scenes like later Square games, the story incorporated player choice in a way I totally did not see coming. While I'm still not a huge fan of turn-based battles in traditional JRPGs, what I played of Chrono Trigger felt less bloated than a lot of JRPGs but still unique and interesting.
The thing is, I don't think a retro-style RPG can feel today the way Chrono Trigger must have felt in 1995. I imagine CT at the time was considered at or near the pinnacle of 16-bit console RPGs. The RPG that comes to my mind that takes a similar position in the western gaming consciousness today is actually The Witcher 3, and before it Skyrim. The next upcoming RPG everybody is viewing with similar anticipation is Cyberpunk 2077.
I'm not saying it would have to be a WRPG, but I think a big part of the reason a large chunk of the console audience, maybe just the western console audience, likes RPGs is because they tend to offer worlds that are large and immersive. That bit of Chrono Trigger kinda felt like that to me back in the 90's, and maybe it did for a lot of other people who played CT, Final Fantasy VI, and Final Fantasy VII back then too -- they were the biggest and most engrossing virtual worlds available in console games at the time. When is the last time a JRPG has even taken that crown? I don't think JRPGs ever took it back since Oblivion came out in 2006. The Final Fantasy XV demo to me felt like it was simply trying to catch up to what western open-world games had accomplished and not surpass them.
Aside from that aspect though, just being a well-written Japanese RPG that gains a lot of word of mouth in the western sphere, I think people are right when they bring up Persona 4 Golden because to me that feels like it was the last JRPG like that which had a similar effect, and it came out in 2012 and is an enhanced port of a 2008 game. Maybe DQ11 has taken that status now.
What metric are we talking about though? CT didn't sell THAT much back in the day or more recently. It's just one of the most critically-acclaimed RPGs. This year you could say The Outer Worlds and Disco Elysium are getting a similar sort of critical acclaim for being well-written RPGs that aren't the biggest games around. I'm still wondering why a new JRPG can't have a high-definition 2D production style like Disco Elysium or Pillars of Eternity.
