I don't think you'll be missing anything at all by using an emulator. https://edgeemu.net was the gold standard for rom repositories back in the day, and I'm pleased to see it's still up and kicking!
I personally love the SNES version, many people say the DS version is the definitive, though I dislike the anime cutscenes from the PS1 it includes, the new translation, and the additions they made are awful.
I've heard the PC version has been fixed and is a great way to play it now, as well.
Yeah, I probably could've gotten through it, but the combination of the crappy screen controls, cooldown timer, and difficult boss fight frustrated me. I bailed at the Magus fight, though I think being higher level would've helped.
I think playing on my PC would've been a lot less frustrating, so that's what I recommend. Play it with a keyboard or a controller, not screen controls, though maybe the official app is better.
I beat it on a windows ME emulator my first time, probably 23 years ago or something. Was enjoyable with an ancient crappy controller. Znes blew my mind!
Beat it earlier this year (and several times in between ) on retroarch on a hacked switch and it was excellent! Especially with the 8bitdo controllers.
Haven't tried DS but PS1 load times annoyed me.
Played it on the Wii virtual console and the classic controller was okay.
Any version aside from the the PSX version (as part of the Final Fantasy Chronicles package) is fine to play. That one has loading pauses, doesn't make for an optimal experience.
I've also had a few people from the EU tell me the original English script for the game was a bit too "American-ized" for their tastes, in case that's a potential issue. The DS and later versions all have the revised script.
Just get the original ROM. The only thing that won't be true to the actual cart is the old man predicting the races will almost never be right instead of being right every time.
If you want it to look like it's on an old CRT, turn on the "scan lines" option in the emulator.
Chrono Trigger is one of those games that has had little modification through all its iterations. There aren't crazy differences or additions in any releases as far as I know, so it really comes down to ease of access and stability/smoothness of the game. So really minor differences.
I don't know how different the translations or scripts are though.
That said I played it on release on the SNES so my nostalgia glasses are super rose tinted.
One i don't see mentioned here is the PS3 digital download of the PS1 version. You can emulate it on RPSC3.
There's no benefit to doing so that I'm aware of, and in fact it's less convenient and probably less efficient than just using a PS1 emulator. But you can do it!