The GWJ JRPG Club - Q4 2020 - Chrono Trigger!

hbi2k wrote:
brokenclavicle wrote:

A good chunk of the fights in the game can be skirted if you walk slowly and time your trajectory carefully.

I don't find tip-toeing around an invisible pixel that triggers an encounter fun either.

Probably because I read this discussion, I just had to try sneaking between the shield guards in the prison tower. I believe it has to be pixel perfect. I missed the first try and got the second.

I also died on the boss there and had to restart the fight. So much for my speedrunning career.

Another 30 minutes in tonight. In the beginning stages still, just hit Level 3.

Party of three at the moment, and the plot is coming together nicely.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Another 30 minutes in tonight. In the beginning stages still, just hit Level 3.

Party of three at the moment, and the plot is coming together nicely.

I love it when a plot comes together.

Put in some solid time tonight. Just picked up a robo companion. Amazing how many animations there are in this game. The enemies in the cathedral sliding down the bannisters were a real treat.

Hmm... was rummaging around my storage unit looking for something unrelated and came upon my old 3DS with the DS cartridge version of the game.

Start now, or wait a week for my Retroid to show up? Decisions, decisions....

I ended up going with my Pocket Go 2. I figured why put up with load times on Vita when the PG had been collecting dust for a while. And having save states is just convenient. I have to use earbuds because the single speaker is garbage but pretty great otherwise.

I put some time into this game over the past few nights, and made made some good progress. I’ve got a random assortment of thoughts.

-How could the future be so bad, but the bass lines so good?
-On an equipment note, I love giving Chrono the Rage Band, so he can counter attack all the time. That’s gotten me a number of quicker kills, and I sort of remember using that on my previous playthrough.
-I also think the fight across the bridge in the past is one of my favorite moments in the game, especially for how desperate the boss fight feels.
-I also like how the game, and even the dungeons, are just clipping along nicely. Some of the ones in the future felt like they dragged a bit, but that was probably just due to the number of enemies and how slow some of their attacks are.
-This game also has way more goofy humor with the enemies than I remembered
-I’ve now made it up to when we go back in the day. Way, way back in the day. I definitely remember this part of the game, but several dungeons along the way had totally slipped my mind.

Sundown wrote:

I put some time into this game over the past few nights, and made made some good progress. I’ve got a random assortment of thoughts.

-How could the future be so bad

Global warming.

Sundown wrote:

I put some time into this game over the past few nights, and made made some good progress. I’ve got a random assortment of thoughts.

...
-I also like how the game, and even the dungeons, are just clipping along nicely. Some of the ones in the future felt like they dragged a bit, but that was probably just due to the number of enemies and how slow some of their attacks are.
-This game also has way more goofy humor with the enemies than I remembered
...

Yes, I've noticed both of those too! I'm about an hour in, now: I've completed the first, Back to the Future-esque quest and dungeon, and have returned to present-day. It's kind of amazing that I could do that in an hour. If Chrono Trigger were made today, I think I'd still be at the Millenial Fair.

A couple random thoughts:
* I had totally forgotten the name of Chrono's hometown! Truce - I like it.
* I had also forgotten how early the game presents you with those sealed chests, which can't be opened for hours.
* There are a lot of nice little nuggets, even this early on, which tease at developments later. I especially love the caveman dance and the Green Jogger at the Fair -- and the blacksmith, in 600 AD, who wishes for a daughter like Lucca.
* I love the Yakra subplot -- and its eventual resolution.
* Sometimes I think about how much video games have taught me vocabulary. Chrono Trigger taught me the names that Christian tradition has given to the three wise men. I imagine if you knew those going in, certain characters would jump right out at you.

Also metal musicians!

Made it back from the future to the present time but on a totally different land mass which threw me for a bit. Also, looks like I have the option to go back to the stone-age but I'm passing on that for now. Some of the future interiors threw me a bit, had trouble working out what parts of the levels I could access. Loved it overall though.

I just beat Johnny in a race. It's really weird seeing SuperFX graphics in a "Steam game".

Broke down and started the DS version up. The UI redesign for the dual screens really is so smart, it's incredibly nice not to have the battle screen cluttered up with menus.

Named the first two character "Brono" and "Bucca" in tribute to Ryan Davis and Patrick Klepek's Giant Bomb Endurance Run of the game years back. Named the third character "Nadia" because I never get tired of seeing the characters amazed that Nadia was actually Nadia all along. I expect I'll do similar shenanigans with Glenn, Janus, and R-66Y.

Played for about a half hour, horsed around in the fair, fought this guy:

hbi2k wrote:

Named the first two character "Brono" and "Bucca" in tribute to Ryan Davis and Patrick Klepek's Giant Bomb Endurance Run of the game years back. Named the third character "Nadia" because I never get tired of seeing the characters amazed that Nadia was actually Nadia all along. I expect I'll do similar shenanigans with Glenn, Janus, and R-66Y.

I did exactly those same things in my old games.

LastSurprise wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

Named the first two character "Brono" and "Bucca" in tribute to Ryan Davis and Patrick Klepek's Giant Bomb Endurance Run of the game years back. Named the third character "Nadia" because I never get tired of seeing the characters amazed that Nadia was actually Nadia all along. I expect I'll do similar shenanigans with Glenn, Janus, and R-66Y.

I did exactly those same things in my old games.

Any good names for R-66Y? I left mine as "Robo", but kinda instantly regretted not naming it "R-080" or maybe "R-2D2".

Nadia can be Marle if she wants, but I agree on the robot.

“R-66Y? That’s a terrible name! Chrono, think of something better!”

“Okay, how about R-66Y?”

“That’s perfect!”

The very first time I played CT back in 6th grade, it was at a friend’s house, and he named Robo “Bolts”. He’s always been Bolts in my head.

I always found it pretty goofy that Princess Nadia apparently came up with the name Marle on the spot, the party figures out her real name like three hours later (or 400 years earlier, I suppose, depending on how you look at it), and yet as far as we can tell, she continues to answer to "Marle" as if it were her real name for the rest of her life.

hbi2k wrote:

Broke down and started the DS version up. The UI redesign for the dual screens really is so smart, it's incredibly nice not to have the battle screen cluttered up with menus.

I forgot how much I like the bottom screen map and how it fills out with progress.

I'm going with "classic" mode; as much as I would like the top screen to be uncluttered, I'm getting disoriented looking from screen to screen during battle.

Otherwise, the game is holding true to my nostalgia and it's a wonderful feeling.

So Lucca's invention makes someone disappear with no indication of what went wrong or if they're dead or what, Taban tells the crowd, "show's over," and the crowd... obediently leaves without a word.

I hope at least one of them went off to tell the guards that this madman probably just got someone killed and is trying to cover it up.

Doubtful, it would have come up during the trial I think.

I think it can be explained by the Japanese inclination toward not making a fuss.

hbi2k wrote:

I always found it pretty goofy that Princess Nadia apparently came up with the name Marle on the spot, the party figures out her real name like three hours later (or 400 years earlier, I suppose, depending on how you look at it), and yet as far as we can tell, she continues to answer to "Marle" as if it were her real name for the rest of her life.

In fact, the Princess tells Lucca "please call me Marle" as soon as Lucca and Chrono rescue her! It's weird, for sure.

Maybe she doesn't like her name? Nadia Guardia is a little rhymey.

It's a small thing, but how nice is it that they added "Equip" to the shop menu in the DS version?

On the other hand, things this game gets right. BGM doesn't reset every time you have a battle. You can walk away while someone is still talking. Minor cut scenes play out while you still have control of your character. Defeating a boss dumps you back outside. Compared to its contemporaries, it's kind of amazing.

I'm fighting every battle to (a) fill in the map and (b) soak in all the charm.

I like how the BGM changes in the bestiary when a boss is selected.

hbi2k wrote:

It's a small thing, but how nice is it that they added "Equip" to the shop menu in the DS version?

So nice!

I got rickrolled by a robot.

Took the detour into the sewers for the Rage Band. I remembered that being some kind of sequence break, but it turns out it's balanced like the devs expected you to go there.

I'm right about to go into the sewers. I'm not sure if I skipped it the first time around, or what, but I definitely remember bypassing the sewers the first time around -- then coming back and finding I was way overlevelled.

I'm struck by how short the dungeons are, compared to any modern game. And, probably, compared to how I perceived them when I was 13.

Also, by how choppy the dialogue is in 16-bit era games, compared to dialogue now! There's a lot that sounds just a little off, if you picture the dialogue as representing all of a conversation between two people. But I think dialogue in a game like this, or the earlier Final Fantasies and Dragon Quests, leaves a little more room for the player's imagination to fill in the details.

So this is on sale on Steam right now.

Might dig out the old DS cart and join y'all. Although I've been meaning to flash my NES Classic, I would be more likely to play portable.

As for the discussion the other day, I think I did 8 or 9 endings on SNES back around 2000 when I finally got around to this game the first time and there were guides on gameFAQs to help me.

When I got it again on DS I think I stopped after 3 or 4.

I just dug out my DS cart. I have hazy memories of getting one ending on the SNES back in the day, but I've yet to complete a replay despite starting several - maybe this is the time!

I've always been in love with the music from this game, and among so many amazing renditions it spawned one of my favorite arrangement albums of all time, Yasunori Mitsuda's acid jazz take on his own OST:

LastSurprise wrote:

I'm right about to go into the sewers. I'm not sure if I skipped it the first time around, or what, but I definitely remember bypassing the sewers the first time around -- then coming back and finding I was way overlevelled.

Finished the sewers, talked to Balthasar, and got Robo. The sewers were scaled just about right for my level. I still suspect I might have skipped them originally, though, because I definitely do not remember the scene in Balthasar's lab ...

Spoiler:

Where he is clearly in the process of loading his consciousness into the Nu. I definitely remember stumbling on him later in the game, after his consciousness was transferred.

The dialogue with Balthasar was definitely a little odd. It's purely foreshadowing -- "Have you seen these things that I've built?" But why would he ask three strangers if they've ever seen his masterpieces, when those masterpieces last existed aeons ago? It reminded me of awkward dialogue from early Final Fantasy games, where people tell you -- apropos of nothing -- information that will only become useful much later on.