The GWJ JRPG Club - Q4 2020 - Chrono Trigger!

Made it to the End of TIme. Spekkio in his second (Kilwala) form consistently one-shots my dudes; I'll have to go play with him more later. He stays in that form until level 19 and my dudes are only 11.

When I was a kid I used to think it was a little weird that the old man

Spoiler:

(who turns out to be Gaspar)

discovered a portal that leads to

Spoiler:

Lavos

and put it in a bucket of all things. Now that I'm a little older, my headcanon is that the bucket is where he goes to the bathroom.

Spoiler:

Dude arrives at the end of time fresh from his entire civilization getting torched by this giant space tick, discovers a portal to the space tick that ended everything he ever knew and loved, and says, "fine, this is how it's going to be? Then I'm going to piss and sh*t on you for all eternity."

That's metal AF.

hbi2k wrote:

Spekkio in his second (Kilwala) form consistently one-shots my dudes; I'll have to go play with him more later.

It's definitely doable at your level. If I remember correctly, make sure to keep your health topped up (Aura Spin is great) and only hit him with magic.

Random post: I once won a Christmas trivia contest because of Chrono Trigger. The question that won it for me was “What are the traditional names of the three magi?”

Spoiler:

Melchior, Gasper, and Balthasar, if you didn’t know, the Three Gurus

Also random fun fact I just looked up: Chrono Trigger and Neon Genesis Evangelion both debuted in 1995. NERV uses those names for their three-way supercomputer system.

Ah, the most stressful thing about Chrono Trigger: trying to decide who to give Tabs to. I know in my head that it doesn't actually matter that much, but I constantly have this nagging feeling that I'm doing it "wrong".

I’m sticking with my usual approach: hoarding them until moments before the final battle.

It only really matters for speed, as there are a lot of good but slow characters. I typically give to Robo first and Lucca second.

Agathos wrote:

I’m sticking with my usual approach: hoarding them until moments before the final battle.

Why? They are permanent stat boosts. Why would you sit on them?

Wembley wrote:
Agathos wrote:

I’m sticking with my usual approach: hoarding them until moments before the final battle.

Why? They are permanent stat boosts. Why would you sit on them?

Because they're consumables, and that's what you do with consumables in JRPGs.

99 healing potions
99 mana potions

Never use any of them at all ever, even in the final battle, because you might need them for a final-er battle.

it's not logical, but this is the way.

merphle wrote:
Wembley wrote:
Agathos wrote:

I’m sticking with my usual approach: hoarding them until moments before the final battle.

Why? They are permanent stat boosts. Why would you sit on them?

Because they're consumables, and that's what you do with consumables in JRPGs.

99 healing potions
99 mana potions

Never use any of them at all ever, even in the final battle, because you might need them for a final-er battle.

it's not logical, but this is the way.

I used to do this all the time as well. I have been consciously making an effort recently to just use the them when I need to. Trails of Cold Steel helped a lot with this by making the cooked consumables really good, but they are super easy to get more of usually. It also helps that in those games healing spells take time to cast and there's a turn delay afterwards, so just using an item is quite a bit more efficient.

merphle wrote:
Wembley wrote:
Agathos wrote:

I’m sticking with my usual approach: hoarding them until moments before the final battle.

Why? They are permanent stat boosts. Why would you sit on them?

Because they're consumables, and that's what you do with consumables in JRPGs.

99 healing potions
99 mana potions

Never use any of them at all ever, even in the final battle, because you might need them for a final-er battle.

it's not logical, but this is the way.

This is absolutly how I play every RPG.

I'm going to jump in on this as well. Shocking nobody based on my username Chrono Trigger is my favorite game, I last replayed it a couple of years ago on the DS and was impressed by how well it holds up.

Fantastic music, excellent characters, interesting combat and some really nice stories all in a super tight package. Countless modern RPG's could learn a lot here.

Got to the bit where I permanently recruit Frog, about to enter Magus' keep.

Frog's story arc is so weird, in kind of a neat way. He's the traditional Campbellian knight-in-shining-armor hero... only he's not the main character, but a supporting one.

And instead of questing to find the magic sword and beat the big bad guy himself, his best friend finds the Hero's Medal and dies, and Frog sits around moping while Crono and Co. undertake the quest for the sword. Only when the accoutrements of heroism are literally dropped at his feet does he finally get off his duff and rise to the occasion. No wonder he has mad impostor syndrome.

Also, not for nothing, the big bad guy turns out to be a jerk and a murderer but also maybe pretty cool and you can pal around with him later if you decide not to kill him?

LastSurprise wrote:

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.

Yeah, it's definitely a product of its time in that way. Case in point, you recruit Frog, hand him all the tools he needs to take down the big bad evil guy who killed his best friend, and offer to accompany him on his quest... but also, slight detour, do you mind if we go into the woods through this weird trippy space-time portal so we can get this freaky monstrous war god guy to unlock your true potential so you can cast magic, which by the way is a thing?

Also this metal dude is called a "robot," he's our pal, that's a thing too. Don't worry about it.

And Frog barely says boo to any of that.

Yeah, this is one of those areas where the party chats would be great if this game had it, or a bit more dialogue scattered througout. Like getting Frog's response to what the 1000AD is like, or Ayla thinking Frog is a Reptite, or taking Robo back to the stone age and him commenting on how none of these species are in his database. But now that I think about it, it could be a lot of writing required as well to cover a bunch of different party compositions in different times.

I'm made it up to Magus' castle, and I love the ambience of it so far, with the eerie music looping endlessly and the main battle theme being dropped to keep up the atmosphere. I've knocked out the first couple of musicians, and will probably finish up the castle in the next couple of evenings, and I'm looking forward to hearing what is probably one of the two best boss themes in the game very soon.

I should like to jump on this excuse to replay Chrono Trigger, as it's something I haven't done in a while. In honor of its legendary soundtrack, I offer this.

hbi2k wrote:

Made it to the End of TIme. Spekkio in his second (Kilwala) form consistently one-shots my dudes; I'll have to go play with him more later. He stays in that form until level 19 and my dudes are only 11.

He consistently two-shotted my dudes, and that made all the difference. I lost the first time I fought his Kilwala form, and then decided to turn to consumables (fighting the urge to hoard them): a bunch of mid-tonics helped me keep pace with his damage.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Spekkio as the thing before a Kilwala. Getting to his first form must require avoiding a bunch of battles to keep levels low.

Supposedly if you get to the End of Time at level 9 or below he looks like a palette-swapped frog sprite. I've never seen it personally, and I usually avoid battles as much as possible without obsessing over it.

SpacePProtean wrote:

I should like to jump on this excuse to replay Chrono Trigger, as it's something I haven't done in a while. In honor of its legendary soundtrack, I offer this.

That's awesome! Here is an album-length jazz interpretation of the soundtrack.

Streaming version:

Edit: Sorry, double-post.

Man, Magus' Castle is such a delight. The way it effortlessly balances tone is fantastic. One minute it's pretty standard haunted-house "ooh the creepy children turned into skellies" fare, then before you know it you're fighting animated save points, climbing Donkey Kong girders, and sending that lovable goof Ozzie falling. And then it's right back to legit creepy during the lead-up to the Magus fight.

Ozzie is great, gold star for effort. I actually took a while to work out where to find the castle, the Magic Cave didn't exactly standout on the map.

The game movies quickly onto the Reptite's lair, could have done with a little downtime I feel.

I always loved the bright art style of Chrono Trigger. It uses the SNES's 16-bit graphics really well, and produces a lot of expressive, beautifully-animated characters. But playing this game now, especially after playing DQ XI, really makes me appreciate Akira Toriyama.

I've never been into Dragon Ball, and during all my years playing Dragon Quest, it barely even occurred to me that the same guy was responsible for both series' visuals. Now, looking back, I can see it clearly, especially in the hand-drawn art for the old Dragon Quest games. It seems like in Chrono Trigger, too, Toriyama's signature style is clearest in the box art and concept art.

But playing more modern DQ games like XI -- and also VIII, IX, and the DQM: Joker series -- I was always struck by how monsters animated in three dimensions look exactly like fully-realized versions of their older counterparts. Plus, the designs look great everywhere: hand-drawn, on an 8-bit system, on a 16-bit system, and on modern technology. And, they're all immediately recognizable as the same monsters or characters, no matter which version you look at. That's a huge credit to Toriyama and the entire team working under him.

I'd love to see what Chrono Trigger's enemies would look like in a modern graphics engine.

I love how flipping HAPPY Crono looks in all the anime cut scenes. Mute protagonists can have a bad habit of coming off as blank-faced doofuses, but Crono always looks like he's having the most fun.

I got the Epoch and have been running around the world getting black chests.

Went for the Safe Helm over the Swallow this time, but it's another of those decisions I always agonize over.

EDIT: Heads-up for those playing the DS version: turns out those rock enemies on Mt. Woe who give 100 TP apiece don't respawn any more, so no more easy grinding. If you have a character who needs to do some catching up, might be worth swapping to them before engaging those dudes.

hbi2k wrote:

Went for the Safe Helm over the Swallow this time, but it's another of those decisions I always agonize over.

I think I've picked the Swallow every time I've started a new save file in this game, and I imagine I'll do so again. It's just so good.

LastSurprise wrote:

I think I've picked the Swallow every time I've started a new save file in this game, and I imagine I'll do so again. It's just so good.

It really is. Only problem is that you only get to enjoy it for like two dungeons before

Spoiler:

Crono dies.

By the time you get access to it again, other weapons have started to catch up.

I've been enjoying the Safe Helm, I put it on Lucca to balance out the defense loss from keeping Taban's Vest equipped, which in turn keeps her Speed decent.

When I was a kid I would usually roll with my three favorite characters (Chrono / Frog / Robo) whenever possible and switch to others only when required by the story. This time I'm making a point to swap around more and fool around with different combinations. Haven't decided who I'll take into the final fight yet. What's everyone else doing?

hbi2k wrote:

EDIT: Heads-up for those playing the DS version: turns out those rock enemies on Mt. Woe who give 100 TP apiece don't respawn any more, so no more easy grinding. If you have a character who needs to do some catching up, might be worth swapping to them before engaging those dudes.

My memory was that they never respawned in the SNES version so I googled it. Sounds like only one has ever respawned, on and island with two chests in the second area.

My personal TP grind spot was always just Nues in the prehistoric hunting ground. He generally never actually kills your party members and gives 30 a pop, much easier to kill than the rock things.

hbi2k wrote:

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.

Sadly, the field is too small to give the Epoch its proper name,

Spoiler:

Aero-Dalton Imperial!

Agathos wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

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.

Sadly, the field is too small to give the Epoch its proper name,

Spoiler:

Aero-Dalton Imperial!

Yup. Had to settle for "Aero" for short.

I've put a bit more time into this one, and got up to where hb12k was this morning, where I just got the Epoch and have been going around collecting the sealed chests. I've now got some rad armor to make the game even easier. I think my only game over was to Masa & Mune, since I didn't remember the trick to that fight, nor did I talk to a random NPC in a nearby town who told me exactly what to do until afterwards. I keep forgetting that there are reasons to talk to everyone in this era of JRPG.

So the thing I'm seeing in this game, besides how well paced it is, is that the story is actually pretty good. I sort of remember the plot beats but didn't necessarily they way they unfold, just the ones that stood out to me. The story itself seems pretty good, and the way it introduces its central mystery, plus all the subsequent twists and turns, is more compelling than I remembered it.

Edit: And Chrono's sword definitely is changing colors depending on the weapon. I'm sure it's true for others too.

I'm wondering what people think was actually changed by the fight with the Reptites. How important was it in the scheme of things considering what happened shortly after.

One of the endings answers that question.

I made a bit more progress tonight, still only a couple of hours in. We defeated Yakra and moved the plot forward some. Enjoying things so far.

I'm struggling a bit in combat because I'm having trouble controlling my ... controller. The controls are extremely sensitive, so it's hard to select the action/combo/attack/target I want quickly. I looked for a way to adjust the sensitivity in game but didn't see anything offhand. I'll explore the Internets and see if there is something out there.