* * * * * Chrono Trigger - Week 5 * * * * *

(Plain English: Scroll down to the bottom of the "OP" if you're lagging behind for previous weeks)


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue:
i Okami Club
ii Fire Emblem Club

Epic Center:
01 Ogre Battle
24 Secret of Mana
39 Phantasy Star IV (cont'd)
67 Earthbound (cont'd)
99 Breath of Fire II (cont'd)
110 Paper Mario (cont'd)
123 Golden Sun (cont'd)
136 Chrono Trigger

(ALL VINTAGE EC GAMES ARE CONTINUED IN THEIR OFFICIAL DISCUSSION THREADS!)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Hello, true believers! Welcome to Negative World's newest RPG-centric Club Hub, springing off the heels of the Fire Emblem Club. Way back when, Nintendo Power introduced a monthly walkthrough / in depth Role Play Game section (right around the beefiest SNES RPG era), but since they aren't around anymore to use it, Negative World will bring it out of the ashes, dust it off, and roll with it (two things of note: #1, this is not in reaction to Nintendo Force Magazine at all -- I know that because I thought of it in the shower this morning, so THERE; and #2, I just looked up "Epic Center RPG" on Yahoo, and there is apparently another RPG-based site that has that, ugh. I guess we're looking at a "Ghostbusters" / "Real Ghostbusters" thing now... Whatever..).

For anyone who grew playing SNES RPGs, and were a fan of them, they surely resonated to the point where they still hold office as some of your favorite games of your entire videogame life, systems, generations, and decades later. The NW Epic Center (run primarily by myself, with the aid of some special friends occasionally) will help to expose some of those games that didn't quite get the recognition they deserved, and also to relive some of the greatest games EVER as we play through them again -- together -- and open up a whole new dialogue on these lost treasures.


Next up..



Chrono Trigger is held by many (myself included) as The Greatest RPG of All Time, pun not intended. It is a benchmark title in the genre, and even after 20 years the game is discussed daily and held in high regard, even in the face of juiced-up, HD "masterpieces." Is simpler sometimes better? Sure, but we're not talking "Dragon Warrior" simple here; we're talking 16-bit perfection at its finest. I'm personally a bit worried about pursuing this game once more; it's been a long time since my last jog through it, and I'm afraid I might have the rosiest pair of glasses that any shot of nostalgia could ever produce. We find out later this month, for better or for worse. (C'mon, it's gonna be fine -- we're talking Chrono Trigger here!! THE BEST, JERRY, THE BEST!!)

Sunday, August 30th marks the start of Week 1 (if you prefer to start your own quest AFTER Sunday, like Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, thats fine!). Golden Sun ran 6 Weeks. GameDadGrant will be our DUNGEON MASTER for this one, and we figure the playthrough to run about the same length. Less than two months. I'm told the total quest should last you between 20 and 30 hours.


See ya soon!!


CHRONO TRIGGER

Dungeon Master: GameDadGrant

You Did It! Chrono Trigger Complete:
VofEscaflowne
Scrawnton
Mop it up
Ludist210


Week 4 Complete:
GameDadGrant
mrbiggsly
DapperDave

Week 3 Complete:
Mr_Mustache (and Mrs_Mustache!)

Week 2 Complete:
Smerd
Dark weres
warerare
sirmastersephiroth

Week 1 Complete:
Anand

Triggermen:
HammerLord
Koovaps

Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5

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@chrisbg99

Oh, I think the attack is based on AGI, unless you're healing which, yes, sometimes comes in at an awful time. "Weak" is actually a worse choice (I think) for those fights, because any Wizards/Valkyries will attack the Undead (which won't work). Leader seems like a much better choice; at least thats what I was doing.

--Mannnn, I picked up a BLOOD from a unit that dropped one, and used it on a Knight.., so now I've got a phat Vampyre. The evil courses through the nether realms of my corps. (He's actually kinda weak though.. Not my goal though, gotta catch 'em all!!)



EDIT- And I went back to Pogrom Forest (Para) to get Silver which you need to get the Tablet way later on, and in order to get it you need "High" reputation. I thought I was high enough, I was not. 3/4 or 4/5 will not do it. I returned when it was up around 9/10, which it is now.

So week 1 is done for me and I did scene 5. I'm up to denebs garden. I tried skipping it and going to the slums of zenobia to have my ass promptly handed to me in multiple pieces.

Don't skip denebs garden. :P

@viscountalpha

Did you pick up any of your own Undead in the Pogrom Forest? They can be EXTREMELY helpful.

@Mr_Mustache

Zombie army of doom?

So I started this puppy up. I had a hard time deciding whether to play on the Wii or the Wii U. Picked the Wii.

Man, Ogre Battle is weird! The concept is pretty cool, but do you ever really NEED to use any strategy, or can you just follow the formula of: liberate each city, deploy a unit or two to retain them, liberate a temple and occupy it for a while until the enemy forces seek you out and get beat down, and then fight the boss (with maybe a card thrown in here or there)?

And are the Item Effects shown anywhere? Can you change class as many times as you want? Can you ever have more than 5 party members?

Weird stuff. Kind of intriguing, though I think I'll double up with a portable system next time I play. Either that or blast Queen II while playing, as the designers most probably intended.

(I'm on Level 3.)

@Anand

Wow! I'm so relieved to hear you aren't dead! Really!!

I'm glad you got going though, man, and when you think that the concept of something is cool, you keep playing, so that has me pumped up, too. The method you're talking about actually IS strategy, of Liberating with a High ALI unit, and then garrisoning them.

Items Effects? I'm not sure what you mean. You can press Select on an Item to get a brief description.
You can go back and forth between a Fighter/Amazon and whatever class they're worthy of (based on CHA/ALI) so so on. I like to reshuffle my guys sometimes (often) where I'll send them all the way back down to fighter (not after you go to 3rd Tier stuff though..) and see if their "values" have changed. Nikki had a Knight in her group whose ALI had dropped to 47, which is below the Knight threshold. He is now a Ninja.

No, 5 is the max. That goes for Ogre Battle 64, too. --YES, PLAY QUEEN II.

Man, just spent 2 1/2 hours on the 5th stage. Ug. Not sure I can take much more of that. Much like with Ogre Battle 64, I'm still kind of struggling to figure out where exactly the strategy works into things. I mean sure, there is a lot you can DO as far as equipping, placement, etc. but it doesn't really seem to matter all that much. It feels sort of like being a commander of an entire war, when I'd rather fight individual battles.

Anand said:

The concept is pretty cool, but do you ever really NEED to use any strategy, or can you just follow the formula of: liberate each city, deploy a unit or two to retain them, liberate a temple and occupy it for a while until the enemy forces seek you out and get beat down, and then fight the boss (with maybe a card thrown in here or there)?

This is kind of how I feel. And when I try to get clever and deviate from it, I end up spending 2 1/2 hours on a stage because I over-extended myself / etc. I even got worried that I might lose the map after I started failing hard, so I just retreated with everyone and sat right around my own base and let the enemy break themselves on me instead. I don't really see what about this game wouldn't let me do this every time.

@Zero

Which one? My "5th?" That only took me an hour... Or are you talking about Slums of Zenobia? That map looks big..

--Alright, more Strategy talk; who are you guys having to fight the battles? This game does not like -- and penalizes you -- when you're beating units of a lower level, every time. Therefore, you always want to be the lower level unit in the fight, unless you hate having Charisma (CHA). In order to reach a 2nd Tier (Knight, Wizard, etc), your CHA has to be at least 50. In order to reach a 3rd Tier from that class (between levels 10 and 15 usually), you need to have the same requirements, or more towards the poles (Knights must be Goodlier, Wizards must be more Evil), and your CHA has to be at least 60. This is a good reason to bench Lans or Warren occasionally. I think they both sat on Deneb's Garden for me, and now they're "underleveld," but still strong as heck. I'll be picking up CHA, while lowering/raising my ALI appropriately, and waltz right into Paladin/Mage (though Mage is NOT ALI "0," so you gotta be somewhat careful. There is a thing as TOO evil..).

So thats Levels, what about class types? Have you organized your units so you have like-minded individuals together? Off the top of my head, my compositions are as follows: Knights with more Knights and Clerics (Good), sometimes a Fighter for training/XP purposes; Wizard/Wizard/Imp/Undead/unsavory (Evil), Beastman w/ Hellhounds (they help each other, and they're evil); Knight/Cleric/ a Dragon I'm training to be "Good;" Canopus and his flying friends, Gilbert and his Evil Wyrms; and a few others (I made a bunch of groups, more than suggested, and I use them when I see fit; some of them are pretty awesome, one I put together SOLELY on Neutral Encounters from guys I met this week in the first 3 stages. Nice!! If you care to know.. Imp led, Imp flanked, backrow Pumpkin, Skeleton and Ghost in front; another unit, Vampyre led, Pumpkin, Imp in the back, Werewolf and Raven Man in front Both are Evil w/ Low Sky movements and motor everywhere.). While you CAN have it, you generally don't want Clerics and Wizards together (the game wasn't too kind to your psyche putting Lans with two Wizards. Counter-productive, hmmm..), or a Knight and a Witch. Check the ALI, and group folks together. This way, you can easily look at a Unit and say "Good Unit" and when another Unit is coming, you can quickly identify them as "Bad Unit," and match them up. Sometimes they have a mixed Unit, like a Valkyrie (3rd Tier is quite Goodly, like ALI 70+ required or something) flanked by evil Ninjas (0-49's, and probably "30"). Tough to cherry pick around this. When a character kills another, they measure the ALI against each other, and if your ALI is higher than the dead unit, the ALI goes up. If the ALI is lower than the dead unit, the ALI continues south. Sooo..send a pile of Knights against some Wizards, and any kill that your Knight gets will increase his ALI, which is what he wants. You'd do the same with your Wizards against their Knights. Unlike Fire Emblem which says "ok, Axe beats Lance," Ogre Battle uses more of a..I dunno, ideological matchup? Its weird, because the matchups I just mentioned somehow suits BOTH sides. Now, you CAN do Knight vs. Knight, but if that Knight's Mystery ALI (its probably around 60-65) is higher than your Knight, your guy is going to drop, and fall off the Knight path. Does that make sense at all? Yes, you can get too high or too low where you can just destroy anyone regardless of what kind of character they are, and your ALI will stay put (because you're either the Evilest Dude Ever (E.D.E.), or you're Heaven Sent (and everyone is beneath you).

--

You won't ever lose the map unless you a) give up your base, b) "Andy" dies, c) they kill ALL of your guys, and you have no more money to dispatch troops (And if they ever DO somehow wear you down where everyone is dead and you have like 1,000 bucks, you can recruit new characters w/ your Lord after clearing some room. Let it not come to that though..). The problem with just sitting back and letting the enemy come to you (assuming you are NOT pursuing) is that they can get a little weathered, and retreat to the nearest town (either a red one, or take over one of your blue ones) to a) rest, b) recruit new characters; if someone dies, they just get another one, or c) all the way back to base to get a new leader. If you kill a Leader, he's gotta take the long trip back. Its nice to have someone on the flanks (a High Sky / Low Sky / Water Unit where it makes sense) to capture them, and smite them. As stated before, there is a set number of Units that the enemy employs each map..but if you let them get away, and they come back new, its going to look like a whole helluva lot more. Wipe those units out, and be done with it.


I explained it to Nikki earlier (with my hands) that I set up something like a "cup" or a claw machine:

-Liberate a town with my Lord and his high ALI friends (move on to another town immediately)
-Occupy town with someone instantly; strong enough to hold, possibly two units depending on how things are going
-Put someone quick on either side of them, farther out (or on specific terrain like a mountain)
-Wear them down with the Town unit ("Strong")
-Go for kills with someone else ("Weak"), usually a bunch of fighters / amazons so they can get levels
-OR just take out the Leader ("Leader")
-And then Mop it up with your Sky/Water/Mountain/scavenger guy
(I include Water, because I had my Octopus Squad parked near a bridge in Lake Jansenia, and there was no escape.)

I don't know if its sunk in yet, or if someone missed it, or if its just common sense to me, but NO orders can be issued to an enemy unit who has lost its Leader. They'll retreat by all of your cities and never be able to take one. If they've got you on your heels, and you're outmatched, take out the Leader, and breathe a sigh of relief. (If they take out your leader, same deal, but most of the time you can click on the unit, Edit > Change Leader.

And battles CAN be a lot more active than they tend to be if you don't do anything. Everyone will attack once before round two begins, so if you have someone doing magic, or you have a guy who does an Attack All, and people are weak, you probably don't want your Wizard/Valkyrie taking out someone with 6 HP, because the All Attack thing will do it. Also, the bigger guys don't like magic much. Golems/Giants will just stand up to iron and steel, but seem to crumble on magic. Fool around with what works best; each unit (yours and theirs) have their own strengths and weaknesses. Exploit theirs, and keep in mind how often they get to attack. (For instance, a Knight will attack 1 from the back, 2 from the front. If he's already attacked you, who cares about that guy? Take out the front row dude who gets to hit you again BEFORE he gets to hit you again.)



Too much, too little, too ambiguous? I don't want you guys to spend anymore time than you need to.
(And I'd like to know, in lurid detail, what exactly happened, Z. That sounds most unenjoyable, I'm sorry..)

Well yeah, obviously I set some flanks so that when they run off, I can capture them... but that to me is a reason TO let them come to you. The reason that last map took me 2.5 hours is I tried to play aggressive and capture a town near their base and then move a bunch of my troops to it and fight hard to defend it. Which I was doing fine, except that every time I did some serious damage they would just run off and their base was right there so they could keep regenerating or whatever and send full troops right back at me. There was no real way to flank them deep into their own territory.

So then I just pulled back to my base, let them come to me, and beat it pretty easily in like 15 minutes from that point on.

I guess I'm just not really clear on the benefits of actually moving troops out and capturing stuff and such. In Advance Wars whoever controls more bases gets more money to build new troops with, so if you don't get out there and fight a good fight and capture what you can, you're going to be screwed because the enemy will always have more income than you and keep building more than you can build and inevitably crush you. In this game the enemies are finite, so there doesn't seem to be any clear reason to not just sit back and let the enemies come to you, kill them all, and then explore the map after they're gone. But... that's not really using strategy. Like, where does the game force you to come up with good strategy?

@Zero

Your Tributes are based on towns which you've taken over, so that works the same in that regard. The enemy doesn't run on money, but yes, if your deployed troops outweigh your income..you'll start to bleed cash. If you don't have them under control by "Noon," you get no money from them. So yeah, take over those as quick and comfortably as you can. If you can set up a 2nd level perimeter or something (I'm picturing a shark net or something after the shallows at the beach!) that'd work best. I employed a wall of units across the mountains in Deneb's Garden. Which stage was it for you? I hope its the Slums stage, out of order. If so, it makes sense. Should be our most challenging stage yet.

I guess the strategy is that? Get towns or go broke? Its almost the same as you described w/ Advance Wars.

Yeah but the enemy not running on money is a huge, huge difference! It means that as long as you can manage your own finances (which has been pretty easy so far) you don't have to fight to gain control of resources and can just kind of sit back and let them come to you. I felt like I was actually kind of penalized for trying to play more aggressively, and then I did fine again when I retreated and waited for them to come.

@Zero

It felt better because you were just loafing around at your base, haha. The path through war is a tough venture, mon frere! That is the only way you'll get fat stacks of cash though, and you CAN do something kind of in between what you did. You can branch out, throw a net, and be doing something besides just sitting at base.

Also, should it come down to it, if you take "too long" on a map, you'll start to lose Reputation with each new day. You know how the American People are like "when is the war in the Middle East going to be over??" Kinda like that.

If you want to just sit at base and that is working for you, I guess do it? -I- think you'll run into money issues if you continue to do that (in a sense); I don't think that waiting for the enemy is such a bad thing in a small sense, but as we get to larger maps, they have a longer march to get to you, and therefore will take longer. With your more aggressive approach, I never think that hanging out outside the Boss Base is a good idea either, unless he's the only guy left and you're ready to go.

No progress today anywhere? Have only 5 of us started Week 2? Eek!

I'll be tackling Scene 7 on Friday, so if you're done before then, give us (the group) a heads up on how long Slums of Zenobia takes, please (unless that is the one that Zero did, and it is apparently 2.5 hours). Thanks dudes, and good luck out there!

--Because I'm thirsty for conversation, does anyone have a super beastly group that is mega-awesome?

I don't think that map is supposed to take that long, I just over-extended myself and then got stubborn and refused to retreat for a long time, wasting many lives in the process. There is probably a life lesson to be learned there.

I also forgot how to revive characters for awhile so when my started taking losses I just kept trying to fight with them as is.

@Zero

For you who and those who don't know (the information is initially given in Scene 3 at the northernmost Temple above Bah Wahl), you can revive a character by:

-Reviving (The Cross/Ankh icon while you're in town) at a Temple for 3X their Deployment cost (Good Lord!!)
-Purchasing a REVIVE item (2000 goth) / Ethereal Flute (if you're on PlayStation for some reason..)
-Simply waiting until the next map; they'll be alive for you. NO PERMADEATH.


If a large character dies on me, and it'll take too long to get to a Temple, I'll sometimes just send them back to base, and pack 'em up for the day. (I do the same thing whenever I'm completely done with a unit and they've got nothing to do.) Also, I noticed that when a character dies, their XP remaining resets to 100. Sooo, if you've got a character on the verge of level up, and they bite the big one, you get to start over at square one on their current level. That'll do it.

Yeah that is the thing there were no temples (at least, no visible ones) on this map so I was like... now what? And then I noticed the shop icon and saw revives so I bought a few, but I assumed (for some reason) that only the character who bought them could use them unless they met up with others to trade (that's logical, no?!) and he was way far away from everyone else. So I left it be for awhile. And then finally I realized that anyone could use any item I have at any time, which would have been nice to know an hour ago but hey... I DO IT MY WAY.

@Zero

Ah. And yes, a Life Lesson for sure...IN EVERY SENSE OF THE PHRAAASE.

So, this was definitely the Lake stage then? (I remember a Hidden Temple there..but isn't there another one?) I can't imagine spending that long that for any reason, eep! I guess if you're getting it handed to you, things change. Do you sit guys in Cities to recharge and let them come to you? Nikki has guys sitting NEXT to Cities often, so they AREN'T healing up. I gotta remind her to move a guy in sometimes. I mean, you can/should move a guy out to MEET someone else, and then if they lose they fall right back into the City, but make sure you're healed up and ready for a fight!

Oh, and did you realize that battle is done a) where the stationary unit is or b) the middle ground between two moving units? This is extremely important if you're looking for a terrain advantage, especially with a Water unit. If you're moving to meet a guy, and he's coming after you, stop in the river and just wait so you have that upper tentacle on him.

I always try to stick in cities when I can, but of course you don't revive just doing that. I think it was just a bad combination of overreaching and forgetting how to revive, etc. and just happening to fall into this state where I was feeling like I was holding my own but not really making any progress either. I kept thinking I could edge out a victory but after awhile I wasn't really finishing anyone off, just killing some of their guys and they would run back to base blah blah blah.

@Zero

If you wear them down with Strong first, they will generally come back at you. That isn't to say that they'll ALWAYS do that (as I've expected guys to retreat, and they pause for a second only to advance again; they apparently aren't doing the math). At that point, you can switch to Weak and take a guy or two out, and then they're in trouble. Either on the run with the Leader, or back to base w/ no Leader. If you leave a Gryphon or something alive and they have no leader, forget about it. Chances are you'll never catch 'em.

A couple of questions.

1) How do I use an item? I know I've used one before. Do I have to be in a town or something. I just can't seem to figure it out for some reason.

2) Does anyone know why sometimes when you lose a unit they are "slow" and other times not? Does it have something to do with the formation?

Anyway, I finished 4 and 5 tonight. I have to admit I was getting frustrated. From what I remember of OB64 it's normal OB stuff. Not having units in the places they should be. Coming up against units I'm not prepared for i.e. ghosts and skeletons in the forest. Sure wish I had more than two healers in my entire army. The enemy sending hoards after you right away and the only team I have in the area is my leader. And a combination of some/all of the above.

However it's nice when it falls into place. A stronger unit whittles down an enemy then I have them back off while a weaker comes in and cleans up. With OB64 I would say the majority of the gameplay for me was in the unit setup screen between battles. Figuring out who can promote. Reworking teams so they aren't so expensive to deploy. Making whole new units. Reconfiguring formations. That's actually something I realized I really had to do with Canopus' unit. I moved the other flyers to the front line to they could hit twice and it reduced the stress the gryphon was taking. That made them much more effective for me. But it's a bit odd going back a step in terms of user interface. I seem to remember OB64 being much easier to move characters between units and all that. And I don't know how many times I accidentally exited out of the management screen.

With that said, I'm very much looking forward to seeing how my reworked teams do. I made a new unit consisting of Valkyries, Amazons and a Cleric. I also kinda rejiggered a couple of units I never seem to use. I generally don't like beast/creature units, but I have one with a Golem which is pretty cool. The Golem is up front and there's a witch behind it. Also on the back lines is a Puppet Master? and a Cleric. It's a bit odd, but it seems to work.

I also have a couple of items I think grant promotions. A crown that turns an Amazon into a Princess. I don't know if I should use it now or not. Also I have an item that said something about making a Beast Tamer speak to Dragons. I'm guessing that does something interesting as well.