* * * * * 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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@Mr_Mustache

I didn't have the Zenny for it at the time, but Lew is well equipped now. I got to the point where Bow was accused of stealing (which he did) and had to call it a night the other night.

TheOldManFromZelda said:

Week one complete.

The story is kind of goofy so far. And not chuckle-in-a-good-way goofy, either.

Things better pick up soon.

BUNDURU.

I played this game about 10 years ago and got maybe 1/3 of the way through. I quit partly because the story never got very interesting and remained kind of goofy. But I was playing a lot of SNES RPGs at the time, so may be my standards were too high. Right now I'll settle for something that's at least fun and functional.

@TheOldManFromZelda

I don't think you've/we've got ANY of the story yet.

@DeputyVanHalen

Yesss.

The wait for this to start was excruciating! I've been fishing and fishing and fishing and hunting... and fishing and fishing and fishing so that I wouldn't get ahead. This game has a fun fishing system, but the hunting is kind of bad with Bow. I'll wait 'til Katt appears to get my Van. Exts.

If you DO get into hunting, here's a tip. Wait a bit before you examine your hunt. The item in the bag becomes rarer and rarer before it finally disappears. Roasts are very common and a great healing item, but Van. Exts (Vanilla Extract?) and Eggs are what you want to hoard up.

@TheOldManFromZelda
Use the SWCH option instead of BUY at a store, to see your stat changes. Be sure to spend a turn in battle to see if you can use that weapon/armour as an item as well. IIRC, there are two Wind/Holy element effects from equipment, which are really valuable, as Capcom forgot to program enemies to have a resistance to one or both of those elements (/IIRC).

Alright, dropped the kids off at home last night, and now I'm ready for Week 2. Fished a TON this week, and when I caught the Maniro -- w/ Gold -- off the coast of Coursair, I dropped about 3800 gold up there. I'm rockin' some serious SimaFort weapons now though, well before we're supposed to have them. I've been mowing guys down like crazy, and I think its the main reason that I was able to take down Augus. He dropped Katt on the very first turn of the fight (it was terrible), and I was just healing, healing the rest of the fight after bringing her back. Ryu / Hero, is of course, a beast. Love that new sword!

@Dark Weres

Tell us more about the Hunting stuff. What do they do? I didn't know that they changed until a few days ago (reading an IN DEPTH FAQ), but I saw that they sell for the same amount, so I didn't think anything of it. What do the Van. Exts do? I know there are some things in the game that PERMANENTLY increase your characters attributes. HMM!

@Mr_Mustache
A lot of this is going by memories of playing this on the SNES, and I suppose I could look online to verify, but I'd rather experiment when I get the items. Playing around with hunting items I would consider a legit use of Restore-Points, especially how rare and difficult some of these are to find:
Roast is a full heal, or just a really big heal. it's also a really easy item to hunt for, usually the first thing any ground-animal will drop.
Liver cures poison (lame, I know, it's more of a sell-fodder), usually the item that Roast turns into.
Veal...? I'm not sure if this one exists, I vaguely remember most of the time the item turning from Roast, into Liver, then back into Roast before disappearing.
Van.Ext is either a full-AP recovery with little-or-no HP penalty, or possibly just a rare version of the WFruit with no penalty... I just remember it being very good, and usually the item you can get if you examine the hunt-bag at the last possible moment.
If you can hunt the ground animals quickly and wait, sometimes a bird will fly in briefly, turn around a couple of times, and leave. Hunting it will get you:
Egg, which is a revive-with-full-health. AFAIR there are no items you can buy which revive you at full health.
Chicken, if it exists.... I don't remember what it does.
Again a lot of this is off the top of my head from more than a decade ago. Definitely get into hunting once Katt is in your party, or if you're particularly talented with Bow, do it as soon as you can. Fishing is a great way to build up HP items and fund your early weapon/armour upgrades.

@Dark Weres

What does LifePL do? I used one on Katt, and it brought her back totally full. Of course, she only had like 39 HP at the time, so I don't know if you'd come back only half full with more Max HP at stake.

Fishing is THE BOMB. I've spent probably half my time doing this. I've got almost 3 grand in the bank on my way to Week 2. And thats after being completely "Bought Up" in terms of weapons and stuff, not counting our little Swimming Salesman Friend.

I found two new fishing spots that I didn't know about, one above Ruins and another above TagWoods. They both have larger fish in them, and TREASURE CHESTS which we can't pull out just yet, but probably with our next Fishing Pole which I HOPE is very soon. The Large fish eat Urchins, and range in price from 150 to 500. Nice! Not a bad turn around, eh?

Just finished up week 1. I think it was close to 4 hours for me.

I'm basically done with this week...picked up Katt and Rand, but I saved in Coursair and quit before heading back to the Ruins. So...I'll get there tonight or sometime soon. It shouldn't take but a few more minutes.

When I'm not playing this, I'm working on Star Ocean: The Last Hope International. In there, I've met Myuria and my party is now at seven people, though knowing what I know (because I want to get as much as I possibly can in my first playthrough), I'll soon get Sarah and lose Faize (but get another party member in his place to round out my party).

The killer here will be the battle trophies. I have around 100, there are 900 in total. The platinum trophy could take upwards of 500 hours to achieve, and I'm about 30 hours in...wish me luck. I hope to have it done by the end of 2014.

@Mr_Mustache

When can I upgrade to a bigger pole? I haven't seen one in shops yet...

@ludist210

What are you using, TreePole? StickRod is in in HomeTown, and MUCH stronger. I think there will be more fishing stuff in our very next Town. I hope so.. *looking* Looks like "no," but we should grab another one Week 3 (I think..), in a dresser (there appear to only be 4 in the entire game). StickRod (Fishing Pole Option #2) is 300 bucks in HomeTown.

I was Fishing Minnow (medium) and something else for a while the other night, and when I went back to catching Unagi and Sardines, it was like a VACATION. That is how the StickRod feels compared to the TreePole, haha.

I did manage to catch 3 Pileworm though. 500 bucks a pop! (AND NOT EASY)

@Mr_Mustache

I've got the StickRod, I believe. I remember it was the first piece of equipment that I bought after a hunt with Bow. Sure miss the little feller, but Katt is more than strong enough to make up for his loss right now.

@ludist210

Yeah, Bow is on the sidelines for a bit. He'll come back well underleveled..

I was reading though, and apparently this game has stuff in place where the underleveled receive a larger share of the experience purse! NICE! It'll be quite a while before he's back up among you.

But yeah, Katt is the...*giggle*, Katt's..Pajamas....

@Mr_Mustache

Oh I know. Remember, I've played this game almost to completion before.

@ludist210

Oh, cool cool cool. Not sure if I remembered that. I've talked to a lot of people about this..

@Mr_Mustache

Yeah, got to the end dungeon on GBA a looooong time ago and just quit. No encouragement to go on, so I dropped it. I have beat the first one though.

Looking forward to actually finishing this time!

@ludist210

Man, I might need your help through the first game sometime. That game just..yuck, I don't like it.

@Mr_Mustache

I recommend using a FAQ. It's been over a decade since I touched that game...

Oh yeah, finished this week up.

@Mr_Mustache
Seems like LifePL is a revive-with-full-health. I might have forgotten it as it might have seemed prohibitively expensive on my first playthroughs, since I didn't sell anything I hunted back then.

New Week should be up in about 8 hours!.. Dave, how you doin', brah?

@Dark Weres

I found one in a dresser. Good thing! Katt was TOAST.

--Sorry, did you finish this week up? I wanna give proper credit!

@ludist210

Same with me. I bought the GBA version got to the last areas then never got back to it. It is weird. I have beaten the first twice though.