* * * * * 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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Have I/we greatly overestimated the interest for Golden Sun? Tragic.


Welcome to the Epic Center, handhelds. *SIGH*

@Mr_Mustache

I'm interested! I just don't know anything about Golden Sun. Have you tried PMing Ludist?

As a last resort, we could form a schedule by looking at walkthroughs and let's plays.

Handhelds haven't seemed to slow down the Retro Game Club...

I don't know about everyone else but I have a lot on my plate right now, which is why I couldn't hop on board with this. I'm doing the Pokemon thing because it's something I've wanted to do forever. Other than that, I can't really do anything until after the 21st. So, there's still a small chance I'm down for some GS, but I really just don't know yet.

I think we need a proper DM. I know there are bigger Golden Sun fans than me, and I haven't had time to properly prepare for it. If you want me to do it, I can, but I'll need...another week or two to get it in order.

Maybe someone who's played it can just play the game a week ahead of everyone and give a good stopping point? Arg I wish I wasn't so busy.

@PogueSquadron

Yeah, I don't think the fact that this game was originally released on a handheld has anything to do with the lack of interest.

@ludist210

If it doesn't work for you to be DM or you don't want to, that's fine. I don't mean this in a rude way or anything. I just want to make sure that you don't feel like you're being pressured into it because nobody else has volunteered. If you don't want to, Mustache or I could go with Pogue's idea of playing a week ahead of the group. Or if you want to be DM, that works too.

PogueSquadron said:

Maybe someone who's played it can just play the game a week ahead of everyone and give a good stopping point? Arg I wish I wasn't so busy.

Thats like, 100% fine. We don't need anything super in depth, not sure how involved Big L thinks it is. There are different levels of "DM'ing" this thing, and they don't need to be super-involved at all.

@ludist210

Anything you can offer is great, much better than I could muster. I don't even know what Vale is, but if you guys think its a good thing to do, sounds like a great Week 1.

Again, I thought everyone was revved up and ready to go. I picked early May as a starting point because the game came out in mid-April. -I- have no problem waiting to do this thing, but I think about it and people are like "game came out in April, I'm not waiting around," and so on, with Earthbound especially. Does that make sense? If we want to hold off, and Pogue wants to join in later, and you want to do something in a week, or whatever, we can wait and do it then. For the people that already started (I still haven't), I'd feel bad making them wait on the sidelines though. Again, a gross misunderstanding of the situation, and a lack of communication on all fronts, it seems. I'll take a good portion of that blame, no problem. My fault.

@Hero_Of_Hyrule

I don't know how we only got 4 people though, haha. That is the worst showing we've had -- and we played Ogre Battle which was universally hated by everybody, it seems. For all the great stuff I hear about this game, its a pretty shallow pool we're wading through. Kinda sad, I semi-expected a huge explosion of people, similar to when Earthbound hit the scene.

Has anyone made any progress whatsoever?

If you're/we're still waiting, anybody do anything else with Breath of Fire / Paper Mario?

Why did I think you were on week two? Anywho, I'm out of Vale and then some. Game clock says I'm a little under 4 hours.

For GS veterans, I'm about to head into Kolima Forest. I forgot how tally the beginning of this game is. Wish they'd get to the point more! Graphics still hold up pretty well. Love the colors. Love the retro styled world map. Music is as awesome as ever. The story is ehhh but from a "celebration of JRPGs" standpoint it's great. Just... So many familiar tropes! Reminds me of Tales of Symphonia in that regard (though that world is way more fleshed out).

I also forgot how much I like the Djinn/magic system in this game. In some RPGs I feel like the magic doesn't matter as much but in this game you can just wreck house with it. You really do have to master the system as the game goes on. Also still love the field mechanics. It's cool to see that the field isn't just a vehicle to get from A to B. I love using your powers to advance. Just wish we could use all of these buttons on the Gamepad for shortcuts!

@PogueSquadron

Yeah, we haven't been moving. Ludist said it'd be a while. If YOU have a "this sounds good for Week 2" stuff that we should hit, it'd be more than welcome.

I have a feeling this chapter of Epic Center is going to be wonky. Any help is appreciated. Good work, Pogue.

Well, it's going to be hard to judge, because I can probably romp through this game. It's also hard to judge because this game has a ton of text.

Here's a good question - how long do we want each week's session to last? Week one from the beginning to the end of Vale was....what, an hour and a half? How are people feeling about that? It was also an hour of basically reading.

For series vets, here's what's coming up in week 2. Don't click if you haven't played the game!


1.) Vault and all of its hijinx
2.) The cave leading to Bilbin
3.) A brief visit to Bilbin, and a brief visit to Kolima
4.) Kolima Forest

I'm kind of thinking this is a good chunk to play through. If it winds up being too long or short, we can always adapt on the fly. I think any Epic Center will be weird if we're not as familiar with the game. It's been a while for me. Series vets want to chime in?

Oh man. I wish I had the time to do this. Golden Sun 1 and 2 are two of my favourite games of all time. I've played them both and 100% completed them back when I was a teen.

Let me see if I can finish up Kolima Forest tonight and if I can, I think we can safely make that our next stopping point. I might want to take over DM'ing if anyone is floundering on it, as long as I can consult with some experienced GS players to make sure I keep things on track.

@PogueSquadron

I sent Tim a PM yesterday asking hits thoughts. I have no idea how long Golden Sun is, but I think we generally try to get done in 8 weeks. Sooo..."post-Vale stuff divided by 7?" (If it takes longer than 8 weeks, thats fine, too. Less than 8 is also ok.) Of course, account for storylines and "great place to stop." I don't think its a huge deal if one week is longer than the other, just as long as we're not doing like an hour one week, and then 4.5 hours the next.

I'll complete Week 1 tonight. Moderately excited.

Noice. Week one is a pretty good intro.

I'm still confused by some of the events that take place in Sol Sanctum, but I'll have to ask some players who've played it before.

The game probably takes something like 25 hours to beat. At 8 weeks, that means you should probably play for about 3 hours each week, give or take. I think that's fairly accurate. I'm at 4 hours and 20 minutes, and I've beaten what I *think* should be Week 2.

So perhaps on Sunday, I'll unveil (un-Vale?) our next objective? If you guys want? I don't mean to yank the rug out from anyone if they were looking to put more into this. If anyone really wanted dibs, just let me know.

Let me know if anyone has any questions. There shouldn't really be many in week one, but week 2 will basically be where the real game starts.

Man, I was FALLING ASLEEP towards the end of Week 1. Cripes.

I had heard Smooth McGroove's battle theme music before, and was surprised how close it actually was, haha! I like most of what I've seen of the way-the-game-should-play, though I hate hate hate it in RPGs when you try to attack a guy who is now dead, and you're like "so what do I do?" Don't just stand there, hit someone else! BLAH.

So, Week 1 was like 3% fighting, 10% walking, and 87% reading. YUCK. Please let me do something. I'm excited that Week 2 should be more of something, because I'm eager to get in there. I feel like a caged animal.

Question about Week 1: in the Sol Sanctum area, I took the right "going down stairs" instead of the left, and that was the correct way to go. Was there anything to get in the left side? I went back and there was just a statue in there. Seems pretty weird that you'd just have a state with nothing to do. Do you have ANY idea what I'm talking about? I think I got all of the other chests and stuff.

@PogueSquadron

Sunday sounds great; we can get on the same page together and call that "Week 2 starts now." I like it.

@Mr_Mustache Week 1 is a ton of talking. I was pretty bored myself. If you want a ton of battling....be careful what you wish for, haha.

From what I understand (and I tried this) the statue to the left wouldn't budge, so you didn't miss anything. I don't think there's anything important to miss in week one. Later in the game, there are some missable things (I think) but I'll try to outline them as best I can. You'll at least want to get all of the magic stuff in this game so that when the sequel comes out, you can be set up to have the best spells in the game.

Week 2 also reminded me of one of my complaints with the game. Sometimes you'll be in a puzzle solving section, yet you'll still encounter random battles. This can be really frustrating sometimes.

ALSO, heal whenever possible. If a character dies, it's a pain in the ass unless you have something to revive them with. The only way you can revive them is to take the dead player to the elder at each town. The end of week 2 is pretty annoying as well, so be prepared for a part before a boss fight that might require you to backpedal to gear up. Hate that.

I'm sure you also know this already as well, but if anyone missed it, don't forget that you have a run button!

@PogueSquadron

I ran 97% of the time.

And random encounters in puzzle stuff IS quite annoying.
And you knew exactly what statue I was talking about, coooool.

At the very least, there are some puzzle rooms that don't have random battles at all. I love the puzzles in this game though. They get better in the next game from what I remember.

Golden Sun

Week 2

Make like a tree and leaf!

By the end of week 2, you'll have wanted to beat your first major boss and complete Kolima Forest. .

Note: I'm not counting the bandits in Vault as your first major boss. it is not possible yet to actually cure the people or Tret, so just worry about beating your first major boss.

Other tips: sometimes you might come upon a Djinn that you just can't get to yet. Give it the ole college try and if nothing's working, you probably have to come back after obtaining another ability. It's hard to tell what you can do now and what you have to wait for. If in doubt, just ask.

- Stay healed up at all times, and save whenever something good happens. When characters die in this game, it's a huge pain in the ass. Water of Life is hard to come by, and if you don't have any, you have to go all the way back to the most recent village and get someone revived (at a cost).