* * * * * 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

Nah, just a matter of motivation. I do that a lot on RPGs, even ones I like. I'll often play in bursts then take time off. Been playing Radiant Historia like that as a matter of fact.

Well, I was set up to start playing this last night, but as (bad) luck would have it, my house lost power due to some extremely high winds blowing around south-eastern Michigan. I'll have to give it another try when the electricity comes back on. Which is hopefully later today...!

We lost power too! Since when do you lose power from wind alone?! It was weird.

...not that I was playing Ogre Battle at the time.

@GameDadGrant

Yeah, wind is a huge a-hole. Rockin' the complex all night in Upstate NY, too.

@Zero

Hey, power is restored! Time to get movin'.

--Lets play Blast Corps in "Zero's Action Pack" next!

Nah today is super busy, it is very unlikely that any progress gets made today. Tomorrow will be my goof off day... IF I'm productive enough today.

Okay, finished both 6 and 7. I had a bit of trouble on 6 (Deneb's Garden.) All the dang mountains messed me up and I set up my guys poorly so I couldn't finish off many enemy units and they kept coming back again and again. I chose to forgive Deneb. She's cute and was totally flirting. What was I to do? Sure, my rep took even more of a hit, which has almost bottomed out. Don't know if it's fixable anymore. After this chapter, I finally changed classes and changed up several of my teams. Not sure they're all balanced very well, but many were certainly more effective. Because of this, 7 went way better. I had strategic guys set up to pick off all the stragglers, and it worked surprisingly well. I also took down the wall, and holy crap! Enemies galore! Thankfully I managed okay. The boss was a bit of a pain, but I got him eventually.

Here are some thoughts on why I've been having some trouble. Clearly, I've been managing tactics miserably. I've mostly been using weak and leader, trying to eliminate enemies more quickly, but I think this has led to several of my losses in battle. These then led to losing ground and losing control of cities. Which helps with my terrible reputation. And I also think I've been abusing the tarot cards and using them badly. Even drawing a bad card hurts your rep? And using that card hurts even more? If so, this might be a big problem of mine. I've tried not to let any guys get too overpowered, but controlling who fights who seems really difficult at times when huge waves of enemies appear.

I am learning and getting better at some things, but I fear I may be too far gone to get the "good" ending. I hope to start this weeks stuff later today.

@Koovaps

Sounds good! And yes, you CAN Forgive and STILL get the best available ending. She (along with Lyon in Scene 7) have no bearing on the endgame somehow. Be sure to check back with Deneb as forgiving her actually puts you on a path to something else with her!

Glad to hear you're Changing Classes nicely, and working out some units that fit you better, yes? Yes, a couple of cards are ones you don't want to draw..but thats how they say..the cards are dealt? Can't do much about that. USING that card in battle shouldn't hurt your rep at all.

If stuff gets too hectic for you, you can actually turn the speed DOWN on the game, too. How poopy is your Rep?
Do you have a City Liberating Unit that you use pretty much ONLY for Cities? If so, and your ALI is around 90+ with these guys (all of 'em in the Unit), you'll SEE the Reputation meter CLIMB with EACH AND EVERY City you Liberate. Pretty cool to experience.

@Mr_Mustache

My rep is almost bottomed out. I have some left, but not much. I think I will put together a team just for liberating towns. I think I've focused too much on my team leader's ALI, and not the whole team. Also, changing the speed makes sense and I haven't done it at all. At times I'm trying to do a million things and encounters keep happening and I can't keep up. I did recently realize you can give commands to units while the game is paused, which helps. One more thing I probably don't pay enough attention to is items and equipment. I barely look at that stuff.

@Koovaps

Your Lord has a high ALI? Use him to Liberate towns! Put some Clerics with him or Knights or something, the best of your best. Surely someone has high ALI? Oh yes, don't be afraid to pause and issue commands. Items you find can (and should) be equipped. Like most other games, STR deals with PHYSICAL damage, while INT affects MAGICAL damage.

8 took a little while.. Nobody else is playing on cartridge, right?

Yeah 8 was interesting. The enemy seemed to come at you in a round about way. I don't read the spoilers until after I beat a stage, so I almost missed the recruit for this level, but happened to find it right before the end. I think it's funny she says she wants revenge, but when you have her fight the boss her team gets destroyed.

@gojira

Yeah, she's pretty aw ful. Definitely gotta rearrange that group a bit. For what its worth, I'm pretty sure 9 will be a lengthy venture as well (plan accordingly?). Very watery.

Scene 4: I had initially rolled up an army with only one cleric in it, and nobody was able to class change into one by the time this scene was available, making this the toughest map to go to as part 4. I got a game over after 3 hours of juggling the mystic maces between teams and flying the cleric all over the map. On my successful run, I think I still lost one town, and drew a devil and a death card, but I had powered up enough during the fight to have 3 teams with clerics in them (one with two clerics, which quickly rose to level 8 and vapourized most of the groups with undead). I spent the last little bit (which wasn't spent writing this blurb) wandering my low level "good" troops around the map looking for neutral encounters to level up on, as I had teams that were Lv.2. I took on the fort at night, with a unit consisting of freshly recruited ghosts in the front lines and wizards in the back, set to "leader". It took them about 7 tries before enough of their tornados wouldn't miss and the enemy mage finally went down.
I'm guessing it's safe to be level 9 on this map? As that's the level of the recruitable ghosts. What is the "safe" level to be? This was the first time in any Ogre Battle play I've had to actively "grind" against neutral monsters to take on the boss.

Scene 5: I took on the boss during the day, as I didn't want to spend another multiple hours on multiple tries on this map, although this one went by much more quickly. I still wandered my lower level troops around the map taking on neutrals

Scene 6: There was a bit of panic when I saw a cleric group get dangerously close to my base, which I was guarding with a unit consisting of two skeletons, a ghost, and two imps, but I managed to intercept with a DollMage+Witch+Wizard+Golem group, and breathed a sigh of relief to find that the clerics were in the front and there were just two faeries in the back.
Recruited a fairy before taking down Deneb. That witch has a strong arm! I wonder if I should put a witch in the front row...

Scene 7: I missed seeing the Roshfallian temple to the north, so I figured I was expected to use a lot of items on this map. My characters were all low-levelled at this time, so I just sent anyone and everyone against everything with little regard to alignment matching. Only at this point has class changing really opened up to all my characters, and have more wizards and knights become available.
Side note: That moat is a tiny strip of blue. I wonder if it actually counts as water terrain for the purpose of battle! It'd be pretty embarassing for them to be attacked from their own moat!

Phew! Well that was quite the marathon. It's been a while since I felt compelled to play a video game for 12 or more hours straight. I'd say the last time would be, just about last year, when Kid Icarus Uprising launched. Two 15-hour sessions with a sleep in between, to complete the story, play online, and experiment with weapon fusion.

Mr_Mustache said:

8 took a little while.. Nobody else is playing on cartridge, right?

I'm playing the Wii Virtual Console edition, so I'm not using save states if that's what you're asking. I have a habit of going "HOME Menu -> Reset" before quitting so that I can see the logos and title screen when I start my VC games. So basically the next best thing to cartridge. Plus, it's compatible with progressive scan!

In any case, sleep sounds pretty good right about now. G'night.

@Dark Weres

Are you recruiting neutrals for the most part, or fighting them? I don't really ever fight them (with the exception of one time looking for a little ALI manipulation by slaughtering Ghosts. It didn't work though..). If you really need to "grind," feel free to let the enemy leave and return with new troops. They'll bring you new guys constantly...but of course, it'll take forever. In 8, I actually kept killing the lackeys on the boss battle, and ignoring the boss. Took me..a while.

Witch in Front; I never had much luck with it, but a lot of folks don't like Witches, period. I've got at least one of everything in an active group right now, so if you want to use a Witch, feel free!

Yep! The Moat is indeed water. Watch how they slow down!

AH yes, I figured most people are on the VC, you guys have the fake suspend feature that you can use, as you're using. --OH! If you want to stop in the middle, you can just go to the Home Menu w/o the Reset and come back to it. I know that SOME games don't hold your spot, but Mrs_Mustache is using the method I just described just fine. Be sure to Save though!

Good work, friend, glad to see you doing it up!

Well, I finished map 7.

I'll be honest though, I'm struggling to stay connected to this game. I just don't quite see where the higher level of strategy comes into play. It feels like the best thing to do on every map is just sit near my base and let everyone come to me, wipe them out, and then move forward.

@Zero

The box calls it "The Ultimate Strategy Simulation RPG." Would it lie?

What do you WANT to happen? Some people complain about it being too hard, you're complaining about it being too easy. You guys can't BOTH be right.

--And you're not having any Money Issues on your currently plan? I've barely been breaking even on Day 1 recently, so I'll be surprised if your methold holds up. With every Level (and especially class changes), your guys become more expensive.

I've been breaking even so far. Even gaining a bit. I guess what I WANT is a clear reason to not just sit around my base. Money is fine, but I haven't really desperately needed it so far. And it feels like every time I do try to move out, I just get penalized for it. Like oh, that base isn't so far off, maybe I'll send a few units that way or whatever... and then the enemy swarms all of them and I just end up pulling back to the base anyway. Although even if I do need money, I can always just send my flying guy to some far-off base because it seems like the enemy doesn't really care much about holding the bases either. In fact they tend to just take one over and instantly walk away from it.

@Zero

The Enemy takes one over and walks away because the damage is done. How is your Reputation? I know you don't care about it (for some reason, especially since it determines if you're playing the game well or not..that won't lie to you, what does it say?), but if you're not giving up bases (which you wouldn't, since you kill everyone before you can even get any, and then your Highish ALI troops would be taking the cities, your Rep should be climbing constantly with no way to drop), you should be fine?

I really don't know. You should be trying to avoid having cities lost to the other side. On the topic of the enemy taking and leaving, I've had guys get behind me before and just go right down the line. Up through Scene 8 *knock on wood* this time, I've given up 0 cities, and Nikki has forfeited only one. Our respective Reputations have hit the ceiling (though my Evil Lord's ALI is stuck around 62-64; I need to be at 70 very soon for something special that you may never see).

@Zero

For me the majority of the strategy is in the team building. I probably spend as much time rearranging teams and formations as I do on the battle maps. Yeah there's strategy in what teams march where, but I'm bad at that. The enemy always sneaks around me and I've lost plenty of towns, but I still like to send out teams to explore the map.

Speaking of exploring, do you explore the maps after you've beaten everyone or do you march straight toward the boss? Finding hidden cities and items always feels great. So I feel that is an important part of the game and would be just tedious to do on an enemy-less map. I leave one, maybe two units at the main base to prevent the surprise take over. But my other 8-9 teams are marching. I maybe have a few scouts and the rest grouped up depending on how the enemy is attacking. I'll sometimes have to fall back to a city, but if you have 3 or more units together they can handle most enemy swarms.

But I agree the game doesn't deter from your strategy of staying at the base. But at the same time I don't think it really punishes marching either. I've never felt even close to a game over. I have lost some guys, but there is no permanent death. And there's more than one option to revive them if you wish. Probably the only real setback is the amount of time it takes for a unit to fall back and reheal. But it's not like that'll take any longer than just sitting at the base.

@gojira

I've told Zero a few times, but I like to Liberate a few cities, and set up a perimeter of sorts, or something kinda like a fence. I'm nuts about ALI stuff (good vs. evil, vice versa), so I generally have one of each type in the area. I send Gilbert and Canopus out together usually, bad guy comes, Canopus goes in, good guy comes, Gilbert goes in. Or if worse comes to worse, one softens 'em up for the other. (Your CHA or ALI is only affected if an opposing character is KILLED. This way, if you're outranking the enemies with your Lord, and they attack you, switch over to Strong and hopefully nobody will die so you don't drop.)

Gojira, after YOU clear a map and you're just about to finish, do you read my hint stuff often? And if finding hidden cities is your thing, you're going to LOVE Scene 9.. Something for everyone!