* * * * * 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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@Anand

To get one of the Worst endings, you actually need to be Good early on, and then do a huge Heel Turn. THAT is YOU.

@gojira

Nope, you can go back. Just get your Rep up..somehow. Surely you have SOME High ALI characters? I can't imagine everyone in your army being bottom of the barrel. I mean, if you have Clerics, that is a start (better yet, if you have some Shaman?, you can recruit Angels). Just pile 'em all into one unit -- like Anand said -- and have them go door to door spreading the word of Gojira. Your Rep will slowly climb, and you'll be tippy top by Week 5, probably. Of course, the higher the ALI the better. I use my Lord group to Liberate; two characters are 100 ALI, the other two are mid-80's, and my Evil Lord Who Can't Kill Undead Characters has finally hit 73. That puts my group average around..ALI 88. Tough to get much better than that. Towns LOVE THAT.

And that Assassin they were talking about was Rauny. Its all gossip, mannn! Ogre Battle teaches us about the way that people work, a total PSA for how you shouldn't believe everything you hear.


Sooo, I guess you're done with Scene 11, yes?

It's going to be a busy week for me, too T_T, I'm still on scene 9, trying to snap up as many cities as possible before noon hits. I think I'll try and make Lyon a Dragoner (wasn't that class only available to women in Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis? It's been about a decade since I had lost my copy T_T)

@Mr_Mustache
Do you get the best ending by transitioning from heel to face?

@Mr_Mustache

I have a couple of teams that I send to liberate towns, but I still suck at everything else when it comes to that meter. And I did finish 11 and now I'm about half way through 12.

@Dark Weres

Dragoner is a Female class in Ogre Battle 64, too. I always thought it was funny because the Dragoner in this game totally looks like a chick! I don't know how you go from the gruffest, toughest, dirtiest looking Beastman to some pretty boy with silky hair and a clean shaven face. Loin clothes to tiny tights? Hmm.

@Anand

I don't think so, but I guess you kinda do? I had a horrible Tarot Quiz in the beginning. My ALI started at 45. Nikki's started at 65 What a doll. But yeah, I'm on the most awesome path possible right now. Old ladies and children alike are high-fiving me. I'm like...some awesome mega popular guy. Mid-90's Val Kilmer? THE ROCK!?

@gojira

What else are you messing up? Keeping the cities? Did you buy BOOTS? With BOOTS, you'll never lose a city again. Click on a unit, click the town where you want him to go, rejoice. Very easy!

Nikki finished 11 tonight. We'll head to the Skies! and Muspelm tomorrow, apparently.

@Mr_Mustache

Yeah, I lose cities. I pull Devil cards or whatever one hurts the meter. I probably use my murder squad too much. I honestly think it's too much work. I love strategy games and I know they can sometimes boarder on feeling like work, but for me the whole alignment deal goes over that line. I just like to play games as they come to me. I don't really want to play with a faq from the start. Maybe if this was my second playthrough or something and I wanted to play differently. But as it is worrying about ALI is not fun for me.

What is fun is managing the units. I did some rearranging before 11 and ended up with a couple of crappy units. But I also made a skeleton/ghost squad with a dollmage as the leader. They were pretty cool except the dollmage was very vulnerable to magic. But I got an item that made a Knight into a Vampire, so I put him at the head of the squad and am pretty happy with it right now.

I still love my murder squad (a bunch of 0 ALI characters). I had one group that was high ALI that was out liberating away from the fight. But all of a sudden every enemy zeroed in on it. And kinda surprisingly to me it totally held it's own against all of them. I think it probably hurt their ALI a bit, but it was pretty badass to see them do well.

@gojira

There is a tipping point with your ALI though where you get so high or so low that everyone is below/above you, so it doesn't matter who you fight. Think of it like other games though, where you want to match up certain guys on other guys; like Fire Emblem with Axe vs. Lance. Pretty much the same. You can go Axe vs. Axe, but you'd prefer to have one of your swords in there. If you don't want to worry about the ALI, don't. Just, I dunno, when guys get around Lv15, put 'em back to Fighter or something and see what they can come up to. Unless their CHA is shot, they'll come back to SOMETHING, but having a High ALI Wizard or a Low ALI Knight makes no sense in the long run. They'd be better suited as something else in their neighborhood.

I like managing the units, too. That is my favorite part. Have you tried to recruit dudes with your Vampire? Not sure if you had any of THOSE guys yet.

DID IT hurt their ALI? If they don't fight that much, I can't imagine it did. My Lord group went over the edge (literally and figuratively..) as I hit Lv15 with them, and my CHA started to drop with each kill of Lv14 and 13 guys. They are unbeatable now, like my Warren group (Warren as Sorcerer, a Demon, Black Dragon who is now a Tiamat, and a Skeleton in front so they take 0 Physical damage). Wild, wild stuff.

@Mr_Mustache
It's been downhill since Real Genius for Val Kilmer.

Such promise, squandered...

Alright, righted this afternoon's wrongs and successfully completed Alpha: Muspelm. Moving right along, and hitting Master classes with a lot of my guys. Live it and love it. Great thing about Muspelm, you can get a LEXICON there AND a CROWN for freakin' doing nothing. Good stuff.

How are the rest of my buds doing? Surely someone (besides radical Gojira who is an inspiration to everyone) has some stories of great success??

Holy Hell, Shangrila was devastating to my units. I'm going to have to take a different approach my next attempt.

@gojira

Where are you right now? Is that your last run for the week? I take if you must've beaten Scene 12 to get there..

Do you have Norn, Tristran, OR Rauny? (Let me know;) If not, you can probably head somewhere else first (if you're not stuck in it, like you saved prior or something). It is more for story reasons and a special confrontation (for those looking for the absolute best ending; if you missed some of those people, you can kinda go your own way -- though if you do that I'll have no idea where you are and what to tell you. Sequentially -- without getting the best ending; which is fine -- after Kastolatian Sea and Diaspola, you should do Valley of Kastro, Kalbi Peninsula, and Balmorian Ruins; we'll be doing both of those at the start of next week right after that stage you're working on now.). In fact, we come here to GET Debonair (w/ Norn) so we can go to the Kalbi Peninsula to have Debs confront someone else. In fact, I just checked, and all of the stages for next week have Special Encounters, too, but none of them will even matter to you if you don't have the person confronting, know what I mean?

Yeah, I finished 12. I just have Tristran, not the other two. I'll give it another shot. I wasn't expecting such a jump in enemy level. Even some of my stronger units were having some trouble. And I started off with my weaker units out there hoping to level them up.

@gojira

Huh. Well, you might still get something extra w/ Tristran then. Thats cool that you got him, good deal. Not sure if Debonair will join w/o Norn, but you might still see something special.

Do you think you'll be able to do it? I looked and the enemy levels regress to about 10-13 at the start of next week, haha.

Not even done with week 2 and week 4 is well under way. I give up. <=3

Beat the 2nd Sky Island stage tonight (Beta). Didn't take very long either! Very much looking forward to Fridays double shot of greatness to complete the Week. Its like getting all of your homework done right after school so you have the entire weekend to party. My army is so splendid right now that I'm happily resting guys. Even my weaker guys are strong; I haven't had to really abuse my dudes at all, most of them don't even get out on back-to-back runs. Warren's group especially is so filthy that guys turn to powder at the sight of him coming towards them. Pretty ridiculous. --And I made him STRONGER tonight with a special item. Incredible.

Can anybody identify those quotes? 5N for each answer, first come first serve.

@Renjaku

Groan, don't give up! Just..beat some stages, you'll catch up wildly quick. Do one a day, and you'll be done with Week 3 by Sunday. Shan't take long -- almost sounds easy! (Pull a double somewhere and you'll be in Week 4 before Week 5 hits. I believe in you!)

Man, where are my buddies? Update Updates..

GDG, did you ever go back with more units? Surely that led to success?
Pokefreak is playing Lufia, HammerLord has school stuff in December, Steve has officially quit at Stage 3.
Chris hasn't had the urge lately, Renjaku has likened "falling behind" to "time to quit;" don't do it!
ViscountAlpha is Steve's friend; no surprise if he quits now. He joined to play w/ Steve. NICE.

*sigh*; and then we've got a Pair of Chicago dudes on the same chapter. Haven't heard from Anando about OB really, but I know Zero is having a whale of a week. Tack on another Chicago.er? (What do they call you guys? Chicagoans?) in Koovaps. How is it goin', buddy? Still living the dream? DarkWeres, how is the "one a day" plan working? Have you enacted that at all? I know you said it was busy and you're still on 9. If I were behind, I'd TOOOTALLY be doing one a day and catching up like *that*! In a sense, I'm jealous of you able to do that. I have to restrain myself constantly. The call to carry on and do more is strong.

Nikki and I are plugging right along, heavy at the end of this week. We'll try to get stuff in tonight and Friday.
And Gojira leading the pack; overmatched on his last outing, but he'll be back because he's a CHAMP.


Does that about sum it up? I miss you guyyys..

@Mr_Mustache
I'm trying to get Lufia done as quickly as I can!!
I suppose I could set some time aside each week to catch up on this but I find it hard to play this game because i'm not in the mood for strategy of a night which is when most of my gaming happens...i'll get there, don't worry.

We need flexible payment schedules here.

@Pokefreak911

Yeah you wild guy! Why didn't you allot any time!? You're exploding my braaaain.

@Zero

How! I don't know what else to do. I mean..there SHOULD be ~10 hours of free time in any given week. Even an hour a day should be plenty...

I don't know. Various tiers of timeframes I guess. I just know that there is no way I can even try to keep up at the rate things are going.