* * * * * 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

--------------------------------

URL to share (right click and copy)

@VickiL
@Koovaps

Jew Drop -- who has been breezing through the game -- is stuck there, too. What are your levels like? I think I was about 35 for that boss, and I still had some issues.

Mid 30's, I believe. I'd have gotten him (he cast that Re-something spell) but then he put all my healers to sleep and kept spamming his big damage hit-everybody spell. I still might have made it if I hadn't been silly enough to do two flares in a row instead of alternating flare and recover with Wren (the only character still alive). It breaks my heart to know that guy probably had like 200 hp left when I fell. I'll get him this time. I think I'll go ahead and look up some combo attacks first.

EDIT: Week 3 complete. Killed him on the second try, no deaths. I never used any of the macros I set up.

@VickiL

I wish there was an "Analyzer" type Spell in this game so we could know instantly how much HP the dude has, and what we gotta do to take him down quick. I get if it is intended that way; Final Fantasy had a spell like that, too? Or maybe it was a tool that Edgar uses? I can't recall.

Congratulations on Week 3!

Week 4 complete, and I am Phantasy Starred out for a couple days! At the end of week four, my average level is 42.5. I killed the boss on the first try, a couple of deaths during the fight, but everyone alive for the EXP at the end.

@Mr_Mustache
I don't think Edgar had an analyzer. However, I feel like there was a Scan spell in pretty much every Final Fantasy game that I can remember. I don't really mind that it isn't in Phantasy Star.

@VickiL
Very well done! Week 5 is even less than 4, so you're right there.

@Mr_Mustache
I don't remember where I was at at that point, but I did finish the game with characters ranging in level from 40-46.

I'm done too. Not too hard of a final battle.

@gojira

Nice. Did you get out in the advertised 2-3 hours?

I didn't really pay attention, but it felt pretty quick. There was what? Four dungeons and three boss battles? And the dungeons were all pretty straightforward.

@Jew Drop I didn't have much trouble there because I was up to 40 by then. It was the earlier battle with Xe-A-Thoul that was the tough one, I have no idea how you managed to get past that at your levels!

And it looks like three of you did it at such low levels! Seriously, how in the world did you folks do that?!

I'll be diving in tomorrow night probably.

Proof of Zero

Zero is playing other RPGs! Thats why he isn't done! Don't blame the EC scheduling format, mister!


---
EDIT- Are we definitely doing Shining Force II next?

@Mop it up
Am I one of those three? I think I was around 33 or 34 when I beat that fight. I did it the same as the rest of my boss fights. I hit them with the strongest stuff I had. No macros because I needed to heal every single round. Every boss fight requires at least one restorative each turn, be it Rune casting Revel or someone casting Gires or whatever they have. I had Wren do barrier and I'm pretty sure Kira had Warla by that fight. Definitely did those first thing. Outside of that, just steady beating down, healing, and some luck.

@Mr_Mustache
To be fair, it took him over two years to beat it, near as I can tell. And, honestly, when you fall behind, there's so little motivation to catch up. I only got a little over a week behind and I had to push myself to play. Not that I'm not enjoying the game at all. It just stops being fun and starts being another chore when you're behind.

Well, trying to get back into this game... on week 2. I pretty much die at every place I go to, which makes me not want to bother exploring, because why do a bunch of exploring just to die and lose all of that progress? Blah.

Yeah I played some other stuff, but I definitely think like what was it... 4-5? hours a week is a bit of a quick pace for this kind of thing.

Oh, and it didn't take me two years to finish! I only started it a few months ago. I have a massive backlog at this point.

Yeah so Zio... once again underleveled. I wish that I had a physical copy of this game so that I could smash it against the wall.

Were you guys seriously not faced with leveling issues? Did you constantly do side quests or something? I'm always underleveled! And I don't mean like "this is super tough at this level" underleveled, I mean "his attacks either instantly kill one person or take 75% off of everyone at once IE this is literally impossible at this level".

It might help if the skills and spells that I had weren't just a big long list of gibberish to me. I've sort of figured some of them out, but others just don't appear to do anything.

Bah. Whatever else I can say about this game, I can honestly say that I've never before played an RPG that leaves you underleveled this much. It's annoying and makes me want to quit.

Ok week 2 is done, on to week 3, finally.

To say some nice things about the game, I like that it has a continually changing cast of characters and spans different planets and such. Pretty epic.

Zero, my sincere apologies for thinking it took you two and a half years to beat that other game. It took me almost that long to beat Tides of Destiny, so it didn't strike me as something out of the ordinary.

I think I'm not as underleveled because I'm spending nearly twice the estimated amount of time on this game. But like I said, it takes me forever to play games. I do most of the complicated dungeons at least twice. I go through carefully, getting all the treasures, then I leave to visit an inn, and come back to make a bee line to the boss. Still, I heal after almost every single battle and tend to feel a bit like a punching bag most of the time. I prefer longer, drawn-out grind fests where I'm stupidly overpowered. I feel like even if I spent 10 hours leveling up in this game, Rune would still die after two direct hits.

@VickiL

A chore: This or that?

@Zero

Yeaaaah, Week 3!

And I had some runs where I'd get to the end of something, and HINAS out to Save. Sometimes after I got all of the Loot, and then I'd take a better-leveled return. Sometimes I just went for it and won, but yeah. AND I did the side stuff, the Guild Quests AND the stuff like WeaponsPlant.

That's what I've started doing, just going into things knowing that I'm going to have to get out of there and come back. But you don't always have HINAS! Well, maybe you do from this point moving forward, I dunno, but there were points in the past that I didn't.

@Zero

But then you've got ESCAPIPE and TELEPIPE. I find those things EVERYWHERE. You?

@Mr_Mustache I mean when you're behind, and you're pressed for time, it can feel less like fun and more like an obligation. I'm just saying, at least for me, sometimes I'm sitting there and thinking, "Ooo, I have 20 minutes of time all to my own! But I'm two weeks behind in Phantasy Star..." and I play Phantasy Star. It's both good and bad to have the obligation to keep going, because it's simultaneously encouraging and guilt-inducing.

@Zero Pretty sure you've always got a HINAS at this point. Chaz should have it, or will have it soon.

@VickiL

Yeah, I getcha. I feel guilty sitting around doing nothing, too. But with EVERYTHING else. Like right now, I'm typing and eating cereal. Can't just type, can't just eat cereal. This is my life.