* * * * * 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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@Zero

Posted a Poll. Sit back, and enjoy the ride..

Alright week 5 done. It wasn't too bad although the third form of the boss pretty much destroyed my characters at around level 40 so I had to do a bit of leveling up to stand a chance.

I wonder if maybe the game balance was adjusted between the Genesis debut and the port to Steam. I was pretty much in lock step with Zero in my levels (ended with party between 36 and 42) and didn't have any real trouble after the first trip to Motavia. The Air Castle was a pain as a whole because it was so big and confusing, but the boss alone gave me no fits. Bosses would hit my characters hard (sometimes all of them in the 80-90% range) but rarely did they KO anyone unexpectedly. And when it's 5 on 1 and the boss goes last every turn, it's not too tough to recover from a sucker punch.

Or maybe my dual-shielding-damage-sponge-at-the-front lineup and SANER-DEBAN-BARRIER-WARLA leadoff were just so pro league. I'm probably the only one who picked Kyra at the end. I liked her blue hair, upbeat attitude, well-rounded competencies, and compatibility with my collection of depressing memento boomerangs...Alys my love, whyyyyyyyyy

@Zero

Week 5 done..sooo..you beat the game! Yeaaaah!

@nate38

I ended around that Level, too, though I didn't encounter the hardships he did earlier. Haha, "pro league?" Is that a term? I LOVE IT. I ALMOST picked Kyra. Her Medice thing was nuts!

I miss Alys, too Wish we coulda brought her.

Too bad, she's gone, and just like Chaz, you gotta learn to MOVE ON!

I don't see how anyone can beat the end with level 36 characters, my level 40s were sometimes dying in a single turn. I also only had the one person who could multi-heal and she would run out of MP very quickly... so then I went back and got the other guy who had multi-heal, leveled-up a bit, and it wasn't too bad. The only thing I can think of is that maybe my characters had bad equipment since I hadn't found anywhere to buy anything new for a long, long time, but I was gathering a bunch of good stuff in the stages leading up to the end so I didn't think I was missing out much by not buying stuff.

@Zero Did you sell the Laser Barrier? There must be some sort of hidden stat for special/tech defence, because it seemed like this shield reduced damage from non-physical stuff more than most other stuff I came across.

I don't even know what the laser barrier is. That's another thing, it was always very unclear what stuff actually DID in this game.

@Zero It's a shield. "LASRBARRIR" is how I think it was spelled in the game.

Hmm I dunno. Not sure if I used that.

@Zero

Did you equip those Rings you found towards the end?

@Mop it up

I had a Ring that didn't get equipped on anyone, and I don't know why. Did you?

Yeah I equipped 4 on my 4 main people. The weird thing is that the story says it is 5 rings for 5 people, hence only getting to bring 1 more person with, but it wouldn't let me equip the last ring on him anyway.

@Zero

YEAH! Whats up with that stupid last ring?!

I noticed that too, it seemed like each character had their own specially-made ring already.

@Zero
Congratulations! Who was your number 5?

Green guy, whatever his name was. Not really my favorite character, but I wanted his multi-heal.

Actually that was my second attempt. First attempt (at much lower levels too) was the blue guy, but he has NO spells so he is tough to use.

Yeah, I took Raja, too. I needed those heals. I think I had him healing or using his St. Elmo every round. Those St. Elmo rounds, usually Rika was healing because she moved first. And there were quite a few rounds where every character was using a healing spell or item.

Phantasy Star IV looks like our most successful Game Club ever (in terms of Completion %) on NW, yet our "whats next?" Poll has two votes in it (I haven't voted as I wish not to skew the results, and by putting them in there, I've essentially voted for ALL of them as it is).

Whats the scoop, my Epic Friends?

Wow, looks like we're not starting June 23rd. Do we have a failsafe / fall back thing?

Liiike, if nothing gets definitively picked, we just play ____________ or something?

PM sent to Nate. Might squeeze Y's in before August, starting Sunday, July 7th.

We'd probably have like 3 people playing. NICE.