* * * * * 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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@Xbob42

Yes! Fight it!

I like it (I know others don't see it the same way..), but its like..I dunno, like waiting for Christmas or the Super Bowl or something. And, I mean, aren't we all playing a TON of games constantly? Its so weird to me when people in the EC seem like they have nothing else to play, haha! Gosh, I'm JEALOUS (in a sense) of anyone who is -ONLY- playing Phantasy Star IV this month. Incredible.

@Zero

They sky is definitely falling.

And I looked at that How Long To Beat before we started this; it was ~20 for just Story. Koovaps' guess on 5-6 might actually be 3.5-4 in Zero Time.

I tend to be pretty indecisive when it comes to what games I should play. I usually end up just playing more Fire Emblem instead of my backlog. That's why I like this set up. I know what to play and have a specific amount. Maybe if I set goals for all my backlog games I'd actually take a few down.

@gojira A thing I do is take 3-6 of my backlog games at random, assign them each a number (or numbers) and roll a die. Whichever it lands on I play. Makes that "I have so much choice that I can't choose" feeling go away.

I know I'm starting behind but is it too late to get in on PS4? If not, then please count me in. I've only played PS2 before so this should be a treat. A friend of mine swears by the PS series.

@Jew Drop It's never too late my friend.

@Mr_Mustache Or it could take me twice as long. I like exploring!

How are people liking the game so far? Having a good time with it?

So I got started while I was on my lunch break and whoooo! I'm diggin this game! The music hasn't hit me quite like SoM, but it's good. I'm actually surprised that I remembered the item and technique names and what they do (at least the ones I've seen so far) from playing PS2. Also a big fan of the Macro feature! Very useful. (Was there a similar mechanic in 2?) I also have to say that the comic-panel dialogue is awesome! I wish more 8 or 16-bit RPG's had used that idea.

I picked up Rune in a little under an hour. Stopping to go back to work now. Yay for saving almost anywhere!

@PogueSquadron I'm enjoying it. Something about RPGs of this era just feels right to me. They're generally quick paced, I love 16-bit music (although Genesis music is a bit weird to me) and sprites, etc. There are some annoyances, like the many random battles and the fact that even in a simple fight some of your characters can go from full health to dead in a single turn, but so far I'm pleased.

While I'm thinking of it... is there a way to unequip stuff if you don't have a weapon or armor to replace it with? I usually take all of the equipment from higher level characters that join my group and sell or use it and I want Rune's stuff before he drops out of my party! (at least I assume he'll leave since his level is significantly higher than the rest of the group.)

@Zero
I agree! Turn-based RPGs full of sprites and midi music make me happy. I do wish there was victory music after battles though. 2 had great victory music!

@Zero
I agree completely. I don't even mind the random battles that much since I can fight 2 of those in the time it takes a battle to load in many of the rpg's that came later.

Finished Part 1 of Week 1 last night. I decided on "sleep" before advancing. I'll polish the other two steps off soon enough.

@Jew Drop

Oh man! How'd you end up getting it?

--Hey Z, look at his icon!

@Mr_Mustache

Poor man went the ROM route. After jumping through 8,000,000 effing hoops I finally hit an actual download page and not some stupid "Click Here to Download" link that's really just an ad or a reroute to not-free-porn (seriously, who pays for porn!?!). Sometimes the internets really piss me off.

@Jew Drop

Haha, awesome. (And the guide on Cable always has "interesting" movie names that almost get a bite from me.)

--Can someone help JD out with a site that is very reliable consistently? I don't use ROMs at all.

@Jew Drop Wha? I just right now typed "Phantasy Star IV rom" into Google and the very first site had a direct download link... Roms are super easy to find these days. That said, I still bought the Steam version because it made it feel much more official! Plus the little emulator thing they have it running in is kinda neat in its own weird way. The save state screen shows an image of where you saved, but it's like the game is running, as NPCs will be walking around and stuff. A neat little touch.

Luckily save states aren't bound to a button, you have to hit escape and click save state manually, so I'm never tempted to cheese any fights. I like the whole design of it from a "I want to play this game properly" perspective.

As for a decent site, I think there's one called cool roms or something that's real easy to download from. Most are going to have ads as that's how they pay their bills, and probably more aggressive ads since the sites are specifically for downloading relatively large files for free. I'd say have an ad-blocker on hand. (With Chrome, I use Adblock+ with the Fatboy & Easylist lists. Same with Firefox.)

Are you people seriously not using TRIBLASTER?

@Jew Drop
What I miss most between this and Phantasy Star 2 was that in 2, all the music was the same tempo, so it flowed into battle, into the victory theme, into the field theme, into the dungeon theme, and gave the whole game a certain steadiness of pace.

I've got a Triblaster macro, but it only seems to actually activate like... 40% of the time, maybe?

@Xbob42
That's why I had specified that Hahn go first, since he's usually the slowest character. TRIBLASTER will start later in the round, but it guarantees that it isn't interrupted since the faster characters will delay their turns to go immediately after Hahn does.

@Dark Weres Ahh. Tricky. Got it. Thanks!

Macro help? We're all buds here, I'm still starting out, clue me in?

I just finished 1.1 still (just have 3 party members), should polish off the rest of Week 1 tonight.

Finished week one last night. Good stuff! I'm loving the still-art cut scenes and conversations. Some of Alys' facial expressions are great! Now I need to grind a little and save some money for whatever town is across the bridge.

@Dark Weres

Agreed. It's been a while since I played 2, but I do remember the music transitioning nicely from battle to field to dungeon to town (didn't matter where, it all flowed wonderfully). I also remember dying (complete party death) a lot; much more so than in any other RPG I've ever played. Is 4 as difficult? I've had one and two players die in battles, but no game over screen yet.