ILG Player's Club plays Chrono Trigger

I did! It's on now.

http://www.offworld.com/assets_c/2009/07/stephtrigger-thumb-620x620-23775.jpg

I have trolled thru that fair a bunch of fucking times, got a bit further than that into it. Maybe got to a future bit once if it's this game I'm thinking of. Still don't get the fanatical devotion this thing inspires. Anyway I'm obtaining a patched nds and maybe I'll join in with this for a bit.

I made it through the future last night, got the robot guy and then ended up at the End of Time, where I learned magic, in addition to techs. I like the dual tiered spell system conceptually, though in terms of game play I guess it doesn't matter much since both draw off the same pool of "magic points".

I gotta admit that the future part dragged a little, b/c the colors were so drab in the domes and in the factory. It was hard to tell where I was going. The enemies weren't very compelling, robots and acid slimes and bugs. There was one difficult battle, the one with five or six of the most powerful robots.

But on the whole I'm still really enjoying this. I think the future part maybe obscured the main plot of the game...actually, I'm not sure I know what the main plot of the game is, yet...something about playing around with time. So I guess it's still early to evaluate the game's story.

That courtroom scene was fantastic, I loved the way they kept using flashbacks from my actual game to disprove the claims I was making. Proper "DOH!" moments.

I'm a bit stuck in the future now, one dungeon appears to be a dead end and the other has a kind of future car in it which doesn't do anything except trigger baddies. I was playing while very tired last night though, and kept dozing off, so I probably missed something obvious.

Not sure I like my core team that much, Chrono is becoming a bit of a tank while the two girls just seem to be fairly ineffective range fighters with weak magics. Liked the frog, hope he comes back.

What do people think of the battle system? I don't really feel like I've got a grip on it yet, tend to find I'm missing stuff happening on the top screen while I'm choosing options on the bottom screen. Also, I've got it set to "wait" mode but it still mostly carries on with or without my input. It's a weird mixture of turn based and real time, and I'm generally finding it a bit confusing.

Totally agree on the "wait" thing: I'd set it up that way, but if I wait, the enemy seems to attack anyway. I'm getting better at aligning combos which are great when you're taking on five or six enemies, or need a mass heal (as I did repeatedly in the harder battles).

Courtroom scene was boss: is it possible to avoid eating the old man's lunch initially?

The girls get a lot better as they level and pick up eq, which I guess is obvious. But really it's the eq; with some decent armor and better weapons, which are just around the corner for you Jim, they're really nice. I now have four people to choose from, but the new character seems like just another tank so I kept the girls instead; Marle is a healer, and despite the profusion of healing potions, my RPG tendency is to hoard healers and avoid potions as much as I can (b/c you don't know when you'll need a potion but have run out, whereas with a healer you usually can go a lot longer). I suspect not everyone plays this way, and I can't really rationally defend it better than I just did.

oh yeah, I kept Lucca b/c she's a very nice blaster already, and I figure will get better yet. The robot (I called him Squack) is more a blaster tank, which I like as my main character but not as a second character; I tend to prefer to keep my characters pure, division of labor and all that.

lol @ me remembering this but for marle and lucca their dmg output is calculated so that it grows exponentially - theyre pretty crap @ the beginning but they own in the l8 game. the others growth rates are more balanced. also i think the two girls use a different, non-STR stat for the calculation which also starts low

the robot is probably the best non-chrono character iirc - dope all around fighter w/some healing some array and a decent elemental spread. and his techs are pretty cheap and his double/triple techs are all pretty good - so he works well with any party

Do characters waiting at The End of Time level when your main team levels?

i dont think so - u need to level a pair or a trio together to unlock their techs anyway but im not sure tbh

Courtroom scene was boss: is it possible to avoid eating the old man's lunch initially?

yah - SPOILER - depending on how u behaved @ the fair u can be found innocent. u cant eat the oldster's food and theres some other stuff - i think u have to find a lost cat? basically if u act like a real bro then the court will find u innocent but if u were a jerk then ~heads roll~ its basically the same u still end up in jail and have to break out but i think u get some extra items if u were innocent

- MORE SPOILERS -

oh also fwiw the courtroom scene and the jail break were total revelations to me as a little kid ~ i rented this game one wknd and played through to the future but never got to rent it again. i finally bought it and remembered the trial so i changed my pattern & also waited to be let out ~ tht it was so rad that the game had these divergent paths

I was found innocent (yeah, I saved the cat) but still ended up in jail and sentenced to death by the cockface chancellor. So I figure the chancellor has a key role to play in the main story, usurper of power or something like that.

Well, the medieval baddie was disguised as their chancellor, wasn't he? So I'm guessing this is still the same monster in disguise, or something.

That's right! It could be a coincidence, but with so little to go on right now, that's a reasonable posit.

im playing this in "new game +" mode with lvl 50+ characters & all the items from the previous walkthrough. i managed to get all jury members to side with me during the trial for the first time, which didnt change a thing, gameplay-wise.

also the outdoor tune in the zeal kingdom, which is where im at now, is v pretty, possibly my favourite square games tune ever.

I've played this a bit further. I've found the blade and hilt of the broken Masamune, and after a trip back to 100000000 BC or whatever, found the dreamstone evidently needed to refuse the sword. The parts with Ayla were pretty confusing---she seems to have the hots for Chrono, but does she also have the hots for Marle? The dialogue was confusing, as were the flashings of eyes at the wild dance party. One thing I don't like about old school RPGs is they don't all keep track of past dialogues for you, so if you missed a detail about what to do next, you can be totally adrift. Hopefully the guy at the End of Time can help you get back on track if you lose it? I've avoided walkthroughs so far and hope to continue to do so, but not if I end up spending an hour wandering trying to figure out how to trigger the next plot event. That's especially important in a game like this that does such a great job of making grinding unnecessary.

the music in this owns

^absolutely, one of the best soundtracks

btw that reminds me, for the guy who was like "Still don't get the fanatical devotion this thing inspires" earlier, i think u can pretty much sum it up w/"production values" - there's nothing mind-blowing about the game, i could tell it was treading well worn territory even when i was 10 years old, but it's just incredibly well executed on every level; art direction, design, music, writing, presentation, basically everything is polished to a sheen. plus it's got an abundance of ~*~*hEaRt & sOuL*~*~

cankles is right about "production values" - this is maybe kinda sorta the first 32-bit RPG, apart from, you know, not being 32-bit

i have not been able to download this because my broadband stopped working. hrmph

Yes on production values; and while I'm happy to play more RPGs like this after I finish it, I wonder when the next big leap in RPG construction will be. Oblivion sure wasn't it, with a basically linear quest that revolved around your character. I'd like to play an RPG where my character is just another character in a vast drama, where my decisions won't ultimately determine much about the fate of the kingdom/nation/planet/galaxy/whatever. I want there to be big events that happen independently of my character, and that I can take part in to a limited, human-scale extent, without being a leader or whatever. Like let me be a foot soldier in a massive army campaign, but make it an RPG: you could even work in character progression/leveling somehow if you were wedded to that. If I could get some venture capital I'd put together a team and try to build one of these, though my friends in the industry say the money's really only in MMORPGs nowadays.

holy shit he cut a mountain in half

I dunno, this isn't really capturing my imagination yet? I have barely started but it feels real static. I will soldier on.

i beat kotor yesterday, so today i dusted off my snes (had to whip out the compressed air actually~ ::adjusts glasses::) so i could join u guys and found that i no longer have an ac adapter for that shit. and nintendo stopped selling replacement shit for the nes/snes like literally last year ;____;

also its probably not captureing ure imagination because ures is the imagination of a jaded 40 year old or w/e

nm, found the adapter!!!!! time to son some fools

[10:27] me: what should i name crono
[10:27] me: i'm thinkin BALLZ
[10:27] jumaan: wake up NIGGER its the day of the millenial fair
[10:28] me: lol, i wish
[10:28] me: five char limit tho ;_;

i went with Nelly

i'm doing new game+ so i can school u lil nublets

crono is level ★★ with ★★ power, ★★ speed, ★★ mag, ★★ stam, ★★ m def, rainbow armor and rainbow weaponz, 254 attack 224 def

~_~

damn i could really use a new controller, my down button and start button have to be pressed super hard to work :[

i love that you bothered to find the character for the star

i futzed around in the fair for a while and then said fuckit and started a new game of KOTOR :/

mmmmm hmmmmm!

beat Magus tonight; combat wasn't too tough in the Fiendlord Keep b/c I've figured out the rhythm for healing. But the story is great, with a Back-To-The-Future moment (spoiler for the few of us who haven't memorized this game) where Marle is now my babe in the present. Now if only I can get Ayla to be my backstreet girl...

Still playing this, just got out of jail free.
Everybody still going?

hell yes I'm still going; got the Wings of Time tonight after some good luck in renegotiating the future world (I had a flash-back-forward-whatever-I-can't-tell-what-direction-time-is-going-anymore showing me a dome with a magic door I could open, and the first dome I tried was right). After a little joyriding I went back to antiquity and the Mountain of Woe where I got my ass handed to me; so saved there and will try again tonight.

Am I the only one playing this? Eh, it's still very fun. The latest fights have been pretty tough: those Golem sisters were brutal. Without getting into massive spoilers, I'm enjoying how I'm forced to shuffle my party around, because my instinct would be to bunker down with the same characters regardless of their suitability. Once you have the Wings of Time there's a fair bit of non-linearity in the game should you want it, but for the most part I'm just following the main plot and going to the prescribed next era after each cataclysm.

I've just gone into the future. The linearity you're digging on upthread feels like rails to me. Dunno, I promised myself I'd finish this, but it honestly just feels like work. Having not played this before, there's no nostalgia buzz.

i didnt see the goonies when i was a kid, and now i probably never will because i'm an adult (technically), so between that and the lack of nostalgia there's just probably not much i would get out of it. u kno wut im gettin at?

told u we shoulda done secret of mana btw~

yeah, that's kinda what I'm feeling here.
Let's soldier through with it for another few days and then do psychonauts? unless there's more to discuss on this one?

Also: you're not missing that much with the goonies. Except the video game. Which was dope! but not now. only if you played it then.

Yeah, I have no nostalgia for this, or really for any RPG like this; the only RPG I've played like this for like 20 years is Golden Sun 2 (oh, and I mudded like hell in college). I've never played an FPS except in teeny doses, so the combat in this is no prob. for me. The plot is convoluted but interesting. Gameplay is straightforward, I guess: hack and blast and heal, but without the tedious need to wait while regenning like in Oblivion. So this is hitting a fun spot for me, but I'm 16 hours in and I would guess close to winning, maybe a night or two away.

This compares badly to a Zelda game? I'd like to play a Zelda if they're that good; I've not played once since 2, I think.

told u we shoulda done secret of mana btw~

lol a friend and i have started replaying som

euler where are u @ ~~~ game is longer than u think cuz if u just beat magus, tortured soul, u still have some hourz left esp if u want to hit the big sidequests (rec'd) and get u characters 2 cankles lvl double stars

I'm looking for the doll to resurrect Chrono.

i think this is the best time in the game to finish most of the sidequests (sun stone, frog ghost) ~~~ v. much worth it imo

kickass, will start in a few mins

fucking skeleton motherfucker in the sunken desert, cannot beat

haha

good progress euler!

i've not played anything other than peggle for the past week. i woke up and didn't want to play videogames anymore. i don't know why peggle is an exception. it seems weird to me too.

beat that skeleton finally; it helped when I just went for the head, as probably is obvious to fps fans

popping through the sidequests, spent way too long getting the damn "L-A-R-A" thing to work but I couldn't stand the idea of not healing Lucca's mom so I did it like 15 times. Which was a bad idea because I meant I heard that awful scream when she got her legs cut off like 15 times.