Chrono Trigger

Yeah, I noticed it while watching the anime clip of her Crono, and Lucca finding Robo from the Playstation Version.

It's funny to think about really.

...And now, I'm convincing myself that Marle could beat up Kid in a fight.

I sure do like weird topics.

Where Do you get that?

The anime cutscenes do have shots where she is Darker haired◊, but not consistently.

Redhead? no. I can buy Stawberry Blonde.

edited 10th Jul '17 8:49:13 PM by Ghilz

Those first two shots are pretty washed out, and generally it's more of a peach colour than yellow. She isn't really a straight-up redhead *or* blonde, is the point.

Here's the poster that came with the game, by Toriyama himself.◊ You can see what I mean when you compare her directly with Ayla.

edited 10th Jul '17 8:53:28 PM by Unsung

I am pretty sure the no hotlinking image isn't by Toriyama :-P

Guy's a prolific artist, what can I tell you?

Bah. What about this one◊?

edited 10th Jul '17 8:57:42 PM by Unsung

Not like I ever said she can't be stawberry blonde :-P

Though that poster's colors are weird. Robo's brown bits are way more brownish red than usual. But then again Toriyama's known to play around with shades and colors sometimes, so not a surprise if you ever read Dragonball and its covers.

edited 10th Jul '17 9:06:45 PM by Ghilz

We can call it strawberry blonde, sure. I was just saying it was a little bright and unreal, but that's well within anime tolerance limits.

The colours are weird, but so are the proportions. I'm guessing these were fairly early in the design process. They're a little more superdeformed than in later posters, like the Heckran fight on the cover. Part of the inconsistency of the colours here might also be a result of coming from a time where true colour in digital imaging hadn't really been standardized to the degree it has now. We're talking about a scan of a print of a poster of a scan of an ink drawing, and who knows how many tweaks by however many different sets of eyes there've been along the way.

Huh. I feel like I put this thread on my watch list years ago, not a peep, and now suddenly its super active. Heh.

Anyways, I suppose since this is active, I'm curious, is anyone else bugged by the fact that in game Ayla uses her bare hands to kill things, but like all the official art and the anime cutscenes give her a big honking club?

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate big honking clubs as weapons as well, but I just prefer the bare handed approach and I'm confused why they gave her a club in the non-game stuff.

Development iteration. The club made her look more like a stereotypical cavewoman in the early concept art, but her panther-woman/pro wrestling style was just a lot more interesting to look at, and that was probably something they only came up with as they started animating, when they really wanted to set Ayla apart. Crono and Frog are already swinging melee weapons around. Magus does too, though he doesn't have any weapon combo techs, so it's less noticeable.

Animation's fun like that. Go check out how much Pixar's movies change from initial pitch to first drawing board sketches to finished movie sometime. It's pretty great.

Which would make sense if the animations were made at the same time as the game, but as far as I'm aware they weren't made til the PS 1 port came about. So it seems odd that they'd go off concept art for the animations instead of sticking with what actually happens in the game.

edited 10th Jul '17 11:06:09 PM by Kosjurake

Missed the part where you mentioned the anime cutscenes. Forgot about that. Yeah, I guess Toriyama directed those and that's just how he saw her.

Does anyone think Kid was meant to be a Pirate Girl?

She's even got the accent for it.

Those accents were not in the Japanese version. Almost everyone spoke the exact same lines with no accent at all, only exceptions were character specific plot related lines.

In the English version they just ran the unaccented script through an accent generator for each character, hence why 99% of the characters say the same line in the same situation just with accents or a word is switched around. Every single one was different and some were damn near unreadable.

And no, she is a Cute Thief Girl which is a related trope and a pretty common one in Japanese fantasy. Small, fast and slit your throat with a dagger at a moments notice. Like Chris in Kono Suba or Fie in The Legend Of Heroes Trails Of Cold Steel

edited 11th Jul '17 9:50:12 AM by Memers

It is, as you say, a related trope. And I think the localization team looked at her costume and thought she looked a bit like a pirate— the game does take place on ships, seas, and a series of tropical islands— hence selecting her over-the-top Aussie accent with the occasional vaguely piratical choice of words.

edited 11th Jul '17 12:58:02 PM by Unsung

Ayla is my favorite character. I'm a fan of the Hot Amazon trope, especially one that fights with bare hands, though admittedly she's probably really smelly lol.

You'd never guess considering how well kept she looks.

And I can't blame you. I mean, who doesn't enjoy a hot cave woman who can punch the hell out of robots, monsters, and eldritch abominations with only her bare fists.

Triple Kick all night along.

Also that tail being fake is really weird. I thought the tail and the way she runs was to show she was the Missing Link.

Maybe it's her homage to the missing link? Like she acknowledges that her ancestors had tails?

Also Falcon Hit is super OP... all she does is toss Crono even.

edited 16th Jul '17 9:51:43 AM by Malco

So what is everyone's stance on the DS exclusive content?

The dungeons are boring and it doesn't really add much of worth other than trying to tie into the raging dumpster fire that is Chrono Cross

Even leaving aside the story, which doesn't make much sense and has to link up with Cross which is difficult at the best of times, the DS add-ons are a grindy, repetitive mess, full of lifeless dialogue and palette-swapped art. Not that palette swapping is so bad in an RPG, but the monsters and dungeons are all noticeably worse in the DS epilogue.

I remember the Crimson Echoes/Flames of Eternity fan-interquel being pretty alright, though.

Ghilz hit the nail on the head. It doesn't really add much; it just poorly attempts to tie into what is already widely regarded as a really shitty sequel anyway.

It's like editing Jar Jar Binks into a bunch of Original Star Wars Trilogy scenes; sure, one might argue it adds more cohesion, but is that really worth the terrible cost?

edited 16th Jul '17 6:27:00 PM by TobiasDrake

The port itself is pretty fantastic, though.

(Also, I've always heard Chrono Cross was pretty solid, just not too good at following up Triigger.)

edited 16th Jul '17 7:47:30 PM by EndlessSea

I think Chrono Cross by itself is an average-to-good RPG that's a nice time waster with a handful of memorable characters to me (Alt!Lenna, Lynx, Marcy, Harle are some of my favorites), and I did play it once or twice, but I (and some other people, probably) dis it all the time because of its... questionable connection... to Chrono Trigger.

The Chrono Trigger DS Port, well I played it, I didn't even do the optional dungeons, and I had fun raising my monster to an overpowered mess in that minigame.

edited 16th Jul '17 8:06:34 PM by Malco

Fetch Quest Mountain would've been 1000% as good as it is if they cut out the unavoidable fights on the various paths. Aside from that, it's a decent set of time travel puzzles and hunts.

The vortex dungeons were neat, and the bosses were fun, even if Once-King Dalton should've by all rights prevented part of Chrono Cross by blatantly telling the team what and where he's gonna be later on.

And the Dream Devourer was a cool fight.