Chrono Trigger

It was a pretty great port, and I think a lot of fans wanted that Dalton loose thread tied up. (Dalton's great, the whole Blackbird sequence is one of the best parts of the game.) It's just unfortunate the added content couldn't have lived up to what came before it. The DS port gets a bad rap, and it's almost entirely because of that procedurally generated content. Which was a good idea, just not well executed.

edited 10th Aug '17 7:34:48 PM by Unsung

Procedurally generated? Huh. I knew that the vortex dungeons repurposed previous maps, but I never realized they were randomized as well.

I do prefer the original maps they have, of course. I also like how they found a place to put that Singing Mountain track that got cut from the original game.

Also, I'm irrationally interested in the fact that the Shades use moves you havve, but with different names. "Icefall" instead of "Ice II". "Scintillation" instead of "Luminaire". "Explosion" instead of "Flare". It's a super-minor detail, but I like it.

Yeah, the Lost Sanctum wasn't all that great due to all the backtracking and unavoidable encounters. Really, the only boss there that I actually liked was the Nu Guardian/ Nu Master. It's a shame too since the concept for the dungeon was interesting, not to mention it's use of the game's time travel mechanics.

The Dimensional Vortexes are somewhat better despite being made from reused assets. For what it's worth, the bosses are the best part of the dungeon.

So I'm doing a replay of Chrono Cross because there's a hard mod for it i want to try and I haven't done a real replay. I played it once about...4 years ago now I think it was and liked it a lot, writing down my thoughts in here actually.

I wanna do things different of course, get as many party members as i can, but I dunno. I love Kid but you have to tell her to take a hike IMMEDIATELY AFTER SHE SAVES YOUR LIFE in order to get Another Leena. Is she really worth it? I dunno.

On the bright side, I recall distinctly that everyone badgered me to leave Kid for dead in order to get Glenn so in this second run I can do what comes natural and go to find a cure for my darling.

Bad news: Chrono Trigger is the victim of a Porting Disaster. Just read the reviews.

Eh, I've got my DS port. I'm satisfied.

Still haven't gotten around to Black Omen yet tho.

Why do I gotta enter my birthday? :V

I'm guessing for an age check. I mean even if it's rated Teen, Steam gotta cover all their bases if you're not logged in!

Well, on the plus side... er... you... don't need to be constantly connected to the internet and make absolutely sure you never minimise the game window, lest the game just restart on you?

I'm doing my second run of Chrono Cross and I was debating who to go into Viper Manor with. I did Guile my first run and I went with him again because I had forgotten about CC's Ranking System or whatever it's called.

It's like, Pierre is apparently really great in the endgame once you have all his Hero equipment(which I don't think you can get in a single playthrough? I was told it requires NG+ to get all of it. I have the Medal and Shield right now for whenever I do NG+, I guess) but more importantly it requires using him all game. That brings me back to the Rank System. I know some people like how FFXIII "capped" you to prevent overleveling and grinding and it's cool CC did that too back in the day. But it also means that the game that is already making you use only two characters out of a cast of 40 or 50 also ensures you use only the same two characters to gain all those Ranks.

So Pierre could be amazing in the endgame but I'd have to reliably use him for most of the game and I don't want to.

Incidentally, it's interesting that I and many others didn't even realize there was a choice in this matter. I thought Guile was the only way in during my first run and I've seen others say similar about Pierre and Nikki.

Also, looking at the YMMV section:

" Similarly, Humans Are Bastards? Really? The dwarves sound like they're using that as an excuse to justify their actions and there's very little text in terms of Fantastic Racism against the demi-humans. "

This is objectively wrong. The game starts off with a mermaid being kidnapped and put on display during the happy fun festival because clearly she's just an animal. The game is not shy about the human supremacy racism.

edited 8th Mar '18 2:38:43 AM by Nikkolas

Fair enough, but that still doesn't change that humans took the blame for the Dwarves opting to massacred the Fairies. All the blame is laid on them.

Yeah, the thing with the dwarves is people feel like the game blames you for the dwarves essentially committing a genocide, completely ignoring the dwarves' own agency in the matter and how two wrongs don't make a right.

The entire dwarf subplot is awful, from a storytelling and gameplay angle, since you need it to happen to 100% the game.

You can get all of Pierre's stuff painlessly in one playthrough, but it never makes him any better than just usable, rather than awful. Guile is the best Viper Mansion guide if you're really struggling to finish the game and need a "top tier" but on any new game plus runs it really doesn't matter, since only a single bonus boss still has any sort of challenge for you.

edited 8th Mar '18 9:11:25 AM by Hashil

The point of the ranking system is that you don't have to keep using the same character all the time for them to be useful in combat. Your star rank (and thus the size of your element grid) is way more important than the handful of stats boosts you get for non-boss battles.

Don't look at me, before I ever even played CC I was told that you absolutely need to win boss battles with everyone alive or else they lose out on those gains possibly forever. I can't imagine it is any different for characters you just never use which is why Pierre or anyone else I recruit now would end up totally useless by the endgame if I never actually use them because they lose out on all the stat gains.

For example, I just got Greco, Neo Fio and Luccia. If I want them to be useful or at least possibly useful, I have to make use of them. But I dunno if I should bother.... Luccia at least is a Black Innate and I already got Guile so she is useless to me right now.

That's good to know I guess about Pierre.

In any event, I neglected to mention I'm playing a difficulty mod of the game so I want to optimize things as much as I am able to.

Nope, that's just wrong. Star rank applies to every character, in your active party or not, and is far more important than the stat gains your active-and-alive party gets from winning battles.

Okay so looking into this... https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/196917-chrono-cross/58346021

"It depends what you're talking about here.

For those gains that result directly from a level-up star — e.g. from the Mama Komodo fight — then it doesn't matter if the character is one of your three active members or not. Even inactive members will receive their stat gains. A character does, however, have to be alive. K Oed characters will miss out.

What Rune Of Pure Failz is talking about is different. After you gain a star level, there is a window of opportunity wherein fighting random battles will usually allow your characters to gain a little extra HP, or maybe a point or two in other attributes. Not always, but often. And for those gains then, yes, the character must take part in battle to earn them. Just being conscious but inactive isn't enough.

As to being underpowered... not really, no. Weaker than they could be, sure. Those hitpoints do add up, and by the end of the game you could find your character lacking several points in strength or magic. But it's not going to be a crippling difference or anything.

The sad truth is that many characters are kinda subpar anyway compared to others — f'r instance, Neo Fio is never, ever, ever going to be as good a fighter as Glenn — and they'll likely stay that way regardless. Whether you pick up those "mini" gains or not isn't gonna have a huge impact on that. They're nice to get, and there's no downside to it, but you needn't obsess over them or worry that you're ruining your characters by missing them."

So KO'ed characters do miss out but inactive characters still get them. That's nice to know.

But I can't see how stat gains can ever be irrelevant,. As they noted, they do add up.

From what I've found, when you gain a star level, the game randomly determines what stats you'll gain on your next star level. When fighting enemies between star levels you'll gain "mini-levels" that increase that character's stats by the amount they'll gain on their next star level. So essentially, fighting random encounters with a character in your party doubles their stat gains.

Except every character's stats have a set maximum cap for each star level, and how far that stat is behind the cap is used to determine the next star level gains. So if you've been using a character and their stats are high, their next star level gains, and with it the next mini-level gains, will be low and they won't raise very much. While a character you haven't been using and has stats comparatively lower down under their caps will get higher stat bonus on star levels to compensate, and with it they'll gain higher stat bonuses on mini-levels if you decide to use them then.

So not only do star level gain dynamically change to keep characters you haven't been using from falling too behind, but when you do use them they'll gain double their star bonus, which being already high means they'll gain much more than the characters you've been using, further helping them catch up. So missing out on mini-levels really doesn't matter that much, though someone testing this did find that characters they used consistently tended to come out slightly higher at star level 99, likely because of the consistency of their growth, since all this stuff is somewhat randomly determined.

I remember you get a very sweet scene with Kid if you take her to the Water Dragon Isle during the Dwarf Invasion. It triggers when you go to leave. She and Serge sit around a fire and you hear her beautiful theme for the first time.

But I brought her along this time again and no scene? I only specifically used her for this part to get that scene.

Maybe, bizarrely, it only happens if you leave Kid to die and recruit Glenn? For this run, I chose to save Kid and got Razzly so maybe Razzly's subplottakes over.

I'm about to head into the Dead Sea. I think this time I will be able to complete the Marbule sidequest I fucked up my first run. I went and saw Nikki as a cat and then went and talked with him before leaving the Zelbess.

I never really stopped to think about it before but Funguy's and Van's reason for joining the party is because our heroes are after the Frozen Flame. Only...they're not? I'm not even sure what Lynx-Serge's motives are right now. He was told to head to the Sea of Eden so maybe that's his goal? Or is it to get back to Another World? There's also trying to figure out what happened to Viper, the Dragoons, etc..

But searching fro the Frozen Flame? Not really a goal at present.

Also somebody elsewhere pointed out something I never really thought about - namely, how whacky the cast was. CT had a cavewoman, a frog-man, an ancient wizard, some village kids and a robot, However, as he pointed out to me, they are all from various timelines. Meanwhile, CC is presently home to all manners of fantasy and sci-fi characters. It is a bit peculiar, although they aren't all from El Nido at least.

Also Kato apparently just likes this kinda stuff. Frog was originally going to be just a frog, for example and Marle would be a fairy and so-on.

I beat Miguel on my second try! Party was Lynx, Irenes and Draggy. I have a single Diminish on Draggy and wouldn't you know it, Miguel started the first battle off with Antiblack on Draggy. I should have had the Demon Charm on him but oh well. I'll remember that for next time. I just started over and once Diminish is in play, the fight is rather simple. He has a very set pattern. I know a guy who said he found Garai the more challenging boss and I can see why since Garai loves to combo physical attacks and you can't really do anything about them since Lynx is your damage dealer for that fight so you can't just keep him Defending all match. But here my trusty strategy of Eagle Eye + Lynx using Level 3 Attacks over and over again was more than enough to destroy Miguel in pretty quick order. And of course Irenes and Draggy spent all match just healing or buffing.

But yeah, Holy Dragon Sword on Lynx without Diminish did over 700 damage in this. Diminish is going to be vital from here on out.

In more plot-related news, long before I played CC and also still after I played it, I heard people say the characters of Chrono Cross have no personality; they're just a series of accents. I rejected this idea and I still do but it is a bit...off-putting to have Draggy talk about the Dead Sea. "A conglomerrrrtion of buildings"? When the hell did Draggy learn that word?

I imagine it must be peculiar to have any of the sillier characters involved in the more dramatic parts of the plot. But Draggy isn't Mojo or Funguy, I wanted to use him because he is kinda well-suited to the main plot, ya know?

I used him because I like dragons and that he's one of the only Red Innates I like, but they don't do a damn thing with the fact that he's the last dragon on earth. The only secondary character to get any sort of plot relevance or screen time outside their recruitment, scenes unrelated to their playable incarnations, or their 7th tier Technique is Starky, and even than it's only for one scene.

You don't like Kid, eh?

But that is a bit disappointing to hear about Draggy....

Kid is the worst, crikey kangaroos shrimp on the barbie.

Kid's fine. I just don't like any of the rest besides those two.