Chrono Trigger

- Hmm... Is there any indication that the poison is non-terminal? Usually, it seems like if you need to Find the Cure!, the ill person needs it or they'll die, right?

It's lethal. Kid survives because someone came in from off-screen carrying the medicine and healed her (eventually revealed to be Norris).

Pretty much the only reason not to go after the Hydra humor is because either a) you don't care about Kid or b) metagame hindsight.

You don't know this going through the game the first time, but in a cast 99% filled with dozens of mostly filler character who literally say the same dialogue filtered through a dialect generator, Kid is the one character who is absolutely 100% inescapably super-important to the plot. The game would never have let her die of hydra poison.

But again, you don't know that the first time 'round.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 30th 2019 at 8:31:01 AM

For what it's worth, my first playthrough I went down the "don't save her" route because the actual conversation where you make the decision spells out that it's impossible to save her because hydras are extinct in El Nido and you can't reach the mainland this time of year because of impassible ocean currents (without mentioning the possibility of hydras still surviving in Home World), then asks what you're going to do about it. Then two options are "I'm gonna save her!" and "...I don't know". Given that they just told you there's no way to save her, I picked the second one, since it was... you know, true.

Personally I thought the implication that is there is a way to save her by traveling to the other timeline where Hydra aren't extinct yet to be obvious since traveling between the timelines is the game's central gimmick.

I'm gonna save her!" just feels like the Shonen hero thing to do when the obvious love interest of the game took a knife to the gut.

Which is precisely why I didn't pick that option, because I found the alternative more interesting.

I picked the "I don't know..." answer the first time because it struck me as a But Thou Must! situation and I wanted to see the response... only to discover that it wasn't, and I just tripped across an alternative path.

So, to get back to my original point, would it be a Guide Dang It! that there's a path to avoid killing the Hydra and having Kid still live?

'Cause if I felt like I just condemned an important NPC to death, I'd likely quit and retry?

Seeing as it's as simple as taking one of two paths at a binary crossroad, I'd say no.

I don't know, there are a few But Thou Must! situations in the game, aren't there? Dialogue choices that don't actually change anything, or are at most cosmetic? I think it's fair to list it,given that it's so noncommittal. It doesn't look like the major, irrevocable decision point that it is.

The only example of dialogue choices being meaningless like that is an obvious joke where Nikki asks if you want to hear him play, and the options are something like "No", "Nah", and "Not really". Generally speaking, things that you would think are But Thou Must! actually aren't — like when you can tell Kid that no, you don't want her to join your party, and she actually won't.

But yeah, Guide Dang It! is about things that are so obscure or counterintuitive that you'd never find it on your own. "Take the other branching story path by selecting the other dialogue option" definitely doesn't qualify.

Speaking of that, there are a few annoying instances where recruiting characters is incredibly counter intuitive. To get Serge's childhood friend to join you need to refuse Kidd enough that she leaves, or CHF is locked out for that playthrough.

The game does branch considerably, including whether or not you can recruit characters based on that one piece of dialogue. The game treats "...I don't know" as a hard no, you will not bother to save Kid, but the way it's phrased, the way the other characters chime in, it doesn't really seem particularly momentous or definitive at the time. It seems like something you could come back to later, basically. And in a way that fits with the game's For Want Of A Nail alternate dimensions, I'm not saying it's bad, but I do think Guide Dang It! fits. You would have no way of knowing that was the linchpin moment without a guide or from having played the game before.

I think I'm experiencing some measure of Seinfeld Is Unfunny when it comes to Chrono Trigger. I've tried multiple times over the years to play the game, and every time I've never really been able to get into it, even after over 6 hours of play. Maybe it's just something wrong with me.

Edited by GNinja on Dec 10th 2019 at 2:26:20 PM

Hey, if you can't get into it, no need to keep trying. Doesn't matter if it's you or the game.

If you don't mind a personal anecdote, though, I certainly found Chrono Trigger to hold up much better than FFVII did. Started playing both around the same time, and while VII only occasionally got me interested, CT was surprisingly consistent in being very enjoyable (albeit with a dip when all the endgame sidequests opened up and the lack of direction put me into a months-long break). I think I went into CT with higher expectations, too.

CT benefits from being at the very tail end of the sprite era, so it has really good 2D sprite art, FFVII is essentially the opposite, among the very first fully 3D JRPGs released, and it shows. Even FFVIII, just a few years later, looks vastly better than FFVII does.

While I normally don't like time travel in stories, CT pulled it off fairly well.

...I'm not going to talk about Chrono Cross.

I dare you to do it.

Are you a bad enough dude to talk about Chrono Cross?

The soundtrack to Chrono Cross is absolutely incredible, and I won't hear anything otherwise.

I mean, it happens. I played FF 6 for the first time at the beginning of this year and while I enjoyed it, it definitely didn't live up to the lofty reputation a lot of snes-era gamers have given it.

Same for Chrono Trigger.

It's mitigated by the common battle theme you hear in most fights being absolute pants.

Eh. I rather liked it.

You could really groove to it.

I’ve never played the DS rerelease, but I’m not really sure I’m missing out on much given what I e heard about it. I like to play the SNES and PS 1 versions of it just fine.