Chrono Trigger!!

Today I'm going to talk about Chrono Trigger (if you couldn't tell from the title) I remember buying this game from a friend of mine who sold me his old Super Nintendo. From my first play through the game, I was hooked.  This game has a lot of things going for it that I still like, and I'll go through them in no particular order. 
The Story: Starting out as a bunch of curious kids trying to do the right thing that by rescuing a princess trapped in time, into an epic story to (of course) save the world from certain destruction.  One of the things that I still like about this story is that it does not get so caught up with weird metaphysical things going on (no villain escapes to the dreamshpere to destroy all existence), you just need to kill Lavos, and you need to be strong enough to do it, some things happen to you on the way of that quest, but pure and simple that is the task, because if you don't, He will bring about mass destruction.  This was one way that the sequel, Chrono Cross disappointed me.  In that game, I needed to stop an evil cat man, run across frozen waves, battle dragons to collect their flames, swap realities, swap bodies, all while Chrono, Marle and Lucca make cameo appearances as child spirits... and then you kill Lavos at the end of the game (again).  I had no idea what I was doing by the end of the game, I was just killing things to get them to spew mountians of text at me that spun the game into even more confusion. But not so with Chrono Trigger, just kill Lavos.
     The characters themselves were also interesting to me,they each had a back story that was either thrown in the limelight (like Frog and Magus), or could be discovered with a little probing (Marle, Lucca, Robo) and it made them feel a bit more human, which is quite a feat for little 2-D animated sprites who spend most of their time smashing or slicing things.

The Gameplay: This was another aspect that I really enjoyed.  The battles do not occur randomly, they occur (for the most part) when you walk into the next enemy. Some minor battles could be avoided with clever walking, and made it nice that you could get rewarded by skipping battles for good control of the characters.  For instance, the sewers in the future, I would always skip them when you had the first chance to go into them, and then return later, but if you return later, the battles are very easy, but several can be skipped if you are "quiet" and don't disturb the monsters down there. 
  Then there are the battles themselves.  These were very well done, team members could team up for attacks to do extra damage or have extra effects (team healing, confusing the enemy...) , and also some attacks were based on the location of the players and the enemies, such as the falcon hit, (Chrono and Ayla) that hits all enemies in a horizontal line across the middle of the screen, or Robo's area bomb attack that damages all enemies directly around him. It would have been cool if you could move around during a battle, to reposition for the different attacks, but there was such a variety of attacks that you never need to move the characters for maximum effect, but it would be a cool feature.  Supposedly Chrono Cross allowed you to use double attacks, but I was never able to get any of them. 
  One instance of the gameplay that did not bother me when I first played the game, but would like to see changed, is the limit of only 3 characters in the party at a time.  I am sure that the limit of three was more a hardware/software limitation of the Super Nintendo rather than a story choice, but it would be cool to undertake the later areas of the game as a large group and be able to use multiple double and triple attacks in large battles.  And again, the fact that this appeared in Chrono Trigger did not bother me so much, it is just that three in a party seems to be the magic number that every party in every role-playing game can have.  I was not too surprised that Final Fantasy games (7 and 8) and Crono Cross only allowed three in a party, but when I finally played Knights of the Old Republic, I was sorely saddened that I could only take three of my party members out at once, and the rest had to sit at home base and twiddle their thumbs (maybe the sequel has addressed this?).  Again, this is not a major hang up that I have with the game, but if I could do it again, I'd throw that rule out.

What else is there... the music I guess.  I enjoyed the music from the game, it got in my head, and there was a good deal of it, for all the different areas, times, moods and the like. the music does float around in my brain with other classic video game music like metroid and zelda music. Now that I think about it, most new games have music that is much less memorable, except perhaps for every Star Wars game that was ever made, I cannot think of the music, perhaps they do not want it to be a distracting (or perhaps memorable) part of the game, and it is really just there to add to the mood, and not take away from the action. 

Replayability... well, I still like to play the game because it is so classic, there is no multiplayer (I hear the new remake of the game did add a multiplayer section).  The New Game Plus option was nice, and gave you a chance to take your high level characters through the game again, and I guess discover some of the alternate endings.  Again, if I were doing it again, I would add a "master quest" type challenge with much harder puzzles and battles to take on with your high level characters, but I certainly can't complain too much, the game was a challenge all the way through, which I feel is the way a game like this should be. 

The remake:  Chrono Trigger was released again on the Gameboy DS not too long ago as a nearly direct port, with some extra features added on at the end, according to reviews I have read.  I have not picked up a copy of the game, but I have thought about it.  I wish they had done more than just do a simple port of the old game, I guess it was a good money-making move, which is after all what all these companies exist for, but I would have wanted something more.  Think like the change from Super Metroid to Metroid Prime, or Zelda: Link to the past to Zelda; Ocarina of Time.  A transition like those games got was what I was hoping for with Chrono Cross, but what I got, I feel was a game loosely organized around some ideas that sprang out of some one thinking about Chrono Trigger.  I know that they say Chrono Cross is based off of some other materials that were made by that same group, and it was a good game in it's own right, but it just lacked the magic that made Chrono Trigger great. 

So there are some of my thoughts about one of my favorite games. Chime in with your thoughts about the game, or any of my remarks.

My latest obsession

If you have looked at the list of games on the side, you note that there are 2 Pokemon games listed.  It is true. I do play pokemon.

I first played Red/Blue on the original Gameboy, and despite what I said around my friends, I actually enjoyed the game more than my little brother whose games they were.  Then for a while they faded into obscurity, and that was nearly that. but I did have a gameboy advance, and through twist of fate, I got my hands on a copy of Pokemon Sapphire, that was saved from being thrown away.  I whizzed through Hoenn with my trusty Swampert and blew through the gyms and elite four and captured Kyogre.  At that point, I started looking for something more.

My fist Internet searches took me mostly to serebii.net to glean more information about breeding mechanics, damage calculation, EV's, IV's and natures, but everyone kept talking about different tiers, and I kept trying to find out how the different monsters were graded (or assigned to tiers) and I eventually got to Smogon.com, and I thought I had found what I was looking for. While Smogon does have lots of good strategy and tips, there are a few things that I do not like about their site, but that is a post for another day.

I occasionally reward myself at the end of semesters, and at one time I decided I should get one of the gen 4 games, Diamond and Pearl had been out for a while at this time. So, once again with my little brother's gameboy DS, I bought a used copy of Pokemon Diamond. I selected Diamond because it did not provide redundant access to monsters I could get in Sapphire (like Salamence). I started with Chimchar, and smashed my way through the game, I collected my signature legendary (to this day I can't remember which is which, or which I have), and took down the elite four with the help of my (now) infernape, a gyrados and riachu as the high level champs of my game, from beating the elite 4 multiple times for money/experience.

As a gift I received Pokemon Soul Silver, and have just recently defeated the elite four, and traveled across to Kanto, and taken on a few gyms there, but my adventure is ongoing. 

I have taken some stabs at the battle tower in my Sapphire and Diamond games, Ill put up my battle tower teams, justt for fun (that is what this is all about, right)

Sapphire Battle Tower

Lead with Starmie with surf, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt and Recover. EV'ed to be fast and Ko stuff before it can set up. This guy wins many BT matches by himself

 Medicham was my 2nd choice for my physical attacker, I originally had a rhydon, but it was simply an under performer. medicham knows: Brick Break, Shadow Ball, Fake Out, and Psych Up. was a backup if Starmie couldn't kill it

Weezing was the staller/wall. It used Sludge Bomb, Flamethrower, Haze, and Explosion, and carried leftovers. Only psychics could normally beat it, and it was a swichin for grass types that threatened starmie.

Sadly this team never it made to more than about 50ish wins, and it has now been transferred to my Diamond game, where they can sit around collecting PC dust. Starmie is still useful after the transfer, but the other 2 are lackluster after the physical/special split.

My Diamond BT Team. This team was built to beat the BT leader the first time for the purpose of collecting battle points

My lead is a Choice Banded Staraptor, it knows Brave Bird, Close Combat, U-turn and Return. It lives to KO, until it is no longer useful, but can be saved to hit things with intimdate for later

I figured I needed a Steel type if I ever wanted to switch in, and Metagross has not disappointed.  It is a fairly standard Agiligross with a Life orb. It knows: Agility(big surprise), Meteor Mash, Zen Headbutt, and Earthquake, and the killing power has not disappointed, he does not even miss that often

Lanturn is my last member, and is in because it can be impossible to KO, with Resistance to water and ice, and immunity to electric attacks and huge HP and recovery, it carries leftovers and runs the set of: Surf, Ice beam, Discharge and Aqua ring for stalling.

I have a normal battle team that has been made, and another one that is just starting, as well as a few stand alone monsters, and an alternative Diamond BT team that are all ready to go, but those will wait for another day