Giantbomb's Endurance Run: The Third: Chrono Trigger

I really don't understand why the went on to make a game about Schala at all. She was hardly in this game and didn't really do anything anyway. They could have just said that she died when Lavos fucked up the Water Palace (Which is what I thought happened in the first place until I read the Chrono Cross spoilers) and come up with something else for the sequel instead of turning an insignificant little thing into this massive convoluted story.
In the Ultimania, Kato believed that subplot was unfinished, thus Chrono Trigger ended with unfinished business. I suppose he wanted everyone to have a happy ending, including Magus.

Trigger had Horii write out the plot outline, and Kato, Kitase, and Tokita wrote everything else. Kato was the one who wrote all of the 12000 BC stuff (and most of the game, but he wrote all of the 12000 BC stuff). With Cross, Kato wrote the plot and other writers wrote the subplots. I guess that since Kato was fully in charge of the 12000 BC stuff, he decided to extend the plot from that into Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross.

oh right i forgot the part in chrono cross where you find out that
there's an alternate timeline where lavos never came and the reptites became the dominant species and built a big city with a machine called the dragon god that controlled nature and then belthasar's time traveling city fucked up time and the two cities fought and then the dragons seeded an archipelago with life or created the archipelago or something.

and then halfway through the game
you and the cat-machine-dad switch bodies and you lose all your party members except for gaining a harlequin girl who aggressively wants to jump your cat bones. and then she turns out to be a nature dragon for the god machine controlled by schala-lavos too.
KuGsj.gif


Yep, that sounds about right.
 
I approve of the direction this thread has taken. Which is:

Chrono Cross on its own? Good game.
Chrono Cross as a sequel to Chrono Trigger? Fucking abomination.
 
oh right i forgot the part in chrono cross where you find out that
there's an alternate timeline where lavos never came and the reptites became the dominant species and built a big city with a machine called the dragon god that controlled nature and then belthasar's time traveling city fucked up time and the two cities fought and then the dragons seeded an archipelago with life or created the archipelago or something.

and then halfway through the game
you and the cat-machine-dad switch bodies and you lose all your party members except for gaining a harlequin girl who aggressively wants to jump your cat bones. and then she turns out to be a nature dragon for the god machine controlled by schala-lavos too.

it's like there were six games between CT and CC that they just skipped.
 
Oh, GAF did have a thread for Crimson Echoes. (I wasn't on GAF at that time, so I obviously didn't participate.)

It isn't too bad, though some of the characters have some out-of-character moments which bugged me. But I enjoyed it overall. If you guys just want to watch it, there's a whole playthrough on YouTube. Sample.
 
Just finished watching the stream archive. Even with the armor mess up I'm glad they were able to endure and see the ending.

The moment where they found the save point after the boss rush was priceless.
 
Personally I'd rather they do something like Xenogears, a deeply flawed but awesome game. I don't think they could get through it.
 
Personally I'd rather they do something like Xenogears, a deeply flawed but awesome game. I don't think they could get through it.

Xenogears has a bunch of "get a seemingly useless item at start of game, redeem it for high level shit 60 hours later" stuff.

That, the plot which is very vague and confusing if you can't remember stuff that happened 40 hours ago, and the second disc would drive them insane.

No way in hell. They need to pick a game without rabid fanboys that have played it to death.

Impossible.
 
Just finished it, really awesome. I hope if they do another Endurance Run they go for a more obscure game though.
Hybrid Heaven

No way in hell. They need to pick a game without rabid fanboys that have played it to death.
Operation Winback

I'd actually like to see them tackle a horror game instead of an RPG. Or what about a co-op endurance run? Obscure I or II would fit the bill, even if they're a bit short.
 
I initially wanted to say Outcast, but I understand they've already tackled that in some of their premium videos. :/

I could also see them play through Shadow of Memories, having them try and piece together the mistery would be fun.
 
Whenever I read "Winback" I think of some kind of Microsoft utility software from 1999.
winbackup.gif



Winback was a poor man's MGS in its stealth gameplay and infiltrating terrorist hostage crisis situation storyline (solid 80's Delta Force style) with cover shooting mechanics which are now popular again. Did them before Gears, before Kill.Switch, and even had multiplayer shootouts that were strategic and fun.
 
Are those plot summaries for CC real? I played like 30 hours of that game and don't remember any of that. It probably didn't help that I never played CT.

I stopped playing CC when they took my entire party away and made me play as a stupid Cat man.
 
also if they did chrono cross then patrick could go on about the accent generator and radical dreamer stuff he half-remembers from wikipedia and forum posts
 
I love all the crazy stuff in Chrono Cross. Why can't Square make RPGs like that anymore?
Put this insanely convoluted storyline into a beautiful world filled with diverse and interesting characters, a fun, unique, battle system.
And a single main plot thread that's easy to follow and still makes you care. I think RPGs need to bring back the silent protagonist, it's a lost art.

The ending to the game is great, and the best(only?) interpretation of it is..
YOU are Serge.



Haven't played the game in like 10 years though, I'm gonna start it again soon to see if it holds up.
 
I stopped playing CC when they took my entire party away and made me play as a stupid Cat man.
The exact mark I stopped playing my first attempt. Total rage quit.

Good to have the run done. Only thing I wasn't on board with was the humor which wasn't there for me. I felt the opposite actually... But such a classic game persevered.
 
The ending to the game is great, and the best(only?) interpretation of it is..
YOU are Serge.

That was dumb. I understand the nature of the silent protagonist in jRPGs being more an avatar than an actual character, and I understand Kato was trying to be poetic with that ending w/ RL people, that every player has a 'Kid' somewhere out there desperately searching for him (or in the case of women players, a significant other)... but it was pretty dumb.

I choose to ignore that facet of the ending and concentrate on the fact that
according to the framed photo, they eventually found each other and married
.

For those hating on Chrono Cross' plot: do you take solace in the fact that the game effectively
wipes itself from existence at the end game
?
 
Chrono Cross made ZERO sense to me as a kid. I should probably read that summary.
when you find out what happened to our beloved CT crew, you'd be more pissed about it. I hated CC and I played and beat that back when it came out. Sorely disappointed. Perfect score my ass. I agree with Patrick, it was not good. Incredible OST but everything else was meh.
 
Gotta say that despite the bitching I thoroughly enjoyed this Endurance Run.

Persona 4 > Deadly Premonition VJ > Chrono Trigger >>>>>> Deadly Premonition whoever the fuck did the other two
 
I kind of want to try Chrono Cross now as I never have before.

Is the battle system somewhat fast? Slow battles are kind of a deal breaker for me.
 
Antiquity is easily the most boring part of Chrono Trigger (beyond the initial WTF moment of going there and Chrono's death scene) so basing the sequel around Schala just seems awful to me
I wouldn't say boring, but the tone in 12,000 B.C. is very out of place with the rest of the game; it feels less like a shounen anime and a lot more like a regular jRPG with its introduction of advanced dystopia floating in the sky and other elements like that. It is easily my least liked act of the game.
Oh, GAF did have a thread for Crimson Echoes. (I wasn't on GAF at that time, so I obviously didn't participate.)

It isn't too bad, though some of the characters have some out-of-character moments which bugged me. But I enjoyed it overall. If you guys just want to watch it, there's a whole playthrough on YouTube. Sample.
lol the description for that first attack: "Ultimate Sword Technique!"

Was the exclamation mark necessary? Was it really?
 
I wouldn't say boring, but the tone in 12,000 B.C. is very out of place with the rest of the game; it feels less like a shounen anime and a lot more like a regular jRPG with its introduction of advanced dystopia floating in the sky and other elements like that. It is easily my least liked act of the game.

I'd say the cliche nature of it is exactly what bored me.
 
I kind of want to try Chrono Cross now as I never have before.

Is the battle system somewhat fast? Slow battles are kind of a deal breaker for me.

It's pretty fast. It's a great game. I highly recommend it.

CT fans hate it, and despite being a CT fan myself, I love it. The plot is batshit insane.
 
Of course, back in 1995 it wasn't quite so cliche, which is unfortunate for CT.

Yeah, that's probably true. As I mentioned, when you first go there (I didn't know about it beforehand unlike the other time periods) it's quite the amazing moment, but it soon leaves a pretty flat impression.

Also, there's no sidequests. It pretty much entirely exists to explain a) who Magus is, which is fair as the twist regarding him is pretty cool, and b) what happened to all the magic users. It's clear how sorta throw-away the area is after the islands fall and there is literally nothing left in the world.
 
Yeah, that's probably true. As I mentioned, when you first go there (I didn't know about it beforehand unlike the other time periods) it's quite the amazing moment, but it soon leaves a pretty flat impression.

Also, there's no sidequests. It pretty much entirely exists to explain a) who Magus is, which is fair as the twist regarding him is pretty cool, and b) what happened to all the magic users. It's clear how sorta throw-away the area is after the islands fall and there is literally nothing left in the world.

There's really not much there from the start. Other than the plot specific moments, there's nothing to do there. Which is fine, because you spend very little time there.
 
Also, there's no sidequests. It pretty much entirely exists to explain a) who Magus is, which is fair as the twist regarding him is pretty cool, and b) what happened to all the magic users. It's clear how sorta throw-away the area is after the islands fall and there is literally nothing left in the world.

Well, don't the magic users live with the non-magic users, thus breeding magic-use into all of humanity?

As to the Magus thing, that's why Schala's whereabouts became an issue. Because of that comment of 'someone near you needs help', because it's an unresolved thread for Magus and because he doesn't really have his own subquest (Ozzie's is kindasorta) it seemed like something was missing. For instance, my cousin replayed CT a bunch of times back in the mid-90s just trying to find out where Schala was. I don't know if he ever finished Chrono Cross, though, as I recall he didn't like it much.
 
Er. I'd rather them not play a game like Xenogears in the next ER. I was LTTP on it, since I first played it when it was released on PSN, and I didn't like it much (in addition, I didn't like the Xenosaga games either... but it's weird that I like Xenoblade). It seems like Xenogears was one of those "you had to be there to get the full impact of it" sort of game.

I'd prefer something more unknown, or maybe a horror game.

I kind of want to try Chrono Cross now as I never have before.

Is the battle system somewhat fast? Slow battles are kind of a deal breaker for me.
Um. Kinda. There are no random encounters and you can run from enemies, bosses, and the final boss if they feel like they aren't ready.

The battles are turn-based, not using an ATB bar at all, so you have opportunities to take as long as you want to select a command.

For special attacks or techs, you have to equip these things called "elements" on your party members. Think of them as materia that has various levels (they are ranked in 8 different levels, much like the spells in earlier Final Fantasy games), and you can either find them on the field or buy them. So you use the elements to attack, heal your party, consume items (stuff like "potion-like" items are now elements which you must equip), be character abilities, etc.

All elements have their own elemental properties: red, blue, yellow, green, white, and black. The elements can oppose each other (red = fire, blue = water, yellow = earth, green = wind, white = holy, black = dark). Not to mention that every character has their own innate ability that affects special techs they get, which type of elements they can use well, or what they're naturally weak against. For example, Serge (the main character) is a white element. His special skill techs are going to be of the light element, his equipped white elements' attacks or healing properties will be stronger once used, and he will be weak to dark magic.

Elements will also have a "field" effect. It keeps track of which elements are used (up to about 3 at a time) in battle. If the field is one colour, then that colour element will be enhanced in the battle at that time, and elements of the opposite colour will be weakened.

There's also a stamina bar. Each character has 7 stamina at the beginning of the battle. When the character attacks or uses an element, the stamina decreases. You can recover stamina throughout the battle or by defending. If the stamina is in negative, then they have to wait until the stamina is no longer negative.

I think the system is pretty neat, and it's easy to get your ass in hot water if you aren't keeping track of it.
 
Er. I'd rather them not play a game like Xenogears in the next ER. I was LTTP on it, since I first played it when it was released on PSN, and I didn't like it much (in addition, I didn't like the Xenosaga games either... but it's weird that I like Xenoblade). It seems like Xenogears was one of those "you had to be there to get the full impact of it" sort of game.

Why is that weird? Xenoblade is nothing like Xenogears and Xenosaga.
 
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