Chrono Trigger time!

In my previous post I mentioned that I'm almost completely set up to be able to get all the endings, I'll elaborate a little more about what exactly that entails and how to go about the process yourself. Be warned, it involves a lot of grinding.

Getting All The Techs

The first thing is that I have all of the single, double, and triple techs for each character and character combination, with the sole exception of the White Rock triple tech PoyozoDance, which is obtained further along in Black Omen than where I've saved. Whenever I started getting tech points, I stopped going through the story and just farmed them until I had all the available techs, then I went back to the story. Doing this will get you obscene power very early on (you don't have to get very far in the game to get to Spekkio and learn magic). I'm talking having Luminaire available the first time I went to 65,000,000BC. It's kind of a waste to have it that early as it's expensive, the monsters don't have enough HP to warrant using it, and the MP-restoring items you get aren't plentiful enough to counteract its cost. But it's awesome nonetheless to pwn something in Guardia Forest with Luminaire.

If you want to get the techs quickly, you'll need to know some good spots for farming Tech Points. Initially you have to use what's available to you, which is 1000AD Guardia Forest. This gets you 15 Tech Points per run.

The next best place is 65,000,000BC Forest Maze, which can vary by 2 Tech Points per run depending on whether you entered from the world side or the Reptite Lair side. From one combined run (one entering from the world side, then going back through from the Reptite Lair side), you'll get 70 Tech Points. It was also here that I discovered that critical hits happen in a set pattern, and by changing who attacks when, you can change who gets to hit the critical hit. Learn the pattern the game has given you (it changes every time you start it up) and use it to double Marle/Lucca's damage output.

The last place I only had to use for Magus, which is the third room of Giant's Claw. Get him his ultimate equipment and put the two lowest HP characters you have in the party with him. Let the other two die and take advantage of the DoomSickle's special effect: Damage * 3 with two dead allies. From the two battles in this room you'll get 59 Tech Points.

Dual and Triple Techs are learned automatically when you have the requisite Single Techs. If you have the requisite Single Techs, but not the Dual Tech or Triple Tech, fight a battle with the relevant characters in the party and they'll learn it at the end of the battle.

Getting To Level **

All of my characters are Level ** (that's Level 99, the game's max level). To do this, you need to find a battle with a high experience yield and do it repeatedly. The fifth battle of Black Omen works quite well for this.

This battle consists of two Synchrites and a Martello. From this battle, your party gets 2064 experience and a HyperEther. Out-of-party characters will get 1548 experience, which is only relevant for levelling Lucca and Marle since they're faster to level out of party due to their relative lack of non-spell attack damage. The battle probably gives tech points, but as previously mentioned I had all the techs long before reaching it. Once you get to the point where Lucca and Marle are the only non-Level ** party members, put Crono, Ayla, and your choice of Frog or Magus into your party and let 'er rip.

Fighting that battle a whole lot (and selling off batches of 99 HyperEthers (5000 each, 495000 for 99) to get rich while doing so) is the general strategy, but you can change your accessories to make it go faster. Equip one character with the Berserker, which makes them attack as soon as their ATB meter is filled. One less character to have to tell to attack. On the other two, equip the Rage Band (50% chance of counterattack) and the Fury Band (80% chance of counterattack). As characters reach Level **, you'll need to remember to swap the accessories around to your new party members so that you maintain your damage output.

Then, through experimentation, find the exact right point to trigger the battle so that your characters end up in a straight line with respect to the Martello. This is important for speed purposes since the Martello's attack hits along a straight line. Regardless of which character it's actually trying to attack, you want it to hit all of them so that you have a shot at both counterattacks triggering. Simply spam regular attacks and you'll kill them off pretty quickly.

Don't forget to heal periodically. The best time to do this is when you leave Black Omen to cash in your HyperEthers. There's a save point right next to the Synchrites/Martello that we're fighting, and you get more than enough money to finance a steady supply of Shelters, so... heal up and save in one go.

You should level up Ayla as one of the first few characters you level up, and keep her in the party while levelling up everyone else.  When she hits level 72, her fists become Iron Fists. This makes her attacks confuse enemies, which isn't very useful. When she hits level 96, her fists become Bronze Fists. This makes her critical hits deal 9,999 damage.  All three of the enemies in this battle have less than 9,999 health, so if she lands a critical hit, something's going to die.  This will speed things up whenever it happens, so keep her around.

Doing All The Side Quests

The side quests get you a lot of useful gear, including max weapons and armor for the party. Naturally you'll want a max weapon. You'll need high armor and a good helm as well, and one of those should provide status protection.

Farming Tabs

Each character has three stats that can be increased by using their associated Tabs: Speed, Power, and Magic. You'll find these all throughout the game if you look closely enough for the sparkle. Once you get Ayla and she learns Charm, you can get them off of specific enemies as well. Hold onto all of these tabs until your characters reach Level **, as some characters' tab-affected stats will actually max themselves through levelling. Speed never changes by levelling, so toss on speed tabs any old time.

Speed has a slight nuance that isn't obvious at first. A stat having ** for its value means that it's maxed, and Speed reaches ** when you use a speed tab to raise it from 15 to 16. Speed actually maxes out at 24, though you can only up it to 16 via tabs. The reason for this is Marle's Haste spell/the Haste Helm. Either of those will raise the affected character's speed by 50%, which when speed is **, is 8. Try it out and you'll see that a character with ** speed and a Haste Helm is faster than a character with just ** speed.

Getting Through The Game

If you farm Tech Points, this shouldn't be an issue. There are, however, some helpful tips for certain areas and bosses.

Learn where the free places to sleep are. This is less important as the game goes on, but any time you can replenish HP/MP without using an item or paying money is worth it. Crono's House in 1000AD; the beds in Guardia Castle 600AD; any of the Enertrons in 2300AD (you'll still feel hungry though); Ayla's hut in 65,000,000 BC; and Terra Cave in 12,000BC are all free.  You can also restore HP/MP in The End of Time. There are others, but this was just to show that there's at least one in each time period.

If you can, before kicking the story off, get 40 Silver Points and win a Crono Clone from Norstein Bekkler's lab. This will make a side quest later in the game easier.

Get found innocent in the trial. This is fairly easy to do. There are five things that can affect it at the Millenial Fair, and then you need to answer the Chancellor's questions correctly. Just remember: Talk to Marle before getting the pendant, take the cat to the girl, refuse to talk Marle into selling her pendant, don't take the old guy's lunch, and wait patiently for Marle to buy candy. Then tell the Chancellor you started it and that you weren't tempted by her riches.

In 2300AD, the R-Series can be defeated with two uses of Fire Sword per row, so leave Marle behind when the game asks who to leave behind to open the door.

Fast forwarding a long way, when you're in 12,000BC going into the secret rooms opened with the books (in the order Water, Wind, Fire), when the 6 Nus challenge you, make sure to have Frog in the party. Let them take you all the way down to 1 HP, then have Frog use Frog Squash for an easy victory.

In the Ocean Palace, when fighting the Golem Twins, have Lucca third in the party. When both she and Crono are ready, have Crono use Luminaire, and while he's doing that, immediately queue up HypnoWave on Lucca. If all goes well you'll deal a lot of damage and then immediately put them to sleep. Repeat this until they're dead. Sometimes one or both of them won't be put to sleep, so you'll want Marle, Frog, or Ayla in the remaining slot for their healing; and leave them ready for this exact purpose.

When you wake up in the Last Village after finishing the Ocean Palace, immediately put Ayla in your party. Then go get captured by Dalton in the Commons. Having Ayla in your party means that you can attack enemies while you're running around the Blackbird trying to get your stuff back, instead of getting sent back to the room they locked you in. They can't take her fists away from her, after all.

When doing the side quest that puts you up against Son of Sun, equip a Red Mail on your party's healer. If you have more of them (either New Game + or you charmed more), equip them on the rest of your party too. The Red Mail will absorb fire damage, which Son of Sun deals exclusively, so you won't actually take any damage.

If you get all the techs as early as possible, several miniboss fights are made a lot easier. For example, Magus can be defeated between when he "risks casting a spell" and when he casts DarkEternal (making the Barrier phase harder simply because it takes longer), and both versions of Nizbel can be defeated in 5 turns each.

Getting Chests

Almost all of the chests present in 600AD have a counterpart in 1000AD. Both chests will contain the same item. To get two of that item, get the chest in 1000AD first.

This process has an extra step for sealed chests. You'll want to open the sealed chest in 600AD first, and if it says "Something inside is reacting to the pendant's power. Remove it?" say no. Then go to 1000AD and open that same sealed chest for an upgraded version of the item in the chest. Then you can go back to 600AD and get the original item. It's easiest to run around 600AD priming all the sealed chests so you don't have to worry about it when you go for them in 1000AD. If it doesn't prompt you in 600AD, the item inside isn't upgradable with the pendant, and the chest has no corresponding chest in 1000AD. The chests in Guardia Forest are an example of this, even though there's one in each time period.

Getting The Rocks

Five of the Triple Techs are invoked by having one of the characters wear a rock as their accessory.  Just like regular Triple Techs, these have requisite Single Techs that you'll need to have already learned.  The rocks aren't too difficult to find, but the method for getting a couple of them is kind of obscure.  Particularly the Gold Rock, where you have to have Frog in the lead of the party and get hit by one of the guys throwing rocks in the Denadoro Mountains.

Getting the rocks certainly isn't required, but if you want to use a Triple Tech without Crono in the party, or have Magus do anything other than Single Techs, you'll need at least one of them.

Use FAQs To Your Advantage

Almost every one of my suggestions is most likely mentioned in someone's FAQ on GameFAQs.  In addition, I didn't get specific on how to defeat any of the bosses or anything like that, so you may want an FAQ if you just can't beat someone.  I kept track of what I did, but my notes are really only useful if you play the game exactly as I did.