クロノ・トリガー

Since I got the Super Famicom cartridge of Chrono Trigger at Nekocon, and modified my Super Nintendo's cartridge slot so I could actually play it, I've been, well, playing it.

I suppose this is more of a progress report than a "session post" like I did for Rogue Galaxy and a couple other games, seeing as how I haven't mentioned any gameplay details prior to this.

As far as the language barrier goes, I do pop the occasional thing into Google Translate, mostly to make sure I'm selecting the right dialogue choice, equipping the right item, or using the right tech.  But generally I've played the game enough (and, oddly enough, learned enough katakana/hiragana) that I don't have to lean on Google Translate all the time.  There will be another post, eventually, covering some of the things I've noticed about both the Ted Woolsey and Tom Slattery translations of the game, but for now, this is all you'll hear about the language shenanigans.  I'm going to continue using terms from the Ted Woolsey translation for the most part, since that's what I'm used to.

So, where am I in the game?  I just got the Masamune repaired, and gave it to Frog in the scene you get when you go to the Magic Cave.  Immediately GTFO'd to The End of Time so Spekkio could teach him magic, and then I went back to 65000000 BC to prepare for grinding up both Frog's and Marle's tech points.

If you know my usual first playthrough thing by now, then nothing's different.  Crono, Ayla, Robo, and Lucca have all their techs already.  Frog and Marle, as I just mentioned, are about to fill out their respective tech lists.

One thing I'm doing differently this time, however, is the use of glitches.  After having found out how easy the fade-out menu glitch is to use, and therefore how easy it is to activate the save anywhere glitch, I've generally been activating save anywhere whenever possible.  I used save anywhere to skip the scene with Tata in the Denadoro Mountains, just for the lulz.  But generally, I have save anywhere active just for convenience.

If you don't know about these glitches, I'll explain them now.  When you trigger a room transition, normally the room you were in fades out and the next room fades in.  During the fade-out time, you can actually move your characters around, and more importantly, bring up the menu.  If you bring up the menu during the fade-out, and then close it, the fade-out restarts.  If you keep moving and opening/closing the menu, you can cover distance.  This can be used to skip various things throughout the game, by triggering the room transition while standing on an event trigger.

Here, though, we're using it to step onto a save point.  When the room transition happens while you're standing on a save point, the game doesn't clear the flag that says "the player is standing on a save point", and it then thinks you're always standing on a save point.  This is the save anywhere glitch.  It will stay active until you enter a room that contains a save point, where the game realizes that you're no longer standing on a save point.

The Denadoro Mountains scene skip involves using the save anywhere glitch to save in a specific spot, then soft reset (press L+R+Start+Select) and reload the save, and in the process, you clip through some terrain and end up on a higher level than you were on before you saved.  This is done from the screen that has the chest that contains Robo's Mirage Hand, which is probably my single-most missed weapon in the entire game because it doesn't even really look like you could leave the previous screen in any manner other than going up the ladder.  Going up the ladder triggers the scene with Tata, during which you have to press A to get through dialogue and then fight some stuff that you have to burn before you can deal any real amount of damage.  Sure, the scene with Tata and the fight thereafter isn't a very long sequence, but this is typically used in speed runs, where you want to save all the time you possibly can.

Anyway, like I said before the glitch explanation, I'm in 65000000 BC with just Frog's and Marle's tech points left to obtain before I really dig into the story so I can get Magus and begin the long grind to level 99.  I have the save anywhere glitch active, courtesy of the save point at the end of the Reptite Lair.