We Play, You Play: Chrono Trigger

This is a head gun podcast.

Hey, buddy.

This week we're discussing Chrono Trigger, which has 12 canonical endings.

13 if you count the DS.

And as such, in tribute to this game, we're going to start the show with 12 different intros.

Here we go.

One.

Hey, buddy.

Notice anything different about me?

Nick, what's different about you?

Ribbit.

You're a frog.

I'm a frog man.

Nick's a frog man.

Call me frog now.

Okay, frog Weiger.

Two.

Hey, guys, you're not gonna believe it.

I invented this new thing.

It allows you not to travel through time, but through space.

Whoa, cool.

It's called a car.

I don't believe you.

There's no way you can travel through physical space.

What the hell are you talking about?

You can travel through physical space.

This is bullshit.

Three.

I guess I give,

I don't know, Popeyes five forks or something.

Wow, five forks or Popeyes.

Four.

Hey, everybody, welcome to the show.

I just want you to know that today's episode of Chrono Trigger is brought to you in part by Mitsubishi.

Mitsubishi is the obvious choice.

Five.

Wait, five?

I got one.

Notice anything different about me.

Wow.

Hey, ribbit.

Matt, you're a frog?

I'm a frog in this one.

Matt's a frog.

Frog Apodaka?

That's right.

Wow, okay.

You know what works for you, honestly.

Ribbit.

I like you saying ribbit.

Anybody got any flies?

Six.

This is the bad intro.

We're being bad.

You got the bad intro.

The future could not be altered.

Seven.

Seven.

Seven.

Guys, bad news ranch died.

Oh, God.

However, I have a device, this egg, which can bring her back it won't actually be her it will be a version of her just before the event okay okay great uh do you want me to use it yeah use it all right here we go ranch is back no

eight

uh

hey guys

uh you know what's crazy about video games No, what?

They can be anything.

Yeah.

Your friend, your mom, your dad.

No, Doug Ed, it can't be.

Not everything can be a video game.

It can be anything.

So I would just want to say, like, video games,

are they our lovers or are they our politicians?

They can be anything at all.

Just so remember that here in intro number eight.

Nine.

Hey, this is pretty crazy.

All three of us are frogs now.

We're frogs.

Rose are cool and we're frogs.

Ribbit.

We're frogs now.

Art thou a frog?

I talk in the old timey way like frog does yeah that's pretty cool we're frogs now froggy ribbit this is the frog show get frogged get frogged

10 10

uh guys i got a new robot oh wow guess what his name is what is it Robo.

What the fuck?

His name is Robo.

He's a robot.

Put some fucking thought into this.

This is his name is Robo.

Nick.

You're disrespecting my friend.

Nick, that's not a Nick.

Like, your name isn't Humu

because you're a human.

Maybe it could be.

That would suck.

And you would go through life ashamed.

I am bummed out by this.

And put some fucking pants on.

No way.

This robo does not wear pants.

11.

Can I just get real for a second?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, this, this, this Lavos guy that's, like,

gonna bring forth.

the end of time, as it were.

Yeah.

You know, I talked to him.

Okay.

He's not that bad a guy.

Like, I talked to

Lavos, and he's kind of just like a chill guy.

I call him the late, great Lavos.

Wonderful guy.

Came up to me backstage, tears in his eyes, thanked me.

The beautiful Zeal.

You know, with as much

actual attention as we put into the show, because we've recorded this intro after we've recorded the show, it really misrepresents what's about to come

12.

Guys, it's me, Nick from the future.

Nick from the future!

Listen, I've listened to the episode.

You can't do the 12 intros up top.

You have to come up with another idea.

Why is that?

It doesn't work.

Everyone gets mad about it.

You shouldn't.

Just do a different intro, please.

Oh, wait, am I too late?

Is this the last one?

This is the last one.

Oh, fuck.

Hey, Nick, maybe instead of going back to your future, why don't you go straight to hell?

He's just

made the noises with your mouth.

Just space work.

Branch is going to put it in.

Rivet.

We team up a cave woman with a robot and hang out at the end of time as we play you play JRPG Classic Chrono Trigger this week on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heatherann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaka.

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where this week's episode is our monthly, non-monthly, some monthly periodical, irregular,

semi-regular.

Our irregular feature, We Play, You Play, where for the last month we've been telling you it's time to play Chrono Trigger.

And we've got a lot of thoughts about it today.

But guys, how you doing?

I'm doing great because you know, as you said up top, good games, bad games, every game in between.

We're talking a good game today.

We're talking one of of my favorite games ever.

We're talking consensus,

one of the best games ever made.

What a hoot that is.

This is my first time playing.

This is Matt's first time.

And so, and so that's part of the fun of this too.

We get to see his impressions.

I won't say yet.

I'm excited because, as you can see from the table, I brought a couple versions of Chrono Trigger

with me to work today,

in part because I want to read the differences between the two back boxes on the Super Nintendo and the DS version, because I think that it speaks to the legacy of the game, but also because there's been some

chatter.

There's been some warbling on our Discord, which is discord.gg slash get played, about which...

Yeah, join if you want to also complain.

Which version of Chrono Trigger looks the best?

And so I brought a couple versions so that we could...

So it wasn't just me.

So it's not just me mouthing off.

Which you're known to do.

Which I'm known to do.

Talking is combat.

I've said it before.

And mouthing off is defense.

Yeah.

Let me say, as someone who worked on the game, Soprano's Road to Respect, when you're in verbal combat, you got to choose between tough and smooth.

Those are your two options.

I like smooth.

Smooth is.

Tough can work, though.

There has to be a third option because.

Oh, no.

It's tough or smooth.

It's a binary.

I've never been either.

I also want to make it clear: this is a show.

We're not journalists, we're enthusiasts.

We just like games.

Yeah,

that's a really good way of putting it.

I love not being,

I love not being a journalist because I don't have to like do due diligence or anything and just say whatever the fuck.

I don't have to have a code, baby.

I can just go, I can just go off view.

Let's go.

Yeah,

now accepting bribes i i'm open for bribes ethics policy peshaw yeah leave that for triple click yeah they're smart and good

i i feel like we could update our our

about to just a gaming enthusiast podcast yeah sure that is good that is really really good that being

insane that

we haven't landed on that in five years of doing it what is our description i haven't looked at it uh two dog shit idiots and a and a third idiot

wait who's who talk about

talk about

it's a it's it depends on what day it is you know it's sort of uh variable

uh that being said we do have uh you know we'll try and we'll try and be as uh accurate as possible but if we're not then uh go ahead and join that discord and yell at us yeah and and you mouth off yeah um i'm excited to talk about this uh well we we're not a news podcast partly because we're not journalists, but I do feel like we should at least touch on Gamescom, which just happened as of this recording, basically.

We're kind of in the immediate aftermath.

This will be

after the weekend when this episode releases.

Anything in particular catch anyone's eye?

I mean, for me, it's the Diablo 4 expansion vessel of hatred and then Civilization 7 having an official date for that.

And I mean, I did the, it's interesting because they're both kind of like similar games

in the sense that they're franchises for me, franchises that i've i've been a fan of since the first entry that i've played all of and that usually are not

they they require some tinkering on initial release and it's not until they land on some expansions and some patches that they some some updates until they really come into their own that's certainly been the case with diablo 4 which has gotten better and then i'm very excited for this vessel of hatred uh expansion because i think that'll really you know they'll really have everything locked down by now that's usually the pattern civilization 7 the same sort sort of thing.

I expect there to be an expansion or two before it really hits its stride, but I am excited just for a new Civ game.

I've never really, I

downloaded Civ 6 for the Switch.

Yeah.

And I think I played it for like 10 minutes and it was like, there's just so much going on.

Just like, I just couldn't really wrap my head around it.

So I just like stopped playing it.

I got it on like deep discount.

But I'm interested.

I would like to be a Civ guy.

Like, it seems like a good type of game.

Boy, that's a tough guy because that's like just such a huge block of time.

There's civilization guys who are just like, that's their game.

They just play those games or they just play those, you know, 4X

grand strategy games.

It's a lot.

I tried to be a Crusader Kings guy for a little bit, and I was just like, I can't do this.

I can't commit to this.

Is that the one with the big tittied lady and the ads?

No, I think you're thinking of like

you're thinking of all those predatory mobile games.

Yeah.

But but it's a specific tab on the steam store crusader kings and it's like oh yeah raid my dungeon and then it's just like really really boring looking footage of like uh uh isometric yes it's all this is mobile game the mobile game ad ecosystem is fascinating because it's like there was that for a while there was the big titty games that would like trick you into you know playing some bad uh pay to win rts um and then there were

uh

now what's what's happening is i don't know if you've seen these but they're ads

You hear about this?

You guys seen this?

You haven't seen this?

It's crazy.

So,

come on.

Come on, Jake.

So, anyway,

there's like a, it'll be like a shooter, like an auto-scrolling auto-shooter game.

And, like, like, it'll be like just endless hordes coming, endless hordes of zombies or enemy or, you know, soldiers or whatever.

And you're just mowing them down.

And multipliers.

Yes.

Yeah.

Those games are also just like builder games.

They just use that ad to get you to buy the game.

And so now what's happened is that people will comment on those.

This is fake.

This isn't the actual game.

The actual game is some, you know, whatever pay-to-win,

you know, building game with cooldowns or whatever.

And then...

Now, so now what's happened is there's a new version of the ad that's someone like playing the game and saying like, people have been saying this game is fake, but let me tell you, it's real.

This is the real game.

I've seen that too.

Those are also the same fucking bullshit.

So that's also, there's like another layer to the lie.

My favorite layer of the lie, actually, is it is it's quote-unquote footage of somebody playing the game.

They're not playing the fucking game.

No.

They're calling out.

They're like, they're just narrating a video of the game being played as if they're playing it.

And it is.

The deeper you get into it, the more predatory it becomes.

Because it's like the complicitness at which that you're performing this task is is horrid to me.

But there's there was a generation of these that we skipped because it was it's that now and it was the the I can't remember what the previous one was.

There was this interim period where oh, it was like Big Titty Lady was the first version of it.

There was an interim period where it was like my wife fucking smells.

Oh, I remember this.

My wife's fucking stinky or like all gross.

She has armpit hair.

My wife fucking stinks.

Well, those would have to

those.

There would be a bunch of games where it would be like it would show, you know, someone in some horrible situation.

Like, you know, like, do you remember that, like, some sort of desperate thing where like it would be like a pregnant woman like freezing in a cold apartment and then she'd have to like burn a fire and then she'd eventually accidentally burn herself with acid or whatever?

Also, it would be like a pregnant woman in a kitchen complaining and then a hot woman outside.

And it would be like, which way are you going to go?

Or like, you know, there's like a, there's some

lever that will move gold coins to you or into lava.

And you have to be careful which one you think.

But like, these games are just not.

Yeah.

And they're also, so a lot of them don't exist, but then they're also like, they present someone playing the game badly so that you're like, I could play this fucking game.

So

only people with a 180 IQ can solve this.

It's like connecting two dots across like a circle.

Yeah, like a good one.

What the fuck is going on here?

jesus

um gamescom

one of the big ones i mean i am excited about this indiana jones game i think it looks pretty cool just like as a yeah sure why not adventure game i think that's pretty fun we've talked about this before on the show but the unlicensed john williams track from i think the original indiana jones atari game or maybe it was nes where they couldn't use the entire theme uh i hope that it ha i hope that's what's happened again That, like that original game that went bum ba-dum-bum, bum ba-da-ba-ba-ba-da-bum, bum-ba-ba-bum.

Just looping four bars endlessly.

Yeah.

It did.

They did.

Xbox announced that it will be coming to PlayStation in December of the next, the following year, I believe.

2025.

Of 2025.

Because I think the game comes out in October of this year.

And I just am very curious what Xbox thinks they're doing.

But I can't dig into it and I won't ever know, I guess, because, as we said before, I'm not a journalist.

But for an outsider looking in,

they're playing like 10 D chess.

They must be.

It's an odd strategy.

They've gone all in on Game Pass, but they're also like, well, we've acquired these huge third-party, formerly third-party studios, and we're now like, you know,

having them make content that's exclusive for us, but also we have to make sure it's not actually exclusive because we're both worried about antitrust.

And there's an element of something like Starfield, they probably took a bath on because they got so few actual sales out of it.

And it's just like, well, maybe probably putting this indie game out on multi-platform makes more financial success versus just using it as a driver for Game Pass subscriptions.

What do we think the chances are?

Like, if we were to, I want to, I'm going to take a bet here on the podcast that somebody in the future can come back and listen to.

What do we think the odds are that the next generation is only Sony and Nintendo hardware with Xbox being a Netflix style subscription service available on both platforms?

I think there's also a possibility that we just get away with what we're used to as hardware.

Like we basically have what we have with

streaming TV, which is unfortunately, you know, like whatever.

You may just use what's internal to your Samsung TV to stream media, or you've got an

Apple TV, you've got a Roku, you've got a Fire Stick.

Like, I think there might be a version where there's real no physical hardware that you're using and everything server-side.

You could subscribe to PlayStation.

That's certainly what they would want.

Yeah.

Because then you have even less control.

But I mean, that sucks.

But it looks like shit.

And it plays like shit.

It sucks.

Yeah.

It's awful.

And it requires a constant internet connection.

This is the one thing I will say.

We're talking about this separately off-pod.

I have been,

like, as someone who's primarily a PC gamer and has been PC gaming for a long time, like, I am just still amazed and staggered by the durability of PC gaming.

I keep expecting this to go away.

It's just like the hardware is so expensive.

You're paying such a premium.

And then, you know, unless you're like a really discerning person who's into graphical fidelity or frame rate.

You probably maybe aren't going to notice the difference between a PlayStation 5 and

an Xbox Series X and a mid-range gaming PC.

And it's much easier and it's much more, you know, and it's cheaper.

But, like, still, there's just so many people on a PC game because you actually have some control over your ecosystem, and there's so much more software available, I guess.

I don't know what it is exactly, but

that at least is encouraging.

I think PC gaming will still be around.

I would like to be more into PC gaming, but like the

many variables within the PC are

scary to me.

But

yeah, shit just goes wrong and it's frustrating.

Yeah, I would be super into PC gaming if just once in my life I had loaded up a game and it worked.

Like every single time I use my, what is that thing called?

The

Valve VR thing, whatever the fuck that's called.

Every single time I use it, even if I haven't changed anything on my PC since I used it last.

Yeah.

I will have some fucking error.

And I'm like, why?

Why?

Why is this the case?

And

I'm not an idiot.

I'm the dog shit.

I am.

And I just like, just like, that's my big problem with PCs, actually, is that they're for me.

I give it the Valve Indexes.

There it is.

That's why I thought it was, but I was like, no, that's the handheld thing is the index.

But no, it's the index is the VR thing.

I give it.

I give her, give it higher than 50-50 odds.

You think, what, and what is, what specifically is your prediction?

So in the future,

a Chrono Trigger-S time traveler would step back into the studio and and assert whether you were right or wrong based on the events that transpire.

I think there is a

65 to 70% chance that Microsoft exits the hardware side of consoles

and offers

Xbox game pass like Netflix on Sony devices and on Nintendo devices.

Yeah, I mean, I think they would love to have it on those devices right now.

I think actually the barrier there is probably Sony and Nintendo,

not Microsoft, but I, you know, I don't know.

I mean, as far as other games announced at Gamescom,

nothing really too interesting to me.

I'm not really seeing that much.

The

more exciting thing, I don't know if Heather, you want to talk about this for a second.

I'll talk about it.

Is the TV show that was announced called Secret Level for Amazon?

I'll talk about it.

Secret Level is a

multi-IP original animated series

from

the makers of Love, Death, and Robots.

It is an extremely high-fidelity CG experience where you get to see IP like God of War, Mega Man,

Armored Core,

and the Outer Worlds get these short stories

all mashed together in

a single release platform.

It's not like Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

The things aren't interacting with one another.

You get like a Mega Man story.

You get like a Armored Corps story, which apparently stars Canna Reeves.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like Love, Death, and Robots was an anthology show.

There were just like a bunch of different self-contained episodes.

And I guess the reason Matt is teeing me up for this is that I wrote one of these.

Yes.

A few years ago, I was approached to contribute to the project.

They told me

what game I was covering.

And maybe astute listeners will look back and be like, oh, I remember when she said she was playing the Outer Worlds.

And that's when I was writing the Outer Worlds segment for Secret Level.

I had not been involved in the production or post-production process, in part because I'm not an animator.

And also I was more of a hired gun.

I would have loved to have contributed more stories and more episodes, but my schedule just wouldn't permit it.

It was my love of gaming that was like, okay, yeah, I'll work until like three in the morning to be able to work on this.

I am really happy with what

I got to produce,

which was a collaboration with another writer who wrote the sort of the story and then I adapted it, which was a really cool process.

And

yeah, I couldn't, I mean, I've never seen something I've written in like fucking CG.

Like it's like it feels like a totally

expensive, like you never expect to see your, like, somebody that you created or like a physical element of their outfit even

on in CG looking like a fucking Final Fantasy cutscene.

Yeah, that is wild.

It was super wild.

Did you, have you seen your episode?

I have not seen my episode.

I have not seen any other episodes.

Wow.

But I have seen the trailer now with everybody else and paused it on my dude.

And I was like, holy shit,

that's my dude.

I like him.

Look, he's in the outfit.

And I know why he's in that outfit.

And it means something to me.

And it was like, I don't know.

That shit never gets old.

That's right.

I love that stuff.

So you didn't get to meet Mega Man or anything?

I did not.

I did not.

Really, I really enjoyed the Outer Worlds.

I mean, especially like the storytelling of the game and

the narrative design.

And, you know, I know Outer Worlds 2 is in development.

And

I think that'll be like a you know

they'll really be able to dial it in with a sequel, but

I think it's a really cool world to get to play around in and I'm excited to see what you adapted.

Yeah, I'm really excited too.

It was a really neat collaborative process.

I thought the story that I was given was an excellent story and then I thought I gave my own

twist to it, as it were.

And

I know you can't say exactly what you're

what you worked on, but for people who aren't familiar with Outer Worlds, what it is, it's kind of basically the fallout in space.

I mean, that's a simplification, but yeah, it's like

all of these corpo-dystopian worlds like cyberpunk, like Fallout, where there's a tongue-in-cheek cynicism and

sadness to a world that also is trying to constantly sell you something, or where your worth is measured in your output um i feel like that that language is like a tropey thing that uh that we've all experienced across different uh stories and mediums and uh

i i was it was really fun to play in that world i i've i've i'm i can't i'm so excited i can't believe it it looks really cool it's really cool yeah it's pretty neat man um so please watch that

um but i guess also if you're a one a listener on this podcast that would be in your wheelhouse you'd You'd be like, oh, shit, there are all these different video game stories at like extremely high fidelity CG.

I want to see Mega Man.

looking like a Pixar character.

That's cool.

Yeah.

And I see one of these, this might be interesting to someone in the room.

One of the series, one of the franchises they're adapting is Mary Kate and Ashley's Sweet 16 License to Drive.

Wow.

I wonder what's going to happen there.

So that's the one I had to turn down.

And they weirdly didn't cast Mary kate or ash yes yeah yeah what what's nice also is that now that we're beyond the uh the the sort of scope of the ndas and stuff and this game has already come out and that now it's the trailers come out is that i can say that they told me that armor armored core was coming out years and years and years ago and i was like oh fuck

oh my god oh shit but i couldn't do anything about it like i just had to like sit there with with it in my brain for armored core six you just had to keep that under your hat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Long before it was announced.

And now that it's,

yeah, I'm, I can't wait to see it.

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

Right now, we should talk about some video games we've been playing.

It's time for what are you playing?

What are you playing?

What are you playing?

What are you playing?

What are you playing?

It's me, the Resident Evil Merchant.

I'm here to ask you guys a question.

Why are you laughing?

It's like, who else would it be?

It's like, it's me.

What?

No, I mean, like, if you're new to the podcast, if you're new to the

new podcast, you might be like, who the fuck is this?

But not as a listener.

Yeah, you're right.

You're right.

So,

what you're saying is I should introduce a segment where it's like, it's what are you playing with the Resident Evil Merchant?

No.

You expect people to know from my voice alone?

I guess so, but I could be wrong.

It's hard to know.

I think we usually acknowledge you, your presence as the Resident Evil Merchant.

So, you know.

So I just do the intro and I think you do whatever you want.

I liked how I liked all the jazz you were playing today.

I thought that was

extra for music, though, like we said.

I don't want any extra.

I don't want any extra.

I'm trying to bring my own juzh.

But a couple weeks ago, I said maybe we should have a theme song.

And I've been trying to learn GarageBand.

It's tricky when you gotta like borrow a computer.

That's tough.

Borrowing a computer is a tough situation.

Wait, hold on.

I mean, just this is one of those things where you say borrow a computer and whatnot.

Nick's obviously worried about his computer.

No, no, no, I wouldn't bother.

I don't want his computer.

He's cracked up tight.

I had to drop off my

magnet to his computer every single night.

Yeah, I would too if I was that guy.

I had to drop off my Mac at the genius bar because of all the water in it.

And so I've been borrowing computers.

Like, you know, when you drop off your car to get a body work done.

Yeah, you get a loaner.

You you get a loaner right right so i've been uh borrowing people's computers at starbucks or whatever be like hey yeah you just need to send an email and or or working at the mac store hard though when you can't save your progress yeah i feel like you probably i mean maybe you could get into the cloud or something like that save it into a google doc but then you got to worry about logging in and logging out every time you can't i don't think you can save a song in a dock

oh that's a good point i forgot you were i forgot you know you know what

I'm the dumb one here.

I forgot you were working with GarageBand.

But let's say if you were working in GarageBand and you had the session in a sort of Google Drive or a Dropbox, you could save

the whole session to the cloud and then download it again, but you'd have to just make sure that you uploaded it.

The problem is, I'm working with titles,

bitrate.

You know, the title.

These files are massive.

They're massive.

They're massive.

And I don't have the money to be able to afford a premium.

Fidelity is worth it, though.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

Because

I want to make sure that all of my I's are dotted and my T's are crossed.

And if the song takes off, that I can release it to title.

Right, yeah, you want to have the highest quality version available, you know.

You can always

down-res, if you will, downscale.

I'm more just concerned about the scenarios you're describing where it seems you're menacing strangers in coffee shops and letting them.

Use your laptop.

I mean, I think just like probably the implication as a seven foot five hooded figure hulking over their shoulder, asking to borrow their laptop, they're probably scared to say no.

I think Nick's never heard of the words, may I and please.

I think that's possible, but also, Resident Evil Merchant, would you just do me a favor and just answer this honestly for a second?

Yeah.

How often, how many times a week are you saying the phrase, give me that?

How many?

Yeah.

No,

I mean, I do say it a lot, but usually the birds or a dog.

You never know.

You gotta go after one of those ravens.

They may have an item for you.

They might have something.

That's it.

I mean, usually they, they they grabbed my pen or my journal.

And I'm like, give me that.

It's humiliating.

You should be on a show.

What?

Like

a curb your enthusiasm type show or something where they follow you around and see what kind of crazy situations you get into.

Okay.

Is that still on the outside that ended?

That's why it's, you know.

Just me, just means as a point of reference.

Yeah.

A curb your enthusiasm-like.

Res your enthusiasm.

That's pretty good.

It's not bad.

I mean, you know, I could see.

No, I just could see it feeling a little bit samey over time.

But I, you know, because I just don't know how many.

What?

Can you try saying this, Resident Evil Merchant?

Pretty, pretty good.

Pretty,

pretty good.

I'll be your Leon.

I'll be on the show, too.

I feel like.

Will you volunteer to be on the TV show?

Matt, that's really charitable of you.

I'll be on the TV show.

I feel like Nick took a dig at me.

I feel like

he said me.

Well, I just kind of feel like in the sense of like, you know, what kind of experience could the Resident Evil experiences could the Resident Evil merchant have just wandering?

I don't know how many episodes of Kirby or Enthusiasm took place in a drain.

I guess we were going into the Resident Evil world as opposed to our world.

I'm going to our worlds.

I'm gender neutral.

That's not what that means.

That's not what that means.

I was thinking more in like the dark tower sense, like there are other worlds than these.

Like you can kind of go a multiverse sort of issue.

Yeah.

Yeah, all right.

Got it.

Anyway,

what are you playing?

Resident Evil Merchant, thanks so much for all that.

I guess I'll talk about Elden Ring a little bit.

So

on my current playthrough, I'm now over 100 hours.

I have finished Fia's questline, Dung Eater's questline, Ronnie's questline.

I somehow let Gold Mask and Brother Corin die,

but I'm through crumbling through Missoula.

I just have a couple things left to do.

And

I'm still using the Great Sword, which is like, you know, the guts from Berserk Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 weapon.

I love it.

I also upgraded the Great Stars Mace, which has bleed, and I played the

Craig Blade Ash, rather, with the Cold Affinity.

So I get just like a different sort of set of weapons I'm using situationally.

The one thing I will say is I'm curious how the two of you felt having played more of the game than me, having finished it and having dug into the DLC, which I barely tip my toe into.

I'm kind of having buyers' remorse on my strength build a little bit.

Like, it's, I think it's powerful, but I just kind of feel it's a little sluggish and monotonous, I feel like.

Maybe just like the way I'm playing it, or maybe just the largely colossal weapons I'm using.

Are you not running around in a full panic?

No, I'm all, no, I'm all, you gotta, you gotta keep moving, you know?

I think what's nice about a full strength build with a, oh, with a colossal weapon is that it is a different cadence than other people's playthroughs.

Sure.

So like you can't, it's not enough to understand

an enemy's attack pattern.

You also have to absorb the amount of time it's going to take you to swing your fucking weapon.

Yes.

So it's almost like it's, it's not like, there's my opening attack.

You have to be like,

the opening is is coming up.

I better start attacking now.

And I found that to be a really satisfying loop.

Yeah, I mean, look, it is fun when you really sort of like lock into the timing.

It could also be that just like I've played the same way for so long that I'm kind of like, okay, I'm just kind of used to it at this point, ready to mix it up.

But all that said, I am still having so much fun with it.

I'm so glad that the, I'm so grateful that the

DLC came out because otherwise I would not have returned to this game.

And I'm I'm so happy that I'm actually like just finally going through all of it.

A couple weeks ago, I said it was having less fun because of the Mimic tier.

And so I just haven't used the Mimic tier since, but I have using, I've been using different Spirit Ashes.

And I do find that a lot of fun just because like...

Again, situationally, I can use like,

you know, archers or like the Great Shield guys or whatever, you know, just sort of, just sort of like, just having different options that feels like it has some gameplay variety while still using the spirit ashes, because I think that's like inherent to the game.

And I feel like that's like, you know,

I understand people who don't want to use them.

But, but I don't know.

To me, it seems like the game is very much designed around that.

Nick,

yes, let's go on.

I also feel like part of the fun of Elden Ring, which maybe you aren't dabbling in because it seems like it's antithetical to your play style, is invasion.

And I feel like with a strength build, there is the fun of intimidation when you show up that maybe you don't get as much or or as often when you walk in with a magic build.

Yeah, I can see that.

I mean, like, you know, I've dabbled with invasion a little bit.

I just like, I'm just, it's, I'm more interested in the single player side of things.

Like, I get that that's like, you know, people like the PvP, but I just, the PvE is what, what I find so, so engaging about the game.

I also,

but one thing I will say on the Spirit Ash side, I latched on to Latena, who is the Albinorak or Albinoric, however you say it.

She was the wolf friend.

And so she's an NPC with her own story.

It's tied to that secret medallion that gets you the consecrated snowfield.

But then she chooses to become a Spirit Ash and then she accompanies you.

And she actually has like unique dialogue, you know, situationally.

So it's like, it kind of felt like I had a party member or a familiar with me.

And I kind of like that.

And also, she's an archer, so it's, it's a, it's a good fit for a melee character.

So that's been a lot of fun.

I'll also say just the combat has been so, you know, widely discussed and obviously a ton on this podcast, but the storytelling is so rad in this.

Like, I found like Fias are incredibly compelling and just like, you know, it's all got this

melancholy about it.

It's all got this like kind of fatalism

inherent to it.

It's all like, you know, ultimately these everything, everyone seems to kind of be headed towards a grim end, but there's like things,

there's things you can salvage along the way.

The Millicent quest, which is the one that extends all the way to the Halig tree, she has, you find her and she's dying of scarlet rot and she has one arm.

And it's just like, this is so fucking,

it's super interesting to see her like follow throughout the whole world.

And then you end up back in the Halig tree, and then you help her kill her four sisters.

Yeah.

And then she just, she's just like, I'm going to die here.

It's just like, this is fucking, what happened?

This is horrible.

Yeah, I don't know anybody who is having like a good time in the lands between.

Maybe.

What's his name?

Patches.

Patches is having a bunch of discast.

Maybe the Muriel,

the Pope Turtle.

Yeah, the Turtle Pope, as long as you don't kill him.

I'm doing all right.

Okay, so

you looked at me, and I didn't, I didn't kill him.

But you fucking murked Carla.

Yeah, you have to admit that it seems like it's a different game.

And she attacked me.

Because you attacked so many other people who don't know what to do.

No, I didn't.

Massacred a villain.

Hold on.

Hold on.

At no point did I attack anybody in this game.

Never.

Never.

This is.

That's not what happened.

This is is a lie paramount to the quality of one Donald Trump.

It is not a lie.

We don't need a reality.

My adventure began when they attacked me.

And it was only because I looked in a box.

Unbelievable.

Seems like she shouldn't have looked in there.

I didn't know that.

Next time you see a box, avert your eyes.

What the fuck?

Look, when you get your boot on someone's throat, you got to explain you're just protecting yourself.

Stop that.

That's not what happened.

so here's the thing i so i i uh this brings me to uh i i am at millennia and i am finally here i this is the this is the you know the big the big fucking boss that everyone's talking about

so obviously her attack patterns are a lot and i and i was expecting this the thing i was not prepared for is her lifesteal which is a really interesting uh thing to consider for a strength character you can't just afford to trade with her like you can't just like like well okay i've got it like what you were saying earlier heather like well i don't really have a window but i can get a hit in here and i'll take some damage, but I can, I can heal up.

She gets health back from hitting you.

So like there's no, there's no benefit to that.

You just end up in a neutral spot.

You're actually a slightly worse situation.

She also like her attack waterfowl dance, which is the crazy one.

She goes up and she does a bunch of flips and shit.

Like learning to dodge that has been.

It's really tough.

That's a challenging, challenging bit of manipulating iframes there.

There's you really like, there's situations where you can just absolutely get blitzed by it.

And it's also a thing where

because she has lifesteal,

I found the spirit ashes not to be particularly helpful.

Maybe at some point I'll pull the reserve chute and bust out the mimic tier.

I'm still being stubborn at this point, but like.

She can just, again, just like the, if I have the great shield guys out there, it's like, okay, well, they'll just tank a bunch of hits for me.

She's just stealing life from all of them.

And she's like, she's gaining health as I'm hitting her.

And I'm just like, well, this is, there's no point in even having them out there.

I do think there, and again, I haven't finished this yet.

So it

remains to be seen.

I'm beating her yet, but I do think there's still at least a couple Sekiro fights I found more challenging, like Ishin, who's the final boss, or Genichiro.

But, you know,

I'll render a final verdict when I finally put her in the ground.

But one thing,

I was watching guide videos.

Before I leave her in an unmarked grave.

Yeah, I'm sending her to hell.

I'm watching guide videos.

And I'm looking at comments, and people are like, like a lot of people complaining, like, this is so ridiculous.

Other people will get good, whatever.

It's the same sort of shit you'd always expect.

But

there was a thing that someone replied that clicked with me, and someone's like, Look, it's an optional end game boss.

Like, it should be very challenging.

And I'm just like, wait, this is optional?

Like, everyone is like, wait, I got to fucking kill Millennium.

Oh, Millennium is so hard.

What am I going to do?

How am I going to beat Millennia?

It's like, it's completely optional.

It doesn't even necessarily inform the end game, right?

It's just like a purely like, like, it's like a bonus area.

It's like beating Emerald Weapon in Final Fantasy VII, but everyone feels as part of the experience you have to do it.

I don't know.

It's really interesting.

I'm going to do it, but

I'm just like, that really was an interesting way to view it.

But then again, I I guess a lot of Chrono Sugar is like that, right?

There's a lot of shit you don't have to do to actually finish a game.

That's most games.

I think that

the experience of beating Elden Ring, though, is atypical in that it isn't the experience of finishing the story of Elden Ring.

It is the experience of beating it.

Sure, right.

And I think that the reason Millennia doesn't feel like an optional boss is because you're playing the game to kill the bosses.

And that's where your sense of achievement and

closure comes from.

It's not because, like, oh, I finally did it.

I found the end of the story.

And everybody is saved or doomed or whatever.

It's that you're like, oh, God, I can't fucking believe I did this once.

Because that's the other thing.

It's like all these guys, you.

Like, you don't beat a bunch.

Yeah.

And you only have to do it once.

And that one time might not have ever happened again.

Yeah.

From their perspective, they have to beat you so many times.

Yeah, yeah.

And they just have to keep doing it.

But yeah, again, like, like, so much of his optional, because I watched this, and I sent it to the group chat,

this Games Done Quick, Glitchless Speedrun.

This guy beat the whole game in like 70 minutes.

And like, if you watch this,

it's, again, just, it's so amazing to see.

But also, like, the critical path of the game is like...

All you really have to do to actually roll credits on the game is kill Godfrey, kill Radon, go to the Royal Capitol, and then you go to the endgame.

It's so incredibly streamlined and optimized

in terms of what you need to do to advance the story.

So you're right.

Yes, it is so much about just like doing everything.

Anyway, all this, this blowviating, because I know we got to get a chronic trigger.

I am just going to

wrap up my thoughts on this by saying,

I think I've gone full Apodaka

on Elden Ring.

I think this might find a place on my top 10 games of all time when I'll suddenly get it.

We'll see how I feel when we roll credits and we're digging the DLC.

But I'm already like, I have that pathology where I'm like already thinking about my next playthrough.

Like I'm just, I'm having, I'm having so much fun.

And

I like Sekiro's combat more,

but this is just a more complete game with just, there's like build variety.

You know, there's so many different ways you can play it.

Sekiro, there's, there's one character set up one way, and it's incredible, but I, this is, this is just like such a more expansive, more complete, um, and obviously open world game.

So I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm so glad I returned to it.

I'm really looking forward to finishing it and playing through the DLC.

Hell yeah, dog.

Anyway, that's what I've been playing.

What are you playing, man?

Well, I'm not playing anything new.

All right, Heather, you're up.

Wait, I do have an update, though.

All right.

And it's that we were talking, some people were talking about, in our last episode where we talked about Capcom games, people were talking about, in our Discord,

people were talking about the Monster Hunter franchise and how.

They want us to try it.

They were like, I think you guys might like it.

I'm sure we would.

Give it a try.

A lot of people with good taste have told me they're awesome games.

It's also, I want to say that if it's a good, like, if it's a good game,

almost exclusively outside of whatever genre it's in, we're going to like it.

We'll have our tastes.

Like, I'm not ever going to love, love, love a puzzle game, but, like, Disco Elysium has no combat in it.

It's my favorite game of all time.

So, if a game's great, we'll like it.

So, with that in mind, I had said, hey, I did download Rise.

Maybe I'll try Rise again.

A lot of people in the Discord are like, Rise is not the one.

Rise is good, but Monster Hunter

is the Monster Hunter game.

They're like, this is like the best one.

And so, with that in mind, I was like, people were

sending screenshots of themselves buying it because it was $10.

You know, it was on sale.

And I was like, I can get this.

I'll go get this.

Before I hit check out, I'm like, you know what?

Let me make sure I don't have this already.

Because

it seemed possible.

And it was true.

I did have it already.

It was one of the games in

the PlayStation collection when you bought your PlayStation 5 and they gave you a bunch of games to download.

So I do have it already.

So I downloaded it.

I haven't started it yet because I've been nose down in Chrono Trigger.

But I'm excited to start Monster Hunter World.

That is my update.

Monster Hunter Wilds, I think it is, announced it at Gamescom too.

Or playable.

I think this was already announced.

Playable at Gamescom.

Yes.

I don't know about that.

Heather, what are you planning?

I have only played Chrono Trigger for the last week.

Wow.

You know, at some point, if this

strike against these companies ends, then I'm sure that I will be able to play other games.

But for right now, it's just Chrono Trigger all the fucking time for the last week.

And I'm grateful for it.

I am grateful for it.

It has been an excellent, pleasurable experience that has reawakened.

I think I've said this before on this podcast.

It's reawakened my love of older games.

Hell yeah.

And there's a couple, you know, big older game anniversaries coming up.

And I'm really excited to reconnect with those older games as sort of like a wow, how far have we come in the last 40, 30, 25 years?

So yeah.

Also, I saw that some people are starting to think that the PS3 is retro now and I felt like I was going to shit my pants.

Oh, that's wild.

Yeah, because I was an adult when the PS3 came out.

That's 2007.

My favorite retro game is Metal Gear Solid, the Sons of Liberty.

The strike Heather is referring to, just in case anyone has not been tracking, it's the Interactive Media, aka the video game strike that SAGAFTRA is doing.

And it's specifically a strike about protections for performers regarding using AI for likenesses and

voice performance.

This has been going on since July 26th, if I didn't already say that.

And this is one of those things where it's specifically, from what I've read,

so much of it is about

the motion capture side of things, the stunt performer side, which is like, you know, an important part of

acting and a thing that's often underrepresented.

And so

it's cool that that's who the union is fighting for.

So yeah, it's a solidarity with everyone

striking.

Oh, I want to say one other thing that I'm thinking about playing, which is that I saw a Reddit video where somebody took a backbone, broke it in half, rewired it, and then stuck it on the sides of an iPad to make the ultimate portal.

Wow.

PlayStation portal.

And I have been thinking about figuring out how to do that.

That seems like a lot of work.

Hats off to you.

I have a portal at home.

I also have a portal.

I have a portal at home.

But wouldn't it be cooler if it was a bigger...

If portal was iPad?

Yeah.

Yeah, it'd be interesting.

I guess there would just be a weight thing there.

Because I could see it being a little bit unwieldy.

But I guess if your iPad is not...

It weighs nothing.

It weighs nothing.

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Guys, should we talk about Chrono Trigger?

Let's get into our We Play You Play for Chrono Trigger.

Today's podcast, we have a segment called Behind the Pixels, The Development and Legacy of Chrono Trigger.

Act 1, The Genesis of a Dream Team.

In the early 1990s, something magical was happening in the offices of Squaresoft.

The studio, already riding high on the success of the Final Fantasy series, decided to embark on a new project, something that would push the boundaries of what video games could achieve.

The result was Chrono Trigger, a game that would go on to become one of the most beloved titles of all time.

But the story of Chrono Trigger starts with an unlikely collaboration.

The game was born from a meeting of minds between three titans of the industry.

Hironobu Sagakuchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, Yuji Horji Hori, the mastermind behind Dragon Quest, and Akira Toriyama, the artist

famously known for Dragon Ball.

They were known as the Dream Team, and together they set out to create a game that would combine their unique talents.

One of the most interesting bits of trivia about Chrono Trigger is that it almost didn't happen.

The game was conceived during a trip to the United States, where the trio attended a computer graphics exposition.

Inspired by what they saw, they began brainstorming ideas for a new game, but initially it was intended to be a very different project, something more akin to a tech demo than the sprawling RPG it would become.

Fortunately for gamers everywhere, the project evolved and the trio's ambition grew.

The name Chrono Trigger itself went through several iterations before the team settled on it.

Early in development, the game was referred to as Project Dream within the studio, a fitting name given the aspirations of its creators.

Act 2.

A revolutionary design.

I love doing these guys.

I love it.

These are great.

Chrono Trigger wasn't just another RPG, it was a game that dared to innovate in nearly every aspect.

Take, for instance, the game's signature time travel mechanic.

Unlike other games where time travel was a simple plot device, in Chrono Trigger it was woven directly into the gameplay.

Players could journey to different eras and their actions in one period would ripple across time, affecting events in other epics.

A piece of trivia that highlights the complexity of this system, the game's script contained over 13,000 lines of dialogue, a significant portion of which was dedicated to ensuring that the player's actions in one timeline would logically affect the others.

The team meticulously tracked every variable, every potential outcome, to create a cohesive and immersive world that felt alive.

Another innovation was the game's use of multiple endings.

12 in total, 13 on the DS.

Depending on the player's choices and the order in which events were completed, they could experience a variety of conclusions, each offering a different perspective on the story.

This concept of multiple endings was groundbreaking at the time and has since become a staple of the RPG genre.

And let's not forget the music.

Composed by Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Omatsu, Mitsura, who was relatively new at the time, was so passionate about the project that he reportedly worked himself to the point of illness, even suffering from stomach ulcers.

In fact, Uamatsu, who had composed the Final Fantasy series, stepped in to help finish the soundtrack when Mitsudo was hospitalized.

Despite the challenges, the music of Chrono Trigger remains one of the most celebrated aspects of the game, with tracks like Frog's Theme and Corridors of Time still resonating with fans today.

Of note, he is also the composer of the soundtrack to Delicious in Dungeon.

Act 3, The Legacy That Endures Chrono Trigger was released in 1995 to immediate critical acclaim, but its legacy didn't stop there.

The game has been re-released on numerous platforms, from the PlayStation to mobile devices, each time finding a new generation of fans.

But beyond its commercial success, the game's influence on the industry is undeniable.

One piece of trivia that underscores the game's impact is how it inspired other developers.

Chrono Trigger's battle system, which features seamless transitions between exploration and combat, influenced the design of later RPGs, including the Final Fantasy series itself.

The game's non-linear storytelling and multiple endings also paved the way for future titles that sought to give players more agency in shaping their stories.

The game's development had a ripple effect across the entire industry.

Masato Kato, one of the key writers for Chrono Trigger, went on to work on Chrono Cross, the game's spiritual sequel, and contributed to the story of Final Fantasy VII, one of the most iconic RPGs ever made.

And now in closing, a timeless tale.

Today, nearly three decades after its release, Chrono Trigger is more than just a game.

It's a piece of gaming history.

It's a testament to what can be achieved when creativity, ambition, and collaboration come together.

The dream team set out to create something unforgettable, and they succeeded in ways that they couldn't have imagined.

From its revolutionary gameplay mechanics to memorable characters and story, Chrono Trigger continues to be a shining example of what video games can achieve.

It's a game that has not only stood the test of time, but also shaped the fabric of the industry, and that perhaps is the greatest legacy of all.

So, as we look back on Chrono Trigger on this month's We Play You Play, we're not just remembering a game, we're celebrating a milestone in the evolution of storytelling, one that continues to inspire, captivate, and challenge players, proving that some stories truly are timeless.

Loved it.

People are going to start expecting those every week, you know.

You keep doing them.

Yeah,

that's why I don't try to ever do anything good on the show.

That was awesome.

Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, you mentioned the dream team, and Amy, I think that's the big thing.

That's like kind of the genesis of it.

It's like these, these three, you know, legendary individuals and games and Toriyama's case, R.I.P., you know, like, like

anime and manga.

It's like,

but like, but, but, but you hit on Masato Kado, and then, and then also, you know, Kazuhiko Aoki was another, was another key figure, the producer who assembled the team.

And then, uh, you know, just someone else, I'll shout out Katsuhisa Higuchi, who programmed the game's battle system, which is like, you know, such a huge part of, of why it works as a video game.

But it's like kind of like these three, you know, Titans, these three huge figures kind of oversaw it, but then there was still like, you know,

as expected in development, there were, there were some people who were really doing all the work in terms of pulling it all together.

I kind of want to open things up from a defensive stance, which is just to say like I can already anticipate the, since we were talking about the Discord earlier, I can't believe they didn't mention blank things.

And I'll just say like, it's very believable because it's impossible to capture every single important detail in a a totemic 30-hour game in a 90-minute discussion.

So, we're definitely going to miss things, but we're going to do our best.

And I assure you, I will be most mad at myself when I think of things on my commute home that I forgot to say because this is one of my favorite games ever.

Heather, this is a game that I know is very meaningful to you and that

you really are a fan of as well.

Yeah, I'm a fan of it, but I've shameful admission.

What?

I've some shameful admission.

Okay, go for it.

I've never beaten this game.

That's okay.

I have it on so many systems.

I've played, I know I've played more hours of this game than

it takes to beat the game.

Would you say you've played this more than Final Fantasy Tactics Advance?

No,

no, I haven't.

But like Tactics Advance, it's a game that has, you know, obviously I got a Super NES after

its heyday.

Like, I wasn't super at NES mainlining.

But

I have,

so I've played it on the Super NES.

I brought my Super NES copy with me.

I've played it on emulators in the early 2000s.

I purchased it again for the DS and started over again on the DS.

I've played it on iPad because as soon as it was released for iPad, I was like, okay, this is the time.

I always have my iPad with me.

I'm going to beat Chrono Trigger.

And then for this month's We Play You Play, I was like, all right, motherfucker, I'm going to beat this fucking game.

I'm going to get into it and I'm really going to beat it.

And I didn't fucking beat it this month either because it just, there's not physically enough hours in the month for me to play one hour a day.

Like I don't have it.

I'm humiliated by how much this game means to me, how many times I've heard the iconic pieces of music, and how I've never literally seen any of the 12 or 13 endings.

I don't know.

I think that's a pretty common, though.

I think there are a lot of people who have those experiences with games.

I mean, I'm trying to think of something specifically, a game that I, that I really love that I've never actually

finished, but like, other than stuff I'm currently playing, it's um,

I don't think that's an uncommon thing.

I think, I think people have, especially with a big, meaty, like, narrative game.

I think there, there, like, I've, I've gotten to the ends of games and then sort of Ninja Guyana, that was one of those ones I got to the end of that game and I was just sort of like, all right, I'm not going to, I don't actually want to finish, beat the final boss.

I just kind of get pulled the, pulled, pulled up on it.

It has to be,

and I mean this sincerely, it has to be the longest game I have continually played in my life without beating.

Because

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance comes out after this for the Game Boy Advance.

And I have been playing that game since it was released.

Yeah.

But

I've been playing Chrono Trigger my whole adult life without ever fucking finishing it.

Yeah.

And

I know that like Mary, Mary has been like, because I was really stressed out yesterday.

I've been anxious all week about this episode.

Keep it going.

I was really stressed out yesterday because I was like,

I can't fucking believe this has happened again.

And because I've been playing it every night before we go to bed.

And I was like, I haven't beaten this fucking game again.

And she's like, well, you're going to continue playing it after the record.

And I was like, I honestly don't know because I've been under so much pressure to play it that I kind of feel relief that I'm not going to play it tonight.

Right, sure.

And I'm like, son of a bitch, am I going to pick this game up again in four years?

I can't believe I've beaten Mother 3 and I've never beaten Chrono Trigger, which a barrier of entry on that game is so much higher.

Yeah.

You might be the only person that's true for.

I'm just trying to think of like the kind of person a who would actually play a localized mother 3.

A fan localized, right?

Like there's not an official localization.

It's a fan localized mother 3 that, like I gave to you guys, is on a cart.

Right.

So you can play it on, you can play it on your fucking analog pocket, man.

And it is such an astounding game.

And I beat that game and I still haven't beaten Chrono Trigger.

I can't fucking believe it.

Do you have a sense of how close you are?

I have no sense of how close I am.

Okay.

I got farther this time.

I don't know where the fuck i am in the game yeah did you like have you ever gotten like to like the end like i don't think so think so um as someone who has finished chrono trigger more than once i will say that i don't i like the the endings are fun and i think the endings are like have a good sense of of closure and it is it is awesome that you know we should we should what we should note and i in case one people want to be pedantic yes there were games that came out prior to this game like you know maniac mansion or castlevania 2 simon's quest that had multiple endings.

But this game, because of its reach and its influence, and because of how well it was implemented, the fact that it had multiple endings and a new game plus

became extraordinarily influential.

And things like its character quests that it has for everybody, like that's the sort of thing you see.

I feel like you see the long tail of influence with that in something in like Mass Effects Companion Quest.

You know, the idea that you have these quote-unquote optional side quests, but they inform

in great detail the essence of the characters that comprise your party.

Anyway, what I was going to say, I don't think this game is necessarily even about the ending.

It's just about the journey.

And honestly,

I think thematically, the game is also about the journey.

It is just about

the flow of time and how it's like both,

you know,

the circular nature of things.

So I don't think it's, it's, I think you can get an incredible good sense of this game

and be a huge fan of this game without actually rolling credits on it.

But I want to, Matt, I want to give you a chance to talk.

Yeah.

God bless you.

You have not played this game.

This game comes out when you're like two years old or something like that.

It's not a better answer.

I was five years old when it came out.

But I mean, like, that's, I really appreciate you just deciding to, like, hey, I'm going to go all in.

I'm going to play the shit out of this game.

What was your experience playing this for the very first time?

So, I was, yeah, I played it on my analog pocket.

I had started it before, I should say.

I probably started it twice before.

Never got further than

the intro level at the fair.

It was sort of like, I don't know if this is

the zone.

But now, since we had to play it, I was like, I think I have to push just

further than this.

And what I'd learned is it immediately starts like after, basically.

You just play it for like, if I had played it for maybe 10 more minutes, it would have like sunk my teeth.

It sucked its sunk its teeth into me.

Yeah.

I bought, like, I didn't need to do this because I ended up like playing it handheld most of the time, but I bought the fucking dock for the damn analog pocket, and I was playing it on my TV.

I did play it on my TV last night.

I would probably do it maybe, like,

you know, 70-30, if I'm being honest, but I'm glad I have it.

How is that dock work for you anyway?

So you just got an HDMI cable, and it just, like, it displays it in 4x3.

How does it work exactly?

Yeah,

it displays in 4x3, but it's great because it's just like the Switch dock where your screen turns off and

it just just immediately is on your TV.

You could take it off and you can just still be immediately playing it.

It is fucking gorgeous.

Wow.

It's really, really good.

It looks really good.

It looks really, really good.

The, what is it?

The FGPA?

F-PGA.

F-GGA, yeah.

Like the...

Female Pro Golf Association.

The screen filters that it allows you to use to make your game look like it's on a Sony Trinitron and then you're putting that up on a flat screen

looks really good.

That looks great.

And then, you know, I, for that Nintendo game that I already forgot the name of that we played last month.

NES Championships?

Yeah.

I bought that NES Bluetooth controller.

So I've been playing using that to play

Chrono Trigger, and it's probably like the closest I could get to.

The Super NES 8-bit do.

Yes.

8-bit do?

Yes.

It's probably as close as I could get to playing it like on the actual thing.

For sure, yeah.

And I was having a fucking blast with it.

And like,

I don't know.

There's

I've played a lot of these types of games before.

I've played through

the first three

Final Fantasy games, right?

Like Final Fantasy 1, 2, and Actual 3 I've played.

And then 7, of course.

But as far as the pixel graphic

GRPGs, those are the ones that I've played.

This...

The characters are just like so goddamn good and lovable and like unique right away.

Yeah.

And like

it takes, it takes one second to become a huge fan of any of the characters.

They're just like, they're just amazing.

Yeah.

And I just couldn't, I couldn't put it down.

I will say Heather's not the only person in this room who has never beaten Chrono Trigger because as of press time, I'm at the final boss.

And that was,

I will say,

One of the prime disappointments

of my month, certainly, because I've been playing it so goddamn much and just playing it non-stop and like being like, oh, I would like to do that, but I have to play this game.

And I think

I will finish it because I can't get this far or not.

Yeah.

I wish I could have finished it so I could comment on endings and things like that.

But I am so like, I'm in love with this game.

I love it.

I love that.

We still have plenty to talk about.

So

you went went through the,

you know, the floating dungeon, the black omen, you work your way up to the gym

through once.

I understand I can go through an additional time if I, if I, uh, you know, jump to a different timeline or different point in time rather.

Which I think I will do because I'm being one-shot by the final boss.

under leveled.

I'm getting fucked by the final boss.

There's there's some things you can do to you know to to make it so uh lavos is like less potent and and like you know kind of the way you can kind of shortcut it in um

uh it in in breath of the wild you can kind of kind of shortcut you know calamity ganon or whatever but i but there there's also just like

yeah i i mean i don't know how many of the side quests you've done i've done a couple of them i did i did um

i just did frogs

or no i didn't do did i do frogs i did i did magus's uh side quest

and I did, and I think I did do frogs, actually, if I'm thinking about it correctly.

You'd love frog.

Frog, frog rocks.

I'm like,

I'm so close to just getting a frog tattoo.

Just like

how he's drawn on the fucking box.

I love frog.

Yeah.

I love guys like that.

Weird little guys.

And he's the best of them.

He's amazing.

Yeah.

All the characters.

I love Robo.

Yeah, Robo's great.

Frog has this

awesome character design.

Again, Kiratoriama, a character design.

And but like the thing I one thing I like about Frog, and I guess we're kind of in spoiler time, but whatever it's a fucking 30-year-old game.

There's, you know, because he was previously Glenn, and then he was cursed to turn into Frog, turned into, you know, this giant, this man-sized influence.

When I got to that point in the game, I said out loud, oh my God.

Frog's a guy.

he's a guy but but like i there's there's an element of just like i don't know just like like you know you know one reason i like about this game is like every single thing just kind of works and and

this is maybe such a minor thing but like you know how in the beast the beauty and the beast everyone's horny for the beast and then the beast turns into the guy everyone's like get this guy out of here i want the beast frog like as glenn is still like oh

i still like this guy you know what i mean like he still has like the essence of the character like both in the design and the way he's he's written and that he's kind of like this bullied guy who, you know, kind of like has this, this, this older brother-esque kind of figure and learns to stand up for himself and then becomes this noble like paladin as frog.

Like I, the, the arc is just so satisfying, even, even if it's broad.

One thing about frog is the, and you're playing the Super Nintendo version, right?

Yes.

So I was playing the Steam version, and so they're, they're different

localizations.

And talking about a thing you talked about earlier, Heather, which is how much text is in this fucking game, which is, it's, it's staggering.

The original translation is done by the infamous Ted Woolsey.

I'm a Wolsey guy, but, but he's the guy who did, you know, translated Final Fantasy VI.

I think Final Fantasy IV is responsible for a lot of like kind of,

you know, some, some, some quirky sort of English language dialogue.

Spoony Bard.

Stu Spoony Bard, I believe, is a Wolsey-ism.

And, but, but you read about his, his task on this game.

Um, he had a team of one.

It was just him responsible for localizing Chrono Trigger.

He's working in America.

So, you know, he's not on site.

And then he's like, I need two and a half months to do this.

And Sakaguchi is like, you have 30 days.

So

it was just this race, this impossible task to get it done.

And I think it's still a really effective translation.

I think the storytelling is really good.

It's a lot worse with that time.

Yeah, I know.

The modern one, I believe the translator is Tom Slattery, is like more accurate, but like there are elements that are less charming.

For instance, like Frog's dialogue is like very kind of old English-y, he's kind kind of stilted.

And in, in the, you know, in the modern localization, that's like he's still kind of talks in a fancy way, but like the

thousand these have been removed.

So it just has like, I don't know, it feels a little bit less like the character that I know.

But he's as reminiscent.

I love that he's like a fancy little guy.

Yeah, I love that he's a fancy little guy.

It's fun.

It's great.

There's also, like, there's a couple of like, I don't think there's this game's like chock full of laughs.

There's at least like one big laugh that I got like out of the game in the early on, and it's when he's on you go and you're on trial.

Oh my god, the trial rocks.

Keep going.

The trial is so fun, and like you get like

I kind of don't remember what the circumstance was, but the um basically you're put to a verdict and you like are you know, you're you're like

asked to testify and you have to you get a couple of like answers to questions.

Yeah, it's it's basically like the the Marl slash Nadia, who's like the

regal, the female, a royal character, and she's part of a royal line that goes back hundreds of years or thousands of years.

I believe in the modern time, you are arrested for her kidnapping, even though like you're innocent.

And so you have a trial.

And it teaches you early on in the game.

Like the first level of Super Mario Brothers, that's like, here's how you jump.

Now here's how you jump over a pit.

Now the pit is empty.

It's teaching you that the things you do that don't even matter to you are perhaps affecting the world.

Right.

Because, like, you'll be

chastised for eating somebody's lunch at the Millennial Fair.

And it's, and, and you'll, the reason you ate their lunch is because you run around everything pressing the A button over and over again to see if there's anything hidden or that you can interact with anything.

So, when Chrono eats that guy's lunch and then he's at the trial and he's like, That kid ate my lunch, I'm like, oh no, oh fuck.

Well, yeah, it's it's it's like there's a moral code to this game.

Yeah.

So the

laugh came from me was that every answer that I gave, they showed me that I was wrong.

Like, actually, no, that's not what happened.

Here's what happened.

And like, I remembered some of the stuff, like, you're talking with, you're with Marl, and she's looking at some stand or whatever.

And you go, if you go talk to her, she's like, I'll get your hands off me.

And then, like, somebody at the fair testifies, like, yeah, he put his hands on her and hurt her.

Like, Joe, geez.

But it was like, that's so great.

But, like,

I don't know.

I love, I just, I, I love the story.

I wish,

you know, I said this in our in our text thread.

It's kind of a, in, in many ways, uh, it's a, it's kind of a miracle they haven't like remastered this game or like ported it to modern hardware.

I would love a port.

If it was on Switch, people should be

people should be able to play this game on modern hardware.

Yeah.

But it's kind of a miracle they haven't like given this the,

you know, Final Fantasy VII,

you know, remake treatment where there's like a bunch of Chrono Trigger games.

Well, okay, so here, I'll, I'll bring this up now because I think we talked about that that next week, next year will be the 30th anniversary.

Yes, I do this just in time for the 29th.

We celebrate the 29th anniversary on this show.

I got my 29th birthday coming up again.

So I like that character.

Yeah, I like that guy.

He's funny.

So the

This person's 58 years old?

I mean, I guess, does that mean that the final physical release of this game was the Nintendo DS?

I think it was.

I was looking through all the versions.

I'll return to that in one second.

But I was just going to say, I think for the 30th anniversary, considering that they've been doing more HD 2D remakes, I am going to anticipate that they are going to announce a Chrono Trigger HD 2D remake at long last.

I know there's like rights issues.

I know there's internal politics involving the game.

I know that's partly why there haven't been

a ton of canonical follow-ups.

But

it feels like the time is right for that.

And there's certainly everyone is like, you know,

everyone is ready for a remaster of Chrono Tricker.

So about the different versions and about it not being like, yeah, outside of Steam and, or, or if you want to do the mobile version, iOS or Android, it's like not really playable on modern consoles at all.

I forgot it was on the Wii Virtual Console for a time, which made me be like, wait, why the fuck is it not in the Super Nintendo collection?

On, it's just got to be some licensing thing, but it's just like, that feels like the thing.

I'm paying for fucking Nintendo Online.

I can't get a Chrono Trigger as part of that package.

I don't know.

Yeah.

It's just one of those frustrations about this game's availability, which is, which is its main issue.

That sort of opens up the

like, not really, but

on those platforms, you can like rewind

and stuff.

I wonder if,

like,

that would change how I played the game, but I wouldn't want to do that either.

Because, like, I got to play this game as.

Because choices have consequence.

Yes.

So I got to play this game

as close to how it was intended to play without any modern conveniences like in the Pixel Remastered Final Fantasy games.

And I will say, like, it was a very rewarding experience.

Like, leveling the characters was really fun.

Getting new techs with the characters was really fun.

Double text, triple text.

It's a hoot.

And just like,

there weren't, I will say there weren't that many instances where I was having a hard time because I think the game does a good job of preparing you for the next threat, like pretty well.

Because there's no random encounters or whatever, but the

fights that you get in are all basically,

you know.

spread out enough where you're leveling, I feel like pretty consistently.

It has to be part of their balance consideration because there are no random encounters.

You can also avoid those encounters and go into fights under level.

Yes.

But part of the thrill of entering the fights is that they're always kind of funny when they start.

Yeah, they're fun.

Like

you see a ball rolling back and forth in the forest and you go touch that ball.

It turns into a little guy.

Another guy runs out and kicks that guy and then jumps on top of him.

And then your party is like, okay, you stand there, you stand there, you stand there.

But it is like the sort of thing of, you know, in this era of JRPGs,

like I had gotten so fatigued with random encounters.

Like it's just such an interruption.

And if you're turning, you return to one of these games and you're playing it without modern, you know, a bunch of quality of life improvements turned on.

It's like, this feels so tedious and it interrupts the pacing.

And like, I'm just trying to explore this map.

And now I get sucked into a separate screen with a huge long intro and a huge long outro.

And

like after this game, it was just like, it was like revelatory.

It's like, oh, there's, there's not random encounters and that the combat doesn't take you into a different, like sort of like, oh, we're in the battle scene.

Like you're just in the same environment.

Like that shit is like really, really cool and feels very seamless.

And

it did feel like games kind of went backwards for a time when we got to the PlayStation 1 era because we brought back random encounters.

I mean, that Final Fantasy trilogy on PS1 all has random encounters, but it was so cool to see enemies on the mini-map.

The actual map.

The Wikipedia article, which who knows how accurate any of this is.

On Wikipedia, so it's probably on the up and up.

Talks about how

Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy IV are all being developed alongside Chrono Trigger.

And Secret of Mana, which was supposed to be Final Fantasy IV, was code-named Chrono Trigger internally, then was

turned into Secret of Mana, and the name Chrono Trigger was adopted by this.

But all of these games influence one another, and Secret of Mana also doesn't have random battles.

All of the enemies are on screen.

It's an action RPG, but you can choose whether or not to engage with these enemies, and you can feel that Chrono Trigger influence on the game and and vice versa.

It's, yeah, I mean, you kind of witness, like, it's, it's, it's cool that there are games that drew from it.

There was an era, like, kind of, like, of JRPGs that you kind of wish had pulled more from it, but also apparently it was very technically taxing to pull this off.

Um, should we talk about the music a little bit?

Is that worth digging into?

I think so.

So, Yasunori Mitsuda composed the soundtrack.

Uh, Yasunori Mitsuda is 52 now, which means he was 23 when this game released, which is wild.

As Heather mentioned, yeah, he worked himself sick while he was making this.

Nobuo Ematsu has some tracks that he composed.

It's an incredible soundtrack.

It's just one of the best game soundtracks.

You read a little bit about it, and it's like basically like he...

He was doing sound design at the time.

He was doing sound effects at Squaresoft, and he kind of had, gave him an ultimatum.

It was like, look, I came here to do music.

I want to do music.

Please let me compose something.

And they were like, all right, fine.

Take on this game Chrono Trigger and maybe just make the best shit ever.

It's like, it's kind of like amazing that it came together like this and he was so young and he was so eager.

And he's just like, give me the ball.

And they're like, all right, fine, here you go.

But

it's impossible to pick favorites and to be comprehensive about the soundtrack.

I did just pull a few tracks here.

Ranch, can we play this first one?

This is one that I could just listen to on a 10-hour loop time circuits.

Yeah.

Just a vibe.

Yeah.

Comes out a few times in the game, most notably in the Zeal Palace.

Part of why Matsuda got sick is that his hard drive crashed and he lost 40 in-progress tracks.

Jesus Christ.

What a nightmare.

Rich, can you imagine losing 40 podcast episodes we recorded?

It's suicide.

That one's awesome.

Another one, like we mentioned Robo, and you know, Robo's theme and Frog's theme were both part of the video game music montage of the 2020 and 20 Olympics opening ceremonies.

This is some of Robo's theme.

What I love about Robo

is sort of in direct contrast to what I love about Frog.

Frog is a silly little guy,

and Robo is a silly big guy.

The two main guys.

Frog's theme and Robo's theme were among the video game music performed during the 2020 Summer Olympics opening ceremony.

So this song is canonically part of the Olympics.

Can you imagine writing something in 23 that

almost 30 years later is played at the Olympics?

The Secretary General of the UN is listening with his hand over his heart.

It's like fucking crazy.

I thought we'd do that to one of my UCB 101 sketch

packets.

Anyway, I got to lead this into a little bit.

Can we just play a taste of this ranch?

This has the same chord progression as Rick Asley's Together Forever.

That's fun, right?

That's unbelievable.

That's so fucking good.

Man, actually, pretty good.

This is a banger.

It's good.

All right.

Thanks, Rash.

Heather, did you have the brink of time?

This was, I actually had a CD.

I think it actually was a bootleg, but the brink of time was Mitsuda's Jazz Arrange album, Acid Jazz Arrange album.

I did not have that

disc, but I did have

a bootleg CD that was sold to me as a real CD at a at a store in Little Tokyo in like 1999.

Yeah.

And uh it was a recording of an orchestra playing a bunch of Squaresoft themes.

And there were Chrono Trigger tracks on that CD,

but it was never like an officially released CD.

It was somebody's fucking bootleg pressed on a CD and then like, with a booklet.

So as a, as a young person, I'm like, oh, oh, this is real, but it was not real.

Oh, I definitely had some bootlegs that I bought retail.

It's like kind of crazy how that used to be like such a thing.

Like I, I, yeah, I definitely had the Celtic Moon CD, the Final Fantasy 4 range, and that was like, that was

an official bootleg.

It was like a bootleg label that put it out.

On the brink of time, anyway, the art is awesome.

It's just a big breakfast.

That's a nice breakfast.

That's really, really good.

What is that?

Why is that the art for this?

I don't know.

It doesn't make any sense.

Two eggs, bacon, and orange juice?

What's going on?

Anyway, so that this album is like the.

I thought it let's let's play a little bit of World Revolution, um, and then we'll play the arranged version from Break of Time just to hear these two contrasts.

So, this is from the game.

I think this is actually the maybe the DS version.

This might be the SNES version.

Come on, right?

Yeah.

Come on.

All right,

let's go to the brink of time version.

Now, this is one of the more straightforward arrangements, just to get a sense of how

wild this album is.

What was he smoking when he did this, man?

That's wild.

I love it.

It's cool.

Yeah.

Amazing, amazing score.

This

somebody should do this, put that in the scene from the Matrix when they're at the fucking

dance orgy.

When they're in Zion?

Yeah.

Do the same scene in a rec room for a dream, too.

What did you think of the, did you enjoy the combat, Matt?

I did, actually.

You know, like, it took me a second to

adjust to it because it's not like as straightforward as

the, like, what I'm used to in the Final Fantasy games, where it's like, I mean, it's not that different.

I guess it's a menu

and a list of things you can do.

It's a little bit more active.

But yeah, it is more active.

And I liked, like I said, i liked the text the combining of uh

like characters uh powers and and in in doing like moves together was really really cool but i also just liked figuring out which ones because like

not every attack is gonna work on every enemy which is cool like i remember uh when i first encountered like an enemy that was because chrono has uh

um lightning magic uh

and the first time that i encountered uh an enemy that was healed by that, I was so fucking mad.

I was like, no, that's my, I use that so much, but it encourages you to,

you know, change your party up a little bit.

I never really deviated from Chrono,

but I

would have,

I would switch it up.

My mains right now, I would say, are

Chrono, Alia, and

Robo,

Which I'm reading is not a necessarily ideal endgame party for

from what I'm understanding and um, what I'm currently experiencing as well.

Uh, what I, what I would say is, so, so, like, yeah, you can have three party members at a time, you, you can, you can swap them all out, you, you go to the uh

later you have a ship, but you go to the end of time, which like there's so many things that I think about my first experience playing this game, and I think I've said before that, that I didn't get to this game when it came out.

I got to this game years later when the PlayStation 1 1 was already out and my friend was into Chrono Trigger.

He's like, Yeah, play this game.

You like Final Fantasy, you like all the Final Fantasies.

That's when I got into it.

And it still was a mind-blowing experience playing this in like 1999 or whatever.

And I finally got to it.

But

the trial absolutely blew my mind.

The first time I got to the end of time, which is just like a, you know, basically it's like it's infinity year.

It's just this huge void with like a street lamp and like an old man.

And I just was like, what a fucking like cool, like impressionistic realization of what this is conceptually.

I didn't even know, I didn't know that like time travel was like part of the game.

Like that somehow just like the main thing.

It's the main thing.

That's really funny.

No one I know, nobody I grew up with like played this game really.

So like I just like, it just completely missed it.

So like when that starts to like pop up and present itself, I'm like, this is fuck, this is tight as hell.

And it's also just like an interesting mix because i feel like you don't get i mean there are like sci-fi elements in fantasy stories or whatever but like i feel like it's never as hard sci-fi as fucking time travel and stuff and there are like there are rules and like to time travel and things like that and i think that's just like so interesting and it works really really well within this like this fantasy world setting i love it well can i say can i say something about the uh the the end of time yeah room which is that i've been to that room for the first time infinity times in my life, right?

Yes.

And every fucking time I go, I fail that running around the room thing at the top, like the door you have to go through.

Oh, right.

You have to run around like the room.

I fail that fucking test two or three times every single time I play Chrono Trigger.

It's very hard.

That was like one of the harder things I had to do in the game.

It's a weird skill check.

Yeah.

Because it's like you have to go like the precise edge around.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's,

I,

I think that that, like, it's, it's just a really cool way of having like a, a, a hub.

And what I want to go back to something, this was something Heather said in her, in her intro and in her setup, which is like.

The time travel doesn't just inform it thematically or story-wise.

It's like part of like the gameplay design.

It's part of like the puzzle design.

And like, you know, we can cover another game I really like, Day of the Tentacle on the podcast in our old format.

That's one where it like uses time travel to solve like point-and-click adventure puzzles.

But it's the same sort of thing of like what you do in the past affects what happens in the future.

And that's just a really just fascinating gameplay mechanic, and they explore it really well.

And it feels consequential what you're doing in different timelines.

As a person who played Sonic CD before I played Chrono Trigger,

as a kid, I was like...

Sonic diagrams a circle, probably.

That Venn diagram's like a circle.

That's like you're like the one person.

No, I feel like Sega Kids.

I'm sure

Sega Kids existed.

I feel like Sonic CD had to, and I know time travel predates Chrono Trigger.

Yes.

But in terms of like the gameplay loop being affected by doing something in the past that affects the actual gameplay of the future, like Sonic CD, you travel to the past or the present or the future in each individual level.

And if you accomplish certain goals in the past, it changes the layout of

the area in the future.

And if you change it there, also, it makes the far future utopian.

And I was like, so blown away by that as a kid, and then what playing this later, I was like, oh, this is kind of baby stuff, huh?

That was like when it compares to Chrono Trigger, like how dare you, this is a little baby stuff.

Well, no, I mean, that's

that Sonic's version of Chrono Trigger was baby stuff.

There was something, there was like a, uh, I didn't know that I was like stumbling into like a sort of like a side quest type of thing.

Um,

there's an instance where you can talk to this, like, NPC, and she's like, Wow, I found this seed.

What do I do?

What should I do?

That should I eat it or should I plant it?

And I told her just instinctually to plant it because I just remembered, you know, with the future is very barren and doesn't have anything.

And then the next time you go to the future, they have a fucking spud, and I was so happy.

I was like, That's a, this is the most amazing game.

This is

incredible.

So, yeah, so you have a bunch of different timelines, and that's how you kind of meet your, assemble your party.

Chrono, the not spelled the same way as the title, but C-R-O-N-O.

I guess I hadn't put that together.

That's really interesting.

It is interesting.

To me, they sound different in my head.

I feel like I say Chrono Trigger and Chrono for the guy, but I swap them up sometimes.

Anyway, Chrono is the name.

He's a spiky-haired protagonist with the katana.

There's Frog, who's the Frog Knight.

There's Maru, who we mentioned, who's like the, you know, the princess there's luca who's like the inventor i ship luca and chrono uh that's my head cannon um uh and they're childhood friends and the three of them uh chrono marl and luca are in the same timeline they're in like a thousand a d I believe that's the time or I forget I forget what

the year 1000

frog is in the past he's in like a like a

a you know a royal era a medieval era robo is in the far future post-apocalyptic future after lavos has has destroyed the Earth like galactus, consuming its nutrients and the, you know, the everyone lives in misery with humans and robots both struggling to survive.

Alia is in the distant past, way back in like 65 million,

the year BC.

And then there's Magus, who's in the like semi or who's in the not as distant past.

And Magus is kind of like a Dracula.

Now, Magus, this is the third thing that absolutely blew my mind playing this game for the first time.

Magus is a bad guy through most of it.

Frog is like, I got to get my fucking revenge on Magus.

Magus killed my guy.

Magus said, cursed me to be a fucking frog.

I'm going after this guy.

You can kill Magus, and you can also have Frog duel Magus, but also you can have Magus just like come over to your side and join your party and learn that he actually has a side of him that's like pitiable and like you understand like why he's like, you know, why he's doing what he's doing, why he's conspiring with Lavos, why he's become such a nihilist, because he's had his own personal loss and tragedy that he's suffered and he's working through.

It would be

like as if you could have Sephiroth in your party.

Yeah.

Like, uh, it's on, it's such a cool part of it.

One of the kind of magical things about this game is, you know, that experience of if you go to a like a museum of like old technology and you see like a little a little machine that makes something 3D, right?

Like a thing that like those like a 3DS?

Like those pictographs that you slot a photograph in that makes the old like turn of the century photos 3D or something.

Right.

And you're like, wow, look what these guys did.

We have 3D literally on our 3DS.

We have 3D on TVs and in movie theaters.

And I have a fucking Vision Pro where everything's in 3D.

There's something about

seeing old things accomplish things that you see more

readily available to you today that it makes them more impressive.

So like all of the little ways in which Chrono Trigger, like, like things in the past affect things in the future, and characters can or cannot be added to your party are stuff that we all take for granted in games today.

But there's like this turn of the century magic to the fact that this is all happening on a super NES game.

You're like, oh, fuck, this is stuff that like Disco Elysium is doing, where you're like, you have a conversation with that guy there, and then it changes a conversation with somebody else.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, that's, that's, I mean, that's a, that's a great point.

Like, it's impossible to divorce this game from when it came out.

And also, like, even again, even, though I didn't experience, I didn't play it right as it came out.

I, I don't think you did either, Heather.

Not the year of the release, like, played it close enough to its release where it was still, like, felt like the novelty of the moment.

It still felt like, hey, I'm, it's, it's the year 1911 and I'm looking through one of those, you know, 3D camera obscuras or whatever the fuck it is.

Uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's really kind of amazing to have seen where games have gone from then, but also to revisit this and see that it feel its influence in everything,

other things that you've played.

And I would think this is maybe worth mentioning, like as somebody who's played it in the year 2024, 29 years after its release,

you know,

it plays incredibly well.

It holds up.

It's so fucking good.

It really holds up.

It really holds up.

And there's something about it that

beyond your rose-colored glasses or your nostalgia you might feel towards the theme music or whatever, there's something that it fucking gets about character and pace, where you'll play like a

sprite-based or a sprite-style

RPG now, like even Octopath Traveler, which is like a fancy

sprite game.

And you're you're kind of experienced this lethargy of character introduction, whereas like The first time you go back to 65 million BC,

let me slow myself down.

You'll experience a lethargy of character introduction where you'll meet somebody and they'll talk for fucking ever, and then you'll finally get to know whether or not they're gonna join your party.

And you'll be like, I don't even know what this character's deal is, and I guess I have to investigate.

There's like a

almost like, like, what if we turned a video game into a novel approach to character introduction?

And there's games are

games, can be anything, but this type of game I i feel is aided by when you go back to 65 million bc and you meet the caveman lady and she's immediately like i want to fuck chrono and i want to eat and you're like i get this girl like i like she's immediately like it it teaches you also as a writer how little how little you need to establish what somebody wants or what who they are right and most of these characters are introduced with a want they're introduced as like, I want this.

Like, I want to experience freedom because I'm secretly a princess.

I want to invent stuff.

So you understand everybody's desires in the game almost on the drop.

Like, it's really, it's, it's, it's, uh, that brevity serves it.

Yeah, and things like the Magus Reveal also do the same sort of thing where there's like, you know, like, it's, it's, oh, okay, I see what's really going on with that guy.

I have a screenshot of, or, you know, I took a photo of my analog pocket on my phone of the first line that Frog says because it's the,

it immediately just made me, I was like, this is my fucking guy and I'll read it.

Lower thine guard and thou art allowing the enemy in.

I was like, this is my guy.

This guy's crazy.

I love him.

And I know it's not in the Super Nintendo version, but did you, did, did either of you watch or have you seen the anime cutscenes that were added for the PlayStation 1 one?

I haven't seen that.

Those are on the the DS version.

I've seen them from when I played the DS version,

half of them probably.

They're cool, but I think they're completely superfluous.

And I would also say that's

the DS extra content, there's like extra dungeons and stuff.

That's another thing.

It's just like, you mess around.

This doesn't really need to be in here.

Like, it's one of those things where the game was just kind of so perfectly formed that kind of adding more onto it doesn't really, you know, do anything.

You know, I brought these games with me to demonstrate a point about how they hold up visually, but I'm in such a good mood, I don't want to prove a point.

Like, I play the game however you want.

Like, I don't need to be right about this.

Like, if you have it on DS, if you have it on 3DS, if you are, you know, a fancy boy and you've got an analog pocket, if you are an old school person, you've got it on Super NES, or if you have it on the fucking iOS or Android, play it however you will.

Like, it's

amazing how well it holds up because a lot of other RPGs from that era just don't.

They don't, yeah.

And again, I think the, I think, honestly, I think a big part is the absence of random encounters.

I will say that the, I don't think the Steam version is perfect, but it has been updated a lot.

And it is much better than the original version that came out that was just like a shoddy port of the mobile version that had like, you know, this, this awful pixel smoothing around the characters, just looked like complete shit, had a horrible font.

Like it's, it's much, much better.

And I think that's right now, if, if you're just looking for a way to experience this game, I think that's the best legal way to play this.

So, you know,

I think that's, that's one way to go.

And again, hopefully it'll resurface.

Can I say something about the save points also?

Yeah.

As somebody who only had a limited amount of time to play the game every day, I was always nervous.

What if I don't get to a save point and

I have to stop playing?

And when you're playing it on the analog pocket, there are no save states.

You can't just like turn the machine off and turn it back on when you were where you were.

If you play it on like a PC emulator, you of course have that option.

I was always

thrilled at how well-paced the save points were.

Yes.

Like you feel like you can drop in and you aren't scared that you aren't going to be able to save, whether it's on the map screen or it's an actual save point in a dungeon.

It's such a well-paced game.

In the

the Black Omen, where this is like the final dungeon as you ascend to the final boss area, there are plenty of save states in there or save points in there.

Every time I could almost guess with 90% accuracy when the next one was, where it was going to be.

Because I would just...

I would, you know, die and then have to go back to my previous one.

But then if I kept going, I was like, I think maybe not this one, the next one, that's where it's going to be.

And I would like often be correct.

Yeah.

They did a really good job of making that not feel like a fucking chore because like that's a

chunky area.

Man, I'm just because I'm fully in Elden Ring right now, the moments when you like get through like some sort of difficult encounter and then there's a message in the ground that says no grace ahead.

And just like, fuck,

goddamn it.

Nightmarish.

Nightmarish.

This, I mean,

there's just so much good shit in it.

Yeah,

it's impossible to touch on everything yeah okay let me ask you a question as as as our cat dude uh matt appodaka more like cat appodaka there's a uh there's some cat action in this game there's there's the mighty gato um um so remember what i said earlier

about frog and and robo yeah gato's sort of like the king of this or he's like the biggest yeah silly guy yeah He just does a little dance.

Big cat robot.

He's got a little song.

It's great.

Yeah.

He rocks and it's a good way to mine silver points.

You get 15 for just beating him, and it takes like two hits to go down.

And then there's also just a bunch of cats, little cats running around throughout the game.

And you guessed it.

I loved that.

I was like, this is my game.

I don't know.

I do think that, because this type of game...

What was that one?

Sea of Stars?

Yeah, Sea of Stars is very much

heavily inspired by this to the point where they got yasin ori mitsuda to to uh compose some tracks for it and yet has like an opening fair sequence that is very very similar to what's so that game comes out right and you know people played it and liked it for the most part

i would say as of this moment it is no longer in the cultural conversation people aren't really talking about that game still i think it was yeah it was really really well made really well received and yeah maybe doesn't have a it has doesn't have a long tail i think it'll have some fandom this game I think if it came out this year, would be a contender for game of the year.

It is like, it's so good, and it looks so good.

The sound, like, I mean, it's, it's just amazing.

It's just amazing all the way around.

And like, you know, this is my first time with it.

I have not finished it yet.

I am close to finishing it and probably will by the time next time we record.

But I'm sort of just thinking about this game as like, well, this is now in the top 10.

Like, this is like, this is a top 10 game for me.

For you personally.

For me personally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It could possibly be top five.

Wow.

Like, it is, it is amazing what they did with this.

Can I, can I, can I say something?

And I don't mean to sound elitist, but, but rather as a point of passion and excitement for you.

I also love Chrono Trigger the way that you love Chrono Trigger.

Yes.

Like the

way that...

I keep coming back to this game over the course of my entire fucking life.

I have started Chrono Trigger more than I have started any other game.

I know this, except maybe Sonic 2, but that's mostly because you play Sonic 2 for a level and then you turn it off.

Like you're not sitting down to beat it.

Every time I've sat down to start Chrono Trigger, it's with the intention that this is the time I'm going to beat the game.

I love it.

Matt,

I love Mother 3 more.

That's fine.

I mean, I...

And I want you to play it so badly.

Look, I've been really loving the analog pocket.

I mean, I don't see see why I don't just play it.

Like, I should just play it.

It's so incredible.

But should I play the first two?

No, you don't need to.

You don't need to.

You just play Mother 3.

They're separate stories.

You could just drop it in.

I'll just pop it in.

Yeah, you should pop it in.

I should play it too.

I mean, you went to all the trouble to get it for us.

I should play it.

Yeah, four years ago.

But you know what's good about it?

I know exactly where it is.

Great.

I have it not far from my analog pocket at pretty much all times.

And that's not to say, oh, this game's good, but this other game's better.

I just mean that like, I feel love and passion for this.

Yeah.

And

it's like I've eaten the best pizza in the world, right?

It's Chrono Trigger.

Yeah.

And there's also an incredible plate of lasagna somewhere else.

And I want to tell you about that lasagna.

One thing I really like about when we do this deep dive into one of these games, and it's a game that maybe one or more of us haven't experienced before.

Is

you know,

just introducing someone to something.

And, like, for me, like, the experience was Pokemon Gold Silver, which you'd gotten us playing.

That's a really awesome game.

And also held up.

Incredibly playable.

And I think just because of my particular age, I was like, when it came out, I was like, ah, that's kid stuff, you know.

And going back to it, like, oh no, this is an amazing, this is an amazing stuff.

And then you got older and you're like, actually, kid stuff.

Yeah, I'm into this.

Keep it coming.

There was a retro game that we

for hoping.

I can't do it.

I can't do it.

There was a game that played a retro game that we played.

Was it Mario 64 where we got into a conflict because you guys were like, I don't know that this holds up.

And I was like, it absolutely holds up.

I don't feel like I

maybe I said that, but I don't feel like I said that.

I sitting here now, I don't remember what I said, but I don't see why I would go back to Mario 64 when Mario Odyssey is playing.

Here's the thing about Mario 64 is it does have some

things like things like Mario's Turning Radius or just like a little bit wonky feeling.

You know what I mean?

It's like the kind of stuff like they've just figured out, whatever, this is the game that set the template, so it's going to have some imperfections, but like, you know, it doesn't quite have the control of the modern games, but I do feel like that game holds up.

When we played this and talked about playing this, I was nervous that I didn't know whether it was good or not anymore because I've played it so many times.

Sure, yeah, I know that.

And I was like, ah, what if Matt doesn't like it?

What if this is a chore?

What if he says to us, you know, it was hard to get into this?

And it's, it's, it's so incredible that here in the year 2024, Matt's playing Chrono Trigger and talking about how, if it was released this year, it could be game of the year.

It's,

I, I, I just, I love it when we, when we're all in complete agreement about something.

And that happens kind of rarely on the show.

And that also speaks to how fucking good this game is.

You would, I think,

I know that there are going to be some people who are like, I actually don't like this game very much.

That's fine.

You'd have have to be a fucking idiot to think this game is bad.

That is insane to me.

You might not like it, but I think you'd, yeah, you'd be hard-pressed to say that it was bad.

Look, I think there's a lot of green, a lot of daylight between, you know, like, hey, I think this thing is good or bad, and I think this thing is for me or not for me.

You know what I mean?

It's like,

I think people usually have the.

It's like Obradin was not for me, but I can respect how good it is.

Yeah.

And that game is super for me.

When we do this,

because I've been introduced to a couple of really great games because of this show.

Sonic 2 being one of them, had not played it before.

Sonic 2 is so good.

And in most recently, I would probably say was Shadow of the Colossus was another big.

Oh, yeah.

That was the game where we talked about how it didn't hold up, maybe.

Maybe.

I loved it.

I could see the edges.

I honestly think I want, I think it might have been Silent Hill 2 now that I think about it.

I think it might have been Silent Hill.

That's what it was.

Yep, that's what it was, where I was like, you guys are fucking wrong.

Okay, I am.

I think that game's incredible.

I love that game.

Given the choice.

It's a little clunky to play.

Would I play it again?

Time may tell if the remake is any good, but I don't know that I would go back to the specific version that I played.

Silent Hill 2 is the only game where a character recurs in my dreams.

Like, I see Pyramid Head so often in my dreams.

That could have, I mean, that's the thing about that is that any character would have been an unsatisfying answer.

Her medhead sees me in his dreams.

What the hell?

Hey, buddy.

That guy scares me.

I have a review.

This is a contemporaneous review from the August 1995 issue of Electronic Gaming Magazine, EGM.

I'll just read this review.

This is one of those things where there are four different critics.

They all weigh in and they kind of all give their paragraph review.

This game got a 37 out of 40, which is a very high score because it was out of a 10-point scale for four reviewers.

And like with Famitsu, 10s were rare.

I'll just read this review from Al.

All caps.

This is awesome!

Chrono Trigger is an RPG that combines the best features of the FF series and mana and puts them all in a game that easily gets my vote for RPG of the year.

As with all Squaresoft games, the visuals are drawn with stunning detail and the music immerses players even further into the quest.

Of course, the game's best feature is its endearing storyline and multiple endings.

Add multiple endings to that and you've got a must-have for your RPG collection.

9.5.

Best feature?

Everything.

Worst feature?

Yeah, right.

The 90s were such a simple time.

That's amazing.

I mean,

I really wish I could have

brought it home and

finished it because I do think

It's just, I mean, it's just such an impressive work.

Yeah.

I wonder how, where, where did you leave off, Heather?

I, I honestly don't know where I left off on the game.

I, I've been to the past multiple times.

Yeah.

I've been to, I'm not yet at

Magus's.

Okay.

Okay.

But I'm somewhere in between, like somewhere right before that, I think.

It's,

yeah, it's, it's really humiliating.

And I and honestly, I am embarrassed and ashamed that

I haven't beaten it again.

Maybe I will keep it.

It's so nice.

I can't believe that.

I can't believe it's not out for the Switch.

Yeah, it's so nice to play it on the pocket before you go to bed that like it's it just feels crazy that you can't do that with an actual console.

Well, I don't know if it was last year or the year before, but very recently they re-released Live Alive.

It had never been localized in North America, and they did a remake, and that is on Switch.

And I played it on Switch.

It's fucking awesome.

It's awesome.

You can also really see the Chrono Trigger influence.

Like, it feels like a rough draft.

There's like a future world with it with a robot sort of character.

There's a distant past.

In their distant past,

the caveman characters don't even

use English words.

So it's like, you know, it's all just like grunts and stuff.

And so, so, but, but I'm like, if they put that on there, I feel like, like, are they not going to put Chrono Trigger really?

Like, we're not going to get this playable on modern consoles at all?

I don't know.

What if it's, what if it's a launch title to like, okay, so the Switch 2 is guaranteed to come out next year by all, by all rumored measure.

Sure.

Right.

What if it's one of the launch titles for Switch 2?

Oh, my God.

Are you kidding me?

Like, what if it's like,

first off, I hope they call it the Super Switch.

But, like, what if there's, what if there's like a Nintendo renaissance of like, here are five incredible retro games from each system?

Like, and that's part of the launch sequence of Switch 2.

It'll never fucking happen.

It's too good.

That would make us too happy if

that happened.

It's got to be annoying somehow.

It'll be like a, like, it'll be like Tears of the Kingdom.

You know, it'll be like a 4K Tears of the Kingdom that's full price.

Like, that's like the kind of thing.

And I'll fucking buy it.

Yeah, we'll all buy it

did it heather did you ever i never played radical dreamers did you ever mess around with radical dreamers i did not so this was a visual novel follow-up that was never localized outside of japan um i i thought about playing it for this one then i was ultimately like i don't know if we'll we even have time for it but i do i'm curious about it uh radical dreamers ended up being like kind of like a lot of its content was reappropriated for chronocross which was one of the most hyped i've ever been for a games uh i i i hyped i'd ever been for a game uh the cinematic trailer like i was just just like, holy shit, I can't believe this with the scoring.

And then Game Spot gave a 10.0 review, and I, which they like never gave out perfect tens.

And I was like, I can't believe this thing's coming out.

I ultimately was pretty disappointed by Chrono Cross.

I still overall like the game, but it is overstuffed.

And I think as a sequel, it's pretty unsatisfactory.

It's just kind of like a more is more approach that just ends up feeling kind of cluttered.

Yeah, I didn't, I didn't like the art style of Chrono Cross that much at the time.

You know, I got it on launch day and was so fucking excited because I'd already already spent so much time trying to beat Chrono Trigger again and again

that when Chrono, I was like, oh, well, I'll beat Chronocross.

Part of the problem with Chrono Cross is the loading times.

Yes, yeah, that was a, and that was a big problem with the PS1 Chrono Trigger port is just like the loading times were awful.

But, but there were loading times before each battle on that fucking PlayStation version of Chrono Trigger.

Really, really bad.

Not really playable.

Yeah,

I mean, it was just like, you know, whatever.

There's, there's like seven characters in Chrono Trigger.

There's like 50 characters in Chronocross.

There's just like so many, you know, so many potential party members.

Which, by the way, in talking about this, I've just realized I also own this on the PlayStation 1.

I had forgotten that it's on my shelf for the PlayStation 1.

I have Chrono Trigger on all of these systems.

I can't fucking believe I haven't beaten it.

That being said, I'm pretty sure if I turned over my analog pocket right now, the game that's physically in it might beat Final Fantasy Tactics Advance to give you guys an idea of how much of an albatross that game is.

Matt, can you flip it over?

I want to know if that's what's in it.

Matt's doing the flip.

I've seen it.

Yeah, it's funny.

The game permanently in my system.

Chronocross did come out for modern

hardware.

They did.

They did a port, which apparently was pretty bad.

The remasters pretty half-assed.

Yeah.

People are saying just play, just emulate the original.

Any other thoughts on this?

I mean, we could talk about it all day, but and would still not get to everything.

It's one of those.

I love frog.

I love frog so goddamn much.

I love robo.

I love robo too.

I love robo.

I love all of them.

I think if I'm sort of lukewarm on any of them, it is Luca, probably.

Wow.

How dare you?

Lukewarm?

Wow.

And she does fire.

Isn't that something?

I, I, really, that's a shock.

I wouldn't use her as much.

She's a little, she's just not as strong of a party member as uh

like Alia or something who just has fists and like is very very strong.

yeah I like to I like to gravitate toward

strength I I

don't know if anthropomorphize is the right word for this but I'm always nervous when I when I play chrono trigger of taking people out of my party and hurting their feelings yes and I don't have that experience with hardly any other RPGs where like especially like Well, I guess it doesn't really count for Baldur's Gate because I didn't have a lot of party options in that game.

But like with this game, I'm like, I don't want to tell this person to stay behind in the world before beyond time.

Yeah, they streamlined that in Baldur's Gate 3 with one of the updates, what that process was in terms of swapping it.

But like, yeah, you're going through that whole thing of like, if that's truly your desire, I will stay.

Like, some of them like kind of like go get passive-aggressive on you.

I feel horrible.

Uh, something

this is a sort of left field thing to mention, I think, yeah, but I think it's worth mentioning.

I love everyone's unique individual movement cycles.

Oh, yeah.

Alio sort of runs around like a wild

cat.

And Frog does kind of too, but it is a little bit different.

It's like he's trying to be dignified doing it.

Yes.

He's still a fancy guy.

But everybody sort of moves a little bit differently.

And I think that's really, really cool.

It just also is like a, I don't know, for the, we've, I know we've touched on this, but the, for the era, it does look amazing still, I believe.

Do you guys want to hear the

back cover of the original Super Neas?

Please.

This is, you know, it's before this game becomes a legend.

They have like, it's kind of like when you're releasing Star Wars, you'll still put out a teaser poster where you think you're going to hit bank, but you aren't quite sure.

So it's like, oh, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

It's like, oh, wow.

It could be something.

Yeah.

But this is the back of the box, as originally released.

The 32 meg quest begins.

The millennium.

A portal is opened.

The chain of time is broken.

A young man is transported into the past, altering the course of history and the outcome of the future.

He has to find his way home, but first, he must travel to the outer edges of time to repair the world's chronology.

On the way, he encounters strange friends and foes, utilizes incredible devices and vehicles, and penetrates and neutralizes the fortresses of the past, present, and future.

A paradox has been created.

If he does not restore the order of time, nothing will ever be the same.

He is the one who will become a hero.

He is Chrono.

Now,

that's pretty cool.

When

what's important about this box to me is that this, if in a world before the internet, in a world where the only way that you could see what a game was,

because you couldn't, I mean, you could rent them eventually, like you could rent super NES games, but like, this is the only pitch you have as a kid, is the back of this box and the little tiny pictures that they choose.

And it's like, does that sell the game to you?

And I think it does.

I think so.

100%.

I haven't, you know, so the game is in here.

Yeah.

I can't say with any certainty that I've ever held a box of a Super Nintendo game before.

So now

the only game that I've held from that era in my hands is Chrono Trigger.

Wow.

I don't have the instructions, unfortunately.

I still have the instructions in the map for Final Fantasy VI, but I don't have them for Chrono Trigger.

I say

bring big boxes back.

Love big boxes.

I love a big box.

I love a big old box.

Heather said that, by the way, it's a 32-meg adventure, is what you read from the back of the book.

I should, I should, back of the box, 32-megabits in this era, which is four megabytes.

Four megs is in our parlance.

This photograph I have on my phone uh of a chicken sandwich and waffle fries is seven megs so chrono trigger takes up less space than this chicken sandwich where does that chicken sandwich from it looks good as hell uh this is from popeyes oh wow yeah it was it was good as hell

oh wait that can't be from popeyes because why would they have waffles

waffle fries careful

you're fired i know jesus christ lost my other podcast job

hey look at this photo too

wow look at those guys are these your guys?

Whose guys are these?

Those must be Heathers.

Those are my guys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is a.

Well, mine are posed in a similar way, except I have a Sephiroth and not two clouds.

Yeah, two versions of Cloud and Sora.

Very cool.

Amiibos.

It's a photo of Amiibos.

It's not too in case you're disoriented by what is happening on the podcast right now.

Where the fuck was that chicken sandwich from?

What are you doing?

Okay, look,

we gotta get to it.

We gotta wrap this thing up.

It's time for the you play of our we play you play.

It's your review crew, the reu crew.

All right, and these are all from our discord, discord.gg slash get played.

Let's fucking go.

This first one is from Lager B.

Hi, Lager B.

Hi, Lager B.

Hi, Lager B.

And they write, all I can think of is thank you.

Oh, wow, what a nice thing to say.

People were really excited about

us doing this.

They're going to be so disappointed at this point.

They're going to be mad.

They're going to be so mad.

They're going to be so mad at me.

Look, again, it's just, it's just impossible to cover this.

I'm going to keep playing it.

I'm going to keep playing.

I'm going to keep playing it as well.

You know what?

You know what, guys?

I'm going to play tonight.

You know what?

I'm going to keep playing it.

And when you ask me what I've been playing, it's going to be Chrono Trigger, okay?

Until Star Wars Outlaws comes out.

I love this.

This next one's from It's Patrick.

And It's Patrick writes, Akira Toriyama never missed.

R.I.P.

King.

Yeah.

Really great character design.

Just like everybody looks so fucking cool.

I didn't appreciate his design as a kid.

Like as a kid, I was like, these guys are all weird looking.

But as an adult, I'm like, fuck, this shit is so iconic.

Yeah, so distinct.

How interesting like the human character models look, but then Frog is just a frog.

Yeah.

But he still has like a lot of character to him.

I don't know.

I mean,

it's not just, you know, it's also the wardrobe that's part of the character design.

I don't know.

It's really cool.

One of our mods, Ted Cord, writes, Hi, Ted.

My name is Gato.

I have metal joints.

This game is awesome.

It gets five out of five silver points.

Great comment.

Really good.

What I like about that, the dialogue kind of goes with the Gato theme.

Like it kind of has a sanguine rhythm.

It's so good.

Bizless writes.

I recently played Chrono Trigger for the first time, and it retroactively made me mad at CS Stars for missing the mark so badly.

Oh, so this person didn't like CS Stars.

Wow.

You know, it's, look, I'd be interested to check it out.

I like this type of game.

I really enjoyed Sea of Stars.

It's a modern game that's attempting to capture that retro feeling is obviously so much of it, it's so clearly inspired by Contract.

I think it's a really cool game.

I would not be that negative on it, but it's, you know, it compared anything to one of the best games ever made.

It's not going to prefer

City of Stars, the song from La La Land.

What's the next question?

This next one is from

rare.

It's so rare that Nick and I are in the same emotional place.

The two-hour mark.

It's time for this fucking nonsense.

Rumple Fugley writes.

It's easily in the top three JRPGs for the Super Nintendo and possibly even holds the number one spot.

I wonder what the other picks are there.

Final Fantasy VI has to be one of them because it's like maybe one of the best Final Fantasy games.

So I'd be shocked if one of those slots isn't Final Fantasy and maybe the other one is going to be a Dragon Quest.

Could be, yeah, it could be Earthbound, could be Super Mario RPG.

I'm curious.

Yeah, maybe they're a Dragon Quest fan.

Let us know what your top three is.

I'm curious.

Yeah, I'd love to know as well.

This next one is from One Car Pile Up.

Great names, guys.

Really great.

Keep them coming.

They write, I would commit arson for frog.

Yeah, I think I would do anything for frog.

He's my number one guy.

And finally,

NotYX writes, even if it wasn't designed with New Game Plus so you can keep playing and playing, you would still keep playing, replaying this game because it's that damn good.

10 out of 10, playable in any era.

I agree.

Yeah, great, great, great final comment there.

I agree.

Yeah.

I'm so sorry.

I haven't beaten this.

I'm sorry too, but.

I'm so fucking sorry.

We're going to do it.

I think one day you will do it.

I'm never, I've been trying to beat Final Fantasy Tactics.

Final Tactics is a game.

That's a prank.

It's not even real.

I have 120 hours on a fucking Game Boy Advance game.

I'm, every time I play it now, I'm confused.

I don't know where I am anymore.

Who is this?

That's also, that cartridge is my original cartridge, and I am still on the original play.

So my save is a, a save that has been going since, what, for, for 20 fucking years, since 2004.

You should start a new game.

No, I did on a Steam Deck.

I was like, that's what it'll do.

That's what it'll do.

And I need to start it again.

I played for like 10 hours on the Steam Deck, and I was like, no, I should just go back to my, my, I have to beat this game.

Yeah.

I finished Crown of Trigger multiple times, including this most recent playthrough.

And let me tell you, it's it's not going to fix any of your problems.

Nothing does.

And that's this week's Get Play.

Our producers Rochelle Chen.

Ranch, yard underscore, underscore sard.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-head gum back catalog plus ad-free main feed episodes.

Really, some of those, like the Shadow of the Colossus episode, the, or was it, was that when we were, was that a part of our head gum?

It's hard to remember.

I don't remember the timeline, but

some of those episodes we offer, the Silent Hill 2, I know, the Day of the Tentacle episode, some of these other

games we've dug deep into are part of that back catalog.

So you can get that to Patreon.

That's right.

And we could also get our show Get Animated where we're watching Violet Evergarden.

That's right.

And

maybe it's in a bit of an upswing right now.

Maybe.

We'll have to find out.

You'll have to listen and find out.

Yeah.

Patreon.com/slash get played for all of that.

Nay, I don't think anyone got played this week.

I think what got played is an unimpeachable masterpiece called Chrono Trigger.

Really good.

Yeah, it was really good.

Fuck was that chicken sandwich, man?

Hello, everyone.

Matt here.

You just heard me say during the show that I hadn't finished the game and I regretted not finishing it and was sad that I hadn't finished it in time.

I'm coming to you now from a different time from the recording.

It is the day after and I've now completed the game and my thoughts haven't changed.

This is one of the best games.

This is a masterpiece.

This is one of the best games I've ever played in my life.

This game now means so much to me and I love it so much and I'm so glad I got to do it on the show and that we covered it and that I finally got to experience this game.

I'll tell you about what ending I got.

I got the cat ending which I didn't know was one of the options or something that I was even trying to get.

So that was very exciting to me.

The cat ending is in one of the sub-endings of the first ending, which is called Beyond Time here on this fandom wiki that I'm looking at right here.

And

basically what happens is it's sort of a repeat of the scene from the start of the game.

Chrono is, he wakes up in his bed.

This time a soldier wakes him up and he learns that his stay of execution has been cancelled and he goes to the castle and he meets with the king and Marl pleads on his behalf saving him and however the the king has been made aware of their quest Thanks to Luca and they get to they get to go have a parade as it were a parade celebrating them and their achievements and then they all start to say goodbye to each other they all go back the whole squad goes back to their to their own time.

So it's a heartfelt ending.

Everyone's saying goodbye to each other, leaving Luca, Crono, and Marl all in their own time.

But then Chrono's cat runs into frame, followed by Chrono's mom, and

they jump into the time, the little time portal, right before it closes forever.

And so then the squad, Luca, Marl, and Chrono, run off together, and then it ends.

And it's a gorgeous ending.

It's a wonderful game.

I loved it so much, and I'm so glad I did it.

And I just wanted to come in here and let you guys know that I did finish it.

And that's it.

Goodbye for now.

See you next week.

That was a Hitgum podcast.

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