Part 1: Update One: Good Morning, Crono!
Update One: Good Morning, Crono!
What we have here is yet another fine addition the Square SNES RPG library; they produced a ton of gold back in the day and today...Well, I'll let someone in the thread talk about that.
Chrono Trigger involves time. I want you all to be informed of that. If any of you are surprised later on, don't say I didn't warn you.
When starting a new game, we get to choose how we want our battle screen set up; you can have it so that you're primarily using the bottom screen, but for purposes of this LP, we'll be doing this. Most of the shots here are going to be just the top screen, since there's not usually much point in showing the lower screen. I'll show it when necessary, but don't expect to see it very often.
Were we going to use the lower screen, it'd be set up like that.
After choosing all of that, we meet our main character.
His name is Crono, and he's the classic silent protagonist. Except for one very specific circumstance, Crono will never utter a word in the game. And since we're here, if you think he needs a new name, BOLD a vote using the characters you see here. Most popular suggestion is what we're going with.
After we name him, we begin a pan over a body of water; we can see a ferry, some birds, and some clouds. It looks so very peaceful. And warm. Holy crap, I wish the weather was as nice here.
As we pan up, we find the balloon forest is under attack.
But not all is lost, as some balloons manage to escape the brutal shelling of their nemeses.
The nearby village of Truce is unaffected by the slaughter. However, we're not interested in that. No, we're interested in one nearby house.
Our introduction to our main character is him being yelled at.
For being lazy. This is a guy I can relate to.
Ah, even being yelled at by his mother. I'm definitely feeling a connection here.
To prod her son out of bed, she opens the curtains, letting in the dayball's furious light.
Oh, Mom, if you only knew the level of mischief we were going to get into.
Ah, the classic mother's mistake; she believes that her son is going to get up and out of bed just from a few simple words and a curtain opening. Effective for some, yes, but you never let your guard down, Crono's Mom.
Damn, she's onto our game. Crono must have pulled the trick one time too often.
But he's up and stretching before Mom even goes downstairs.
And he's quite excited to be up and around. He's got a Fair to go to!
However, Mom isn't happy since he didn't teleport downstairs and beat her there. Oh, well; you win some, you lose some.
Apparently we've got someone to meet at the Fair. And judging by this, we'll have to--
Yep, we have someone else to rename. Same rules as with Crono: BOLD a vote for whatever you like with the characters present and we'll go with the most popular.
And now we're free to run off to the Fair. But first!
Obtained 200 G!
Before we leave, we get $200 from Mom. We had $400 before, so now we're sitting pretty at $600.
This is our menu screen. As you can see, we're at Crono's House, in the Present. That's about all that's going on around here.
And here's the specifics on Crono's stats. That icon next to his portrait is a symbol for Light element and I'll get into that later.
Some of you here may be looking at Crono, trying to figure out why he looks so familiar; character design in this game was done by Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball fame, so you're going to see a lot of familiar portraits. Crono here is basically ginger-Goku, and Lucca looks like Bulma with glasses.
We don't have any Techs (read: magic:) yet, but it won't be long before we're swimming in them.
And I like this window better, so that's what we're using. I'm up for voting and all that, but window design is not going to be a democratic process.
Leaving the house, we have the option to explore around Truce, but we're going straight to the Fair. Truth be told, there's not much worth mentioning around Truce, even if this is your first time. I'll cover all the important stuff anyhow.
The Millennial Fair is in Leene Square, and there's a bunch of NPCs around here, as well as a bunch of minigames. We'll cover those next time, though. For now, let's see what's interesting around this screen.
The year here is 1,000 AD, and the kingdom we're living in is Guardia Kingdom. A thousand years seems pretty respectable for a single family to have ruled that long. I don't know of any in real life that have gone that long, but I'm mentioning it here so that some goon can come in and inform us of one.
And if you spend long enough in the Square to hear the bell ring, you'll live happily ever after. I think I know where all the kids in town go to...What's the medieval equivalent of parking? Because they probably do that around here to hear the bell ring.
This guy here is the armor salesman. He's got some nice stuff, including a Bronze Helm that adds +5 to our Defense, but I'll not buy any of it.
The man south of the armor salesman sells items. Potions are basic healing items, healing 50 HP; they were known by the much better name Tonic in the SNES translation. Panaceas heal all status effects (which won't come up often), Athenian Water brings a character back from KO, and Shelters are Tents under a different name. We buy nothing here, either.
Our best friend is basically a mad scientist. This'll come in handy later.
Or perhaps not.
Now for my favorite guy on this screen.
:Hmm...Maybe I should sell him this old pendant of mine.Not because he buys old jewelry.
Why absolutely, my good man!
The Bronze Blade would take over half our money and for just a little damage boost. I'll skip it.
I could go grind up $4,000 to afford this and add +9 to my Attack, but I hold back on that, too. It's tempting, but we've other things to do in this update. In the SNES version, this is known as the Lode Sword, referring to ore and motherlodes and other mining things I don't know.
Raise of hands for who thinks we're going to encounter this feller later. Keep 'em up so I can count.
On the right side of the screen, we have the Tent of Horrors, which we'll explore next time.
We couldn't even go do anything interesting in there right now, anyway. We're very low on subcurrency.
Then, finally, we have this guy.
Here we can bet on who will win the next race and get a little prize out of it. It's too bad we can't compete, as Crono is easily faster than any of the racers, able to lap some of them.
To the next screen we go! The sprites in this game are very well done, and show off a lot of animation and character for what they are. In that one, we see Crono's hair whipping in the wind.
I sense another Fair coming up; if we're having this one for a millennial celebration, surely there will be one for when we cast off the shackles of the Fiendlord's tyranny.
Crono comes tearing up the steps, hitting speeds only thought of in legend!
It seems the only fatality comes from our main character. We knew him well.
She gets to her feet and dusts her butt off. And now that I've typed that previous sentence out, I am definitely not going to include the .gif I had ready for it. I feel dirty enough just posting a still image.
She comes over, puts her finger on his neck like she's seen the actors in CSI: Guardia do and declares him dead.
She has more important business than homicide, it seems. She's lost some jewelry!
She begins to look around the area while Crono rises to his feet, hacking up a little pink something about the size of a kiwi fruit.
He checks on her, knowing full-well this was his fault. If he'd only been going a little slower, paying a little more attention, he could have avoided inconveniencing this young woman and his own cracked ribs.
He'll even go get it for her; he's just that kind of guy. And we need to do that to set the plot a-go.
The biggest secret here is that it's not actually a necklace; it's a gag gift that shocks whoever touches it. Explains why she sent Crono flinging back on his ass.
I wonder if Melchior would find sentimental value something worth paying out more cash for. I'll have to keep that in the back of my mind.
And of course we give it back to her. We're a hero, dammit.
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: Thank you. You must live in this town. I came to see the fair. Awfully boring wandering around alone, though, isn't it? 
Well, I see no reason to shoot her down, and I feel better expanding my party, so sure.
This, in turn, makes her happier than a pig in shit. Maybe I should go out and just ask random strangers if I can follow them around; it seems to be pretty uplifting.
And now we have a third character to name! BOLD a vote for what we call her!
Get used to seeing this. It'll come up more later. Plus, it makes Marle look oh-so pleased with what's going on, and I can appreciate a good happy-dance.
We'll end this update with this image of her stats. She's not stellar in anything just yet, but her MP pool is not bad. Also, while we wait for votes and what-not, you can play a game of “What Dragon Ball character is she?”
I'll see you folks next time, as we actually explore the Fair and see what it has to offer! Stay tuned!