Part 48: Update Forty Five: Surmounting Death

Update Forty Five: Surmounting Death

Howdy, folks! Last time, on Chrono Trigger, the Fiendlord joined our team and we found out we might be able to revive Chrono. Today, we're going to climb Death Peak, so let's bounce.



Before we do anything, though, we've gotta pop back to Prehistory.



There's two reasons we're going here.



Both of which have to do with this Nu.



Yeah, yeah, yeah, after I get what I want.



Which is to change Magus' name. Janus won the voting.



We can change any character's name here, and I seriously considered doing an update where everyone was named Bowser.





This activates a Triple Tech between Ayla, Frog and Robo, as long as one of them has it equipped. There's a half dozen stones like this in the game, each allowing a different Triple Tech to be used. I'll have to remember to show those all off at some point.



Byeses!



And now we go back (or forward) to 1000 AD.





By the way, the link below is the song that plays when you're cruising the skies. Isn't it great?





I prefer it to the Millennial Fair music, so keep that playing during to help simulate the experience I had here.



We need to see Norstein Bekkler.



Look, jackass, I need a doll.





Alright, alright, fine, take my points and--



Son of a bitch!





When Lucca built you, buddy, I don't think she expected what's about to happen.







No! I hate this place! You're the only part of it I don't hate!





...What? Don't look at me like that. He might be working with our team to save the world, but he's still not a nice guy.



And back to Bekkler! This game is a pain in the ass, and I'm terrible at it. I made a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rtl2o_BMBE



So I drop five grand and get part of what we need to revive Chrono.



...I hope his mom doesn't ask where he is. That could get awkward.



Kitty!



Uh, Lucca, you're up to bat.



Well, he's certainly not in any pain.







It'd be a little hard for him, but then again, we're about to scale a deadly mountain to see if we can make him not-dead.









"Don't ask why; Chrono said something about fooling Robo with a Weekend at Bernie's-type plot."



"As long as it's not a Porky's-type plot, sweetie."





If it were possible, I'd have Chrono's Mom join the party and take her with us.



Quickly, back to the future!





Back when we tried to climb this mountain before, we were stopped by heavy winds. We need something to overcome that.



And Belthasar has just what we need.



Attempt nothing. We're doing this.



This better be the final program. You already died; enjoy it!





The Nu walks into where the Epoch rested, and before long, we get these bursts of electricity and these dolls start popping out.



Three of them, to be exact.



One of them will; the other two offer advice that's easily figured out.





It'd be a dick move to not do this, so sleep well, Nu friend.



And finally, Belthasar can truly rest in piece.



The Black Omen silently looms over Death Mountain. We'll ground it before long.



So, this is the only directly helpful doll.



It pops a couple of trees up; when the wind picks up, we have to walk behind them (and I mean walk; if you run, you'll hit the tree and scooch around it), letting the tree block the wind. As pictured.







Only two trees to do that with, and we can reach the mountain proper.



To the right, there's nothing, and progress to the left.



As well as new enemies.



Now, befitting Janus' status as a bad mamma-jamma, his Magic is extremely high, and his spells are very powerful. These three spells, despite being the same spells as Marle, Lucca and Chrono have, possess a different multiplier. (Lv + Mag) × 7.5 is how Janus has his damage computed here; the others have a 5.5 multiplier.





Burn, motherfuckers, burn!



Further to the left, I find a Magic Ring. This adds +6 to Magic. Thanks to the Arena of the Ages, I have about five of these things, eight Gold Studs (counting the three equipped to my current party) a half dozen Power Rings, an Aeonian Suit, a Guardian Helm (which I could have gotten from the Blue Pyramid outside of Medina, where I took the Swallow), another Swallow, three Workman's Wallets, and some other stuff I don't remember right now. There's a lot of goodies to be had there, but it's a pain in the ass to get. I also got a buttload of tabs, including two dozen Speed Capsules.



Climbing the natural ladder near that chest, we come up to these two shnooks.



They were baptized in fire, so let's keep moving.



We can't reach that other climbing spot right now, but we can move to another screen.



And meet the Macabre.



582 HP, no weaknesses, just like the Blood Yolks. Also like the Yolks, they die in a casting of Fire II.





A little cave and some more enemies. There's a lot of TP to be gained up here; the Macabre and Blood Yolk each give 8 TP. It works out well, as Janus has plenty of Techs to learn.







This adds +10 to someone's Magic Defense, but we found one of these in the sealed chest in Heckran's Cave.



Well, we're not getting through there (as we didn't bring Frog and he can't cut the mountain open), so to the other opening.





Ooh, treasure!



What the hell is that!?



So, this is a spawn of Lavos. He's a bad little motherfucker, and here, he's launching one his attacks.



Aside from Lavos nuking us in the Ocean Palace, this is probably the hardest hitting attack we've been hit with.



Thankfully, he doesn't really spam it, so we can recover.



The head has 4,000 HP, while the shell has 10,000.



This could take a while.





I'm sure you're asking why I'm not using some of Janus' spells to blast this fucker. I'll show you why.



First off, the shell has insane defense. This attack did 22 damage.



And it counters with the attack when it's hit by anything. It's also immune to every element.





So, yeah, we'll leave the shell the hell alone. Janus is going to slice on the head, Lucca is going to light it on fire, and Marle is going to heal as needed.



As the Spawn has a lot of strong attacks. This is a Fire-based attack.



Not a ton of damage, but it's enough when it can also bust out a 350+ damage attack.



Janus' crit animation is bitchin' as hell.



Since I didn't mention it before, his attack formula is the same as the rest of the guys.





He can also Sleep and Confuse people, which are his two weakest attacks.



This fight is a slugfest with occasional healing thrown in, so let's skip to the end.













And Janus picks up a new Tech! Obviously Shadow element, it targets a single enemy, but also has the range to hit others.



I got this from the Monster Arena, so this is basically cash.



I spent a ton of cash at the Monster Arena.



At one point, I was down to 718g.



But I have a super strong monster (whoop-dee-do), and have the potential to win some really good accessories. I already won one, the Nu Arcana, which is an accessory anyone can equip, and it has the chance to reduce an enemy to 1 HP.





Showing this fight as these guys actually had the opportunity to attack. I don't know what else they have beyond this.



I think I electrocuted them to re-death.





There's a fair bit of treasure up here, too. This is a new sword for Frog.



More fire solves this problem.







It's pretty hard to see, but I'm heading for a shiny spot over there.



Which opens a new path.



And nothing else around here.





The Blood Yolks have one attack, which drains HP as they snack on a party member.



It does around 150 damage, and Janus decides to make them pay for it.



Jazz hands!



(Lv + Mag) × 10.25 for damage here.









This Blood Yolk zooms down the steps, and is hard to avoid.



But I did it!



Janus is a really good party member in almost every aspect; his only downside is that he's not involved in any Double Techs, and you have to jump through certain hoops to get some Triple Techs with him. Other than that, he's got a solid stat spread, access to all elements, and hits like a motherfucker.





Another one of these shitwads is hanging out over here.



For this fight, picture this and sickle smacks (am I the only one picturing a breakfast cereal right now?) until it died.



But Marle learns her last Tech after the fight! Arise revives a party member with full HP.





Ah, another doll.



The other one is slightly more useful, but this one is just noshit.jpg.



If you stop moving or get too close to the edge, you'll fall right off, back to the cave wall where we had to open the path forward.





More treasure! And exp! And TP!



This is a new sword for Chrono. I wonder if we'll successfully revive him!



Blood Yolks constantly flow down this section, and hitting one drops you into a fight with a few of them.



Showing this fight for one reason.



Lucca gained her final Tech! Flare is super powerful, very expensive, and annihilates enemies in its path.



Derek Barona, this .gif is for you. I'll get a better one made later for your personal use.







And the final doll.







Climbing down and looping around brings us to the final Spawn.



It, too, falls to fire and scythe slashes.



After the fight, the head is destroyed, but the shell remains.



We can push it over to this wall, to climb up.



The final doll is useful in that it tells you how to get up, but I think most players would have realized it when the shell remained and they noticed they could interact with it.



Ah, new helmet! This goes on Lucca, and it prevents Lock.





It was this point I remembered I had the Guardian Helm from the Arena, so Marle got it. Even though we're at the end of the mountain and she won't benefit from it here.



I am a master LP'er.





Were I good at Photoshop, you'd be looking at Simba and Rafiki up here.



"God, this world looks like crap!"









I wonder how awkward Janus feels here.



Magic flows from the pendant to the Chrono Trigger.



And slowly, the egg floats into the air.





Where it breaks.









We did all we could, and it wasn't enough?







Oh, crap, I recognize that song.





As the sun is eclipsed, we fade to black...





...This is where Chrono died.



But time is frozen.





Son of a bitch, it brought us here.





So this is why we needed the doll.



And fun dialog for bringing Janus along.



We'll change something this time, Janus.







We swap them around.







Yeah, we should get moving. Time might not stay frozen forever.





...Is it Christmas?









Were Marle not here, Lucca would have a tearful reunion with Chrono.



We've got plenty more endings to go through, so we'll see other reactions later on. For now, let's focus on this one.







Pardon me for a moment. My chest feels funny.







Everyone else fades away as Marle and Chrono reunite.



She's got a lot to fill him in on. He may not have been gone for long, but some real shit went down while he was.





I'm sure he's most curious about why Janus is here. I would be.



But we fade away as Marle keeps talking...



...Fading in to the End of Time.



You'll notice that Chrono isn't in the party; in fact, he's standing around as any of our other members would when we leave them at the End of Time.



From here on out, Chrono is no longer a mandatory party member.



Despite that, I still usually keep him in my party, since he's so damned good.



We're now officially in the endgame, folks.





The Fated Hour is upon us.



But there's still plenty to do.



Including multiple ways to reach Lavos, as well as the Black Omen.



However, the Black Omen can be done multiple times. Since it now exists in every time period from 12,000 BC on, we can go through it then, 600 AD and in 1,000 AD, but in the reverse order of how I listed it there. It's from future on back, and speaking of that, 2300 AD is off limits, as Lavos has already wrecked the world by then, and it doesn't do much good stopping him then. But there is some fun dialog there, so I'll show it off when it's time.



And now, I'm going to post six screens in a row.













These are the endgame sidequests of Chrono Trigger.



And there are rewards for doing all of them.



Oh, God, some of those rewards are incredible.



I'm nearly drooling at the thought of what power you can obtain by doing them.





And next time, we'll do one of those sidequests.

Side Quest Voting

But which sidequest? There are six of them, and I'm letting you choose which one we start with! I'll hold votes for one at a time, so be sure to BOLD a vote to where we go next, and I'll even take a different party for each sidequest, so BOLD that vote, too! Some sidequests revolve around certain party members and some requiring certain people to be present in the party.

Counterfeit Saint and I whipped up a list of what involves who:

The "fortress of one of Janus' generals" requires Janus.
"A task to be done in the future" requires Robo.
For the "forest being brought back to life" Robo and Lucca are part of it, but don't need to be part of the party to go through the dungeon.
The "restless spirit of a proud knight" requires Frog.

The other two are fair game for whoever you want me to bring alone.

Friday, at 8:00 PM, EST, we'll have our first sidequest and party ready.