Part 72: Update Sixty Eight: Team Battle Bros s Some Fools

Update Sixty Eight: Team Battle Bros s Some Fools

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to Chrono Trigger! Last time, we went through the Dimensional Vortex in in 12,000 BC and defeated the Alabaster Shade. Today, we're going to go through the 1000 AD Vortex, and fight two bosses, so let's bounce.



This Vortex is located next to Chrono's house, and you need the Epoch to reach it.





I'm not sure why there's Ocean Palace-like tech in here to warp to the dungeon itself. I'm sure it's just something to make it look different and out of place, to help enhance the feeling that we're going to some odd place we shouldn't.



Then again, there could be a deeper reason behind it that you can only get to through some major inference and guesswork. I, however, will not be thinking about it too much.



So, to start with, we come to the Tyranno Lair.



The gimmick of this room, where if you step on a certain spot, it'll go dark and monsters appear or you get warped around the room, is still in full play.



No reason to show off this fight, other than I felt like it. I suppose I could try and make some point about how I showed it to really showcase how far we've come and how much stronger we are.



But it's pretty clear how far we've come from when we started.



Before I forget to mention it, these areas aren't just randomly picked from a list of maps.



There's actually a fair few variations of what maps will come up; according to a guide I was looking at, there are eight different series of maps you can go through.





Also, have a shot of Robo punching this guy in the mouth.



So, Team Battle Bros is back together. Chrono has his usual setup, while Frog is still rocking the Champion's Badge, and Robo is sporting the Prism Specs.



This team is all about crushing a monster's soul in addition to its spinal column.



Not to mention, they have a Triple Tech that is fucking fantastic. We'll cover it in a bit.



Because now we've gotta go through the sewer!



The gimmick is still in play here, and it's still neat as hell.



But we stealth through the sewer and let the various sewer mutants live.



And now we've come to the Black Omen.





I skipped those guys because they're more of a pain than they're worth. The encounters coming up here give out more experience for far less hassle.



Speaking of good experience for little hassle, this conveyor belt from Geno Dome finishes out our trip to the Vortex's dungeon proper.



And this is how I got through it.



With a team of max Speed people, it's a crapshoot for who goes first. Robo got to zap everything because his turn came up first.





All three of the Vortices have these rooms before the dungeon. I took the save point to pop a Shelter to restore MP to Robo and Chrono.





Yeah, that's fuckin' lava. It's actually flowing and moving, like ocean waves. As far as I can remember, that's a wholly new effect in this game, but I could be wrong on that. It's still a good and neat level of detail.



Or I'm wrong about that and this guy is totally right.





I think we're underground here, so maybe that isn't lava. I think when it's under the ground like that, it's magma.



I think. I'm not a geologist or magmologist.



Also, it's nice as fuck being able to run past those little shits there. One of the mandatory encounters to go up Mount Emerald in 600 AD was with those bastards.



There's a new enemy here!



Fireballs are interesting. As is Robo punching a rat.



You'd expect them to be weak to Water/Ice, right? It makes sense, since it is, y'know, a ball of fire.



They're not weak to that element, or any, actually. In fact, they absorb everything but Water. And their defenses are higher than the norm. They have access to a single-target Flame attack and Fire II, as well.



And after cutting through their 1,000 HP, they'll counter with Self-Destruct.





Which doesn't do much to our party, who also has maxed out Magic Defense. Robo and Chrono both also have max Strength, while Frog is sitting just a couple of points below max.





This place has a bunch of treasure in it, too, but one piece is worth special mention.



Uh, not the Athenian Water.



But this fuckin' thing. Holy shit, this thing.



Same defense as a Prism Helm, in addition to the status ailment immunity, but the really great thing about it is that it has the damage boost property. You might remember the Sunglasses having the same effect, so Chrono's attacks are now doing an extra 25% damage. And he's countering 80% of everything thrown his way.



Chrono is nearly personified at this point, but he still has one upgrade to get to fully get him that title.



Some of you know what I'm talking about and may be snickering to yourselves about it right now. If you do, just wait until we get to it.



It's the kind of surprise that I would hate to be ruined for someone not in the know.



As a convenient change of subject, we meet a brand new enemy. Well, a recolor of an old enemy, but you know what I mean.



The Red Ghaj has increased defenses and absorbs Fire (as he's red, you see).



He also has 3500 HP and no weaknesses.



And each opportunity they get to attack with their sole ability, it gets stronger.



I can't tell you how much stronger, exactly, but I could see this fight becoming dangerous if you're not able to trash this guy quickly.



But, I would think by the time you've reached this point, you should be good to go on something like that.



They also drop an assload of EXP.



Also, Jesus Christ, I spent a lot of time talking about that guy. I don't even know why.



But to distract you from that, here's a lake of lava.



Or magma. I don't know which it is.







Moving forward through here, these Dire Rats get the drop on you, so they aren't done being mandatory fights.



Fuckin' dicks, yo.





Shouldn't those ropes making the ladders have burned away, being this close to the lava?



Granted, if we were using real-world rules, Chrono and Frog would have had their flesh bubbled off just stepping in here, and Robo would be a pile of metal goop.



Triple Attack, simply put, is fucking awesome. It was known as Triple Raid before, if you were curious about that kind of thing.



It's cheap as hell to use, does a ton of damage, and looks just plain awesome. It's the kind of thing where every time you use it, you know a griffin grows his wings.





It's one of the best parts of Team Battle Bros.







We've also nearly looped back to the beginning. This place is pretty circular.





Those guys there can just be walked past; it's like they're too afraid to approach you when you come up the ladder.





Lot of climbing in this part.



That ladder on the left side leads to a Strength Tab.



This ladder here lets us continue forward, but we'll be going past the Creepers to get some treasure first.



Pictured above is how 75% of this fight was ended. The Wrath Band is good stuff.



Not a bad chest to crack open, since I'm slowly starting to break my habit of hoarding Elixirs and stuff like that.



It's hard, though, y'know? I've been doing it so long, it's practically second nature when playing a game.



You never know when I might need that Elixir, and never mind it's the final boss fight.





Hitting this switch brings us full circle, back to the beginning. But with that switch triggered, new areas have opened up.





This ladder is north of the trio of Dire Rats that I dodged around in the beginning of this place.





And inside here, there's this switch to hit.



Which is pretty much all there was to do in there. These dungeons are about the same length as your average Chrono Trigger dungeon, which is nice, since it pretty much means they're easy to get through in one sitting.





We swing back around to this room and down to the new ladder.



Dammit, Vortex, I was just saying nice things about you.





This flame moves back and forth, so you can dodge it by slipping around it in that little nook there.



Yeah, this is just a long narrow path over some magma.



But there are two of these guys at the end!



Frog takes one down with righteous style.



While Robo delivers some Fist of the North Star style justice to the other.



Alright, we're at the end here, and there's about to be some major shit dropped on us. Are you ready?



You better fuckin' be ready, since we ain't stoppin' here.



Ain't no stoppin' this train we're on.





Gonna keep goin' and save--



Oh. Never mind. I guess we're stopping here.



I, uh, I don't see any--



Aww, fuck!



A massive douche?





Last time we saw you, you were being sucked into some strange portal after getting your ass beat on top of the Epoch. I guess we didn't see you die, but I'll admit I'm still surprised to see you.



We all know what you're thinking, Frog. And if you don't know, it was









This is true.



In case you'd forgotten, even before Zeal getting blown to shit happened, Dalton was a bigshot in those parts.



Not sure what his rank was, exactly, but Dalton was an important guy and pretty powerful. He's an idiot, sure, but he's got some talent to back up all the shit he talks.



He also knows how to strike a pose, and much as I hate to admit it, he's three quarters of the way to making a good Snake Plissken costume.



So we've got a boss fight on our hands.



And Dalton has got some new tricks in his bag.



He's got access to all of the level 2 spells, but under different names, as well as Shadow Bomb (named Nether Blast).



It's, uh, not very powerful.





His physical defense is a touch lower than the norm, but his magic defense is a little higher.



The main reason I didn't make a video for this fight is because you're seeing 90% of the strategy I used. Once-King Dalton here has a ton of friggin' hit points.



He has 26,000 of them, to be exact.



Plenty of powerful attacks are flung around here, mostly by our side. Including a robot throwing a frog at a former king.



There are some sentences I type and re-read and can't believe there's a context for it.



Fool!?



He also has his Iron Sphere attack to halve our health, but he didn't use it this fight.



Though, that attack did a lot more damage than expected. Frog has maxed out Magic Defense, too.





Looking at this screenshot, it just looks like Dalton was farting with such style, we were blown up by it.



He must have hit a Taco Bell before coming here.





He's far tougher now than he was in the past.







I have no idea what in the hell this actually does for Dalton. He didn't seem to take less damage or deal any more, so maybe this is just to scare you.



Then again, that fits Dalton pretty well.



Explosionface, you've been lacking in the .gifatars lately. I'm fully expecting a Triple Raid .gifatar before this LP is over.





As is tradition, when you defeat Dalton, he pulls out his Burp attack. But like everything else about him, this has been improved for this fight.



Well, kind of.







Ready for that bomb I mentioned earlier? It's about to land.



I'm not going to say a goddamned thing here.





But he breaks into a fit of laughter fitting for the Saturday morning cartoon villain that Dalton is.





Oh, go and fuck off and start Chrono Cross. I'm tired of your face.







By the way, he just blinks out of existence. There's no portal or anything that pops up. He's just there, and then gone.



Alright, let's get to that second boss.



Chrono is the required party member here, but he still has no lines. Also, I don't ever remember Robo calling him "sir" before.



And for whatever reason, we're fighting a Chrono at the Millennial Fair. Someone put forth the theory that we fought Marle in her room at Guardia Castle because that's where she disappeared way back at the beginning of the game and was sent to where we fought her. I like that theory. Not sure how it relates to Chrono being here, though.



Also, Robo, you're a goddamned genius-bot. I would have never been able to tell that was a different Chrono. Or that he was hostile; I thought he was ready to draw his sword because he was going to make us a souffle.



The true Chrono? Pretty goddamned sure the guy you traveled back in time to recover from being blown to dust by the space hedgehog is the true Chrono, Frog.



But now we get to duke it out with the Steel Shade. You know the drill to see a video of the boss fight.



He's a tough son of a bitch, with fairly high Defense, and above-average Magic Defense.



He's got 20,000 HP, too, and absorbs Lightning.



The Steel Shade also counters pretty much everything you throw at him.



And he's got some strength behind his attacks.



He's weak to Shadow, so I figured I'd see what my only Shadow attack could do to him.



Robo has a pretty high Magic stat at this point, as he's been fed his share of Magic Capsules, but that still seems a little high for just Laser Spin.



Don't forget that the Steel Shade has his own Rainbow sword. Maybe his is called a Prism.





For this fight, I tried a few different attacks to see what I could do the most with.



Not sure why this is specified as a line attack, since our party isn't in a line and he can't maneuver to hit everyone in a line.







He also has his own Lightning II ripoff.





He doesn't have a Frenzy knockoff, though.



He doesn't have much of an answer of a frog dropping a robot on him, either.



But it does a lot of damage. The Steel Shade has a high enough physical defense that magic is probably the best way to go about smashing him.



Plus, it gives me a chance to use Swordstream.





He's got a fair selection of Chrono's abilities, but a Cleave copy seems like an odd choice, since Frenzy is available.



Not that I'm complaining, since that did enough damage to begin with.



I can't help but show off Rapid-Fire Fist when it shows up. It just looks so damned cool.



This is his strongest attack, full-stop.



I mentioned that our party has max Magic Defense, and I want you to remember that before I show how much damage this attack did.



Sweet merciful crap, that's a lot of damage. Chrono only took less because of his Lightning affinity, and characters take less damage from their respective element (Robo takes less from Shadow, despite not having an element of his own).





But Heal Beam is a quick and easy way to repair all of that damage. And the other damage I hadn't healed yet.



However, this fight has been shown off, so let's end it. I'm sure you're all tired of it by this point.



We've gained 11,000 EXP in the last ten minutes. It's great.





Just as when we defeated the Alabaster Shade, the Steel Shade approaches Chrono after the fight and fuses with him.



Well, only had two of those stats already maxed, so this was fantastic.



Anyways, that finishes off the 1000 AD Dimensional Vortex. Next time, we'll do the third and final Vortex.

And I'll need you to BOLD a vote for who we take there. Lucca is the required character, so the other two with the highest amount of votes will accompany her to the last Vortex.

Stay tuned!