Time Checkpoint III - Time to Stop Evil!

Game - Chrono Trigger, Time Checkpoint III
Hours Played/Hours Total - 4 hrs / 10-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - 65,000,000 BC
Current Goal - Chase after the Reptites and retrieve the Gate Key. Use the Dreamstone to repair the Masamune. Stop Magus. Defeat Lavos and save the world!

What Happened - And thus Chrono Trigger continues the journey of the journey to defeat evil and save the world and all that fun stuff.... ONWARD!
     Where I left off, I was heading to the Forest Maze in 65,000,000 BC to locate the missing Gate Key. As we enter inside, we find Ayla's tribesman, Kino. He was shown briefly during the village party, and he seemed confused of Ayla's gratitude towards us. Kino admits that he took the Gate Key because he was jealous of the attention he was getting from Ayla. (More or less.) Ayla called Kino stupid for feeling this way, and she tells him that she likes Kino the most. He feels better after hearing that, but then reveals that the Gate Key was stolen from him by Reptites. Ayla sends Kino back to the village, and now we're going through the Forest Maze!
     And turns out that it wasn't too bad. It's a singular path that's masked a bit as you go through it, but you can just follow this Reptite foot path and find your way just fine. (Probably could without it honestly but whatevers.) There's a lot of battles as I make my way through the maze. Each enemy seems to also be dropping items like Fangs, Feathers, Horns, and Petals. What use are these? You can take them to the village and trade them for various equipment. Basically, it goes something like this:

• Ruby Gun = 3 Petals and 3 Fangs
• Sage Bow = 3 Petals and 3 Horns 
• Stone Arm = 3 Petals and 3 Feathers 
• Flint Edge = 3 Fangs and 3 Horns 
• Ruby Vest = 3 Fangs and 3 Feathers 
• Rock Helm = 3 Horns and 3 Feathers

All of these items are upgrades to what I have currently, but I don't really feel like farming up a pile of items to upgrade my crew. I figure what I have will be fine (and it is), so I simply go about my business.
     After making it through all the battles and collecting the various chests around, I come out of the forest and find myself near the Reptite's cave. We head inside and start fighting a big pile of dinosaurs here. As it turns out, their key weakness seems to be Lightning. Crono has Lightning, so most of these battles can be made pretty simple. Lightning doesn't really do more damage here. Instead, it tends to lower their defense and stun them, so it's actually better than extra damage!
     Now, travelling through this cave takes a bit of a different direction once you enter this large central chamber. There's a bunch of large bug-style monsters that are walking around. One is nearby a hole, but if you stick around, they will start digging alternate holes. This is how you get around in this cave system and locate other various paths and rooms. I only explored a couple of the paths here though, and most of the items didn't seem worth it.
     Along the way, you've got a (generally) unavoidable fight in every room, so there was quite a few fights along the way. After many many dinosaurs, ancient plants, monkeys with wings, and giant insects, I finally make it to the end chamber with the Reptite leader. He's got the Gate Key in his hands, and it turns out he can talk too! He wonders how us "Apes" could have possibly made an object so advanced. He demands we tell him about the item, and I actually offer to. However, he feels I'm being too forward with answer and calls us liars for it. Then he calls out for a Nizbel... cause it's BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     Nizbel is a giant muscle-y triceratops that walks around on its hind legs. Of course, it's a dinosaur so I figure Lightning magic is still the best method here. It works pretty well, but Nizbel offers a twist to the usual weakness here. It does lower its defense and stuns it briefly, but then it breaks out of the paralyzation and counters with the built up electricity from the attack! It's a pretty rough hit, so you gotta keep your group up on health. Beyond that big counter, Nizbel only has a single strike and ground pound for minimal damage.
     With Nizbel's defeat, Azala says the apes will rue this day! Soon we shall all fall to the Reptites and all sorts of things like that. He throws us the Gate Key but then runs off. With the Gate Key returned to us, the group is whisked back to the village. Ayla thanks us for what we've done and welcomes us to return whenever we want. Kino apologizes to the group again and says he will become strong like Crono. With our goodbyes said, I head back to the Mystic Mountains to leap back through time and get the Masamune repaired!
     Woop woop woop~ A couple jumps later, and I'm back in 1000 AD at Medina Village. I head over to Melchior to give him the sword and Dreamstone. He takes the Dreamstone and sword and heads downstairs to start fixing it. Lucca goes with him to help process the Dreamstone. This is a kinda cool little scene that takes place here. The two of them move around the room and perform various actions to get the repair job done. After a few moments, the sword glows brightly and is fully reborn! With Melchior's job done, it's up to us to deliver the Masamune to its rightful wielder, Frog.
     One time jump later, and I'm back to the Cursed Forest to speak with Frog. Seeing the Masamune fully repaired, Frog is quite surprised and unsure what to do. He asks that we stay overnight so he can think upon these new events. This cues up a time pass and leads into a cutscene.
     It shows a knight named Cyrus and his aide Glenn. The duo are off to retrieve the Hero's Medal from some Frog King. Then it shows Cyrus making use of the Masamune as well, and finally a confrontation between Cyrus and Magus himself. Unfortunately, this is when Cyrus seems to have met his end. He realizes that he can't defeat Magus and dies trying to defend Glenn. When Cyrus dies, Magus decides to curse Glenn instead of killing him. And thus... Glenn is Frog. (It doesn't directly show it, but it's highly suggested now and revealed more directly later.) With the sad scene concluded, we're finally returned to the present.
     Frog has made his final decision... He's going to join us and take on Magus! Huzzah! Of course now I'm wondering... Where do I even go from here? I head back to the End of Time really quick to get Frog magic (Water), but now I'm not really sure where to go. One part "I think this is right" mixed with one part luck, I head towards this mysterious closed area called the Magic Cave. Turns out, that's EXACTLY where I need to go. It even comes with a fancy animated cutscene! Frog fully wields the Masamune and uses its power to cut open the sealed Magic Cave. Then I get the in-game cutscene of him doing the exact same process. Honestly, I liked the in-game one a bit better here since it was done pretty well with in-game mechanics and visuals. Either way... INTO THE CAVE!
     I fight a few groups of monsters while travelling through the cave, but turns out this cave is mostly just a warm-up for what is to come. Near the end of the cave, there's a dead soldier with a note on his body. Mentions something about it strengthening its guard against attacks when attacked. I'll just keep that mentally noted and head on out. When I leave the cave, I'm placed right next to a very, very ominous castle. The castle is MAGUS'S LAIR!
     When I enter the castle, my first thought is that something clearly isn't right here. There's a staircase that leads up and branches off into two paths. However, neither path seems to have anything. I go completely up and down both sides. Just when I'm about to give up here, I come back to the front to find a little shimmering spot. This reveals a little surprise for me. Ozzie appears! He tells us that Magus is a bit busy right now, so the monsters here will just have to keep us busy. He makes mention of two leaders named Flea and Slash as well before taking off.
     Now I get to re-explore those paths from before, but there's been a change. Monsters are all about in each path, and they're raring for a fight! For the first round, I head down the right path first. Everything here seems to be based on illusions and trickery. There's all kinds of random characters here that know all our main guys. (Like Crono's mom or Marle's father), and they're clearly not the real deal. Approaching any of them reveals them to be monsters in disguise. I fight through a few of these before entering the final room for... BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     Or so I thought. There's an enemy on the throne, and it looks like a Flea-like person would look. (Based on the name and all) However, the enemy is defeated in a single hit, and it turns out to be a fake who drains one of my character's MP! After that, the real Flea shows up, and as it turns out, he was actually following us for quite some time as a bat. When Flea finally makes his appearance, he looks kinda like a lady, but he claims he is a man. (There's a lot of fun and jokes made here of course, but now it's serious time.) BOSS BATTLE TIME! (FOR REAL THIS TIME)
     With the fake Flea out of the way, the real Flea... is pretty dang tough. For this battle, I've got my team of Crono, Frog, and Marle. Thankfully, Frog and Marle have a good assortment of healing abilities, so I was never truly suffering from damage. However, Flea was a pretty long battle to face. He had a high resistance to magic-type attacks, and a lot of his attacks caused status effects like confusion, sleep, and poison. Alongside the wide variety of attacks, Flea even has a group counter for medium damage. On top of all that, he seemed to have quite a bit of HP, and the lack of my magic abilities definitely lengthened this battle. I won't go into full details this time, but suffice it to say that the battle took quite some time to complete. (Not much details to go into here I'm afraid.) With Flea's defeat, I'm down one General with two more to go. Flea also dropped a Magic Tab, so that's a nice plus.
     Now it's time to go down the left side! Unlike the right side, there's no tricks or illusions here. It's just plain old enemies. I fight a few groups and find myself at the end of the path with... Slash. (Frog jokingly refers to him as Slush.) However, now it's BOSS BATTLE TIME! Slash has two basic modes going on. The initial portion of the fight isn't too impressive. He's got a couple different attacks, but nothing is worth mentioning. He's just punching people here and there, but then things take a drastic change. Slash leaps backwards, grabs his sword off of the wall, and comes right back at us. With his sword in hand, his power rises exponentially! Even singular strikes at this point were doing moderate damage (around 100ish). He also gained an "all out" counter where he'd do massive damage to a single person.
     Inbetween battles though, I swapped out Marle for Robo. (Thus Crono, Frog, and Robo). Although I lost the larger healing element from Marle, I gained a more powerful offensive and the awesome Triple Tech "Triple Raid." I'd like to say... Triple Raid is awesomely powerful. I was doing over 1,000 damage every time I used it on Slash! It was my main choice for attacks this battle. In general, I didn't feel nearly as challenged here as I did with Flea. I only had to heal up a bit inbetween attacks, and the lack of status effects made Slash quite a bit easier. After really no time at all, I defeat Slash and even obtain his sword, the Slasher.
     With these two Generals defeated, the middle path through the castle is finally open. I head through it and are warped to a long hallway of enemies. I fight my way through quite a few battles before finally coming face-to-face with the final General, Ozzie!... or so I thought. As we get close to him, he makes a break for it and runs away. This continues for several rooms behind multiple enemies and various kinds of traps. Going to be honest, it started to get annoying. After more rooms than I cared to count of this process, we finally corner Ozzie near the top in a throne room. Thus... It's BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     I say that, but it turned into more of an event battle than a Boss. Ozzie immediately freezes himself in a giant block of ice at the beginning. We can't really attack him, and he can constantly heal while inside of it. So... you can't really attack him head on (or not without making it overly long). However, there are switches you can attack instead around the room. Each one opens up a trap door in the room, until the final switch is hit and opens up below Ozzie in his block. He falls through, and we're finally free of that menace. Time to go get Magus!
     We head down the final staircase and into a dark, creepy room where it lights up as we walk. Then we get a fully animated cutscene that shows Frog walking through this room and blue torches lighting up as he walks. He makes it to the back of the room, and we get our first true in-person view of Magus. Mwahaha! Back to the game, and the same turn of events happen. Torches light up, and Magus is seen. He exchanges a few words with Frog, and now it be BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     That's right. It's finally time to face off against Magus and stop him from bringing forth Lavos! Now, Magus is a pretty powerful boss. Everything he throws at us is just giant powerful magic attack! On top of that, he's constantly shifting his elemental strengths to make our previous attacks useless. Of course, his biggest weakness is the Masamune. Striking him with it lowers his magical defense regardless of what it previously was. Anything thrown at him that isn't his current weakness simply heals him. (It announces what his current weakness is... for some reason.)
     Best way to attack him seems to be just keeping after the magical weakness. That and constantly striking with the Masamune. His attacks are pretty powerful though, so I have to keep stopping to heal up. Now he continues this for some time, but then we hit a breaking point, and he starts up his secondary mode of attack. He decides to say screw everything and just constantly cast his "greatest spell, Dark Matter." What does that mean? It's pretty much just that. He constantly casts it over and over in order to try and end us here. However, he can't cast it without a pretty long charge time. Thus it's just back to the regular old schedule of going all out with attacks and then following up Dark Matter with healing.
     I brought Marle back into the fold for this battle, so the healing went pretty well in general. This was a pretty straightforward battle really. Nothing too ridiculous to challenge me, but you can be unexpectedly killed if you aren't careful. Your characters are constantly losing HP because... of evil or something. It's not explained, but it does happen. Took quite some time, but I defeat the evil Magus and put an end to Lavos!... or so I would have thought.
     Upon defeat, he says something about a Gate and how we messed up his summoning of Lavos. The group is all "Whaaaat?" because we thought he created him. However, Magus says he wasn't involved in the creation of Lavos and was only bringing him forth to this time. Lavos lives in the middle of the planet and is consuming it for energy and strength. Suddenly, a Time Gate pops up around us and sucks everybody into it.
     We're flung through time and wake up in 65 million B.C. Ayla shows up and says she had a strange dream about the group. This lead her to Mystic Mountain where she found us at. Then she brought us back to her home. After telling us this though, she says she's going to head out now to find some hidden village that's around here. The group goes back to sleep then.
     When we wake up next, Kino greets us and says we need to find the village Ayla was hunting for. They're planning on teaming up with this hidden village to defeat the Reptites. If they don't, it seems that the Reptites will win this war. Suddenly a villager comes in and tells the group that the forest north of here is burning. Looks like we should go and investigate! The group gathers up, and we head for the north of the village.
     There are a couple areas up here to explore, but I finally wind around to a small village that's north, northeast of Ayla's village. When I arrive, it seems we're too late. The fire that was spotted was this village being burnt down. Who did it? Reptites of course. As we're exploring the remains, we spot Ayla here with what seems to be the village elder. He blames Ayla for what has happened here and says they followed her into the village. Ayla feels bad about that happening, but she still wants to fight them. Says that fighting is living, and if they don't fight them, it will only lead to death. With all that said, she requests use of the Dactyls to get to the Reptite's lair. The village chief seems reluctant at first, but then he gives her permission. She runs off, and I guess we're going to follow her.
     We head back to the World Map and... There's a couple different places to explore. One's a large area that resembles the forest maze. I didn't find anything there though, but then there's also this large mountain. Trying to enter it reveals that it's the Dactyl Nest. So... that first place sort of just wasted my time. We quickly climb up the mountain and stop Ayla from taking off by herself. We only discuss things briefly before deciding to join her. With thing said, a group of Dactyls (pteradactyls) appear, and then an animated cutscene! There's a group of Dactyls on a cliff. Ayla leaps on the back of one of them and takes off. Crono follows after her. That's it. Aaand the same thing happens outside of the cutscene.
     With the Dactyls, I've obtained my very first airship!... for this time period. We're able to fly all around the 65 million B.C. time period. There's not very many places left to explore in this period though. There's the Reptite's base that we are heading towards and a random cave off to the side. I went in there, but there didn't seem to be anything for me now. So... I guess we're off to the Reptite's Lair!
     I enter inside and... there's two paths again. I dunno if I should be cool with this or wonder if any dungeon is just a single path and/or more paths than two... Glossing past that, the left path is closed here, so I have to go down the right one. There's a few Reptites in here to battle, and a jail cell to free cavemen from. I continue down to the next floor and turns out Kino is here! We have to fight more Reptites to save him, but they go down pretty quickly. Kino thanks us for saving him, and he wants to come along to help us. Ayla tells him once again that he needs to return to the village in case she should fall.
     Kino reluctantly agrees but does one more thing before going. He leads us upstairs and opens up the left path before leaving the lair. Now it's just up to us to climb this path and deal with the Reptite leader, Azala. This next bit is... pretty extended. I have to climb several floors, traverse a few traps, and fight off a whole lot of enemies. It's pretty much all dinosaurs here (duh), and they all remain to be weak to lightning. A few different enemies are here as well, but they're nothing special to mention I'm afraid. I find a few chests as I go through here, but most of them are just simple items. All-in-all, this dungeon is kinda a bust in the loot category.
     I finally reach a room with... NIZBEL!?! It's standing near the entrance and tells me that Azala is waiting for me in the back. It lets us pass by for some reason... but as we go to the very back of the room, Nizbel comes at us for MINI-BOSS BATTLE TIME! NIZBELL II! ROUND TWO! This battle proceeds in about the same vein as Nizbel I. It's an upgraded version though and has a few improvements. Any form of attack on Nizbel causes it to increase its defense. Lightning still decreases its defense, but now Nizbel gathers up the lightning charges rather than immediately discharging it. After a few attacks, it releases the charge for a pretty potent counter.
     For this battle, I'm using Crono, Robo, and Ayla. This crew isn't really set up for healing, but they can deal out some major damage! Of everything I had at this time, the most used attack was the Dual Tech, Volt Bite which crossed Crono's Lightning with Ayla's Cat Attack. It does a lot of damage, and it lowers defense via the lightning. Pretty much perfect for big dino targets. Robo does have Heal Beam now (which heals everybody), but it doesn't feel as powerful or effective as some of my other healing methods. Regardless, this battle was a constant change between smacking out all the damage and following up with the curative Heal Beam.
     With very little pause or worries, I quickly defeated Nizbel II and prepare myself for an even larger confrontation with the final target. I save up here and head up the stairs. It's a small path around to a switch, open a door, and we're face-to-face with Azala! He claims that this battle will be the final deciding factor here. Will the Reptites win and rule the ages? OR will the apes succeed and conquer the world? LET'S FIND OUT!
     Before the battle gets started, we hear a loud screeching sound. Azala informs us that we're about to make friends with his pet. He walks back into the building behind him and returns with A GIANT T-REX! Just before the battle starts, he mentions something about the Red Star falling and how will perish because of it. Also that the big guy he's on right now is a Black Tyrano (awesome name). Let's get right to... BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     So, surprise surprise, this battle is us versus Azala and his kick-ass Black Tyrano. Between the two, Azala seems the weaker target of course, so I am for him first. (That and any attacks on the Black Tyrano seem pointless right now.) Azala seems to have a few psychic tricks up his sleeve (lifting us up and slamming us down, throwing rocks at us, and etc). Unfortunately, that's really all he has here. I quickly finish off Azala and am left with his giant pet.
     The Black Tyrano seems to only have a few attacks at its disposal. The main one of these, which activates quite often with Azala gone, is to charge up for several rounds and then blast everybody for a huge amount of damage. (Nearly 350 per character with their average HP being around 500-600.) I'm still using Robo and Ayla here, so I am just dealing out all the damage I can. I've got decent healing with Cure Beam, but it's not always enough here. I had to supplement it a few times with Mid Tonics. (Each one heals 200 HP.) I was never in any true danger of being defeated, but it's still not a battle to take lightly.
     When the Black Tyrano finally falls, Azala comes back around and seems incredibly saddened and surprised at the ape's victory. He tells us to remember the Reptites didn't go down without a fight. Then suddenly the sky glows... and we get to learn what this Red Star business is about. The word Lavos is brought up suddenly, and Ayla translates the word for us. Turns out La means Big and Vos means Fire. Thus, the term Lavos came from Big Fire and is called such because it dropped from the sky as a small meteor.
     There's an in-game cutscene of the vision from space as a giant red rock is hurled through space and then collides with to destroy the Tyrano's Lair. Just moments before that though, Kino shows up with the Dactyls to help us escape. Ayla tries to bring Azala with us, but he refuses. She promises to remember him. With the impact of the "Red Star", the Reptite's Lair is completely destroyed.
     As we're standing away from the destruction, Ayla says we should go and fight Lavos now! She runs off, and Robo comments that he might actually be weaker in his current status of just now landing here. As we approach the impact site though, it seems that Lavos has already submerged itself underground. Strangely enough though, he left behind a Gate. Robo throws out an idea that Lavos's collision with the planet must have generated the Gate here. It seems we're going to make another random Gate jump!... on the next post.
     Good lord, this took me super longer than I should have let it. That's the only reason I'm ending it here. I've spent waaaay longer on this specific post than I should have. Sorry for the delay, and promise I'm going to do better on the next one. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for next time when I leap into the unknown!

Ending Point - 65,000,000 BC
Current Party -

• Crono - Level 27
• Ayla - Level 27
• Robo - Level 26

Rest of the Party -

• Lucca - Level 25
• Marle - Level 26
• Frog - Level 26

Goals Accomplished - Retrieved the Gate Key. Repaired the Masamune. Ventured to Magus's Castle and defeated Magus. Learned more about the truth behind Lavos and thrown into the past. Helped Ayla defeat the Reptites. Defeated Azala and more Lavos truths.
Next Goals - Jump into the new Gate and find out where it leads us. Defeat Lavos and save the world!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Side Post!

This is one part lazy/one part ran out of time this week.

On the plus side... We're doing a quick game review!
(You'll find out why it's quick here soon enough. But first...)

Recurring Fantasy Side Post Theater Proudly Presents

Final Fantasy Tapping Returns With A Curtain Call!

That's right. If you remember quite some time ago, Square Enix released a rhythm-style game called "Theatrhythm Final Fantasy", and I did a review of it because I enjoyed it quite a bit. (You can read that review right here.) Personally, it didn't seem like that game had that huge of a following. It was a pretty fun game and was really enjoyable for the music it brought. 

Was the game without problems though? Not really... or so it seemed until they released the newest one "Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call". 

Now, Curtain Call comes back with another blast of rhythm tapping fun. You get great Final Fantasy songs and then tap, slide, and drag along to the beat. Just like then, the game features three basic music playing styles whether they are Event, Field, and Battle. You choose four characters from the series and give them items and abilities to represent you in... song. There's some a versus mode, a profile card, and lots and lots of collecting to do.

Sounds pretty similar right? Well, it's not breaking any barriers for new or original, but they did make some great strides here. I'll try to cover as many changes as I can, but I might leave out something so bear with me.

The first and most obvious change is how the game progresses. As soon as you start a new file, you're thrown into quite a few tutorials (I think this is about the same as the first but can't remember.) As you go through, you create your first party and are thrown into the game. The difference here is that once you have chosen, those are the ONLY characters you have! It sounds crazy and lame to limit you this soon, but keep with me, it's not that bad.

With the characters chosen, you're shown a brief (but very expansive) viewing of songs. You'll immediately notice that the only ones available are the titles that your characters are in. I was almost disappointed here, but after a few songs, you unlock every other game available. This... is where I really got excited. 

First off, the listing of songs is ENORMOUS compared to the previous game. In the first Theatrhthym, you had maybe 5 or 6 songs per title. Even while being locked to your character's titles, each series appears to have at LEAST 8 or 9 songs if not more. And you don't even have them all yet! As you go along, you're able to unlock more and more songs. It seems to mostly be the Event stages, but then you even unlock a larger selection of games too! No longer are you purely limited to the numbered Final Fantasy games. There's off-titles like Dissidia, Tactics, Mystic Quest, and even threw in Type-0! (A title not available in America... yet.) They even decided to include the Final Fantasy VII movie, Advent Children.

The number of songs in the game? 221! That's nearly THREE TIMES the number of songs on the last game (Looked it up. 77 before DLC.) That's before any kind of DLC or expansions though come into play even, so things are already going super-duper well. I love the vast increase in song number and variety. They really got me with that. 

Now what's next... Ah yes, the different gameplay modes (not to be confused with song modes?) available to you have been tweaked a bit. The first game really only had you play the songs, do incredibly difficult arrangements (Dark Notes), and a vague versus mode I never tried. All-in-all, there was a lot to unlock yet not a lot of ways to do them. It was a problem in the first game... partially a problem with this one, but I'll get into it.

The main mode returns but is renamed "Music Stages". You go in, play what songs you want, earn the "Rythmia" points and blah blah blah. That's pretty straightforward here, and it's generally improved (namely because of song selection). If you remember those insanely hard (for me at least) Dark Notes, then you should sigh a relief/be overly excited for Quest Medleys! 

Instead of the difficult arrangements and playing two or three in a row, you're thrown into a series of stages where you "fight on the field". It gives a more RPG-style feel where your characters are on a quest to defeat a boss monster and obtain rewards like Crystal Shards. (Unlocks new characters) This was a definite boost to the replayability of the game. This helps unlock the characters faster, and that's good since the number of titles expanded and each title has at least one or two people. Many of the main titles have several characters even! As of right now, I have Zidane, Vivi, and Garnet from Final Fantasy IX. (Hoping there is a fourth but doubt it.) Before any kind of DLC, there are supposed to be SIXTY different characters available! 

I could go on and on about Quest Medleys and details thereof, but it'd make this quite a bit longer. Suffice to say, they're better than Dark Notes while still retaining challenge and interest to the game. 

The final addition to the game is a revamped Versus Battle mode. I'll be honest... I didn't play much of this in the first one, so I'm not completely sure of the changes, but I can assume they're there. If nothing else, they've offered a way to do Versus Battles by yourself with a Versus AI mode. You battle pre-constructed teams of various characters. There are three ranks to go through, and you earn various collectible cards as you do so.

Another small thing to mention (of so many things), is the included different play styles. On the first game, you could play with the stylus and that was it. With Curtain Call, they've offered a few varying styles. You can now use the Stylus, Buttons, Stylus with Buttons, and a tricky but effective Single Hand mode where you use the control stick with the L button. It's nice to have variety, and I've found myself exploring each mode to find which I'm great with... Turns out it is none of them. (Or so I feel anyways.) 

So overall? This game has a dramatic number of improvements! There's sooo much more to do and unlock here, and they made unlocking quicker. You unlock something for every 250 Rhythmia you collect in game. Now, if you play insanely well, you can do this once every two songs. They increased the number of bonuses you can get. This is a definite plus since one of the few problems I had with the first title was simply the number of songs necessary to play and beat to unlock a single thing. 

I really only have great things to say about this game. I can't really find anything to truly complain about here. If there was something to say here, they didn't really seem to change up the graphics or looks here. It's pretty much the same game in that regard. If they did polish up character models, I can't tell the difference. Otherwise, there's a lot of repeats here through the various characters and enemy models. 

I'm also not super stoked about the amount of DLC already involved. (As of release, there's already like 10+ different items including a new character... I picked up the few free songs and bought the Yuffie character.) The only thing I can say is that the early unlocks seem to REALLY be pushing me towards the newer Final Fantasy titles versus the classics. I'm not sure if this is to get you to play more to unlock the older ones or just purely bad luck on my part. (Sadly, it's most likely the former.) I know the previous game had quite a bit of DLC by the end, but I never touched that feature much. I bought a few but never went overboard.

That's all the bashing I have to say, so I figure it's time to bring this to a close. But should you buy it? To blatantly rip off my previous review, I'll go ahead and go through the same basic questions while adding a new one.

1. Do you have a 3DS?
   This question of course goes without asking, but I feel it should be asked anyways. I can't say this title is worth BUYING a 3DS over, but it's a nice one if you already own the handheld.
   
2. Do you enjoy Final Fantasy?
   Again, this is almost redundant since if you are here on this blog AT THIS TIME... You have to enjoy the series at least a little bit. I don't really have anything else here other than Final Fantasy.
   
3.  Do you like Rhythm-style games?
   This is probably the true question to ask here. Because when it comes down to it, you could be a hardcore Final Fantasy fan, but maybe you don't enjoy rhythm games. Maybe you suck at rhythm games. (I'm not great.) If you like rhythm and music, this is up your alley.
   
4. Did you buy the first Theatrhythm?
   This and the previous question are the only ones I should have asked but whatever. If you bought the first title and enjoyed it at all, this should already be in your 3DS right now. It's a sequel to the first, vast improvements, a huge boost to an already large amount of content, and just more fun fun fun with Final Fantasy music!

Now... Did you answer "Yes" to at least two of the four questions? (Namely the last one.) If so, you should already have gone off to your local store to purchase a copy of the game. Or you can buy it on the Nintendo eShop and download it. I'm cool with that option too. 

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call is a sequel to an already great game. It's got plenty of improvements and so much replayability that trying to shake a stick at it all will make your arm fall off. There's enough content to keep you playing until Final Fantasy XV comes out!... Maybe. 

And thus ends another Side Post. Hope you enjoyed this humble little review and as always thanks for reading!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Time Checkpoint II - Let's Get on Time Traveling!

Game - Chrono Trigger, Time Checkpoint II
Hours Played/Hours Total - 4-1/2 / 6-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - 1,000 AD.
Current Goal - Escort Marle back to the Castle.

What Happened - Well, that first post finally dropped, but now I gotta build up steam and keep going. I figure I can make this post a bit longer and actually make some darn progress. Let's get to it then.
     It's a quick trip from the festival to Guardia Castle. I have to run through the nearby forest, much like the past, but there's nothing too different there. They changed the coloring a bit from how it looks in the past, but it's all the same overall though. I fight a few monsters and then head for the castle. As I enter in, things... take a turn for the worst.
     The Chancellor of this time enters in and claims that I kidnapped Princess Nadia! She protests against this and tries to get the guards to stop, but the Chancellor overrules her, and I'm taken away. The game then takes a jump into a very creative and interesting little bit. I'm thrown into a courtroom and have to defend myself. (You get a lawyer, but you do the work really.) Now, I did consult a guide for this part because I've done it in the past and curious what all makes the difference.
     In summary, it all comes down to your actions at the very first of the game during the Millennial Fair. Seriously, almost every single thing you can do there affects your "telling of the truth". I won't go into the full details of this, but suffice to say, you gotta be careful of what you do at the beginning. For those curious, here's the basic things to avoid...

• When you bump into Marle at the beginning, talk to her first before getting her pendant.
• Return the little girl's cat to her.
• Don't try to sell Marle's pendant.
• Don't eat the old man's lunch.
• Don't move when Marle is looking at candy near the end of the fair.

     If you follow those, you should come out fairly innocent. Of course, at the same time, always be sure to consider what happened and keep truthful. Doing this trial before ended with me being super guilty, however, I came out pretty well this time. When the judges were voting, I got an overall Not Guilty count of 4 out of 7. Despite this though, I was thrown in jail for unknowingly keeping the Princess away. 

     As I'm being escorted to jail, the Chancellor lies to the guards there and informs them I'm to be executed in three days... So this appears to be the end. The game jumps to me being imprisoned, and I figure I'm going to have to break out of here. On the plus side, it seems that the sympathizers who called me not guilty left me a gift of 6 Ethers. After claiming my meager reward, I start to consider my options out of here... Not many options it seems, I can beat on the cell bars though!

     I do so until the guards finally react and come into my cell to put me down. However, that just gives me an opportunity to leap out. Once I do that, I'm forced to fight them. Strangely enough though, they didn't my weapons or anything, so I quickly beat them up. Time to bust outta this joint! ...Also rob it blind because RPGs and treasure chests everywhere.

     Despite being what it is, there's really not a huge assortment of people guarding this place, so I'm free to explore with very little interruption. There's a few here and there plus these random shield monster things. (Interesting concept actually. You have to wait in battle and time your hits, or you'll do next to nothing.) Beyond that, there was only this one giant guard who bales after taking too much damage. 

     As with most RPGs, exploring every path is a must to reveal secret spots and gain access to all the treasure chests. In this case, it was going through the back hole of a cell to reach one another one with a couple chests in them. There's also a guy you can save who's locked up in the guillotine. With all that said and done, it's time to finally escape this place. Just as I reach the top of the tower to leave though... Lucca appears! She was coming to Crono's rescue, but she sees now that it might not be necessary. (Cool fact, if you wait in your cell for three days, she does actually come around to get you out.) 

     Before heading out the door, I examine a paper that fell to the ground as Lucca came in. (She knocked out a guard that was on the run.) The paper details some special Dragon Tank that's been in development. It reveals that the head is capable of healing the rest of the unit, and so long as the head remains, the rest of the tank is invincible. (HINT HINT) I guess I should take that paper with a grain of salt as we continue up and out of the tower.

     Go to cross the bridge and wooooaaaah! BOSS BATTLE TIME! Guess who? Dragon Tank. Seeing as we know the weakness here, this battle is already half done. I immediately aim for the head and take it out within a few rounds. After that, it's going to be a super easy process of just eliminating the other pieces. This boss is actually a great example of multiple pieces doing their job to make one fantastic and challenging whole. The head heals it, the wheels do a charging attack that hits all, and the body... connects it all? You can go straight for the body, but you'll be fighting an uphill battle whereas it's pretty easy doing it in order instead.
     With the Dragon Tank beaten, I'm able to make a dash into the castle and attempt my escape. Unfortunately, more guards show up as we're running to the front gate. Just as it looks bad again, Marle comes to our rescue. She orders them to release us, but her father, the King, and the Chancellor are both opposed to her decision. She tells them she refuses to live in the castle anymore if this is how they plan to rule. From here, we leave the castle and charge off into the nearby forest.
     The guards keep chasing us, and they follow us right into a dead end... However, it's not completely void of an exit. In the forest is another of the mysterious Gates. Marle says we should jump in and go for it, but Lucca believes that it is too dangerous since we won't know where/when it'll take us. Marle doesn't seem to care where we go since she doesn't want to be here. And so we jump into the mystery Gate!
     Woop woop woop.... and we're here! When is here? I don't know yet, but it certainly looks different. Lucca says everything here looks quite advanced, so I guess we can assume it's the future. We head outside and holy crap... this is super apocalyptic wasteland going on right here. Everywhere looks horrific like something completely destroyed everything around. All that remains are some run-down looking domes and desolated cities. I guess it's time to explore and see what's going on around here.
     There's another dome south of the one I just left, so I head there first for some ideas of what to do. Going inside reveals that people do exist in this time, but they all look ragged and seem to be on the verge of starvation. There's a guy here who sells equipment, so I buy up what I can while here. While learning more about this place, one group mentions that although there isn't food here, I should go and check the dome northeast of here. Supposedly they have some food there. With nothing else to do here, I figure it's time to check out this other dome.
     To get to that dome though, I have to go through... LAB 16! Despite it's name, Lab 16 looks more like a city in ruins than any sort of "lab." The place is full of various mutants and thieving rats. The rats kept stealing my things! (Unfortunately for them, it was just one of my many, many Tonics. I had 99 so whatever.) Most of the battles aren't worth mentioning here except for this one slime. It had a super high evasion to regular physical attacks, and I could only get it with Tech abilities. (It seemed that way at least.) Lab 16 was pretty short though, and I quickly found myself on the other side.
     On the other side, there were two different domes to explore. The smaller one lead to a sewer system, but there wasn't anything I needed to do there. Going back to the big dome, called Arris Dome, it was time to see what's going on around here. Entering inside revealed more people, but no food seemed to be here either. Talking with the people there revealed that this place is both a computer storage and food storage. They said that someone recently went below to get food, but that was some time ago. Not like I have anything better to do, so I head down to see what happened.
     The first thing I see down below is a couple consoles requiring passwords to open up the paths. It seems the left path is already open, so I head up that way first. It takes me on a quick and simple path path to the food storage, but it seems I won't be getting in that easily... cause BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     As we attempted to enter the food storage, a large security robot dropped from above and is ready to stop us here. The Guardian (as it's called) is accompanied by two "Bits" that seem to be doing most of the work. However, you can't just go straight for the big guy. Any attempt to attack the Guardian while the Bits are still around results in them countering with the Delta Attack. It wouldn't be a big deal except that it's a very big deal with lots of damage. The only option here is to destroy both of the Bits and fight him until he respawns them. It's possible to only destroy one and just deal with having a second one. Doing so will keep him from respawning them, but that just leaves it out to attack as it wants.
     Personally, I'd suggest the former over the latter, but it's going to be up to you. If you destroy them both, you get more time to straight up attack him without fear of retaliation, but if you let one live, you end up having to deal with the damage it deals. It's not a lot, but they also aren't hard to kill either. Either way, with the Guardian dispatched, I'm able to enter the food storage and discover a horrible truth. It seems the refrigeration went out quite some time ago, and all the food inside here has completely spoiled. There's also the body of the person who recently came down here, he has some seeds in hand and a note saying that a rat statue we saw before wasn't just a statue!
     Taking these facts to heart, I set out to figure out what's the deal with that rat. As soon as I get back on the path, the rat is right in front of me! I chase him down and... keep missing him. I did this section quite a few times (more than I care to admit nor did I count), but when I finally catch him, he reveals that the password to activate the switch is hitting X while holding L1 and R1. And that is it. (Keep in mind, even if you know the password you can't use it without catching the rat.)
     Anyways! Time to check out what's down the other path. Well, there's actually enemies down this way. A big mixture of robots and mutants. I have to fight through quite a few of those down this winding path until I reach the final room. It's a computer room with a big display in front of us. Turns out this is the info storage we were told about earlier. Lucca examines it and figures she can use it to look up a Gate for us to use. She locates one in a dome a small ways from here called the Proto Dome. Marle compliments Lucca on her ability with machines, but then she accidentally hits a button.
     Thankfully, all she did was bring up a visual record from the year 1999 AD labelled The Day of Lavos. It shows a small 2D cutscene of a futuristic society. Then a giant monster bursts from the ground and rains destruction on everything. The entire world is ended in just a moment... Marle is completely distraught by this video and tells Lucca and Crono that they should do something about it all! We need to stop Lavos! So now the game has a true objective. Defeat Lavos. Save the World! Of course, we're going to need to go back in time first to figure some of this stuff out. Our next stop? The Proto Dome!
     Time to head back topside!... And tell everybody the bad news. As we arrive up top, they do of course ask us what happened. It's sad to say, but the food has all gone bad. All we have to hand over are the seeds we found down there. The group tells them that the seeds hold a true hope for their future. They accept the seeds, and the man called Doan thanks us for what we've done. As we're leaving, he gives us a key to a Jet Bike he has stored in the nearby city of Lab 32. Says we should be able to use it to get to the Proto Dome. Well, time to leave Arris Dome behind and head for Lab 32! (On a random note here, I finally learn that the current year is 2300 AD.)
     I head on over to Lab 32 and quickly locate the Jet Bike there. Suddenly, we're surrounded by robots! Things are looking bad when... a different robot comes up and clears things up. They all refer to this really different looking motorcycle-esque robot as THE MAN. He introduces himself as Johnny and says he wants us to race him via the Jet Bike. (Also it's how you cross to the other side.) This jumps the game into this little racing mini-game. It's just a 1-on-1 race, and you have to win the race with only three boosts. The race really isn't so much challenging unless you're trying to not bump into Johnny. You can just wait until the end and boost right past him! Aaaand I win!... absolutely nothing. (It's possible there is a prize, but I didn't get it. Not going to focus on that now, let's move on.)
     From the exit of Lab 32, I quickly find my way to the Proto Dome. This dome seems pretty void of life and empty... until we happen upon a robot! This kicks it into an actual ANIMATED cutscene! (These were inserted in the PS1 version and everything after. Original SNES didn't have these of course.) It's a pretty cool cutscene, but it's awfully short. The group (Crono, Lucca, and Marle) come into view of a incredibly broken down robot. Lucca sees this and pulls out a screwdriver in excitement. /end cutscene
     Now we cut into the actual scene that takes place. We walk up and examine the robot. Lucca seems pretty excited and believes she can fix it. And thus begins a quick time lapse. It seems that Lucca works on him for quite some time, and in the end... she fixes him! Upon repair, we give him the name Robo!

Robo is a robot. Upon awaking, he notices his current surroundings. He claims that this place used to have quite a humans and robots like himself. While talking with him, the group mentions that the door behind him leads to a Gate we need access to. He tries to open the door himself and realizes what the problem is. He informs us that the power is out here, but he says he can get the power back on! We just have to go to a factory north of here and have him override the security.
     Of course, the game has a 3 person limit on parties, so I have to make a choice. Robo has to come with me, so I need to choose between Lucca and Marle for this next part. (The in-game explanation is that he needs someone here to flip a switch to get the power going.) Anyways, I leave Lucca behind to hit the switch and take the rest of the crew up to the factory.
     The factory in question is one that seems to be producing robots. That being said, most of the enemies here are very much robots. There's a few various mutants here, but it tends to lean more towards the robots. Most of the fights here aren't anything too tough, but I keep on my toes to be safe. I quickly learn that's not much trouble though. Marle has a healing Tech, Aura, so that's always nice. On top of that though, Robo has the Heal Beam Tech, so I'm more than fine. You can even combine the two into a Dual Tech that heals everybody greatly.
     Back to the factory, there are two basic paths to go down. You can head down to the left (from the start) and that leads you straight into the core of the factory where we need to get. Of course, you have to go down the right path to obtain the password to reach the core area. I actually went down that path first and ended up having to loop back around onto the right path.
     The right path leads you onto the actual factory floor of the place. There's robots being assembled here and all. You can go so far as to get on the conveyor belt. (Kinda required for getting around this place.) However, if you get caught on it (run into robots being assembled), you're thrown into a loop of set encounters. If you aren't careful/stupid like me, you might get caught in a loop of fighting these battles more than you should. I... went through way too many times.
     Glossing past that! This room contains a couple different pathways and a crane for knocking over barrels. Why? Because then you access a room with the password and also chests with goodies. With the password in hand/memory, it's time to work my way back around and down the left path. Since I went down that path first, I actually have a shortcut to the core room. I can take the elevator straight down. I input the password. (It's just a clockwise movement of the face buttons in this case.) The door opens, we head inside, and... no boss in here. That actually surprised me a little. The group activates the middle reactor located in the room, and then the alarms start going off.
     Let's get the heck outta here! We rush through as the security doors start closing. The last one almost closes on us, but Robo leaps ahead to keep the door open for us. We just barely make it through, but now we have to escape from this place. The alarms have the place on lockdown, so we can't just go up the elevators. I work my way up the manual way, and run into a group of robots that look like Robo. He greets them as friends, but they suddenly attack him. He asks what's wrong, and they tell him he has gone defective and is malfunctioning. They proceed to attack Robo, but he won't let us interfere because they're his friends.
     After being brutally beaten, Robo is finally defeated, and they throw him down a nearby chute where they all sprang from. Now it's our turn to battle these guys... BOSS BATTLE TIME! (sorta) I'm having to fight six R-Series robots. (Look very similar to Robo but different color.) Despite how that sounds, they're actually not too tough. They don't have a lot of HP and go down with just a few hits. The six of them can do quite a bit of damage if you give them the time of day, but overall it's barely a boss battle worth mentioning.
     With their defeat, Marle goes over to where they threw Robo into. She drags him out, and together with Crono, they dram him back to the Proto Dome. Despite how he looks, Lucca is able to repair him. After being repaired, Lucca asks Robo what he plans to do next. He doesn't seem to have anything left to do here, so he decides to join us and help with the giant task at hand. (Defeating Lavos.) With that said, the group opens the door, jumps into the nearby Gate, and... ends up someplace quite different than what they thought.
     Suddenly, the group is in a strange place with pillars of light and darkness around us. I venture over into a nearby area to find a mysterious old man standing beneath a street lamp. He finds it strange that we've appeared here but quickly glosses past that and explains things. First off, the area we are in now is the End of Time. He says the reason we appeared here involves the number of people who were going through the Gate. Basically, if a group larger than three tries to travel through time, time takes them to the point of least resistance, the End of Time. (Also known as how the game enforces it's three person party rule. It's a clever explanation really.)
     With how things are going, I figure to leave behind Marle since she's the highest level. Before leaving this area, the man suggests we visit the room behind him. Going inside there shows a little white monster just standing there. He introduces himself as "Spekkio, The Master of War." He goes off into a story about how people in ancient times had the ability to use magic. However, they began to abuse this ability, so the power was limited to only Wizards. Then as more time passed, everybody forgot how to use magic entirely. He tells us that our group has quite some potential for magic. (Except Robo... Robots can't learn magic!)
     So what do we have to do to learn magic? Walk around the room three times clockwise from the door. (No seriously, that's what you do.) Strangely enough, I had a few issues with this. I think I wasn't clinging to the wall enough, or I wasn't hitting the right number of times to run around. Regardless, I now have magics! Every character has an element assigned to them. In this case, Crono gets Lightning, Marle gets Water, and Lucca gets Fire. He even offers to let us beat on him to try out our new power.
     Just a few uses on Spekkio already proves it's pretty dang potent. I end up fighting him a few times to try and beat him. If you manage to beat him, he gives up a Magic Tab and a few Ethers. (I haven't explained Tabs yet, but here's the shorthand. Stat boosting items.) Now that my character's have magic, it's time to leave the End of Time. The old man suggests we return to our own time before heading anywhere else. The only available portal to our time says Medina Village. I figure not much other choice available so I choose that Gate. Back... to 1000 AD!
     As it turns out though, Medina Village is an area I haven't actually visited before. We pop out of a random monster's cabinet!... But it turns out these guys are quite friendly monsters. They warn us that the monster (keep calling it Mystics) village is full of others who won't be quite as friendly, but I figure to explore nonetheless. The end result of the exploration reveals the following... I have to fight a couple battles in order to earn rights to buy at their shop and stay at their Inn. The most relevant information learned is that the monsters seem to worship a figure known as Magus. (They're dancing around a statue. I saw this similar action during 600 AD a ways earlier.) It seems he commanded the Mystics during the war long ago, and that he was involved in Lavos's creation and bringing the creature forth. (Something like that...)
     That's all I got from the village though, and now it's time to explore the area around here. North of here is a strange set of ruins with a giant blue artifact I can't do anything with. There's some mountains up north that I also can't seem to do anything with. However, some of the friendly monsters told me a strange man named Melchior lives west of the village. He's a weapons smith, and I actually met him earlier on in the game at the fair. He wanted me to convince Marle to sell her necklace. (I didn't try to though!)
     I buy a few weapons from Melchior and explore his house. Not much to see here though, so I head north from his place to explore the mountains instead. I enter a cave, and that seems to be the right way. As soon as I head inside, there's plenty of monsters to greet me! I fight my way through a series of caves. Most of these monsters seem to have a pretty high physical defense, so I get to make use of my fancy Techs and Magic I just acquired. At this point, I have quite a few Techs to use and even some cool new Dual Techs like Fire Punch (Lucca + Robo).
     After quite a few battles and a bit of exploration, I find a save point! You know what that means... There's a boss ahead. BOSS BATTLE TIME! I'm fighting a giant beast that's... hard to describe. He's called Heckran, but looks like a giant blue bear with spikes and massive claws. (Not Sonic.) Once again, he's a pretty straightforward boss. He has a couple different attacks to use, and they all seem to be water element. (Good thing I didn't bring Marle... Cause of the Water spells.)
     Can't really give any special tactics to go on here though. It's just a combination of knowing when to attack and when to heal. The only thing to watch for is when he "dares you to attack" because that's just poorly hidden code for "Imma counter it". He counters the group with a giant attack for quite a bit of damage. I used all the Magic and Tech I could manage because regular strikes aren't worth your time. With a little time and effort, I defeat the big guy.
     However, in his death throws, he exclaims about how he wished Magus had destroyed all of humanity back during the great war. His summoning of Lavos should have destroyed them all! With this cue, the characters realize that our new target has to be Magus in the past. If we defeat him, maybe that will stop Lavos? Since this guy said Magus summoned him in the past.
     Now to leave this cave... Thankfully, it was designed with a back exit behind the boss. The group jumps into the water, and it teleports us to the initial area of the game. (Crono and crew's home. I didn't ever learn the name.) I decide to go around the area a bit and visit some of the locations I missed before. I find Lucca's house, and her father gives me a special armor for her. I also obtain some free Mid Ethers from that guy I rescued from jail earlier on. (Back when Crono was imprisoned.)
     I gotta say... This game is impressing me quite a bit already. All the overlapping of quests and tasks that affect other aspects of the game. Being arrested as Crono and dealing with the court case alone... That's just a big pile of genius! There's also various bits like rescuing that guy from jail or finding items while exploring. (This is reflected here in a bit where an item I found was traded to an old man for a Magic Tab.) So much can go wrong without even thinking about it near the beginning. It's super impressive if you ask me, and not many games seem to go to that length anymore.
     Anyways, I explore the 1000 AD while I'm here. Beyond the main village here, there's a few places to see to the south as well. I don't really find anything worth mentioning. Couple homes with shops and NPCs. Well, guess it's time to head to 600 AD and find this Magus guy. Head to the fair grounds, jump in the Gate and head back in time. Once I get there, the first thing to do is... figure out where I'm supposed to go. Nothing to really go on here, but I haven't gone south in this time period yet. So that's a good guess. (Also the correct one.)
     Going that way, I run into a bridge. This time period is when the great war was going on. They're at war with the Mystics (monsters) and Magus. The soldiers at the bridge mention something about a Legendary Hero and how he is going to win this for them. He also seems to have some sort of medal on him proving his hero status. It seems the troops at the bridge are also in desperate need of supplies. (Food being the biggest issue at the moment.) Seeing as I don't have much choice right now, I head off to the castle to see if that does anything.
     Back at the castle, it seems the King is hurt and bedridden. There are more mentions here of the Legendary Hero, but the Queen also makes mention of someone called Cyrus. I talked to just about everybody in the castle and didn't get any real responses. Turns out, I needed to talk with the castle's chef. Turns out he's the brother of the army's captain. Talking to him didn't seem to initially do anything, but as I go to leave, he gives me some food for his brother and a Power Tab for us. We head back to the bridge and advance the story from there.
     I hand over the jerky to the captain, and it seems the battle has begun on the bridge. The Hero has gone on ahead of the group and is making his own progress, but the rest of the troops here aren't fairing as well. I offer up our help and leap onto the bridge to fight these guys. The first round of enemies are skeletons, and I'm introduced to Magus's top general, Ozzie. For the next couple of battles, Ozzie is nearby and involved, but attacking him causes him to run. Besides him, I get to deal with several skeleton monsters. Nothing too bad here, but I'm having to focus on magic use since physical strikes seem to have little effect. (Thankfully, the Techs/magic in this game seem to take very little MP comparative to most games.)
     As we finally hit the other side of the bridge, Ozzie summons up a pile of skeleton enemies and morphs them into a GIANT enemy skeleton... ZOMBOR! BOSS BATTLE TIME! Zombor is made up of two pieces, the top half of the skeleton (waist up) and the bottom half (waist down). Magic seems my best bet here, but each piece seems strangely immune to two kinds of the magic I have at my disposal. (I didn't say so earlier, but I'm currently travelling with Lucca and Marle.) The top half of the body absorbs fire magic while the bottom half absorbs ice. (Lucca = Fire, Marle = Ice)
     There's nothing special for me to go into right here I'm afraid, so I'm going to just gloss past this boss battle with a "I won!" and keep going. (I've already taken too long, and what needed mention was done so there.) With the bridge clear and safe, we can now visit the southern area of the map here. Moving around the town there reveals that the Legendary Hero came from here. Turns out it is some kid named Tata. He seems to be looking for a legendary sword called the Masamune. This legendary blade can only be wielded by the Legendary Hero.
     While searching for information about all of this, I happened upon the area where Frog lives! He lives in the Cursed Forest in a hidden home of sorts. When you stumble inside, he appears and talks with the group. However, our talk is quite brief, and his attitude seems to change when we tell him about the King being hurt. Frog seemed worried, but then turns away from his and says there is nothing he could do anyways. I leave him there and search more around Tata's hometown. All the signs here seem to point to heading north to a place called Denadoro Mountains. The Legendary Hero went here to try and find the sword. I figure that's my only choice at this point, so that's where I go!
     As I'm entering the mountain, a kid comes running by us. He yells that the place is dangerous and advises we leave. As he says this, monsters come up and assault us. And... we handle them with no problems. Interesting mechanic ahead though! One of the various enemies that attacks us is a Goblin, and among them, there are some Goblins with giant hammers. Now, while they hold the hammer, they're pretty dang tough. Stronger attacks, strong group-wide attacks, and just generally take a lot less damage. Now the secret to these guys? You can burn their hammers with Fire-based attacks! Once you burn the hammers, these Goblins are no problem at all! (Good thing I brought Lucca along!) Also I switched in Robo at some point. It's possible to switch them whenever you're on the World Map.
     Where was I? Oh yeah! I'm climbing up Denadoro Mountain now. There's a huge amount of goblins, goblins with hammers, and bird ninjas to fight as you climb up. That's really all there is to this mountain climb. Tons and tons of battles. You find a few good items along the way, but nothing to go crazy about. So let's fast forward to the mysterious cave I find after the long climb!
     Inside the cave, there's a strange kid running about. I pass him by though to explore the far side of the cave and find the legendary Masamune! As I go to touch the sword, the kid jumps over and stops me. He reveals his name is Masa, and the kid who comes from behind the sword is named Mune. They're like the soul of the sword and inform us that we can't simply take the sword. We must be tested first!... IN BOSS BATTLE TIME!
     The two kids transform into some sort of goblin-like creatures with robes and attack us! There's not much to this part though. I choose one to attack and focus completely on him. After only a few attacks, the battle is ended because "Masa is useless without Mune". Woot!... is what I would be saying, but the two end up fusing together to create... MASAMUNE! BOSS BATTLE TIME ROUND TWO! Now this is where things get pretty tough.
     I didn't get a Game Over here, but I was fully pushed to my limits. There were a few points where I was having to focus entirely on healing the group and keeping them standing. So... what's the big deal here? It mostly comes down to large amounts of damage from every attack. Here's the attacks I remembered to get down.

• A tornado attack on a single person - Medium damage
• Punch attack one person - Medium damage
• Counter slash against attacking target - Medium damage
• A giant slam attack that has to charge but hits everybody! - Heavy damage

I think I missed an attack or two there, but that basically rounds it out. All of his attacks do quite a bit of damage, and the charging slam attack does like 100 or more damage to everybody! Most of my group only has like 250-300 HP each, so it's a pretty brutal attack to keep up with. After a lot of healing, a couple revives, and a lot of attacks, we finally defeated the mighty Masamune! 

     With their defeat, they acknowledge our ability and let us have the Masamune. As we take hold of the sword, it is quite real... also really broken. Turns out it was broken at some point in the past, and we are going to have to repair it now. We take the broken piece of the Masamune and quick travel off the mountain via Masa and Mune. (They give us a ride.) 

     My first stop is to figure out what happened to Tata after he ran off. Heading to his house shows that he immediately ran home. (He's a little kid after all.) Upon our arrival, we learn the truth that he wasn't actually the hero at all. He saw a "Frog guy" drop the medal at the cafe and then tried to go sell it. Everybody started referring to him as the hero, so he decided to keep it. However, after the scare at the mountain, he decided he didn't want it anymore and handed it over. Looks like we should pay Frog another visit.

     Back in the Cursed Forest, I revisit his little home and hand him the medal. He says he still can't face Magus though... not without the Masamune. As he moves over from his current spot, he reveals a chest waiting there. We open it up and find the other piece of the Masamune! Robo looks over the sword and notices there's an ancient script along the blade. He says it translates into... Riohclem? Then realizes it's backwards and spells Melchoir! This already sparks up the feeling of... Could it be that guy? Let's do Time Travel!

     We return to the present Medina Village and run off to see if our Melchoir is involved with the sword. We speak to him, and thus the tale is extended. He says he can repair the sword, but it's going to require a material called the Dreamstone. He says it is a rare red stone that people once used as a money source. However, it doesn't exist in this time and day anywhere. Lucky for us, we can time travel. Back to the End of Time!

     Thankfully, the Old Man at the End of Time is able to tell us more about the Dreamstone. He tells us that the Dreamstone might be available in prehistoric times, so we finally get to hit the access point to 65,000,000 BC! This point in time was available on our first visit here, but now we actually NEED to go there. Off into the Gate I go! As we come out of that time's Gate, we find ourselves in the middle of a cliff... and we fall straight to the ground. Landing down below, we're immediately attacked by some strange giant reptiles. We fight them off pretty quickly but more and more start to appear around us. Things don't look good when... VIDEO CUTSCENE!

     There's a lady going around and beating up all these reptiles (which look like tiny T-rexs in the video). As the video ends, she chases off a group of these "Reptites" (what they seem to be called), but we have to fight the remainder. We clear off this group just as quickly as the first. Then the strange lady comes back and appears to be all over Crono. She introduces herself as Ayla.

She tells them that she likes Crono because he is strong. She also says that about Marle. She comments on Robo as well despite being absolutely clueless as to what he is. Regardless, she seems to greatly respect our strength. 

     With all those Reptites dispatched, she invites us to her village. Thus we follow this strange lady to a random village!... In hopes that this also leads to the Dreamstone as well. We have to fight our way past several dinosaurs as we leave this little valley we landed in though. They're all fairly tough, so it's probably good I didn't come here sooner.

     Her village is just north of where we came in, so we quickly find her and get the party started! It turns out that the Dreamstone is here at the village. Ayla has it. She says the owner of the stone denotes who is the strongest in their village. Ayla offers to let Crono have it, but he'll have to defeat her!... in a soup drinking contest. (Probably a regular drinking contest in Japan. Thanks silly American censorship!) It's just button mashing, so I manage to get through it quicklyi and easily. With my victory, she hands over the Dreamstone. After that though, the group passes out right there. When they wake up... oh crap.

     The Gate Key is missing! There are footprints all around us as well, and it seems that the Reptites may be the culprits here. Going around the village and talking with the people points us towards an area south of here called the Forest Maze. We've got quite some challenge ahead of us I figure, so I think it's about time to cut the post here. 

     I know it's awful sudden, but this post is pretty long as is. On top of that, I'm kinda late in my release of it. Overall, it's a decent stopping point. Pardon the lateness of this release, but certainly look forward to another release soon! I'll be sure to satisfy with another great log of my journey through Chrono Trigger. Thanks for reading, and look forward to our travels throughout time and past times and future times!

Ending Point - 65,000,000 BC
Current Party -

• Crono - Level 17
• Ayla - Level 18
• Robo - Level 17

Other Party Members -

• Lucca - Level 16
• Marle - Level 16

Goals Accomplished - Broke out of prison. Helped some people of the future. Gained a new party member, Robo. Learned about Lavos and his impact on the world. Traveled throughout time learning how to get at Lavos. Learned about the Legendary Hero in 600 AD as well as the Masamune.
Next Goals - Chase after the Reptites and retrieve the Gate Key. Use the Dreamstone to repair the Masamune. Stop Magus. Defeat Lavos and save the world!

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

News Post! (9/10/2014)

I'm just here to make a quick post to advertise something. It won't be a great advertisement, but the word of this project needs to be spread!... cause I believe in it.

The Players' Score - A Video Game Documentary

Now, I don't know your feelings on Kickstarter (my own feelings are in the grey really), but this is definitely one worth supporting if you love video game music like I do.

As of right now, they still haven't met their goal. I've already pledged for the documentary bluray and soundtrack. It could really use a boost right now, and it'd be great to see this succeed considering all the great bands that are listed on it.

So take a chance on this and give today!
(If you don't trust Kickstarter.... no blame or hard feelings.)
((Also... No, this doesn't count as my post for the week. That's coming soon, but it might be close.))

~May the Crystals Guide Me~

Time Checkpoint I - The Beginning

Game - Chrono Trigger, Time Checkpoint I
Hours Played/Hours Total - 2 hrs / 2 hrs
Starting Point - The Beginning of the Game.
Current Goal - Begin Chrono Trigger. Make some progress. Save the world most likely.

What Happened - And so it finally begins! A new age of Recurring Fantasy begins with the secret shame... The secret shame that I've never fully played through or beat Chrono Trigger. I KNOW! It's crazy to hear/say it, but it is very true. Thus, I shall start here and now... and finish this timeless, classic RPG.
     Before I start, I'll cover the minor detail you might be wondering. I'm playing this game on my PS3 via the PlayStation Classics copy of Chrono Trigger (AKA it's the PS1 version). It's cheaper than trying to purchase a Super Nintendo copy, and it's faster than finding the Nintendo DS version of it. Also... I've owned it like this for quite some time. Just makes the starting and playing process easier, ya know? Anyways! Without further ado, I begin the journey into.... CHRONO TRIGGER!
     Starting at the beginning...I get to name my character! It's the main guy here, and as usual, I'm going with the built-in name. In this case, it's Crono. (In the spirit of livening up posts, going to try and throw in some art where I can.)

Then we head into a nice and lovely 2D cutscene opening! There are birds. There is a boat. Then some sorta fair-looking place with balloons and fireworks. I miss the simplicity these older games offer sometimes...
     Now, I'm in a house, and Crono is being woken up by his mother. She reminds him that the Millennial Fair was today and that his inventor friend, named Lucca, invited him to see her new invention there. Before leaving, I talked to his mother again, and she supplies me with Crono's allowance of 200 gold. Now it's off to Leene Square for the fair!
     Upon leaving the house, I'm face-to-face with the world map. It's an interesting site to see. I can't really describe it accurately, so I'll throw up a screenshot of it instead.

It's nothing necessarily new, but it's got a nice style to it. Your character isn't this huge block walking across a grid. You are free to move and explore the world as it is. It's a nice change of pace from how most of the Final Fantasy games did it. Anyways... ON TO THE FAIR!
     I go inside the fair, and it seems pretty straightforward here. There are booths with little mini-games. (Guessing the outcome of a race, the ol' strength test to strike the bell, and a few others.) You earn Silver Points and use them to do... something. I haven't figure that out yet. I hit up a few of the shops and stock up on a few healing items. (Thank you for being super cheap and affordable! 50 HP potions and status healing potions for 10 gold apiece.)
     As I'm exploring the north half of the fair, I bump into a girl. This causes her to drop a pendant. She starts looking around for it, so I go pick it up and hand it to her. She thanks me and then asks a favor. Says she's from out of town and could use a guide around the fair. I agree, and she tells me her name is Marle.

Time to explore the fair more! I find a girl's cat for her, drink a lot of soda, fight a robot that sings, and rake in the Silver Points.
     But what do those Silver Points do? Well... lots of things! (Okay two things but roll with me here.) You can trade off your Silver Points for money (10 points for 50 gold), or you can go to the front of the fair and play a special mini-game with unique prizes. Among the prizes, I earned a stuffed toy and a Chrono clone. There's a third mini-game to beat, but it required 80 silver points. I ran out of patience and figured it was time to move on.
     At some point, an announcement let me know that Lucca's invention was ready, so I leave the rest of the fair to continue the story. Lucca's invention turns out to be a teleportation machine. Nobody wants to volunteer to try it out though, so Crono gets volunteered instead! I step inside, and I'm teleported like fifteen feet. Wooooo. Marle decides that looks fun and decides to give it a shot. Of course, that's when disaster strikes. Her pendant from before starts to glow, and as she spins around to teleport, a giant blue warp hole opens up. She's sucked inside as her pendant is left behind.
     Lucca and her father start freaking out at the disappearance and aren't sure what to do. As Crono though, I get to grab the pendant and volunteer going after her. They quickly reactivate the machine, and I'm pulled through the same warp hole into... a random forest? Things would be going well right now if not for the group of blue monsters that just showed up. It's battle time!
     The game has adopted the Active Time Battle system, but it works a bit differently than the Final Fantasy style. Rather than the screen flashing, going black, or glass breaking, the battle simply takes place in the environment! It's pretty cool looking and smart if you ask me. Enemies are able to move around, and positioning plays a part. You don't have a direct way to move your characters though, but they always take up their position when the fight starts.
     Aside from that, the battles go pretty much the same. You have a gauge that slowly fills up over time based on character speed. You can attack enemies, use items, use techs, and such. (I'll get more into Techs here in a bit.) When the game first started, it asked if I wanted to do Active or Wait style of battle. Active means the battle is always going with no pause (unless you actually pause), or you can set it to Wait where the battle pauses during menu selections.
     With that explained, I quickly fight off the Blue Imps (that's what they are) and proceed to explore my new forest location. I go through a few more battles before I leave this location to find the world map... strangely familiar. It's a dead ringer for the world map of where I was, but it's missing the fairgrounds. I figure to explore the few houses that are still around, and things point to a change in time but not a change in place. One person straight up says this is 600 AD. Thus... it's time travel.
     Exploring the world doesn't reveal too much at the moment. There's some forest and a few buildings. West of that is a church-like structure and a castle. Going to the church reveals nothing, so I head up to the castle instead. Getting to it requires going through a small forest, but that goes easy enough. I even gain some experience along the way including Tech Points. After a few fights here, I suddenly learn the Cyclone tech ability. Thus... it hits me what the Tech Points are. You see, rather than gaining abilities as you level up, your abilities are on a separate system that uses earned Tech Points to slowly learn more and more techs. Cyclone seems pretty basic and simply spins around and hits enemies in a small area.
     Enough about that though, time to find out what this castle is about. As soon as I enter though, the soldiers here start giving me a bit of grief. Things don't look well until a woman shows up and informs me that I'm her friend and they're to leave me alone. The woman, identified as Queen Leene, does look somewhat familiar. I head further into the castle and talk with a few people. They mention recently finding Queen Leene, and it seems she wishes to speak with me. I head upstairs and turns out it's Marle. She's very happy to see that I came for her (despite us knowing each other all of like twenty minutes), but then.. she suddenly disappears into thin air.
     Huh... I head back downstairs and run into Lucca out of nowhere. Skipping past how she got here, she informs me that Marle was actually Princess Nadia from our time. Crono (who doesn't talk) seems to pass on that she suddenly disappeared just a moment ago. Lucca goes into the basic time travel problem involving descendants and such. Marle is a descendant of this time's Queen Leene. The actual Queen Leene was kidnapped and rescued at this time, but with Marle being mistaken for her, they stopped the search and never found her. Thus... Marle would disappear from existence.
     With this in mind, Lucca suggests we go out and find Queen Leene ourselves. Hopefully doing that will bring Marle back. Lucca joins the party!

With Lucca on board, it's time to go find this Queen Leene and restore the timeline! I rest at the Knight's Quarters really quick to regain my health, but then it's out into the world. A journey through the forest reveals Lucca is armed with a gun, and she quickly learns the Flame Toss tech. Upon learning that, I also gain the Dual Tech Fire Whirl.
     And thus, the simplistic Tech system jumps up to be incredibly awesome. Basically, as you gain more characters and Techs, it's possible for them to team up and combo their Techs into one super powerful ability. Fire Whirl simply sets the Cyclone on fire, but it does an impressive amount of extra damage versus doing each attack separately. Keep in mind, it does use the same amount of MP and requires both character's gauges are full. Regardless, it's generally worth waiting for because the outcome is amazing.
     Back to the game at hand, I run back to the town to visit the shop. Buy a few items here, and then back out to the only other place available at this time... That random church. Inside of the church is a pile of very suspicious talking nuns. We head to the front of the church and find a mysterious hair pin. Lucca identifies it as having the royal insignia, and then the suspicious nuns come to us and fit into their suspicious part even more. They burst into flames and reveal themselves as monsters!
     Somehow, a bunch of Naga-ettes (that's what they're named) were disguised as humans. With the use of my Dual Tech and a few good hits, they're down and out for the count. Lucca heads forward as things look okay.. but then they aren't. A Naga-ette drops out of nowhere and grabs her. Then a large frog man appears and slays the Naga-ette. He seems to be here to save Queen Leene as well and offers his assistance. Lucca doesn't seem to like frogs, but she figures she can push pass that since we need the help. Huzzah. (Strangely enough though, it did give me the option to decline his help. Not that I would.)
     Our newest teammate is a frogman who goes by the name... Frog.

Frog suggests we look around for a secret entrance. This proves to be pretty dang easy since there's nothing to examine here other than a large organ. I go up, play the organ, and magical door appears from nowhere! We head inside to explore the secret area and hopefully find the Queen. Now... the next portion of this is going to take a pretty big jump because there's not much to say here. There were a lot of monsters back here, some funny bits found, and more monsters disguised as humans. Also a statue to someone called Magus that they were worshiping more or less. That said and done, I did a lot of fighting and learned a few new Techs along the way.
     The biggest thing to gleam is that there's a monster behind all this called Yakra. He kidnapped the Queen, and he even replaced the royal chancellor with a disguised monster. (Turns out to be him.) After lots of the fighting, I find myself in the final room. It seems to be occupied by Queen Leene and the Chancellor?!? The Queen immediately recognizes Frog, and he tells her to stand back as we take care of business. The Chancellor steps forward and reveals his true form as a... giant yellow bear/slug/bull combo.
     Guess what? It's... BOSS BATTLE TIME! (Feels good.) Since it's a first boss and all, Yakra is pretty simple here. He's got a small group of attacks, and he's pretty easy overall. The main ability I made use of here was the Dual Tech X-Strike. Did quite a bit of damage, but Yakra tended to strike with one of his specials everytime I used it. (Dunno if it's a counter attack or what activates it.) He bounces around the room and strikes all three characters for minor damage. Even at half health, it wasn't much to worry about. Beyond that, just kept everybody up on health and strike at him where I can. Only attack worth noting was this spike strike that did a pretty good chunk, but even then, it wasn't something to get scared about.
     With Yakra's defeat, it's time to get the Queen back to the castle. Before going though, I open up the few chests lying around. One's just a normal item. The second one actually contained the REAL chancellor within it. He comes with us of course. One quick trip to the castle later, and everybody's happy!... except Frog. It seems he feels disgraced that he let the queen get kidnapped in the first place. He takes his leave now, and... we're forgetting something.
     Oh! Marle! Lucca suggests we check the last location she was in, so I run upstairs. Just as I enter the Queen's room, Marle reappears in front of us. She isn't sure where she was or what happened, but she's glad to be back. Lucca reveals that we know her true identity as Princess Nadia. Marle apologizes and says that she didn't think Crono would have treated her the same if he'd known. (I said that wasn't true, and she thought that was soo nice of him.) Problems are solved, time is correct, but... how do we get back?
     There's not really any clues of where to go or what to do, but I figure the best bet involves where I dropped in at. I head back to the forest, and there's a funny blue spot in the area I first came into. Lucca shows off her scientific genius and pulls out something she just made... THE GATE KEY! She's identified the blue hole/warp hole from earlier as a Gate. She figures these Gates are time warp holes that connect specific spots in different eras of time. With that said, she uses the Gate Key to open it up and send us home.
     We come back out at the Millennial Fair, and it seems that everything here is normal. Lucca apologizes for the incident, but Marle doesn't seem to care. She claims that she had fun and made friends in the process. So we're all good. Marle invites them both to the caslte, but Lucca has other things to do. Thus, Crono gets the job of escorting her home. Time to head to the castle in this time and find out what horrible event will befall me!... in the next post.
     Yes, that's right. I'm ending the first post right here. Why? I'm trying to get myself on a good schedule of posting at least once a week. For the next couple weeks, that's going to be Chrono Trigger updates. Figure I play the game one day and take notes while using my second day off to actually write said post. Pardon the shortchange this time, but I promise more next week. And thus the end comes!

Ending Point - 1,000 AD
Current Party

• Crono - Level 7
• Marle - Level 6

Goals Accomplished - Started the game. Played at the Millennial Fair. Went back in time to save Marle Saved Queen Leene from Yakra. Saved Marle. Returned to current time. (1000 AD)
Next Goals - Return Marle home and find out what problems occur at that point.

*Images taken/borrowed/whatever term you prefer from Creative Uncut.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~