Mackey just reminded me of something. Well, Mackey reminds me of a lot of things, primarily of when I was a sexy leopardess who drove across Canada, solving cold murder cases. Let's keep this in the context of games, though. Mackey's post reminded me of a different age of gaming, when we used to pull apart games like so much shredded pork in hopes of squeezing just ten more minutes of gameplay from the battered cartridge.
Oh, to find one more secret. Oh, to tie up that loose end.
The Internet in 1995 was polluted with gaming "secrets" like the exact rain dance you needed to perform in order to resurrect General Leo in Final Fantasy VI. And Schala could be revived in Chrono Trigger, of course. All you had to do was the hokey pokey while waving a chicken over your head.
I performed a lot of these crazy rituals. I was desperate to find Schala. I thought the key lay in the Last Village--more specifically, in Janus' chatty purple cat, Alfador. I thought Alfador could lead me to the answers. He didn't, and I was very sad.
Why were we so desperate to make these connections back then? Granted, the race to find Schala in Chrono Trigger could partially be blamed on a mistranslated line that made it seem as if she was alive and suffering in the bowels of the Mammon Machine. Which, in turn, lay in the bowels of the ocean (I'll grab any excuse to write the word 'bowels').
Even so, it should have quickly become obvious that Schala would not re-appear until Chrono Cross. What else drove us to do crazy in-game shit?
I think part of our insanity could be credited to the infrequent release of Square's games back then. Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI were, for many of us, early instances of quality storytelling in games. For some reason, we could accept loopholes and unanswered questions in books, but we refused to accept as much in video games until we licked every last pixel for clues.
Price may have been a factor as well. I remember dishing out near a hundred bucks each for Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. I needed to get everything out of them, partially because a quality RPG experience was such a rarity in those days and partially because I refused to believe a that a hundred dollar game like Chrono Trigger would dare leave such an important plot point unresolved.
Well, now it looks as if Chrono Trigger DS has tied up that loose end. Now all that remains is to go back in time and tell my fifteen year-old-self to chill out.
Related Links:
The Best Chrono Trigger Ending
The Weakest Link: Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross
WTFriday: The Chrono Trigger Anime