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Picking Chrono Trigger Clean

Posted by Nadia Oxford

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


+ DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT

Comments

Demaar said:

Yeah, I'd say market saturation of games in general is to blame. You just can't justify spending 100+ hours on a game anymore. I think this is a pretty recent change though. I swear, I spent like 200 hours in FF10 min/maxing every character to fight all the optional Dark Aeon bosses and Penance. FF12 I did maybe 5 or 6 of the dozens of optional hunts, and I enjoyed FF12's game mechanics FAR MORE than FF10s.

December 6, 2008 2:05 AM

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia's prized possession is a certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

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