Get Played - We Play, You Play: Chrono Trigger

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Matt, Heather and Nick talk about the 1995 JRPG masterpiece, Chrono Trigger. They talk about how it holds up in 2024, Matt's first time through the game, how it all came together and so much more but also not nearly enough. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com. Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com. Check out our Anime watch-along podcast Get Anime'd and our complete Get Played, How Did This Get Played? and Premium DLC back catalogue only on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. Hey buddy! This week we're discussing Chrono Trigger, which has 12 canonical endings. 13 if you count the DS. And as such, in tribute to this game, we're gonna start the show with 12 different intros. Here we go. One, hey buddy, notice anything different about me? Nick, what's different about you?

Ribbit. You're a frog in this one? I'm a frog man. Nick's a frog man. Call me frog now. Okay, frog wyger. Two, hey guys, you're not gonna believe it. I invented this new thing.

It allows you not to travel through time, but through space. Whoa, cool. It's called a car. I don't believe you. There's no way you can travel through physical space. What the hell are you talking about? You can travel through physical space.

No, this is bullshit. Three. I guess I give, I don't know, Popeyes five forks or something. Wow five forks for Popeyes Hey everybody welcome to the show I just want you to know that today's episode of Chrono Trigger is brought to you in part by Mitsubishi Mitsubishi is the obvious choice Five wait five I got one Notice anything different about me?

Wow, hey! Matt, you're a frog? I'm a frog in this one. Matt's a frog! Frog Appadaka? That's right. Wow, okay. You know what it works for you, honestly. Ribbit. I like you saying ribbit. Anybody got any flies?

Six! This is the bad intro. We're being bad You got the bad intro the future could not be altered Guys bad news ranch died. Oh god However, I have a device this egg which can bring her back won't actually be her It will be a version of her just before the event. Okay. Okay, great.

Uh, do you want me to use it? Yeah, use it. Alright, here we go. Ranch is back! Nooooo! Hahahaha! Eight! Uh, hey guys!

Uh, you know what's crazy about video games? Know what? Uh, they can be anything. Yeah. Your friend, your mom, your dad. No, Doug Ed, it can't, not everything can be a video game. It can be anything. So I just want to say like video games, are they our lovers or are they our politicians?

They can be anything at all. Uh, just so remember that here an intro number eight Hey, this is pretty crazy all three of us are frogs now Art thou a frog I talk in the old timey way Ribbit this is the frog show. Let's get frog Ten Guys I got a new robot. Oh wow what his name is what is it? Robo what the fuck his name is Robo. He's a robot some fucking thought into this

This is his fights name is Robo. You're disrespecting my friend. Nick, that's not a Nick. Like your name isn't Humu, cause you're a human. Maybe it could be. That would suck. And you would go through life ashamed. I am bummed out by this.

And put some fucking pants on. No way, this Robo does not wear pants. 11. Can I just get real for a second? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah You know this Lavos guy. Yeah, it's like Gonna bring forth the end of time as it were. Yeah, you know, I talked to him Yeah, he's not that bad a guy like I talked to I talked to Lavos and he's kind of just like a chill guy

I call him the late to Lavos and he's kind of just like a chill guy. I call him the late great Lavos. Wonderful guy came up to me backstage, tears in his eyes, thanked me. The beautiful Zeal. You know, with as much like actual attention as we put into the show, because we've recorded this intro after we've recorded the show,

it really misrepresents what's about to come. -♪ Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Everyone gets mad about it. Do a different intro, please. Oh wait am I too late? Is this the last one? This is the last one! Hey Nick maybe instead of going back to your future why don't you go straight to hell? He's just Made the noises with your mouth. Just face work. Branch is going to put it in! It's just... ...rivet. We team up a cave woman with a robot and hang out at the end of time as we play You Play JRPG Classic Chrono Trigger, this week on Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello everyone. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the premiere of Video Game Podcast, where this week's episode is our monthly, non-monthly, some monthly. Periodical.

Irregular. Semi-regular. Our irregular feature, We Play, You Play, where for the last month we've been telling you it's time to play Chrono Trigger. We've got a lot of thoughts about it today, but guys, how you doing? I'm doing great, because as you said up top, good games, bad games, every game being in between. We're talking a good game today. But guys, how you doing? I'm doing great because you know, as you said up top, good games, bad games, every game being in between. We're talking a good game today. We're talking one of my favorite games ever. We're talking Consensus, one of the best games ever made. What a hoot that is.

This is my first time playing it. This is Matt's first time. And so that's part of the fun of this too. We get to see his impressions. I won't say it. I'm excited because as you can see from the table, I brought a couple versions of Chrono Trigger with me to work today, in part because I wanna read the differences between the two back boxes on the Super Nintendo and the DS version, because I think that it speaks

to the legacy of the game, but also because there's been some chatter. There's been some warbling on our Discord, which is discord.gg slash get played, about which. Yeah, join if you want to also complain. Which version of Chrono Trigger looks the best. And so I brought a couple versions so that we could, Which version of Chrono Trigger looks the best? And so I brought a couple versions so that we could, so it wasn't just me.

So it's not just me mouthing off. Which you're known to do. Which I'm known to do. Talking is combat, I've said it before. And mouthing off is defense. Let me say, as someone who worked on the game, Sopranos Road to Respect, when you're in verbal combat, you gotta choose between tough and smooth.

Those are your two options. I like smooth. Smooth is... Tough can work though. There has to be a third option because... Oh no, it's tough or smooth, it's a binary. I've never been either. I also wanna make it clear. This is a show.

We're not journalists. We're enthusiasts. We just like games. Yeah. That's a really good way of putting it. I love not being a journalist because I don't have to like do due diligence or anything and just say whatever the fuck.

I don't have to have a code, baby. I can just go off. Want to bribe me? Let's go. Yeah, now, accepting bribes. I'm open for bribes. Ethics policy, pashaw. Leave that for triple click.

Yeah, they're smart and good. I feel like we could update our about to just a gaming enthusiast podcast. Yeah, that is good. That is really really good That's kind of insane that we haven't landed on that in five years of doing it. What is our description? I haven't looked at it. Two dogshit idiots and a third idiot Wait, who's who? Talk about video games. I don't think we're the third guy.

It depends on what day it is, you know, it's sort of variable. That being said, we do have, you know, we'll try and be as accurate as possible, but if we're not, then go ahead and join that Discord and yell at us. Yeah, and you mouth off. Yeah.

I'm excited to talk about this. We're not a news podcast, partly because we're not journalists, but I do feel like we should at least touch on Gamescom, which just happened as of this recording, basically. We're kind of in the immediate aftermath. This will be after the weekend when this episode releases.

Anything in particular that catches anyone's eye? For me, it's the Diablo 4 expansion, Vessel of Hatred, and then Civilization 7 having an official date for that. It's interesting because they're both similar games in the sense that they're franchises for me, franchises that I've been a fan of since the first entry that I played all of and that usually are not – they require some tinkering on initial release and it's not until they land on some expansions and some patches that they – some updates until they really come into their own.

That's certainly been the case with Diablo 4 which has gotten better and then I'm very excited for this Vessel of Hatred expansion because I think really you know that they'll really have everything locked down by now That's usually the pattern civilization 7 the same sort of thing I expect there to be an expansion or two before it really hits its stride, but I am excited just for a new sieve I've never really I Downloaded sieve six for the switch. Yeah, and I think I played it for like ten minutes and it was like there's just so much going on Just like I just couldn't really wrap my head around it. So I just like stopped playing it I got it on like deep discount

But I'm interested. I would like to be a civ guy like it seems like a good type of game boy That's a tough guy because that's like just like it's such a good type of game. Boy, that's a tough guy. Cause that's like just such a huge block of time. There's civilization guys who were just like, that's their game. They just play those games or they just play those, those, you know, Forex grand strategy games. It's a lot. I tried to be a Crusader Kings guy for a little bit

and I was just, I can't do this. I can't commit to this. Is that the one with the big titted lady and the ads? No, I think you're thinking of like, you're thinking of all those predatory mobile games. Yeah. Or a specific tab on the Steam store. Crusader Kings, and it's like,

oh yeah, raid my dungeon, and then it's just like really, really boring looking footage of like isometric. Yes, it's all, this is mobile game, the mobile game ad ecosystem is fascinating because it's like, there was that for a while, there was the big titty games that would like trick you into playing some bad pay to win RTS.

And then there were, now what's happening is, I don't know if you've seen these, but they're ads for- You've seen this, you hear about this? You guys seen this, you hear about this? It's crazy. So, come on, come on, Jay. So, anyway, uh, the, like, there's like a, it'll be like a shooter, like an auto-scrolling, auto-shooter game. And like, it'll be like just endless hordes coming, endless hordes of zombies or enemy, or you know, soldiers or whatever.

You're just mowing them down. And multiply them. Yes. Those games are also just like builder games. They just use that ad to get you to buy the game. And so now what's happened is that people will comment on those, this is fake, this isn't the actual game, the actual game is some whatever pay to win building game with cool downs or whatever.

And then, so now what's happened is there's a new version of the ad that someone playing the game and saying, people have been saying this game is fake, but let me tell you, it's real. This is the real game. I've seen this too. Those are also the same fucking bullshit.

So that's also, this is another layer to the lie. My favorite layer of the lie actually is, it is, it's quote unquote footage of somebody playing the game. They're not playing the fucking game. No, they're calling out They're like it's there There's narrating a video of the game being played as if they're playing it and it is The deeper you get into it the more predatory it becomes Yeah, it's like the the complicit this at which that you're performing this this task is It's horrid to me, but there's there was a generation of these that we skipped because it was

It's that now and it was the the camera what the previous one was there was this interim Period where oh it was like big titty lady. Yes the first version of it There was an interim period where it was like, my wife fuckin' smells. And it was like, my wife's fuckin' stinky. Or like, oh gross, she has armpit hair, my wife fuckin' stinks. Clean my wife.

There would be a bunch of games where it would be like, it would show someone in some horrible situation. Do you remember that, like some sort of desperate thing where it would be like a pregnant woman freezing in a cold apartment and she'd have to burn a fire and then she'd eventually accidentally burn herself with acid or whatever. It was just like.

It also would be like a pregnant woman in a kitchen complaining and then a hot woman outside and it would be like, which way are you gonna go? That's right. Or like, you know, there's like a, in a kitchen complaining and then a hot woman outside and it would be like, which way are you gonna go? Yeah. Or like, you know, there's like a, there's some lever that will move gold coins to you or into lava and you have to be careful which one you pick.

But like, these games are just not. Yeah, and they're also, so a lot of them don't exist, but then they're also like, they present someone playing the game badly so that you're like I could play this fucking Figure this only people with a 180 IQ can solve this it's like connecting two dots across like a circle Jesus Games calm One of the big ones, I mean, I am excited about this Indiana Jones game.

I think it looks pretty cool just like as a- Yeah, sure, why not? Adventure game. I think that's pretty fun. We've talked about this before on the show, but the unlicensed John Williams track from, I think the original Indiana Jones Atari game, or maybe it was NES,

where they couldn't use the entire theme. I hope that it, I hope that's what's happened again. That like that original game that went bum ba dum bum, bum ba dum bum. Bum ba dum bum, bum ba bum bum. That's- It's just looping four bars endlessly, yeah. It did, they did, Xbox announced that it will be coming to PlayStation in December of

The next the following year, I believe 2025 of 2025 Because I think the game comes out in October of this year And I just am very curious What Xbox thinks they're doing? But I can't dig into it and I won't ever know I guess because as we said before I'm very curious what Xbox thinks they're doing, but I can't dig into it and I won't ever know, I guess, because as we said before, I'm not a journalist. Yeah. But outsider looking in,

they're playing like 10D chess, they must be. It's an odd strategy. Yeah. They've gone all in on game pass, but they're also like, well, we've acquired these huge third party, formerly third party studios and we're now like, you know, having them make content that's exclusive for us, but also we have to make sure it's not actually exclusive because we're both worried about antitrust. And there's an element of something like Starfield, they probably took a bath on because they

got so few actual sales out of it. And it's just like, well, maybe probably putting this indie game out on multi-platform makes more financial success versus just using it as a driver for Game Pass subscriptions. But I don't know fucking how. What do we think the chances are? Like if we were to, I'm gonna take a bet here on the podcast that somebody in the future can come back and listen to. What do we think the odds are that the next generation

is only Sony and Nintendo hardware with Xbox being a Netflix style subscription service available on both platforms? I think there's also a possibility that we just get away with what we're used to as hardware. Like we basically have what we have with streaming streaming TV, which is unfortunately, you know, like whatever you may just use what's internal to your Samsung TV to stream media or you've got an Apple, Apple TV, you've got a Roku, you got a fire stick. Like I think there might be a version where there's real

no physical hardware that you're using and everything server side. You could subscribe to PlayStation. That's certainly what they would want. Yeah. Because then you have even less control, but I mean, that sucks. It looks like shit and it's hard to play. It's awful and it requires a constant internet connection. because then you have even less control, but I mean, that sucks. I don't know.

But it looks like shit and it's hard to play. It plays like shit, it sucks, yeah, it's awful. And it requires a constant internet connection. This is the one thing I will say. We're talking about the separately off pod. I have been, like as someone who's primarily a PC gamer and has been PC gaming for a long time, like I am just still amazed and staggered

by the durability of PC gaming. I keep expecting this to go away. It's just like the hardware is so expensive. You're paying such a premium. And then, you know, unless you're like a really discerning like person who's into graphical fidelity or frame rate, you probably maybe aren't gonna notice the difference between a PlayStation 5 and an Xbox Series X and a mid-range gaming

PC. And it's much easier and it's much more, you know, and it's cheaper. But like still, there's just so many people want a PC game because you actually have some control over your ecosystem and there's so much more software available, I guess. I don't know what it is exactly, but that at least is encouraging. I think PC gaming will still be around. I would like to be more into PC gaming, but the many variables within the PC are scary to me. Yeah, shit just goes wrong and it's frustrating.

Yeah, I would be super into PC gaming if just once in my life I had loaded up a game and it worked. Just like immediately? For the small, like every single time I use my, what is that thing called? The Valve VR thing, whatever the fuck that's called. Every single time I use it, even if I haven't changed anything on my PC since I used it last, I will have some fucking error.

And I'm like, why? Why? Why is this the case? I'm not an idiot. I'm the dog shit idiot. I am. And I'm just like, that's my big problem with PCs actually is that they're not for me. Anyway, I give it-

Valve index is what it's called. There it is. That's what I thought it was, but I was like, no, that's the handheld thing is the index. But no, the index's the handheld thing is the index, but I don't know. The index is the VR thing. I give it higher than 50-50 odds. What specifically is your prediction? In the future, a Chrono Trigger-esque time traveler would step back into the studio and

assert whether you were right or wrong based on the events that transpire. I think there is a 65 to 70% chance that Microsoft exits the hardware side of consoles and offers Xbox Game Pass, like Netflix, on Sony devices and on Nintendo devices. Yeah, I mean, I think they would love to have it on those devices right now. I think actually the barrier there is probably Sony and Nintendo, not Microsoft,

but I don't know. I mean, as far as other games announced at Gamescom, nothing really too interesting to me. I'm not really seeing that much. The more exciting thing, I don't know if Heather, you wanna talk about this for a second. I'm not really seeing that much the More exciting thing. I don't know if Heather you want to talk about this for a second I'll talk about is the the TV show that was announced called secret level for Amazon. Yeah, talk about it secret level is a Multi IP

original animated series from from the makers of Love, Death and Robots. It is a extremely high fidelity CG experience where you get to see IP like God of War, Mega Man, Armored Corps and the Outer Worlds get these short stories and the outer worlds get these short stories all mashed together in a single release platform.

It's not like Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The things aren't interacting with one another. You get like a Mega Man story. You get like a Armored Corps story, which apparently stars Keanu Reeves. Yeah, it's like Love, Death, and Robots was an anthology show. They were just like a bunch of different

self-contained episodes. And I guess the reason Matt is teeing me up for this is that I wrote one of these. Yes. A few years ago, I was approached to contribute to the project. They told me what game I was covering and maybe astute listeners will look back

and be like Oh, I remember when she said she was playing the Outer Worlds and that's when I was writing Yeah, the Outer Worlds segment for secret level I had not been involved in the production or post-production process in part because I'm not an animator and also I was more of a hired gun I would have loved to have contributed more stories and more episodes, but my schedule just wouldn't permit it. It was my love of gaming that was like,

okay, yeah, I'll work until like three in the morning to be able to work on this. I am really happy with what I got to produce, which was a collaboration with another writer who wrote the story, and then I adapted it, which was a really cool process. And yeah, I couldn't, I mean, I've never seen something I've written in like fucking CG.

Like it feels like a totally expensive, like you never expect to see somebody that you created or like a physical element of their outfit even, in CG looking like a fucking Final Fantasy cut scene. Yeah, that is wild. It was super wild. Have you seen your episode? I have not seen my episode.

I have not seen any other episodes. Wow. But I have seen the trailer now with everybody else and paused it on my dude and I was like, holy shit, that's my dude. And look, he's in the outfit. And I know why he's in that outfit and it means something to me.

And it was like, I don't know, that shit never gets old. That's right. I love that stuff so you didn't get to meet Mega Man or anything I did not I did not really I really enjoyed the outer worlds I mean especially like the storytelling of the game and and and and the narrative design and and you know I know outer worlds too is in development and that that looks that I think that'll be like a you know though though they'll really be able to dial it in with a sequel but

but I think I think it's a really cool world to get to play around in and I'm excited to see what you adapted. Yeah, I'm really excited too. It was a really neat collaborative process. I thought the story that I was given was an excellent story and then I thought I gave my own twist to it, as it were. I gave my own twist to it, as it were. And I know you can't say exactly what you worked on,

but for people who aren't familiar with the outer worlds, what it is, it's kind of basically the fallout in space. I mean, that's a simplification, but. Yeah, it's like all of these corpodystopian worlds like cyberpunk, like fallout, where there's a tongue in cheek cynicism and sadness to a world that also is trying to constantly sell you something, or where your worth is measured in your output.

I feel like that language is like a tropey thing that we've all experienced across different stories and mediums and it was really fun to play in that world. I'm so excited, I can't believe it. It looks really cool. Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, it's pretty neat, man. So please watch that.

But I guess also if you're a listener on this podcast, that would be in your wheelhouse. You'd be like, oh shit, there are all these different video game stories at like extremely high fidelity CG. I wanna see Mega Man looking like a Pixar character. That's cool. Yeah, and I see one of these,

this might be interesting to someone in the room, one of the series, one of the franchises they're adapting is Mary-Kate and Ashley's Sweet 16 license to drive? Wow, I wonder what's gonna happen there. So that's the one I had to turn down. And they weirdly didn't cast Mary-Kate or Ashley. Yes, yeah, yeah. What's nice also is that now that we're beyond

the sort of scope of the NDAs and stuff and this game has already come out and now the trailer's come out, is that I can say that they told me that Armored Corps was coming out years and years and years ago, and I was like, oh, fuck, oh my God, oh shit! But I couldn't do anything about it.

Like I just had to like sit there With with it in my brain for record six. She said to keep that under your hat. Yeah long before it was announced and now that it's Yeah, I'm I can't wait to see it Right now, we should talk about some video games we've been playing. It's time for What Are You Playing? What are you playing? What are you playing? What are you playing?

What are you playing? It's me, the Resident Evil Merchant. I'm here to ask you guys a question. Why you laughing? It's like, who else would it be? It's like, who else would it be? It's like, who else would it be? It's like, who else would it be?

It's like, who else would it be? It's like, who else would it be? It's like, who else would it be? It's like, who else would it be? It's me, the Resident Evil Merchant, and I'm here to ask you guys a question. Why you laughing? It's like, who else would it be? It's me. What? No, I mean, like, if you're new to the podcast, you might be like, who the fuck is this? But not as a listener. Yeah, you're right.

You're right. So, what you're saying is I should introduce a segment where it's like, it's what are you playing with a Resident Evil merchant? No. No, not that either. You expect people to know from my voice alone? I guess so, but I could be wrong.

It's hard to know. I think we usually acknowledge you with your presence as the Resident Evil merchant. So, you know. So I just do the intro and I- Well, no, I think you know whatever you want I like to I liked all the jazz you were playing today I thought that was great we're not paying extra for music though like we said I don't want any extra I don't want any extra I'm trying to bring my own

zhush but a couple weeks ago I said maybe we should have a theme song and I've been trying to learn Garage Band. It's tricky when you gotta like borrow a computer. That's tough. Borrowing a computer is a tough situation. Wait, I mean, just, this is one of those things where you say borrow a computer and what are you doing? Nick's obviously worried about his computer.

No, no, no, I wouldn't bother. I don't want his computer. So I had to drop. This thing's dropped up tight. I had to drop off my computer. Yeah Genius Bar because of all the water in it and so I've been borrowing computers like you know when you drop off your car to get a bodywork done. You get you get a loaner. You get a loaner. Right.

Right, so I've been borrowing people's computers at Starbucks or whatever, be like, hey, yeah, you just send an email, or working at the Mac store. Hard though, when you can't save your progress. Yeah, I feel like you probably, I mean, maybe you could get into the cloud or something like that, save it into a Google Doc,

but then you gotta worry about logging in and logging out every time. You can't, I don't you probably I mean maybe you could get into the cloud or something like that save it into a Google Doc But then you got to worry about logging in and logging out every time you can I don't think you can save a song in a duck Oh, that's a good point. I forgot you know you know you know I'm I'm I'm the dumb one here I'm I forgot you're working with GarageBand But let's say if you were working in GarageBand, and you had the session in a sort of Google Drive or a Dropbox you could save the the whole session to the cloud and then Download it again, but you'd have to just make sure that you uploaded it. The problem is I'm working with

titles Bitrate, you know, the title. So these files are massive. They're massive. They're massive. And I don't have the money to be able to afford a premium. That fidelity is worth it, though. Yeah, it is. It is. Because I want to make sure that all of my eyes are dotted and my teeth are crossed.

And if the song takes off, that I can release it to title. Right. Yeah. You want to have the highest quality version available, you know, you can always down res, if you will, downscale. I'm more just concerned about what the scenarios you're describing where it seems you're you're menacing strangers in coffee shops Use your long word. I mean, I think just like probably the implication as a as a you know, seven foot five hooded figure

Hulking over their shoulder asking to borrow their laptop. They're probably scared to say no D I think Nick's never heard of the words may I and please. I think that's possible but also Resident Evil Merchant, would you just do me a favor and just answer this honestly for a second? Yeah. How often, how many times a week are you saying the phrase give me that? How many? Yeah. No, I mean I do say it a lot, but usually the birds or a dog. You never know. Go after one of those ravens, they may have an item for you. They might have something.

I mean usually they grab my pen or my journal and I'm like, give me that. It's humiliating. You should be on a show. What? Like a curvy enthusiasm type show or something where they follow you around and see what kind of crazy? Situations you get into okay Is that still on the odds of that ended ended but lights you know? Just me just means as a point of reference. Yeah a curb your enthusiasm like Rez your enthusiasm is pretty good. It's not bad. I mean, you know, I could see it. No, I just could see it feeling a little bit samey over time, but I, you know, because I just don't know how many. What? Can you try saying this Resident Evil version? Pretty, pretty good. Pretty, pretty good.

I'll be your Leon. I'll be on the show too. I feel like I feel you'll volunteer to be on this on the TV show Matt that's really charitable of you. I'll be on the TV show. I feel like Nick took a dig at me What are you talking about? He said say me. Well, I just kind of feel like in the in the sense of like, you know What kind of experience could the Resident Evil experiences could the Resident Evil merchant have just wandering? I don't know how many episodes of Kirby or enthusiasm took place in a drain. I guess we're going into the Resident Evil world as opposed to our world. I go into all worlds.

I'm gender neutral. That's not what that means. That's not what that means! Hahahaha! Hahahaha! Hahahaha! Hahahaha! I was thinking more in like the Dark Tower sense, like there are other worlds than these. Yeah! Like I'm a multiverse sort of issue.

Yeah, alright. Anyway, what are you playing? Resident Evil Immersion, thanks so much for all that. I guess I'll talk about Elden Ring a little bit. So, uh, on my current playthrough, Resin Evil Merchant, thanks so much for all that. I guess I'll talk about Elden Ring a little bit. So on my current playthrough, I'm now over 100 hours. I have finished Fia's quest line, Dung Eater's quest line, Ronnie's quest line. I somehow let Gold Mask and Brother Corrin die, but I'm through crumbling through Missoula.

I just have a couple things left to do. And I'm still using the Great Sword, which is like the guts from Berserk Cloud from Final Fantasy VII weapon. I also upgraded the Great Star's mace, which has bleed and I applied the Krag Blade Ash rather, with the cold affinity. So I get just like a different sort of set of weapons

I'm using situationally. The one thing I will say is I'm curious how the two of you felt felt having played more of the game than me, having finished it and having dug into the DLC, which I barely tipped my toe into. I'm kind of having buyer's remorse on my strength build a little bit, like I think it's powerful, but I just kind of feel it's a little sluggish

and monotonous I feel like. Maybe just like the way I'm playing it or maybe just the largely colossal weapons I'm using. Are you not running around in a full panic when you're playing? No, no, you gotta keep moving, you know? I think what's nice about a full strength build with a colossal weapon is that it is a different cadence than other people's playthroughs.

Sure. So like, you can't, it's not enough to understand an enemy's attack pattern. You also have to absorb the amount of time it's going to take you to swing your fucking weapon. So it's almost like, it's not like, there's my opening attack. You have to be like, the opening is coming up,

I better start attacking now. And I found that to be a really satisfying loop. Yeah, I mean, look, it is fun when you really sort of like lock into the timing of it. It can also be that just like I've played the same way for so long that I'm kind of like, okay, I'm just kind of used to it at this point, ready to mix it up.

But all that said, I am still having so much fun with it. I'm so glad that the, I'm so grateful that the DLC came out because otherwise I would not have returned to this game and I'm just, I'm so happy that I'm actually like just finally going through all of it. A couple weeks ago, I said it was having less fun because of the mimic tier and so I just haven't used the mimic tier since, but I been using different spirit ashes and I do find that a lot of fun just because like again situationally I can use like archers or like the great shield guys or whatever.

You know just sort of like just having different options that feels like it has some gameplay variety while still using the spirit ashes because I think that's like inherent to the game and I feel like that's like inherent to the game. And I feel like that's like, you know, I understand people who don't want to use them, but I don't know. To me, it seems like the game is very much designed around that.

Nick, I also feel like part of the fun of Elden Ring, which maybe you aren't dabbling in because it seems like it's antithetical to your play style is invasion. And I feel like with a strength build, there is the fun of intimidation when you show up that maybe you don't get as much or as often when you walk in with a magic build. Yeah, I can see that. I mean, like, you know, I've dabbled with invasion a little bit.

I just like, I'm just, it's, I'm more interested in the single player side of things. Like, I get that that's like, you know, people like the PvP, but I just, the PvE is what I find so engaging about the game. I also have, but one thing I will say on the Spirit Ash side, I latched on to Latena, who is the albinarac or albinoric, however you say it.

She was the wolf friend. And so she's an NPC with her own story. It's tied to that secret medallion that gets you the consecrated snow field. But then she chooses to become a spirit ash and then she accompanies you. And she actually has like unique dialogue, you know, situationally, so it's like, it kind of felt like

I had a party member or a familiar with me and I kind of like that. And it's also, she's an archer, so it's a good fit for a melee character So that's been a lot of fun I'll also say just the combat has been so you know widely discussed and obviously a ton on this podcast But the storytelling is so rad in this like I felt like fears are incredibly compelling and and and just like you know They've it's all got this this this this melancholy about it. It's all got this kind of fatalism inherent to it.

It's all like, you know, ultimately, everything, everyone seems to kind of be headed towards a grim end, but there's things you can salvage along the way. The Millicent Quest, which is the one that extends all the way to the Hallow Tree, she has – you find her and she's dying of scarlet rot and she has one arm. And it's just like, this is so fucking, it's super interesting to see her like follow throughout the whole world and you end up back in the Hallow Tree and then you help her kill her four sisters.

Yeah. And then she just like, I'm gonna die here. It's just like, this is fucking, what happened? This is horrible. Yeah, I don't know anybody who is having like a good time in the land between maybe What's his name? Patches is having a blast

maybe the Muriel the the the Pope turtle yeah the turtle pope as long as you don't kill him. Doing alright Okay, so he looked at me, and I didn't I didn't kill him. Well you fucking murked Carlyle. Yeah you have to admit that it seems like something's- That's a different game! And she attacked me! Because you attacked so many other people before that. No I didn't! Massacred a village. Hold on, hold on, at no point did I attack anybody in this game. Never, never! This is- That's not what happened.

This is a lie paramount to the quality of one Donald Trump. It is not a lie. We don't need to relate again. My adventure began when they attacked me. And it was only because I looked in a box. Unbelievable. Seems like you shouldn't have looked in there. I didn't know that.

Next time you see a box, avert your eyes. What the fuck? Look, when you get your boot on someone's throat, you gotta explain you're just protecting yourself. That's not what happened. So here's the thing. So this brings me to, I am at Millennia, and I am finally here.

This is the big fucking boss that everyone's talking about. Oh, shit, here we fucking go. So obviously her attack patterns are a lot and I was expecting this. The thing I was not prepared for is her life steal, which is a really interesting thing to consider for a strength character. You can't just afford to trade with her.

Like you can't just like, well, okay, I've got like what you were saying earlier, Heather, like, well, I don't really have a window, but I can get a hit in here and I'll take some damage but I can I can heal up She gets health back from hitting you. So like there's no there's no benefit to that. You just end up in a neutral spot You're actually a slightly worse situation. She also like her attack waterfowl dance, which is the crazy one She goes up and she does a bunch of flips and shit like learning to dodge that has been It's it's it's's really, that's a challenging bit

of manipulating eye frames there. There's you really like, there's situations where you can just absolutely get blitzed by it. And it's also a thing where, because she has life steal, I found the Spirit Ashes not to be particularly helpful. Maybe at some point I'll pull the reserve shoot and bust out the mimic tear. I'm still being stubborn at this point, but like she can just, again, just like if I have the

great shield guys out there, it's like, okay, well they'll just tank a bunch of hits for me. She's just stealing life from all of them. And she's like, she's gaining health as I'm hitting her. And I'm just like, well, this is, there's no point in even having them out there. I do think there, and again, I haven't finished this yet. So what remains to be seen, I'm beating her yet, but I do think there's still at least a couple Sekiro fights I found more're, and again, I haven't finished this yet, so it remains to be seen. I haven't beaten her yet, but I do think there's still at least a couple Sekiro fights I found more challenging, like Isshin, who's the final boss, or Genichiro, but I'll render a final verdict when I finally put her in the ground. But one thing, I was watching guide videos.

Before I leave her in an unmarked grave. Yeah, I'm sending her to hell. I'm watching guide videos, and I'm looking at comments and people are like, like a lot of people complaining, like this is so ridiculous, other people get good, whatever. It's the same sort of shit you'd always expect. But there was a thing, someone replied to click-thru, and someone was like,

look, it's an optional end game boss. Like it should be very challenging. And I'm just like, wait, this is optional? Like everyone is like, wait, I gotta fucking kill Millennia. Millennia is so hard, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna beat Millennia? It's like, it's completely optional. It doesn't even necessarily inform the end game, right?

It's just like a purely like, it's like a bonus area. It's like beating Emerald Weapon in Final Fantasy VII, but everyone feels it's part of the experience you have to do it. I don't know, it's really interesting. I'm gonna do it, but I'm just like, that really was an interesting way to view it. But then again, I guess a lot of chronic sugar is like that, right?

There's a lot of shit you don't have to do to actually finish game. That's that's most game. I think that That the experience of beating Elden Ring though is a typical in that it isn't the experience of Finishing the story of Elden Ring. It is the experience of beating it of Elden Ring, it is the experience of beating it. Sure, right. And I think that the reason Millennia doesn't feel like an optional boss is because you're playing the game to kill the bosses. And that's where your sense of achievement

and closure comes from. It's not because like, oh, I finally did it. I found the end of the story and everybody is saved or doomed or whatever. It's that you're like, oh God, I can't fucking believe I did this once. Because that's the other thing, it's like all these guys, you don't beat a bunch.

And you only have to do it once and that one time might not have ever happened again. Yeah, from their perspective, they have to beat you so many times. And they just have to keep doing it. But yeah, again, like so much of his options, because I watched this and I sent it to the group chat, this game's done quick, glitchless speed run, this guy beat the whole game in like 70 minutes. And like if you watch this, it's again, just so amazing to see.

But also like the critical path of the game is like all you really have to do to actually roll credits on the game is kill Godfrey, kill Radon, go to the royal capital and then you go to the end. It's like it's so incredibly streamlined and optimized in terms of what you need to do to advance the story. So you're right. Yes, it is so much about just like doing everything. Anyway, all this bloviating because I know we got to get a car on a trigger. I am just going to wrap up my thoughts on this by saying, I think I've gone full Appadocca

on Elden Ring. I think this might find a place on my top 10 games of all time. We'll see how I feel when I roll credits and when I dig in the DLC, but I'm already like – I have that pathology where I'm like already thinking about my next play through. Like I'm just – I'm having so much fun. And I like Sekiro's combat more, but this is just a more complete game with just, there's like build variety, you know, there's so many different ways you can play at Sekiro. There's one character set up one way and it's incredible, but this is just like such a more expansive, more complete and obviously open world game.

So I'm just, I'm so glad I returned to it. I'm really looking forward to finishing it and playing through the DLC. Hell yeah, dog. Anyway, that's what I've been playing. Ooh, what are you playing, man? Well, I'm not playing anything new. All right, Heather, you're up.

Wait, I do have an update though. All right. It's that we were talking, some people were talking about, in our last episode where we talked about Capcom games People were talking about in our discord People were talking about the Monster Hunter franchise. Yeah, and how They would they want us to try it. They're like, I think you guys might like it Yeah, I'm sure we would give it a try a lot of people with good taste have told me they're awesome games

It's also I want to say that if it's a good game, almost exclusively outside of whatever genre it's in, we're going to like it. We'll have our tastes. I'm not ever going to love, love, love a puzzle game. But like, Disco Elysium has no combat in it, and it's my favorite game of all time. So if a game's great, we'll like it. So with that in mind, I had said Hey, I did download rise. Maybe I'll try rise again. A lot of people in the discord are like rise is not the one rise is good But monster hunter world is is the monster hunter game. They're like, this is like the best one and so with that in mind I was like people were And so with that in mind I was like people were

Sending screenshots of themselves buying it because it was ten dollars. Oh, you know it was on sale I was like I can get this I'll go get this before I hit Check out. I'm like you know what let me make sure I don't have this already Because it seemed it seemed possible yeah, and it was true. I did have it already. It was one of the games in the PlayStation collection when you bought your PlayStation 5 and they gave you a bunch of games to download. So I do have it already. So I downloaded it. I haven't started it yet because I've been nose down in Chrono Trigger, but I'm excited

to start Monster Hunter World. That is my update. Monster Hunter Wilds, I think it is, announced at Gamescom too. That's right. Or Playable, I think this was already announced, Playable at Gamescom. Yes.

How about that? Heather, what are you playing? I have only played Chrono Trigger for the last week. Wow. You know, at some point, if this, the strike against these companies ends, then I'm sure that I will be able to play other games. But for right now, it's just Chrono Trigger,

all the fucking time for the last week. And I'm grateful for it. I am grateful for it. It has been an excellent, pleasurable experience that has reawakened, I think I've said this before on this podcast, it's reawakened my love of older games. Hell yeah. And there's a couple big older game anniversaries coming up

and I'm really excited to reconnect with those older games as sort of like a wow, how far have we come in the last 40, 30, 25 years? So yeah, also I saw that some people are starting to think that the PS3 is retro now and I felt like I was gonna shit my pants. That's wild, yeah, cause I was an adult when the PS3 came out.

That's 2007. My favorite retro game is Metal Gear Solid, the Sons of Liberty. Yeah. The strike Heather is referring to, just in case anyone has not been tracking, it's the interactive media, aka the video game strike that SAG-AFTRA is doing, and is specifically a strike about protections for performers regarding using AI for likenesses and voice performance. This has been going on since July 26th, if I didn't already say that. This is one of those things where it's specifically, from what I've read, so much of it is about

the motion capture side of things, the stunt performer side, which is an important part of acting and a thing that's often unrepresented. And so it's cool that that's who the union is fighting for. So yeah, it's a solidarity with everyone striking. Oh, I wanna say one other thing that I'm thinking about playing, which is that I saw a Reddit video where somebody took a backbone, broke it in half, rewired it,

and then stuck it on the sides of an iPad to make the ultimate portal. Wow. PlayStation portal. And I have been thinking about figuring out how to do that. That seems like a lot of work, hats off to you. I have a portal at home. I also have a portal.

You also have a portal at home. But wouldn't it be cooler if it was a bigger? If Portal was iPad, yeah. Yeah, it'd be interesting. I guess there would just be a weight thing there cuz like I could see it being a little bit unwieldy But I guess the if your iPad is light enough. The new iPad weighs nothing. It weighs nothing. Wow. Guys, should we talk about Chrono Trigger? Let's get into our We Play, You Play for Chrono Trigger. Today's podcast, we have a segment called Behind the Pixels, the development and legacy of Chrono Trigger.

Act one, the genesis of a dream team. In the early 1990s, something magical was happening in the offices of Squaresoft. The studio, already riding high on the success of the Final Fantasy series, decided to embark on a new project, something that would push the boundaries of what video games could achieve. The result was Chrono Trigger, a game that would go on to become one of the most beloved titles of all time. But the story of Chrono Trigger starts with an unlikely collaboration. The game was born from a meeting of minds

between three titans of the industry. Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, Yuji Horji Horii, the mastermind behind Dragon Quest, and Akira Toriyama, the artist famously known for Dragon Ball. They were known as the Dream Team, and together they set out to create a game that would combine their unique talents. One of the most interesting bits of trivia

about Chrono Trigger is that it almost didn't happen. The game was conceived during a trip to the United States, where the trio attended a computer graphics exposition. Inspired by what they saw, they began brainstorming ideas for a new game, but initially it was intended to be a very different project, something more akin to a tech demo than the sprawling RPG it would become. Fortunately for gamers everywhere, the project evolved and the trio's ambition grew. The name Chrono Trigger itself went through several iterations

before the team settled on it. Early in development, the game was referred to as Project Dream within the studio, a fitting name, given the aspirations of its creators. Act 2, a revolutionary design. I love doing these guys. I love it. I love them. Hey, this is great.

Chrono Trigger wasn't just another RPG. It was a game that dared to innovate in nearly every aspect. Take for instance, the game's signature time travel mechanic. Unlike other games where time travel was a simple plot device, in Chrono Trigger it was woven directly into the gameplay. Players could journey to different eras and their actions in one period would ripple across time,

affecting events in other epics. A piece of trivia that highlights the complexity of this system, the game's script contained over 13,000 lines of dialogue, a significant portion of which was dedicated to ensuring that the player's actions in one timeline would logically affect the others. The team meticulously tracked every variable, every potential outcome, to create a cohesive and immersive world that felt alive. Another innovation was the game's use of multiple endings. 12 in total, 13 on the DS. Depending on the player's choices

and the order in which events were completed, they could experience a variety of conclusions, each offering a different perspective on the story. This concept of multiple endings was groundbreaking at the time and has since become a staple of the RPG genre. And let's not forget the music. Composed by Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Omito.

Mitsuda, who was relatively new at the time, was so passionate about the project that he reportedly worked himself to the point of illness, even suffering from stomach ulcers. In fact, Uematsu, who had composed the Final Fantasy series, stepped in to help finish the soundtrack when Mitsuda was hospitalized. Despite the challenges, the music of Chrono Trigger remains one of the most celebrated aspects of the game, with tracks like Frog's Theme and Quarters of Time still resonating with fans today.

Of note, he is also the composer of the soundtrack to Delicious in Dungeon. Act 3 – The Legacy that Endures Chrono Trigger was released in 1995 to immediate critical acclaim, but its legacy didn't stop there. The game has been re-released on numerous platforms, from the PlayStation to mobile devices, each time finding a new generation of fans. But beyond its commercial success, the game's influence on the industry is undeniable. One piece of trivia that underscores the game's impact is how it inspired other developers. Chrono Trigger's battle system, which features seamless transitions between exploration and

combat, influenced the design of later RPGs, including the Final Fantasy series itself. The game's non-linear storytelling and multiple endings also paved the way for future titles that sought to give players more agency in shaping their stories. The game's development had a ripple effect across the entire industry. Masato Kato, one of the key writers for Chrono Trigger, went on to work on Chrono Cross, the game's spiritual sequel, and contributed to the story of Final Fantasy VII,

one of the most iconic RPGs ever made. And now in closing, a timeless tale. Today, nearly three decades after its release, Chrono Trigger is more than just a game. It's a piece of gaming history. It's a testament to what can be achieved when creativity, ambition, and collaboration come together. The Dream Team set out to create something unforgettable, and they succeeded in ways

that they couldn't have imagined. From its revolutionary gameplay mechanics to memorable characters and story, Chrono Trigger continues to be a shining example of what video games can achieve. It's a game that has not only stood the test of time, but also shaped the fabric of the industry, and that, perhaps, is the greatest legacy of all. So as we look back on Chrono Trigger on this month's We Play, You Play, we're not just remembering a game, we're celebrating a milestone in the evolution of storytelling, one that continues to inspire, captivate,

and challenge players, proving that some stories truly are timeless. Love it. People are going to start expecting those every week, you know, you keep doing them. Yeah, that's why I don't try to ever do anything good on the show. That was awesome. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, you know, you mentioned the dream team and I think that's, that's I don't try to ever do anything good on the show. That was awesome. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, you mentioned the dream team and I think that's the big thing.

That's like kind of the genesis of it. It's like these three, you know, legendary individuals and games and Toriyama's case, RIP, you know, like anime and manga. It's like, but like, but you hit on Masato Kado and then also, you know, Kazuhiko Aoki anime and manga. But you hit on Masato Kado and then also Kazuhiko Aoki was another key figure, the producer who assembled the team and then just someone else I'll shout out, Katsuhisa Higuchi who programmed the game's battle system which is such a huge part of why it works as a video

game. But it's kind of like these three titans, these three huge figures kind of oversaw it, but then there were still like – as expected in development, there were some people who were really doing all the work in terms of pulling it all together. I kind of want to open things up from a defensive stance, which is just to say like I can already anticipate the – since we're talking about the Discord earlier, I can't believe they didn't mention blank things. And I'll just say like it's very believable because it's impossible to capture every single

important detail in a totemic 30 hour game in a 90 minute discussion. So we're definitely going to miss things, but we're going to do our best. And I assure you, I will be most mad at myself when I think of things on my commute home that I forgot to say, because this is one of my favorite games ever. Heather, this is a game that I know is very meaningful to you and that you really are a fan of as well. Yeah, I'm a fan of it, but I have shameful admission. What?

I have some shameful admission. Okay, go for it. I've never beaten this game. That's okay. I have it on so many systems. I played, I know I've played more hours of this game than it takes to beat the game. Would you say you've played this more than Final Fantasy Tactics Advance? No, no I haven't. But like Tactics Advance, it's a game that has, you know, obviously I got a Super NES after its heyday.

Like I wasn't Super NES mainlining. But I have, so I've played it on the Super NES. I brought my Super NES copy with me. I've played it on emulators in the early 2000s. I purchased it again for the DS and started over again on the DS. I've played it on iPad because as soon as it was released for iPad, I was like, okay, this is the time.

I always have my iPad with me. I'm gonna beat Chrono Trigger. And then for this month's We Play, You Play, I was like, all right, motherfucker, I'm gonna beat Chrono Trigger. And then for this month's We Play, You Play, I was like, all right, motherfucker, I'm gonna beat this fucking game. I'm gonna get into it and I'm really gonna beat it. And I didn't fucking beat it this month either because there's not physically enough hours in the month

for me to play one hour a day. Like I don't have it. I'm humiliated by how much this game means to me, how many times I've heard the iconic pieces of music, and how I've never literally seen any of the 12 or 13 endings. I don't know, I think that's a pretty common though. I think there are a lot of people

who have those experiences with games. I mean, I'm trying to think of something specifically, like a game that I really love that I've never actually finished, but like other than stuff I'm currently playing, it's... I don't think that's an uncommon thing. I think people have, especially with a big meaty narrative game, I think they're... I've gotten to the ends of games and then sort of... Ninja Gaiden, that was one of those ones.

I got to the end of that game and I was just like, all right, I'm not gonna, I don't actually wanna finish, beat the final boss. I just kinda pulled up on it. It has to be, and I mean this sincerely, it has to be the longest game I have continually played in my life without beating. Because Final Fantasy Tactics Advance comes out after this

for the Game Boy Advance. And I have been playing that game since it was released. Yeah. But I've been playing Chrono Trigger my whole adult life without ever fucking finishing it. Yeah. And I know that like Mary has been like, cause I was really stressed out yesterday.

Cause I hadn't. I've been anxious all week about this episode. I was really stressed out yesterday cause I was like, I can't fucking believe this has happened again. And cause I've been playing it every night before we go to bed. And I was like, I haven't beaten this fucking game again. And she's like, well, you're gonna continue playing it

after the record? And I was like, I haven't beaten this fucking game again. And she's like, well, you're gonna continue playing it after the record? And I was like, I honestly don't know because I've been under so much pressure to play it that I kind of feel relief that I'm not gonna play it tonight. Right, sure. And I'm like, son of a bitch, am I gonna pick this game up again in four years?

I can't believe I've beaten Mother 3 and I've never beaten Chrono Trigger. Which a barrier of entry on that game is so much higher. Yeah. You might be the only person that's true for. I'm just trying to think of a kind of person who would actually play a localized Mother 3. A fan localized, right? Like there's not an official localization?

It's a fan localized Mother 3 that, like I gave to you guys, is on a cart. So you can play it on your fucking analog pocket, man. And it is such an astounding game, and I beat that game, and I still haven't beaten Chrono Trigger. I can't fucking believe it. Do you have a sense of how close you are? I have no sense of how close I am.

I got farther this time. I don't know where the fuck I am in the game. Yeah, have you ever gotten to the end? I don't think so. I don't know where the fuck I am in the game Yeah, did you like have you ever gotten like to like the end like I don't think you think so As someone who's finished Chrono Trigger more than once I Will say that I don't I'd like the the endings are fun And I think the endings are like have a good sense of closure And it is it is awesome that you know we should we should we should note and and in case people want to be pedantic, yes, there were games that came out prior to this game,

like Maniac Mansion or Castlevania II, Simon's Quest, that had multiple endings. But this game, because of its reach and its influence and because of how well it was implemented, the fact that it had multiple endings and a new game plus became extraordinarily influential. Things like its character quests that it has for everybody. That's the sort of thing you see. And things like it's character quests that it has for everybody.

Like that's the sort of thing you see, I feel like you see the long tail of influence with that and something in like Mass Effect's companion quests. You know, the idea that you have these quote unquote optional side quests, but they inform in great detail the essence of the characters that comprise your party.

Anyway, what I was going to say, I don't think this game is necessarily even about like the ending, it's just about the journey. And honestly, I think thematically, the game is also about like just like the journey, you know, it is just like about the flow of time and how it's like it both, you know, the circular nature of things. So I don't think it's, I think you can get an incredible good sense of this game and and and be a huge fan of this game without actually rolling credits on it but but but I want to Matt I want to give you a chance to talk yeah God bless you yeah you have not played this game this game comes out

when you're like two years old or something like that I can't be five I mean it's not a better answer I was five years old when I came out but but I mean like that's I really appreciate you just just deciding to like hey I'm not a better answer. I was five years old when it came out But but I mean like that's I I really appreciate you just just deciding to like hey, I'm gonna go all in I'm gonna play the shit out of this game. What was your experience playing this for the very first time? So I was yeah, I played it on my analog pocket. I had started it before I should say I probably started it twice before never got further than The intro level at the fair was sort like, I don't know if this is the zone. But now since we had to play it,

I was like, I think I have to push just further, just further than this. And what I'd learned is, it immediately starts after, basically. You just play it for like, if I had played it for maybe 10 more minutes, it would have like sunk my teeth it suck its sunk its teeth into me. Yeah, I Bought like I didn't need to do this because I ended up like playing it handheld most of the time

But I bought the fucking dock for the damn analog pocket, and I was playing it on my TV I did play it on my TV last night. I would probably do it. Maybe like You know 70 30 if I'm being honest, but I'm glad I have it how would as I had how how is that doc work? For you anyway, it's just got an HDMI cable, and it just like it displays it in 4x3. How does it work exactly? Yeah, it's play it displays in 4x3 But it's great because it's like it's just like the switch dock where like your screen turns off and you can It just immediately is on your TV You could take it off and you can just still be immediately playing it.

It is fucking gorgeous. Wow. Like it's really, really. It looks really good. It looks really, really good. The, what is it? The FGPA, FPGA? Yeah, FPGA, yeah.

Like the. Female Pro Golf Association? The screen filters that it allows you to use to make your game look like it's on a Sony Trinitron and then you're putting that up on a flat screen looks really good. That looks great and then, you know, for that Nintendo game that I already forgot the name of

that we played last month. NES championships? Yeah, I bought that NES Bluetooth controller so I've been playing using that to play Chrono trigger, and it's probably like the closest I Could get the super NES 8-bit do yes 8-bit though yes It's probably as close as I could get to playing it like on the actual for sure yeah and I was having a fucking blast with it and like I

Don't know there's I've played a lot of these types of games before. I've played through the first three Final Fantasy games, right, like Final Fantasy I, II, and actual III I've played. And then VII, of course, but as far as the pixel graphic, JRPGs, those are the ones that I've I've played this the characters are just like so goddamn good and lovable and like unique right away yeah, and like It takes it takes one second to become a huge fan of any of the characters It's like they're just amazing yeah, and I I just couldn't I couldn't put it down

I will say Heather's not the only person in this room who has never beaten Chrono Trigger because as of press time I'm at the final boss and that was I will say one of the prime disappointments of Of my month certainly because I've been playing it so goddamn much and just playing it nonstop and being like, oh, I would like to do that, but I have to play this game. And I think, I mean, I will finish it

because I can't get this far or not. Yeah. I wish I could have finished it so I could comment on endings and things like that. But I am so like, I'm in love with this game. I love it. I love that. We still have plenty to talk about.

Did you, so like you went through the, you know, the floating dungeon, the black omen, you work your way up to the, okay got it. I went through once. I understand I can go through an additional time if I, you know, jump to a different timeline, or different point in time rather, which I think I will do because I'm being one shot

by the final boss. And I'm not underleveled, I'm getting fucked by the final boss. There's some things you can do to make it so Lavos is less potent and the things you can do to you know to make it so Lavos is like less potent and and like, you know, kind of the way you can kind of shortcut it in In in Breath of the Wild you can kind of kind of shortcut, you know calamity Ganon or whatever but but there's also just like Yeah, I mean, I don't know how many of the side quests you've done. I've done a couple of them. I did I did

I just did frogs. Or no, I didn't do, did I do frogs? I did, I did Magus's side quest. And I did, I think I did do frogs actually, if I'm thinking about it correctly. You love frog. Frog. Frog rocks. I'm like, I'm so close to just getting a frog tattoo.

Just like how he's drawn on the fucking box. I love Frog. I love guys like that. Weird little guys. And he's the best of them. He's amazing. All the characters, I love Robo. Yeah, Robo's great.

Frog has this awesome character design. Again, a curatorial character design. But one thing I like about Frog, and I guess we're kind of in spoiler, whatever, it's a fucking 30-year-old game. There's, you know, because he was previously Glenn, and then he was cursed, turned into Frog, turned into this giant, this man-sized amphibian.

When I got to that point in the game, I into this giant, this man-sized amphibian. When I got to that point in the game, I said out loud, oh my God. I was, Frog's a guy? He's a guy. But there's an element of just like, I don't know, you know what one reason I like about this game is just like every single thing just kind of works?

And this has made me such a minor thing, but like, you know how in the Beast, Beauty and the Beast, everyone's horny for the Beast and then the Beast turns into the guy, everyone's like, I get this guy out of here, I want the Beast. Frog, like as Glen, is still like, oh, I still like this guy, you know what I mean?

Like he still has like the essence of the character, like both in the design and the way he's written and that he's kind of like this bullied guy who kind of like has this older brother-esque kind of figure and T learns to stand up for himself and then becomes this noble, like paladin is Frog. Like the arc is just so satisfying, even if it's broad. One thing about Frog is the,

and you're playing the Super Nintendo version, right? Yes. So I was playing the Steam version. And so there are different localizations. And talking about a thing you talked about earlier Heather, which is how much text is in this fucking game? Which is it's it's staggering. The original translation is done by the infamous Ted Wolsey I'm a Wolsey guy, but but he's the guy who did you know translated Final Fantasy 6 I think Final Fantasy 4 is responsible for a lot of like kind of You know some, some quirky

sort of English language dialogue. Spoonie Bard? You, Spoonie Bard, I believe is a Wolseism. But you read about his task on this game. He had a team of one. It was just him responsible for localizing Chrono Trigger. He's working in America, so he's not on site. And then he's like, I need two and a half months to do this, and Sakaguchi's like, you

have 30 days. So it's just like, it was just this race, this impossible task to get it done. And I think it's still a really effective translation. I think the storytelling's really good. The new one- I would do a lot worse with that time. Yeah, I know. The modern one, I believe the translator is Tom Slattery,

is more accurate, but there are elements that are less charming. For instance, Frog's dialogue is very kind of old English-y. He's kind of stilted. And in the modern localization, that's like, he's still tying the talks in a fancy way, but the vows and these have been removed. So it just has, I don't know, it feels a little bit less

like the character that I know I love that he's a minor things. I love that. He's like a fancy little guy It's great. There's also like there's a couple of like I don't think there's This game's like chock full of laughs There's at least like one big laugh that I got like out of the game in the early on and it's when he's on You go and you're on trial Oh my god, the trial rocks keep going the trial is so fun and like you get like I kind of don't remember what the circumstance was but the

basically you're put to a verdict and you like are you know, you're you're like Asked to testify and you have to you get a couple of answers to questions. Yeah, it's basically like the Marle slash Nadia, who's like the regal, the female, a royal character, and she's part of a royal line that goes back hundreds of years, thousands of years. You, I believe in the modern time, you are arrested for her kidnapping,

even though you're innocent, and so you have a trial. And it teaches you early on in the game, like the first level of Super Mario Brothers that's like, here's how you jump, now here's how you jump over a pit, now the pit is empty. It's teaching you that the things you do that don't even matter to you

are perhaps affecting the world. Right, yeah. Because you'll be chastised for eating somebody's lunch at the Millennial Fair. And the reason you ate their lunch is because you run around everything, pressing the A button over and over again to see if there's anything hidden or that you can interact with anything.

So when Crono eats that guy's lunch and then he's at the trial and he's like, that kid ate my lunch. I'm like, oh no, oh fuck. Well, yeah, it's like there's a moral code to this game. Yeah. So the laugh came for me was that every answer that I gave, they showed me that I was wrong.

Like actually, no, that's not what happened. Here's what happened. And like, I remembered some of the stuff, like you that's not what happened. Here's what happened. And like, I remembered some of the stuff, like you're talking with, you're with Marle and she's looking at some stand or whatever. And you go, if you go talk to her, she's like, I'll get your hands off me.

And then like somebody at the fair like testifies like, yeah, he put his hands on her and hurt her. Like, geez. But it was like, that's so great. But like, I don't know. I love, I just just I love the story I wish you know I said this in our in our text thread. It's kind of a in many ways It's a it's kind of a miracle. They haven't like remastered this game or like ported it to some modern hard

I would love a port if it was on switch people should be people should be able to play this game on modern hardware. But it's kind of a miracle they haven't given this the, you know, Final Fantasy VII remake treatment where there's a bunch of Chrono Trigger games. Well, okay, so here, I'll bring this up now, because I think we talked about that next year will be the 30th anniversary Yes, I do this just in time for the 29th. We

Got my 29th birthday coming up again So I like that character yeah like that guy So the the person's 58 years old It's fine. So the next person's 58 years old. I mean, I guess, does that mean that the final physical release of this game was the Nintendo DS? I think it was. I was looking through all the versions.

I'll talk, I'll return to that in one second, but I was just gonna, I think for the 30th anniversary, considering that they've been doing more HD2D remakes, I am going to anticipate that they are going to announce a Chrono Trigger HD2D remake at long last. I know there's like rights issues. I know there's like internal politics involving the game. I know that's partly why there haven't been a ton of canonical follow-ups.

It feels like the time is right for that. There's certainly everyone is like, everyone is ready? Everyone is ready for a remaster of crown of trigger So about the different versions and about it not being like outside of steam and or or if you want to do the mobile version Ios or Android it's like not really playable on on modern consoles at all. I Forgot it was on the Wii Virtual Console for a time Oh, maybe be like wait, why the fuck is it not in the Super Nintendo collection on, it's just gotta be some licensing thing, but it's just like, that feels like the thing,

I'm paying for fucking Nintendo Online, I can't get, Chrono Trigger is part of that package? I don't know. It's just one of those frustrations about this game's availability, which is its main issue. That sort of opens up the, like, not really, but on those platforms you can like rewind right and stuff I wonder if like

that would change how I played the game but I wouldn't want to do that either because like I got to I got to play this game is choices have consequence yeah yeah like so I got to play this game like as close to like how it was intended to play without any modern conveniences like in the Pixel Remastered Final Fantasy games.

And I will say, it was a very rewarding experience. Leveling the characters really fun, getting new text with the characters was really fun. Double text, triple text, it's a hoot. And just like, I will say there weren't that many instances where I was having a hard time because I think the game does a good job of preparing you for the next threat like pretty well because like there's no random encounters or whatever but the

The fight the fights that you get in are all basically You know spread out enough where you're leveling. I feel like pretty consistently It has to be part of their their balance consideration because there are no random encounters Yeah, you can also avoid those encounters and go into fights under level Yes, but part of the thrill of entering the fights is that they're always kind of funny when they start Yeah, like you you you see a ball rolling back and forth in the forest and you go touch that ball It turns into a little guy another guy runs out and kicks that guy and then jumps on top of him.

And then your party is like, okay, you stand there, you stand there, you stand there. But it is like the sort of thing of, you know, in this era of JRPGs, like I had gotten so fatigued with random encounters. Like it's just such an interruption. And if you return to one of these games and you're playing it without modern,

you know, a bunch of quality of life improvements turned on, it's like, this feels so tedious and it interrupts the pacing. And like, I'm just trying to explore this map and now I get sucked into a separate screen with a huge long intro and a huge long outro. And like after this game, it was just like, it was like revelatory.

It's like, oh, there's not random encounters and that the combat doesn't take you into a different like sort of like oh We're in the battle scene like you're just in the same environment like that shit is like really really cool and feels very seamless and It did feel like games kind of went backwards for a time when we got to the PlayStation 1 era because we brought back random encounters I mean that that Final Fantasy trilogy on PS1 all has random encounters, but it was so cool to see enemies on the mini-map, or the actual map. The Wikipedia article,

which who knows how accurate any of this is. Not Wikipedia, so it's probably on the up and up. Talks about how Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy IV are all being developed alongside Chrono Trigger. And Secret of Mana, which was supposed to be Final Fantasy IV, was code named Chrono Trigger internally, then was turned into Secret of Mana,

and the name Chrono Trigger was adopted by this. But all of these games influence one another, and Secret of Mana also doesn't have random battles. All of the enemies are on screen. It's an action RPG, but you can choose whether or not to engage with these enemies, and you can feel that Chrono Trigger influence on the game and vice versa.

It's, yeah, I mean, you kind of, like, it's cool that there are games that drew from it. There was an era, like, kind of like of JRPGs that you kind of wish like had pulled more from it, but also apparently it was very technically taxing to pull this off. Should we talk about the music a little bit? Is that worth digging into? Yeah, I think so.

So Yasunori Mitsuda composed the soundtrack. Yasunori Mitsuda is 52 now, which means he was 23 when this game released, which is wild. As Heather mentioned, yeah, he worked himself sick while he was making this. Nobuo Ematsu has some tracks that he composed. It's an incredible soundtrack. It's just one of the best game soundtracks. You read a little bit about it and it's like basically like he was doing sound design at the time.

He was doing sound effects at Squaresoft and he kind of gave him ultimatum. It was like, look, I came here to do music. I want to do music. Please let me compose something. And they're like, all right, fine. Take on this game Chrono Trigger and maybe just make the best shit ever. It's kind of amazing that it came together like this and he was so young and he was so eager to just give me the ball.

And they're like, all right, fine. Here you go. But it's impossible to pick favorites and to be comprehensive about the soundtrack. I did just pull a few tracks here. Ranch, can we play this first one? This is one that I could just listen to on a 10-hour loop time circuits. ["Skyfall", by R.E.M.]

Yeah, okay. Just a vibe. Yeah. Comes out a few times in the game, most notably in the Zeal Palace. Part of why Mutsuda got sick is that his hard drive crashed and he lost 40 in progress tracks. Jesus Christ. What a nightmare. Ranch, can you mention losing 40 podcast episodes we recorded?

It's Sewer Slide. That one's awesome. Another one like we mentioned Robo and you know, Robo's theme and Frog's theme were both part of the video game music montage, the 2020 Olympics opening ceremonies. This is some of Robo's theme and Frog's theme were both part of the video game music montage, the 2020 Olympics opening ceremonies. This is some of Robo's theme. What I love about Robo is sort of in direct contrast to what I love about Frog. Frog is a silly little guy, and Robo is a silly little guy. Yeah, and Robo is a silly big guy

Do it the two main guys, yeah Frogs theme and Robo's theme were among the video game music performed during the 2020 Summer Olympics opening ceremony Yeah, so this song is Canonically part of the Olympics So this song is canonically part of the Olympics. Yeah. Can you imagine writing something at 23 that almost 30 years later is played at the Olympics? The secretary general of the UN

is listening with his hand over his heart. It's like fucking crazy. I'll probably do that to one of my UCB 101 sketch packets? Yeah. Anyway, I gotta lead this into a little bit. We just play a taste of this ranch. This has the same chord progression

as Rick Astley's Together Forever. That's fun, right? Unbelievable, that's so fucking good. Man, actually? Yeah, pretty good. This is a banger. It's good. All right, thanks for that.

Heather, did you have the Brink of Time? I actually had a CD, I think it actually was a bootleg, but the Brink of Time was Mitsuda's Jazz Arrange album, acid jazz arrange album. I did not have that disc, but I did have a bootleg CD that was sold to me as a real CD at a store in Little Tokyo in like 1999. And it was a recording of an orchestra playing a bunch of an orchestra playing

a bunch of Squaresoft themes. And there were Chrono Trigger tracks on that CD. But it was never like an officially released CD. It was somebody's fucking bootleg pressed on a CD and then like with a booklet. So as a young person, I'm like, oh, oh, this is real. But it was not real. Oh, I definitely had some bootlegs that I bought retail.

It's kind of crazy how that used to be such a thing. I definitely had the Celtic Moon CD, the Final Fantasy IV range, and that was an official bootleg. It was like a bootleg label that put it out. On the brink of time, anyway, the art is awesome. It's just a big breakfast. That's a nice breakfast.

That's really, really good. What is that? Why is it the art for this? I don't know. It doesn't make any sense. Two eggs, bacon, and orange juice? What's going on? Anyway, so this album is like the... I thought it... Let's play a little bit of World Revolution and then we'll play the arranged version from Break of Time just to hear these two contrasts. So this is from the game. I think this is actually maybe the DS version. This might be the SNES version. Come on, right? Yeah. Come on. All right, let's go to the Brink of Time version.

Now this is one of the more straightforward arrangements, just to get a sense of how wild this album is. What was he smoking when he did this, man? That's wild. Yeah. I love it. It's cool. Yeah.

Amazing score. Somebody should do this, put that in the scene from The Matrix when they're at the fucking dance orgy. When they're in Zion? Yeah. Do the same scene in a rec room for a dream too. What did you think of the, did you enjoy the combat Matt? I did I did actually you know like it took me a second to Adjust to it because it's not like as straightforward as The like what I'm used to in the Final Fantasy games where it's like I mean it's not that different

I guess it's a menu And a list of things you can do It's a little bit more active, but yeah, it is more active And I liked like I said I liked the text the combining of like characters powers and in doing like Moves together was really really cool, but I also just liked figuring out which ones cuz like Not every attack is gonna work on every enemy which is cool like I remember when I first encountered

like an enemy that was cuz Chrono has Lightning magic and The first time that I encountered an enemy that was healed by that, I was so fucking mad. I was like, no, that's my... I use that so much, but it encourages you to, you know, change your party up a little bit. I never really deviated from Chrono, but I would have... I would switch it up. My mains right now I would say are Chrono, Alia, and Robo. Which I'm reading is not necessarily ideal end game party for what I'm understanding

and what I'm currently experiencing as well. What I would say is, so like yeah, you can have three party members at a time, you can swap them all out, you go to the, later you have a ship and you go to the end of time, which there's so many things that, I think about my first experience playing this game, and I think I've said before that I didn't get to this game

when it came out. I got to this game years later when the PlayStation 1 was already out, and my friend was into Chrono Trigger, he's like, yeah, I play this game. You like Final Fantasy. You like all the Final Fantasies. That's when I got into it. And it still was a mind-blowing experience playing this in like 1999 or whatever I finally got to it. But the trial absolutely blew my mind. The first time I got to the end of time, is just like a you know, basically it's like it's infinity year It's it's it's just this huge void with like a street lamp and like an old man

And I just was like what a fucking like it cool like impressionistic Realization of what this is conceptually, you know, I didn't even know I didn't know that like time travel was like part of the game Like that somehow just like the main thing No, no what I know nobody I grew up with like played this game really so like I just like it just completely missed it So like when that starts to like pop up and present itself I'm like this is fuck this tight as hell is really it's also just like an interesting mix because I feel like You don't get I mean there are like sci-fi elements in Fantasy stories or whatever, but like I feel like it's never as hard sci-fi as fucking time travel

Yeah, I mean they're like there are rules and like to time travel and things like that And I think that's just like so interesting and it works really really, really well within this fantasy world setting. I love it. You go ahead, please. Can I say something about the end of time room? Yeah, please. Which is that I've been to that room for the first time infinity times in my life, right?

Yes. And every fucking time I go, I fail that running around the room thing, like the door you have to go through. Oh, right. You have to run around like three times or whatever. I fail that running around the room thing at the top, like the door you have to go through. I fail that fucking test two or three times every single time I play Chrono Trigger. It's very hard. That was like one of the harder things

I had to do in the game. It's a weird skill check. Yeah. Cause it's like you have to go like the precise edge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I think that like, it's just a really cool way

of having like a hub. And I want to go back to something, this was something Heather said in her intro, at dinner set up, which is like, the time travel doesn't just inform it thematically or story wise, it's like part of like the gameplay design. It's part of like the puzzle design. And like, you know, we can cover another game

I really like, Day of the Tentacle, on the podcast in our old format. That's one where it like uses time travel to solve like point and click adventure puzzles. But it's the same sort of thing of like what you do in the past affects what happens in the future. And that's just a really just fascinating gameplay mechanic and they explore it really well.

And it feels consequential what you're doing in different timelines. As a person who played Sonic CD before I played Chrono Trigger, I, as a kid, I was like- That Venn diagram's a circle probably. Huh? Is that Venn diagram's a circle?

That's like, you're like the one person? That's me. No, I feel like Sega Kids- I'm sure Sega Kids existed. I feel like Sonic CD had to, and I know time travel predates Chrono Trigger, but in terms of the gameplay loop being affected by doing something in the past that affects

the actual gameplay of the future, like Sonic CD, you traveled to the past or the present or the future in each individual level, and if you accomplish certain goals in the past or the present or the future in each individual level. And if you accomplish certain goals in the past, it changes the layout of the area in the future. And if you change it there also, it makes the far future utopian. And I was like so blown away by that as a kid.

And then playing this later, I was like, this is kind of baby stuff, huh? When it compares to Chrono Trigger, this is all baby stuff. No, I mean, that's Sonic. That's Sonic's version of Chrono Trigger was baby stuff. There was something, there was like a, I didn't know that I was stumbling into

a sort of a side quest type of thing. There's an instance where you can talk to this like NPC and she's like wow I found this seed What do I do? What should I do that should I eat it or should I plant it? I told her just instinctually to plant it because I just remembered you know with the future is very barren and right anything And then the next time you go to the future they have a fucking spud and I was so happy This is the most amazing game Incredible so yeah, so you have it you have a bunch of different timelines, and that's how you kind of meet your assemble your party I Chrono that the the not spelled the same way as the title but a CR o no I

Guess I hadn't put that together. That's really interesting. Aaron Ross Powell It is interesting. To me they sound different in my head. I feel like I say Chrono Trigger and Chrono for the guy, but I swap them up sometimes. Anyway, Chrono is a spiky haired protagonist with a katana. There's Frog who's the frog knight. There's Mara who we mentioned who's like the princess. There's Luca who's like the inventor. I ship Luca

and Chrono. That's my headcanon. And they're childhood friends. And the three of them, Chrono, Marle, and Luca are in the same timeline. They're in like 1000 AD, I believe that's the time. Or I forget what it is. The millennial fair. Yeah, the millennial fair. It's 1000 AD. The year 1000. Frog is in the past. He's in like a royal era, a medieval era.

Robo is in the far future, post-apocalyptic future after Lavos has destroyed the Earth like Galactus, consuming its nutrients and everyone lives in misery with humans and robots, both struggling to survive. Ali is in the distant past, way back in like 65 million, the year BC. And then there's Magus who's in the like semi, who's in the not as distant past. And Magus is kind of like a Dracula.

Now Magus, this is the third thing that absolutely blew my mind playing this game for the first time. Magus is a bad guy through most of it. Frog is like, I gotta get my fucking revenge on Magus. Magus killed my guy. Magus cursed me to be a fucking frog. I'm going after this guy.

You can kill Magus and you can also have frog duel Magus, but also you can have Magus just like come over to your side and join your party and learn that he actually has like a side of him that's like pitiable and like you understand like why's pitiable and you understand why he's doing what he's doing, why he's conspiring with Lavos, why he's become such a nihilist because he's had his own personal loss and tragedy

that he's suffered and he's working through. It would be as if you could have Sephiroth in your party. Yeah. It's such a cool part of it. One of the kind of magical things about this game is you know that experience of, if you go to like a museum of like old technology and you see like a little machine

that makes something 3D, right? Like a thing that like those- Like a 3DS? Like those pictographs that you slot a photograph in that makes the old like turn of the century photos 3D or something. Yes, right. And you're like, wow, look what these guys did. We have 3D literally on our 3DS.

We have 3D on TVs and in movie theaters and I have a fucking vision pro where everything's in 3D. There's something about seeing old things accomplish things that you see more readily available to you today, that it makes them more impressive. So like all of the little ways in which Chrono Trigger, like things in the past affect things in the future and characters can or cannot be added to your party

are stuff that we all take for granted in games today. But there's like this turn of the century magic to the fact that this is all happening on a Super NES game. You're like, oh fuck, this is stuff that like Disco Elysium is doing, where you have a conversation with that guy there and then it changes the conversation with somebody else. Yeah, no, that's a great point.

Like it's impossible to divorce this game from when it came out and also like a game again even though I didn't experience Didn't play it right as it came out I don't think you did either Heather not the year of the release like played it close enough to its release where it was Still like felt like the novelty of the moment. It still felt like hey I'm it's it's the year 1911 and I'm looking through one of those, you know 3d camera camera obscuros or whatever the fuck it is. Yeah, it's really kind of amazing to have seen

where games have gone from then, but also to revisit this and see that, feel its influence in everything, other things that you've played. And I would think this is maybe worth mentioning, like as somebody who's played it in the year 2024, 29 years after its release. It plays incredibly well.

It holds up. It's so fucking good. It really holds up. It really holds up and there's something about it that beyond your rose colored glasses, your nostalgia you might feel towards the theme music or whatever, there's something that it fucking gets about character and pace, where you'll play

like a sprite-based or a sprite-style RPG now, like even Octopath Traveler, which is like a fancy sprite game, and you're kind of experienced this lethargy of character introduction, whereas like the first time you go back to 65 million BC, let me slow myself down. You'll experience a lethargy of character introduction where you'll meet somebody and they'll talk for fucking ever

and then you'll finally get to know whether or not they're gonna join your party and you'll be like, I don't even know what this character's deal is. And I guess I have to investigate. There's like a, almost like, what if we turned a video game into a novel approach to character introduction?

And there's, games are, games can be anything, but this type of game I feel is aided by when you go back to 65 million BC and you meet the caveman lady and she's immediately like, I'm gonna fuck Crono and I wanna eat. And you're like, I get this girl. Like she's immediately like, it teaches you also as a writer

how little you need to establish what somebody wants or who they are. And most of these characters are introduced how little you need to establish what somebody wants or who they are. And most of these characters are introduced with a want. They're introduced as like, I want this. Like, I want to experience freedom because I'm secretly a princess. I want to invent stuff. So you understand everybody's desires in the game

almost on the drop. Like it's really, it's, that brevity serves it. Yeah, and things like the Magus reveal also do the same sort of thing where there's like, you know, like it's, oh, okay, I see what's really going on with that guy. I have a screenshot of, or, you know, I took a photo of my analog pocket on my phone

of the first line that Frog says, because it immediately just made me, I was like, this is my fucking guy, and I'll read it. Lower thine guard and thou art allowing the enemy in. I was like, this is my guy. This guy's crazy, I love him. And I know it's not in the Super Nintendo version, but did either of you watch or have you seen

the anime cut scenes that were added for the PlayStation 1.1? I haven't seen that, no. Those are on the DS version. They're on the DS version, yeah. So I've seen them from when I played the DS version, half of them probably. They're cool, but I think they're completely super fluid.

Yes. And I would also say that the DS extra content, there's like extra dungeons and stuff. That's another thing is just like, you mess around with those, like this doesn't really need to be in here. Like it's one of those things where the game was just kind of so perfectly formed

that kind of adding more onto it doesn't really do anything. You know, I brought these games with me to demonstrate a point about how they hold up visually, but I'm in such a good mood. I don't want to prove a point. Like, play the game however you want. Like, I don't need to be right about this.

Like, if you have it on DS, if you have it on 3DS, if you are, you know, a fancy boy and you've got an analog pocket, if you are an old school person, you've got it on Super NES, or if you have it on the fucking iOS or Android, play it however you will. Like, it's amazing how well it holds up. Because a lot of other RPGs from that era just don't.

They don't, yeah. And again, I think honestly I think a big part is the absence of random encounters. I will say that the, I don't think the Steam version is perfect, but it has been updated a lot. And it I don't think the Steam version is perfect, but it has been updated a lot and it is much better than the original version that came out that was just like a shoddy port of the mobile version that had like, you know, this awful pixel smoothing

around the characters just looked like complete shit, had a horrible font. It's much, much better and I think that's right now, if you're just looking for a way to experience this game, I think that's the best legal way to play this So, you know, I I think that's that's one way to go And again, hopefully the little little Reservice can I say something about the save points also? Yeah as somebody who only had a limited amount of time to play the game every day. I was always nervous What if I don't get to a save point

and I have to stop playing? And when you're playing it on the analog pocket, there are no save states. You can't just like turn the machine off and turn it back on when you were, if you play it on like a PC emulator, you of course have that option. I was always thrilled at how well paced the save points were.

Yeah, yes. Like, you feel like you can drop in and you aren't scared that you aren't going to be able to save, whether it's on the map screen or it's an actual save point in a dungeon. Like, it's such a well-paced game. In the Black Omen where this is like the final dungeon as you ascend to the final boss area.

There are plenty of save states in there or save points in there. Every time I could almost guess with like 90% accuracy when the next one was where it was going to be because like I would just I would you know die and it had to go back to my previous one But then if I kept going I was like I think maybe not this one the next one That's where it's gonna be I would like often be correct Yeah, they did a really good job of making that not feel like a fucking chore cuz like that's a that's a chunky area Man, I just just cuz I'm fully an Elden ring right now the moments when you like get through like some sort of difficult encounter And then there's a message in the ground that says no grace ahead and just like fuck. It's a goddamn

This I mean There's just so much good shit in it Yeah, it's impossible to touch on everything. Yeah. okay. Let me ask you a question as as our cat dude Matt Appaducka more like cat Appaducka. There's a There's some cat action this game. There's there's the mighty Gato About frog and and robo yeah Gato's are like the king of this. Where he's like the biggest silly guy. He just does a little dance.

Big cat robot, he's got a little song, it's great. Yeah, he rocks and it's a good way to mine silver points. You get 15 for just beating him and it takes like two hits to go down. And then there's also just a bunch of cats, little cats running around throughout the game and You guessed it. I loved that This is my game that you like I don't know like I do think that like cuz you know this type of game

What was that one sea of stars? Yeah, see if stars is very much that it's heavily inspired by this to the point where they got Yasu no ori Mitsuda to Compose some tracks for and yet has like an opening fair sequence. It is very very similar to what's so that game comes out Right and you know people played it and liked it for the most part. I Would say as of this moment it is no longer in the cultural conversation people are really talking about that game still I think it was he, really well made, really well received, and yeah, maybe doesn't have a, doesn't have a long tail, but I think it'll have some fandom.

This game, I think if it came out this year, would be a contender for Game of the Year. It is like, it's so good, and it looks so good. Like, I mean, it's just amazing. It's just amazing all the way around. And like, you know, this is my first time with it I have not finished it yet. I am close to finishing it and probably will by the time next time we record But I'm sort of just thinking about this game is like well, this is now in the top 10 Like this is like this is a top 10 game for me for you person for me personally. Yeah

Yeah, it could possibly be top five. Wow. Like it is amazing what they did with this. Can I say something, and I don't mean to sound elitist, but rather as a point of passion and excitement for you. I also love Chrono Trigger the way that you love Chrono Trigger. Yes.

Like the way that I keep coming back to this game over the course of my entire fucking life, I have started Chrono Trigger more than I have started any other game. I know this, except maybe Sonic 2, but that's mostly because you play Sonic 2 for a level and then you turn it off. Like you're not sitting down to beat it.

Every time I've sat down to start Chrono Trigger, it's with the intention that this is the time I'm going to beat the game. I beat it. Every time I've sat down to start Chrono Trigger, it's with the intention that this is the time I'm going to beat the game. I love it. Matt, I love Mother 3 more. That's fine. I mean, I want you to play it so bad. Look, I've been really loving the analog pocket. I mean, I don't see why I don't just play it. Like I should just play it. It's so incredible. But should I play the first two? No, you don't need to. You don't need to.

You just play Mother 3. They're separate stories. You could just drop it in. I'll just pop it in. Yeah, you should pop it in. I should play it too. I mean, you went to all the trouble to get it for us. I should play it.

Yeah, four years ago. But you know what's good about it? I know exactly where it is. Great. I have it not far from my analog pocket at pretty much all times. And that's not to say, oh, this game's good, but this other game's better.

I just mean that I feel love and passion for this. Yeah. And it's like I've eaten the best pizza in the world, right, it's Chrono Trigger. And there's also an incredible plate of lasagna somewhere else. And I wanna tell you about that lasagna. One thing I really like about when we do this deep dive

into one of these games, and it's a game that maybe one or more of us haven't experienced before, is just introducing someone to something. And like for me, like the experience was, was Pokemon Gold Silver, which you'd got in the spline. It's an awesome game. It's an awesome game.

Also held up. And just incredibly, incredibly playable. And I think just because of my particular age, I was like, when it came out, I was like, ah, that's kid stuff, you know? And going back to it, I was like, oh no, this is an amazing, this is an amazingly old design game. And then you got older and you're like,

actually kid stuff. Yeah, I yeah, I can't back to say oh, no, this is an amazing This is amazing. You got a little bit like actually kid stuff. I'm into this Keep it coming. There was a retro game that we before Can't do it. I can't do it. There was a game that game that we played Was it Mario 64 where we got into a conflict because you guys were like, I don't know that this holds up And I was like it absolutely holds up. I don't feel like I Maybe I said that but I don't feel like I don't know that this holds up and I was like it absolutely holds up. I don't feel like I Maybe I said that but I don't feel like I said I Sitting here now. I don't remember what I said, but I don't see why I would go back to Mario 64 when Mario Odyssey Here's the thing about Mario 64 is it does have some

Things like things like Mario's turning radius or just like a little bit wonky feeling, you know I mean, it's like it's like the kind of stuff like they've just figured out, whatever, this is the game that set the template. So it's gonna have some imperfections, but like, you know, it doesn't quite have the control of the modern games, but I do feel like that game holds up. When we played this and talked about playing this, I was nervous that I didn't know

that whether it was good or not anymore because I've played it so many times. Sure, yeah, another feeling. And I was like, ah, what if Matt doesn't like it? What if this is a chore? What if he says to us, you know, it was hard to get into this. And it's so incredible that here in the year 2024,

Matt's playing Chrono Trigger and talking about how if it was released this year, it could be game of the year. It's, I just, I love it when we're all in complete agreement about something, and that happens kind of rarely on the show. And that also speaks to how fucking good this game is. I think, I know that there are gonna be some people who are like, I actually don't like this game very much.

That's fine. You'd have to be a fucking idiot to think this game is bad. That is insane to me. like I actually don't like this game very much. You'd have to be a fucking idiot to think this game is bad. That is insane to me. Like that's like. You might not like it, but I think you'd, yeah, you'd be hard pressed to say that it was bad. Yeah, I mean look, I think there's a lot of green,

a lot of daylight between, you know, like, hey, I think this thing is good or bad, and I think this thing is for me or not for me. You know what I mean? It's like, I think people usually have the. It's like Obra Dinn was not for me, but I can respect how good it is. Yeah, and that game is super for me.

When we do this, because I've been introduced to a couple of really great games because of this show, Sonic 2 being one of them had not played it before. Sonic 2 is so good. And then most recently, I would probably say, was Shadow of the Colossus was another big. Oh yeah.

So I kind of. That was the game where we talked about how it didn't hold up maybe. Maybe, I loved it. I could see the edges a little bit. I honestly think, I think it might have been Silent Hill 2, now that I think about it. Oh, that's what it was.

Yeah, that's what it was, where I was like, you guys are fucking wrong. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that game's incredible, I love that game. Given the choice. It's a little clunky to play. Would I play it again? Time may tell if the remake is any good,

but I don't know that I would go back to the specific version that I play. Silent Hill 2 is the only game where a character recurs in my dreams. Like, I see Pyramid Head so often in my dreams. That could've, I I mean that's the thing about that is that like any character would have been an unsatisfying answer Her midhead sees me in his dream Buddy that guy that guy scares me. I have a review This is a contemporaneous review from the August 1995 issue of Electronic Gaming Magazine,

EGM. I'll just read this review. This is one of those things where there are four different critics. They all weigh in and they kind of go, I'll give their paragraph review. This game got a 37 out of 40, which is a very high score because it was out of a 10-point scale for four reviewers. Like with Famitsu, 10s were rare. I'll just read this review from Al. All caps. This is awesome! Chrono Trigger is an RPG that combines the best features of the

FF series and mana and puts them all in a game that easily gets my vote for RPG of the year. As with all Squaresoft games, the visuals are drawn with stunning detail and the music immerses players even further into the quest. Of course the game's best feature is its endearing storyline and multiple endings. Add multiple endings to that and you've got a must-have for your RPG collection. 9.5. Best feature? Everything. Worst feature? Yeah right. The 90s were such a simple time. That's amazing. I mean, I really wish I could have brought it home and finished it.

Because I do think it's just such an impressive work. I wonder how, where did you leave off, Heather? I honestly don't know where I left off on the game. I've been to the past multiple times. I've been to, I'm not yet at Magus this time. Okay, okay. But I'm somewhere in between,

like somewhere right before that I think. It's, yeah, it's really humiliating. And honestly, I am embarrassed and ashamed that I haven't beaten it again. Maybe I will keep, it's so nice. I can't believe that, I can't believe it's not out for the switch Yeah, it's so nice to play it on the pocket before you go to bed that like it's it just feels crazy

That you can't do that with an actual console Well, I don't know if it was last year the year before but it very recently they re-released live alive It never been localized in North America and they did a remake and that is on switch And I played it on switch. It's fucking awesome. It's awesome You can also really see the Chrono Trigger influence like it feels like a rough draft even go There's like a cake. There's like a future world with it with you know like a robot sort of character There's a there's a distant past and their distant past the cave and the caveman characters don't even like use English words.

So it's all just grunts and stuff. But I'm like, if they put that on there, I feel like, are they not going to put Chrono Trigger really? Are you not going to get this playable on modern consoles at all? I don't know. What if it's a launch title to... Okay, so the Switch 2 is guaranteed to come out next year by all rumored measure, right?

What if it's one of the launch titles for Switch 2? Oh my God, are you kidding me? Like, what if it's like, first off, I hope they call it the Super Switch, but like, what if there's like a Nintendo renaissance of like here are five incredible retro games from each system, like and that's part of the launch sequence of Switch 2, it'll never fucking happen. It's too good, that would make us too happy

if that happened. It's gotta be annoying somehow. It'll be like a, it'll be like tears of the kingdom, you know It'd be like a 4k tears of the kingdom that's full price like that's like the kind of thing and I'll fucking yeah I'll buy it Heather did you ever I never played radical dreamers? Did you ever mess around with radical dreamers? So this was a visual novel follow-up that was never localized outside of Japan I thought about playing it for this one Then it was ultimately like I don't know if we

even have time for it. But I do, I'm curious about it. Radical Dreamers ended up being like kind of like a lot of its content was re-appropriated for Chrono Cross, which was one of the most hyped I've ever been for a game. I, I, I, I, hyped I'd ever been for a game. The cinematic trailer, like I was just like, holy shit, I can't believe this with the, with the scoring. And then GameSpot gave a 10.0 review,

and which they never gave out perfect 10s. And I was like, I can't believe this thing's coming out. I ultimately was pretty disappointed by Chrono Cross. I still overall like the game, but it is overstuffed. And I think as a sequel, it's pretty unsatisfactory. It's just kind of like a more is more approach that just ends up feeling kind of cluttered. Yeah, I didn't like the art style of chrono cross that much at the time

You know, I got it on launch day and was so fucking excited I'd already spent so much time trying to beat Chrono Trigger again and again That one chrono I was like, oh well, I'll beat chrono cross part of the problem with chrono cross is the loading times Yes. Yeah, that was a and that was a big problem with the ps1 Chrono trigger port is just like the loading times were awful But but there were loading times before each battle fucking PlayStation version of chrono trigger really really bad Not really playable the yeah, I mean it was just like, you know, whatever there's there's like seven characters in chronic trigger There's like 50 characters in chrono cross. There's just like so many, you know, there's so many potential party members.

Which, by the way, in talking about this, I've just realized I also own this on the PlayStation 1. I had forgotten that it's on my shelf for the PlayStation 1. I have Chrono Trigger on all of these systems. I can't fucking believe I haven't beaten it. That being said, I'm pretty sure if I turned over my analog pocket right now, the game that's physically in it

might beat Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, to give you guys an idea of how much of an albatross that game is. Matt, can you flip it over? I wanna know if that's what's in it currently. Matt's doing a flip. I've seen it. Yeah, it's fucking me.

The game permanently in my system. Chrono Cross did come out for modern hardware. They did a port which apparently was pretty bad. That the remaster is pretty half-assed, yeah. People are saying it just emulated the original. Any other thoughts on this? I mean, we could talk about it all day, but and still not get to everything.

It's one of those. I love Frog. I love Frog so goddamn much. I love robo. I love robo too. I love all of them I think if I'm sort of lukewarm on any of them it is it is Luca probably wow how dare you lukewarm and she does fire isn't that something I I That's a shock. I wouldn't use her as much. She's just not as strong of a party member as like Alia or something who just has fists and is very, very strong. Yeah.

I like to gravitate toward strength. I don't know if anthropomorphize is the right word for this, but I'm always nervous when I play Chrono Trigger of taking people out of my party and hurting their feelings. Yes, I do understand that. And I don't have that experience with hardly any other RPGs where, like, especially, like, well, I guess it doesn't really count for Baldur's Gate

because I didn't have a lot of party options in that game. But like with this game, I'm like, I don't want to tell this person to stay behind in the world beyond time. Yeah, they streamlined that in Baldur's Gate 3 with one of the updates, what that process was in terms of swapping, but yeah, going through that whole thing of,

if that's truly your desire, I will stay. Some of them kind of go get passive aggressive on you. I feel horrible. Something, this is a sort passive aggressive on you. Yeah, I feel horrible something This is a sort of left field thing to mention. I think yeah, but I think it's worth mentioning I love everyone's unique individual movement cycles. Oh, yeah alio sort of runs around like a Wild like an animal. Yeah, and frog does kind of too, but it is a little bit different It's like he's trying to be dignified doing it. Yeah Like an animal. Like a big cat. And Frog does kind of too, but it is a little bit different.

It's like he's trying to be dignified doing it. Yes. He's still a fancy guy, but everybody sort of moves a little bit differently. I think that's really, really cool. It just also is like a, I don't know, for the, I know we've touched on this, but for the era, it does look amazing still, I believe.

Do you guys wanna hear the back cover of the original Suprenius? Please. This is, you know, it's before this game becomes a legend. They have like, it's kinda like, when you're releasing Star Wars, you'll still put out a teaser poster where you think you're gonna hit bank,

but you aren't quite sure. So it's like, oh, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, it's like, oh, wow, it could be something. But this is the back of the box as originally released. The 32 Meg quest begins. The millennium, a portal is opened. The chain of time is broken. A young man is transported into the past,

altering the course of history and the outcome of the future. He has to find his way home, but first, he must travel to the outer edges of time to repair the world's chronology. On the way, he encounters strange friends and foes, utilizes incredible devices and vehicles, and penetrates and neutralizes the fortresses of the past, present, and future.

A paradox has been created. If he does not restore the order of time, past, present, and future. A paradox has been created. If he does not restore the order of time, nothing will ever be the same. He is the one who will become a hero. He is Chrono. Now- That's pretty cool.

That rocks. When, what's important about this box to me is that this, if in a world before the internet, in a world where the only way that you could see what a game was, because you couldn't, I mean, you could rent them eventually, like you could rent Super NES games, but like this is the only pitch you have as a kid

is the back of this box and the little tiny pictures that they choose. And it's like, does that sell the game to you and I think it does I think so 100% I haven't you know, so the game is in here. Yeah, I Can't say with any certainty that I've ever held a box of a Super Nintendo game before so now The only game that I've held from that era in my hands is Chrono Trigger. Wow.

I don't have the instructions, unfortunately. I still have the instructions in the map for Final Fantasy VI, but I don't have them for Chrono Trigger. I say bring big boxes back. Love big boxes. I love a big box. I love a big old box.

Heather said that, by the way, it's a 32 meg adventure is what you read for the back of the book. I should, back of the box, 32 megabits in this era, which is four megabytes, four megs in our parlance. This photograph I have on my phone of a chicken sandwich and waffle fries is seven megs. So Chrono Trigger takes up less space

than this chicken sandwich. Where does that chicken sandwich from? It looks good as hell. This is from Popeyes. Oh wow. Yeah, it was good as hell. Oh wait, that can't be from Popeyes, because why would they, they don't have waffle fries.

They don't have waffle fries? Careful. You're fired. I know, Jesus Christ, I lost my other podcast job. Hey look, I get this photo too. Wow, look at those guys. Are these your guys? Whose guys are these?

Those must be Heather's. Those are my guys. Yeah. But mine are posing in a similar way except. I have a Sephiroth and not two clouds Yeah, two versions of cloud and Sora very cool Amiibos it's a photo of amiibos To in case you're disoriented by like what is happening on the podcast right now Fuck was that chicken sandwich from what are you doing? Okay, look we gotta get, we gotta wrap this thing up. We gotta wrap this thing up.

It's time for the Uplay of our WePlay Uplay. It's your review crew, the Ryu crew. HELLO, KUN! Alright, and these are all from our Discord, discord.gg slash get play, let's fucking go. This first one is from LoggerBee I logger B. I logger B I logger B. May right all I can think of is thank you People are really excited about Us doing they're gonna be so disappointed. They're gonna be mad. They're gonna be so mad. They're gonna be so mad at me look It's again. It's just it's just impossible to cover this game. I'm gonna keep playing it

I'm gonna keep playing it. You know what you know what guys? I'm gonna play tonight You know what I'm gonna keep playing it and and when you ask me what what what I've been playing It's gonna be Chrono Trigger. Okay until Star Wars Outlaws comes out This next one's from it's Patrick And it's Patrick writes Akira Toriyama never missed. RIP King. Really great character design. Just like, everybody looks so fucking cool.

I didn't appreciate his design as a kid. Like as a kid I was like, these guys are all weird looking, but as an adult I'm like, fuck this shit is so iconic. Yeah, so distinct. I love how interesting the human character models look But then frog is just a frog But he still has like a lot of character do it. I don't know I mean, it's it's it's not just you know, it's it's also the wardrobe. That's part of the character design

I don't know. It's it's it's really cool. One of our mods Ted core writes. I Ted. My name is Gato I have metal joints. This game is awesome, it gets five out of five silver points. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Bizliss writes, I recently played Chrono Trigger for the first time and it retroactively made me mad at Sea of Stars for missing the mark so badly. Oh, so this person didn't like Sea of Stars. Whoa! Hmm. Wow. You know, it's, look.

I'd be interested to check it out. I like this type of game. I really enjoyed Sea of Stars. It's a modern game that's attempting to capture that retro feeling is obviously so much of, it's so clearly inspired by Chr feeling is obviously so much of it. It's so clearly inspired by a contract. I think it's I think it's a really cool game.

I would not be that negative on it, but it's you know, compare anything to one of the best games ever made. It's not going to look for a city of stars. The song from La La Land. What's the next question? This next one is from this This next one's from... It's so rare, it's so rare that Nick and I are in the same emotional place. The two hour mark, time for this fucking nonsense. Rumpelfugly writes,

It's easily in the top three JRPGs for the Super Nintendo and possibly even holds the number one spot. Wonder what the other picks are there. Final Fantasy 6 has to be one of them because it's like maybe one of the best Final Fantasy games. So I'd be shocked if one of those slots isn't Final Fantasy and maybe the other one is gonna be a Dragon Quest. Could be, yeah, could be Earthbound,

could be Super Mario RPG. I'm curious. Yeah, maybe they're Dragon Quest fan. Let us know what your top three is. I'm curious. Yeah, I'd love to know as well. This next one is from One Car Pile Up. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I would commit arson for frog Yeah, I think I would do I would do anything for frog he's my number one guy and and finally

Not yx rights Even if it wasn't designed with new game plus so you can keep playing and playing you would still keep playing Replaying this game because it's that damn good ten out of ten playable and in any era I Agree, yeah great great great final comment there. I agree. Yeah I'm so sorry. I haven't been I'm sorry to but fucking sorry. We're gonna do it. I think one day you will do it I'm never I've been trying to beat Final Fantasy tactics final tactics prank. It's But that game's a prank, it's not even real. I have 120 hours on a fucking Game Boy Advance game. Every time I play it now, I'm confused. I don't know where I am anymore.

Who is this? Also, that cartridge is my original cartridge, and I am still on the original play. So my save is a save that has been going since what? For 20 fucking years, since 2004. You just started a new game. No, I did on the Steam Deck. I was like, that's what it'll do.

That's what it'll do and I need to start it again. I played for like 10 hours on the Steam Deck and I was like, no, I should just go back to my, I have to beat this game. Yeah. I finished Chrono Trigger multiple times, including this most recent playthrough, and let me tell you,

it's not gonna fix any of your problems. Nothing does. Yeah. And that's this week's Get Played. Our producers are Shelf 10, Ranch, Yard, underscore, underscore, Sard, our music is by Ben Prunty, benpruntymusic.com, our art is by Duck Brigade Design, benpruntymusic.com.

Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-Headgum back catalog plus ad-free main feed episodes. Really, some of those, like the Shadow of the Colossus episode, the, or was that when we were, was that a part of our Headgum? It's hard to remember. I can't remember the timeline, but like some of the some of those episodes we're offers the Silent Hill 2 I know the the tentacle episodes some of these other

Games we've dug deep into are part of that that back catalog so you get that a patreon That's right, and we could also get our show get animated where we're watching violet ever garden. That's right and Maybe it's in a bit of an upswing right now. Maybe. You'll have to listen and find out. Yeah. Patreon.com slash get played for all of that. Nay, I don't think anyone got played this week. I think what got played is an unimpeachable masterpiece called Chrono Trigger.

Really good. Yeah, it was really good. The fuck was that chicken sandwich right? Hello everyone, Matt here. You just heard me say during the show that I hadn't finished the game and I regretted not finishing it and was sad that I hadn't finished it in time. I'm coming to you now from a different time from the recording. It is the day after and I have now completed the game

and my thoughts haven't changed. This is one of the best games, this is a masterpiece. This is one of the best games I've ever played in my life. This game now means so much to me and I love it so much. I'm so glad I got to do it on the show and that we covered it and that I finally got to experience this game. I'll tell you about what ending I got.

I got the cat ending, which I didn't know was one of the options or something that I was even trying to get. So that was very exciting to me. The cat ending is in one of the sub endings of the first ending, which is called Beyond Time here on this fandom wiki that I'm looking at right here and basically what happens is sort of a repeat of the scene from the start of the game. Chrono is, he wakes up

in his bed, this time a soldier wakes him up and he learns that his day of execution has been canceled and he goes that his day of execution has been cancelled and he goes to the castle and he meets with the king and Marl pleads on his behalf, saving him. However, the king has been made aware of their quest, thanks to Luca, and they get to go have a parade as it were, a parade celebrating them and their achievements. And then they all start to say goodbye to each other. They all go back. The whole squad goes back to their own time.

So it's a heartfelt ending. Everyone's saying goodbye to each other, leaving Luca, Chrono, and Marle all in their own time. But then Chrono's cat runs into frame, followed by Chrono's mom, and they jump into the time, the little time portal right before it closes forever. And so then the squad, Luca, Marle, and Chrono, run off together, and then it ends!

And it's a gorgeous ending, it's a wonderful game, I loved it so much, and I'm so glad I did it, and I just wanted to come in here and let you guys know that I did finish it. And that's it. Goodbye for now. See you next week.