14:05 I agree, the pacing of Chrono Trigger is basically perfect. By contrast, people often point out that the pacing of Chrono Cross is at the very least, flawed, if not outright bad. But, it's been theorized that during the development of the game, which was happening at the same time as Final Fantasy 8, the head of the FF8 project intentionally changed the story beat pacing of Chrono Cross so that it would not outshine FF8... Imagine if that didn't happen, and we had a better paced Chrono Cross...
X2 is my favorite one of the three. I find most of the levels really fun to play through. Has the best music and the double shot you get with the cannon upgrade is also the best. I'd say most of the weapons are a bit underwhelming tho but I barely use them anyway. X1 set the standard and is possibly overall a better game but feels slightly duller to me and X3 has I think the coolest bosses and a nice vibe to it but seemed like a much better game as a kid. In some instances the level design seems uninspired and very little enemy variety. Still solid tho. Anyways good video!
I enjoy Chrono Cross, and its story definitely has more going on, but being more complicated doesn't make it "better" in my eyes. Also, Cross had like a bajillion party members, but the story focuses on maybe five of them. The game lacks a clear central focus. The entirety of Trigger revolves around Lavos, whereas Cross' story feels way more haphazard.
@GamingintheAM0801 Hello. I enjoyed your video. Your thoughts Echo mine and I have lots of experience like you playing at numerous times. The final song that plays at the end is definitely one of my favorites ever since I first heard it on that SNES all those years ago. I would sometimes replay the ending just to hear that song again. Then I ordered, what was hard to come by at the time, the CDs from overseas so I could listen to the music when I wanted to. I totally understand your love and passion for it. I have only one critique of your whole video and I noticed you've been doing this for 9 years which explains why you have a natural Comfort at this point when doing the video. The speech is eloquent and precise which brings me to the critique.. overall your entire video is very family friendly but, I don't know if you even consciously know you're doing this as, I have friends I've grown up with that until it was pointed out, it never even was something they consciously noticed they were doing. The three instances of blasphemy.. instead of just saying damn it or some other substitution but invoking God prior for a very commonly heard cuss word that we have heard in our Hollywood movies and shows and even video games if they are rated anything above PG was disappointing. I know you dropped the phrase BS toward the end and that didn't even bother. Swearing in general doesn't bother me it's strictly just that particular vernacular and type of swearing and, as a gamer I appreciate it how you chose to go about describing everything I can see myself enjoying other videos but, I'm humbly making a request that just to make your video even more enjoyable across even larger audience if you would consciously make an effort to find a different cuss word? Or just stick with dammit and leave that out of it? I don't know what the perfect solution for you. When I was younger I would occasionally say Jesus as a substitute for some expletive or probably once in a blue moon he's so frustrated I would drop GD but something about it every time made the incredibly uncomfortable and the last time I remembered saying it was approximately '08 or '09. It's just felt like the only way to properly express my anger and yet immediately afterwards I felt like.. I had screwed up. And I can't live your life for you, I don't know you at all, I don't even know if I've seen other videos of yours before. But has somebody that immediately felt a connection with you and your video, and if my request is not something that it's going to immediately taken has something offensive, it would be awesome if that little alteration was something you were willing to do. And if not, obviously, I'm just one drop in an infinite sea of potential eyeballs to see your content. But I felt personally compelled for whatever reason to reach out to you with this comment. I don't typically bother, oftentimes I'll just turn the video off if I hear it repeatedly. But, I don't know, something felt a little different here and I thought it was worth that opportunity to reach out to you. Thanks for taking the time to read this, good luck and take care
I’m glad you mentioned the irony of Lavos being the savior of humanity. It reminds me of a conversation in Chrono Cross where the chief dwarf accuses humanity of being “unnatural” and “freaks”. Some of the demi-beings make statements about why humanity can’t live symbiotically with nature. It’s in Chrono Trigger that you realize humanity was never meant to survive and that Earth (highly implied to be sapient) planned for the Reptites to inherit the planet. Consider that Earth goes through an ice age. Lavos is blamed but I think that it was actually Earth trying to kill humanity but is, again, thwarted by Lavos. Consider that the Earth warms up after the Ocean Palace arc and Lavos premature awakening. This time, Lavos deliberately intervenes and saves humanity once again because Lavos has a purpose for humanity. The people of Zeal revered Lavos like a god and for greater reason than just granting them magic. Lavos is their (humanity’s) savior even if the Zealians themselves don’t know it. Humans capable of magic are an anathema to Earth since humanity’s ability to use magic is because of Lavos. An abomination that combines Earth’s rejected species now infused by this parasitic alien. In part, humans are an extension of Lavos and whose behavior and exploitation of the planet for greed all reflect this. The Chrono series truly is a marvelous fiction.
The audio has been my biggest issue with these videos. I simply have no idea how to mix things properly. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to learn!
@@GamingintheAM0801 You probably just need a better microphone. In a y case, great video, I played Earthbound for the first time and then Chrono Trigger as I was looking to see what the hype was about these games. They quickly became two of my all time favorites. Would you please do a video on Earthbound? Thanks!
I bought a podcast mic when I decided to start making videos, and it's still pretty new. Maybe I'll look into what I can do to improve the quality of the recordings. And I've actually already done a video about EarthBound! It's in the playlist linked at the end of the video.
Oh my god you're totally right, Robo Rick-rolled us in the past/future and I can't handle this. !! This was a fantastic video, thanks so much for making it! I sadly hadn't realized that about Schala and Magus' theme, that is so amazing.
Yamcha, Puar, Oolong, Tien Shinhan, Chaotzu, Piccolo Jr, Vegeta, Buu. There’s a few more bad to good arcs than just four. Dragonball is all about redemption through kind patience and strong rivalry. EDIT: Nice video, BTW! 😁 Chrono Trigger is absolutely one of my favorite games. The attention to detail is astronomical. Everything has a purpose and everyone has a story to tell!
I've really only gotten to the music section so far but I wanted to thank you for pronouncing Schala's name correctly. I'm not sure why people take sch and turn it into sk when those letter sounds do not make a hard K sound and it bugs me to no end.
My first thought of the flaws of Chrono Trigger stem solely from the ports of the game on anything other than the original SNES version, examples include the PSone's long load times where you're waiting up to 5-6 seconds of black screen between menus... the only other port for the longest time was the DS port, and I don't have any real gripes with that one, it's great, but it's not quite pixel perfect, so the misaligned pixels don't work for me, it always bugged me, but then again, it's from the SNES generation, pixel perfect was not the intended aspect ratio to begin with... other than that thought, for the longest time it wasn't on anything else, so the game was unfortunately not very accessible... I just wish they remade Chrono Trigger in the same way they remade Final Fantasy IV or something... then in more recent years we finally got another port, but it was a god awful Android port, which eventually made it's way onto Steam, and due to mismanagement, it launched as is with all the awful changes present in the Android port... they did eventually address and fix the issues, and the PC version of the game is now one of the best available, but it's a disgrace that the PC port of this legendary of a title was released in this terrible of a state in the first place... I'll never understand it... and as it stands, the PC port is still just the 2D version of the game anyway, so the best way to play this game is still pretty much the same as if you booted up an emulator and played the original... :/ Unfortunately, the original is not the version many people opt to play, as the DS version added new content that you would otherwise be missing out on, so the DS or PC ports are still the best versions to play in many people's opinions... we'll just take what we can get I suppose~ :/ This game is criminally underrated by Square Enix, it's bizarre how this game has flown under the radar for so long and how they refuse to really do anything with it... with the new Dragon Quest III HD-2D remake coming out though, I feel like Toriyama's art style works very well with that type of remake, so I'm holding out hope that the Octopath team tackles this legendary title as well~ :9
28:00 I still say Chrono Trigger is the best 16-bit score ever written. As much as I love Uematsu and his work from FF6, this soundtrack is only a few tiny steps short of absolute perfection. And, even as a grown-ass man, "To Far Away Times" still makes me tear up damn near every time I listen to it. Schala's Theme, Magus' boss music, the main theme and its 2 sister songs (Guardia Forest and the World Map), Frog's Theme, *Corridors of freaking Time* ... there are just so many iconic masterpieces here it's hard to believe they all came from a single game.
Good video! Also just want to say that Sakaguchi can be credited for the fantastic pacing, he has a method to it that he explains in an interview with the ResonantArc yt channel where he would be like this cutscene is going on too long and he marks the script with a letter and such!
Chrono Trigger is one of my favorite games of all time, it’s not too long or too short, it’s just the right length for an RPG, I remember first being introduced to Crono himself in Super Smash Flash in the mid 2000s and thought “Wow that character looks really cool! Reminds me of Goku!” Fast forward to 2010 I would first play Chrono Trigger on the DS and immediately fell in love with the game and would do multiple playthroughs trying to get every ending, if I’m not mistaken wasn’t Chrono Trigger one of the first games to have a “New Game+” feature? That could be seen as innovative especially if you want to try and get other endings or even beat the game as soon as starting from the very beginning, Chrono Trigger is just phenomenal and is one of my top 25 games in no particular order, even Vinny Vinesauce loves Chrono Trigger and did a playthrough of it earlier this year 2024 and finished it right as the very sad news came on Akira Toriyama’s passing, thank you for everything Toriyama-San🙏
Ugh I thought you understood it when you said enemies have Iframes depending on which 'hit' reaction you see. They have evade and accuracy stats as well. The combat is excellent I'm sick of people complaining when they can't be bothered to understand it
If you didn't play Secret of Mana at the time it was released, you cannot comprehend how fucking magical it was. The MUSIC. The graphics, the coop combat. The story suffers and you can really feel the cut of the script from Japanese to English and the 40% of the game that's missing from cut content. And yes you can break the game with magic. The combat however REMAINS excellent, limited by the game only allowing 3 enemies on screen at time. The combat is better than any sequel. Exploring this world late at night with a friend was beyond incredible. Also the menu was pretty goddamn easy your complaining was a bit much
Gonna try to respond to most of your comments here for simplicity's sake, but let me just start by reiterating what I said at the end of the video: I do not think Secret of Mana is a bad game. Secondly, and not to sound harsh: It takes a certain type of gall to call someone whiny and "spoiled" when you yourself are a (presumably) grown man leaving multiple angry comments because a stranger on the Internet disagrees about a video game you like. I am more than open and welcome to friendly debate about my opinions -- otherwise I wouldn't be posting them online -- but this is not the way to go about it. Surely you could have found a way to voice your criticisms without resorting to insults and ad hominem. Be better, man. Now, to address some of the points you brought up: Believe me, I tried like hell to understand the combat. I was reading the manual, I was looking up guides, Wikis, going to message boards... I was doing everything I could to try to figure out what I wasn't getting. It still never stopped feeling clunky to me. I will stand by my opinion that a game built around real-time combat shouldn't be using stats to determine hit rates -- either my sprite touched their sprite, or it didn't. If an enemy has "high evasion," I should be able to SEE them physically move out of the way of my attack, not just have my attack arbitrarily do nothing. Regarding Spiky Tiger: "Just grind more levels" is almost never elegant game design. Most every RPG I've played -- even retro RPGs -- I've been able to finish with little-to-no grinding. I've finished the NES FF1 multiple times without ever stopping to level up my characters. An uneven difficulty curve is a legitimate criticism. Literally all of my issues with this boss fight would be mitigated if it had been placed even a single dungeon later. I honestly do feel like I missed out by not being around when the game was new (I was a literal toddler), because I can for sure see why it affected so many people who grew up with it. I meant it when I said I don't like to spew negativity. Aesthetically -- music, graphics, characters -- I adore the game, and I'm sorry we don't see eye-to-eye on the other things; it is a truly beautiful thing that you have something that means this much to you, and I wish I loved the game as much as you do!
Yes! You are absolutely right about the 'Boundless Ocean' scene. It's so affecting the first time. One of the best musical moments in all of Final Fantasy... although I have to say for some reason it sounds loads better on the NES sound chip than any modern arrangement.
