Enemy of Lavos: A Love Story

I love Chrono Trigger. I mean, I REALLY love Chrono Trigger. And not just me, but damn near everyone loves Chrono Trigger, even if they don't know it yet. It is, almost without dissent, considered one of the best games of all time, and certainly one of the best RPGs.

I LOVE CHRONO TRIGGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me talk about why Chrono Trigger was so amazing. I'm gonna break this down into six parts.

1. Music
Music is first? Why music? Isn't gameplay more important, or at least story since this is an RPG? They will come in due time. The fact is, the soundtrack to Chrono Trigger is fucking amazing.
Fun Fact: The soundtrack was mostly done by Yasunori Mitsuda, who was previously a sound engineer, and was overseen by Nobuo Uematsu of Final Fantasy fame. Uematsu took over for 10 of the game's 54 tracks after Mitsuda developed stomach ulcers because he was working so hard (damn!).
So, music. Start up the game, and we get a pendulum swinging with some atmospheric music playing. Nice set-up, but I'm not feeling wowed. But if you let it sit, the intro video comes up, with scenes from the game, credits, and, oh yeah, KICKASS THEME SONG! Seriously, this is the kind of music that gets your blood pumping. I love the very subtle opening of Final Fantasy VI as well, but once the main theme of Chrono Trigger starts going, you know this is going to be a badass adventure. It really sounds like the prelude to an epic quest to save the world. Oh, wait, did I say save the world? Sorry for the typo. I meant to say save the world, 3 freaking times! Most heroes call it quits after one time. Not Chrono's crew.

You thought you were down/Thought you were gone/Saw no heroes around/You felt all alone/But look up in the sky/See the Epoch fly/See us in everytime, everywhere/Save the world for you

But it's more than just the track, it's about the track coupled with the opening. Videogame music can be really amazing compositionally; the kind of thing you'd buy if it was on a cd completely unrelated to the game. I hate Twilight, but I like Solar Midnight, and it's so unrelated that I don't feel any sort of contradiction there. Sometimes the music just works well within the game; it fits so well that you hardly notice how much it enhances the experience. I'd probably put the soundtracks to killer7 and No More Heroes in this category. Now, rarely, you get videogame compositions that do both. But Chrono Trigger, man...It's really beautiful. The music is amazing, but it feels like it belongs, and soon the game and the music become inextricable. I hear the music, and I remember all the time periods, the characters, and the epic battles from the game, but it doesn't just feel like association. I associate Castelvania: Circle of the Moon with forests, my aunt and uncle, my grandma, and Final Fantasy bestiality pronz (you could ask, but then I'd have to show you pictures of porn and my grandma at the same time, which would probably lead to some uncomfortable associations involving boners).

Wark Wark!

The point is, association is different from being intimately connected. The music of Chrono Trigger is matched perfectly with the game world, which is what makes it so fantastic. Beautiful on it's own, perfectly crafted within the game, the music is simply a masterpiece.
I'm not gonna go on about individual songs, even if I want to; maybe some day, cause I really just wanna go off about Frog's Theme, Magus' Battle music, all the music in 12,000 B.C. it's all so amazing.
I should make a few last notes before moving on. One is that the songs are long; for game music of that time I mean. Games songs have to loops, unless it's during a cutscene. Maybe you get up to make a sandwich. Wouldn't it be weird if the music just stopped after 4 minutes? So, of course game music loops, but some people take advantage of it, especially in the old days. Make some beeps for about 20 seconds and then loop it, but not Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger doesn't fuck around with that weak ass shit. These songs are around two minutes before they loop.

This man is not one to fuck with that weak ass shit.

Lastly, this music is beloved by so many. There are several entire remix albums dedicated to this music, some official but many fan made. Aside from full projects there are countless remixes. OC Remix (which employs a judging system so not every entry is accepted) has 131 remixes just from Chrono Trigger, not counting their own remix album Chrono Symphonic. Okay, I've gone on about the music enough. Lets move on to gameplay.

2)Gameplay
At first glance, the gameplay seems pretty straight forward for an RPG, but there is some nice variety to mix it up. For one, at the beginning of the game you can choose between turn based battles or ATB (Active Time Battles). ATB basically means that time keeps going as you choose your moves, so even if it's your turn, taking time to pick out the moves gives the enemies time to attack. Another nice feature is the tech system. So, techs are basically special moves, and you get new techs by getting tech points from battling. The cool part comes in when you get dual and triple techs. What this means is, when you have gotten certain techs for two or more characters, you will learn a move that combines them, and as long as all included characters turns are up, you can do the dual or triple techs. Aside from that, the special moves are really cool, and go beyond the basic "cast fire", "super sword strike". The more unique ones come from Frog and Robo though. Oh, yeah. One of the characters you play as is an anthropomorphic frog knight from the Middle Ages.

Slice those fiends/Protect Cyrus' dream/Slice those fiends/Use the froggy slip-stream/Slice those fiends/My techs'll make 'em scream/Slice those fiends/My song's an old world theme, drums and flute sing

Now, this is where it gets tricky because, like all great games, Chrono Trigger's gameplay is very much interwoven with it's story. My favorite part of the gameplay is definitely the time travel elements. Oh, right. SPOILERS: They travel through time if you didn't get that from, you know, Chrono being in the game's title, or read any basic description of the game. But, returning to the point at hand, I love the time travel mechanics for one reason; THEY FUCKING MAKE SENSE. You know how time travel plots always seem so stupid, because the mechanics don't make sense? Well, play Chrono Trigger, because the shit makes sense. When you go into the past and change things, things actually change in believable ways. And sometimes, you have to go back to the past to fix the shit you changed in the first place so the timeline doesn't go bonkers. I'd put up a picture of Bonkers the cat/police officer here and make a comment about how as a kid I liked the bonkers game, but will any of you get it? No, no you won't.
Anyway, the point is the gameplay is fantastic, and honestly you need to play it to fully understand how well it works. That's about all I can say about it.

III. Characters
So, you have time travel. How can you make the best use of it? How about having characters from all across time. You want robots? Done! Fucking robots! Robots with lasers! Shadow lasers! "But Justin, shadow lasers? That makes no sense." Fuck you; fuck you with shadow lasers.

Pictured: Not shadow lasers, but the closest approximation of their awesomeness.

(note: Some physicists theorize the existence of dark matter and dark energy, so Chrono Trigger's shadow lasers may have been decades ahead of scientific progress, which makes sense because the robot comes from the future. That should have blown your mind.)

What else do you want? Knights? Forget that shit! Frog knights! Frog knights with magic swords and magic...magic, I guess. He can use water elemental magic...to the extreme!

What else is cool? How about scythes. You know who uses scythes as weapons? Death, from Castelvania. Yeah, the dude who was always the coolest boss next to Dracula. Now, give him a badass, dark, intense theme song. That's a start. Okay, now give him magic. No, you're doing it all wrong! You're sprinkling it on there like a timid chef who is afraid of making the potatoes too salty. No, you take that bag of magic and just empty that whole thing. Okay, we're getting closer. Finally, add a cape. Now take all that, put it in a bowl, mix the FUCK out of it, and what do you get?

PENIS! I mean, MAGUS!

Is this cool enough for you? How about a Caveman? Well, this was turning into a sausage fest, so they made it a cavewoman.

What's the problem with a sausage fest?

Now, granted, she is the strongest character in the game, and has a very sexy dom feel to her, but one thing always bothered me about the prehistoric people in this game. They speak English/Japanese depending on where you bought the game, but they speak it like a 6 year old who doesn't understand basic grammar. So, these people came up with a complex language which has lasted at least 65,002,300 years, but are too stupid to speak it correctly? What?

Why can't all cavemen be this studious?

Rounding off our cast are three heroes from the present. We have Lucca, the resident girl genius with giant glasses who uses guns and, eventually, laser guns. Also, when I say she has giant glasses, I mean these things can see the dark side of the moon. They are bigger than her head. She also has fire magic and bombs. Personally, she is my favorite of the female characters, even though I admit that Ayla would probably fuck like a tiger, quite literally in fact. But I really like that nerdy, smart girl archetype, so yeah. We also have Marle, the most useless character in the game, and by useless, I mean she is the healer, which is stupid because basically everyone in the game has one healing tech. The only reason for ever putting her in your party is because her dual techs with Lucca are cool. But really, she's stupid and a ditz and What Is Wrong With You Chrono! Lucca Is The True Love Of Your Life! Lucca/Chrono Foreverz! Clearly The Writers Didn't Understand Their Own Characters! Waaaaaaaaah!
So, rounding out our cast is, of course, the main hero Chrono, who continues the grand tradition of main characters who use swords. His was a simple life, living in the village of Truce.

I'm from a city in the northwest/best city in the whole wide wide world, hey/city in the whole wide world, hey/city in the whole wide world/ I got that go go go go go go go go go go Chrono flow

At the end of the day, the characters are imaginative, fun, and memorable. Everything any good fictional characters should be.

Four-Story
Honestly, I have nothing to say here. Everything you need to know about the story without spoilers has already been said by the gameplay, characters, and music, and that is what makes this game so fantastic. Everything just fits together perfectly and builds upon each other to make something that is much greater than the sum of it's parts, and it's parts were already pretty bitchin'.
Chrono Trigger. One of the best games ever. Fin.

RESIDENT TERRIBLE

Yo so i have somewhat good/bad news for the people. First news is that apparently we have another gaming movie coming out this year....about zombies..... that's right you guessed it another resident evil movie, this time you actually get to see Wesker in action, but yes... i saw the trailer and i was completely disappointed on how the movie moved along, if you do remember where the last movie left off, it was in the desert, in the middle of mother fucking nowhere, and there was little pod clones in an underground base..... if you remember playing the game the first thing that would pop up in your mind would be "WTF i don't remember this ever happening before in the game... where did all the African people go from RE5??" So >.> I'm not gonna make you go and see this movie, I'm not gonna stop you either, but i will tell you that if you are going to go see this next movie, go see it with an open mind for the graphics, the "different" storyline, and mostly DON'T BITCH ABOUT WHAT THEY DID WRONG. Thus in all i would give this new movie a rental in advance before it even comes out in the theaters.

So, theres news to be shared...SAD GOOD AND BAD!

We here at the 16bit blog are trying to get used to this whole blogging thing. Its kind of tricky because you actually have to update it regularly. Not something I'm accustom to, and neither are any of my writier staff, but thats our problem. We'll figure it out, in the meantime i have sad news, good news and news that might piss you off.

SAD NEWS FIRST!:

I'm so late to the party with this one, but apparently there were plans of a REAL Chrono Trigger sequel called Chrono Break, Those who don't know me personally need to understand that i hail Chrono Trigger as one of the greatest RPG's of all time. Pretty much any story that can do time travel coherently and make it amazing i give mad stacks of credit to. Like that one episode of Phineas and Ferb (god i love that show), Im deviating though *ahem* The license for Chrono Break in America expired in 2003 and apparently its up for japan this year in july. Its so sad, but its for the best because most of the original team for Trigger left the company and moved on, meaning now the sequel had no chance of being made. What would blow my mind is if this all turned out to be a stunt to just build up for its release, because honestly those are some very different time frames for a license to expire. 2003 and 2010? CMON if only we could somehow go into the future to know what was going to happen and see if they were going to make it. OR BETTER YET GO INTO THE FUTURE AND CHANGE IT!

Too bad its impossible.

btw: yeah i know chorno cross exists, i just didnt care for it. Not as a sequel to trigger. Stand alone...the story was still a little contrived and i just cant get behind it the way i can with trigger.

GOOD NEWS!: 

The Good news is that we are awesome and we are going to continue to be that way.
If you want other good news you gotta be into anime, you dont have to be a weeaboo but still.

If you like zombies and anime then awesome because they are finally making an anime adaption of the only zombie manga on the market that is worth recognizing. High School of the Dead is going to be an anime and it looks amazing, complete with rotting flesh, guns, hot girls with gravity defying bouncing boobs and the obligatory sword user. I mean that is just silly, you don't use a sword in a Zombie Apocalypse, thats Noob Z day rule #1

still she looks hot and i cant really say I'm complaining, because i would so want to, its just that it wouldn't be worth my life if it fails.

In other Anime News, there is a pretty good chance that (my personal favorite anime/show of all time) Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, will have its movies released stateside by Bandai which in my personal opinion goes in the top brass on the shelf of Awesome.

For those that dont know what this show is or what its about, SHAME ON YOU! Seriously if you like anime and dont know what this is your probably too busy watching bleach and naruto to care, but probably not one piece because you dont like the artstyle....you dicks! GO WATCH THIS AND BECOME A PART OF THE SENSATION THAT IS TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN!

WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM!?

BAD NEWS: 

There is a rumor that there is going to be a Fred movie. Its still loose speculation from the internet, the very same internet that said Bill Cosby died, so its up in the air, but would it really be all that surprising?

Tell you what though, if they made a movie and Fred Savage was in it, i might go see it. I mean the guy has been working on Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and has a lot of other awesome stuff under his belt so i would trust he could make something good.

You hear that Fred Savage? Make a movie so i can watch it and double the effect of my boycott if that stupid high pitched asshole makes one. Please?

I am a monster truck that walks like a man, and I have a great deal for you

BILLY MAYS IS IN BRAWL

Hi, Billy Mays here.

Wait, what?
For those of you not in "the know", get out now. You aren't cool enough. The rest of you then already are aware that the above image is a texture mod of Ganondorf from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, made possible through Brawl +.
Brawl + is like CS Source, only not intended to be as such. I'd say I'm sure that Nintendo didn't intend-o (and on that farm, there lived a Miyamoto) to make the Wii so easily soft modded, and in fact menu updates seem to support that, but I'm not entirely sure.

Follow me here. You are The Nintendo, a being made of quarters and excess sugar rush energy. Well, of course you want to make arcade games to get more of these things, but what is this? There are other forms of money which can be converted to quarters, allowing you to consume them like some sort of capitalist cubivore AND sugar rushes occurring outside of wherever arcades are located?! "Gimme some'a that" you'd say if you spoke anything other than a confusing language composed of mostly english words as dictated by my dad after he came home from the place that sells happy juice. Thus, the NES was born, or as many people call it, the Ness (I also call STD's studs, which results in hilariously zany mix-ups). So, good job so far. Continue this for a while, upgrading the consoles as necessary. So, suddenly, a new market opens up, namely people who don't really play videogames. These are known as casual gamers or, as you might better know them, the person who thinks Ninja Bread Man looked like a good game. Well, if that's where the money is, then sign me up. But wait, what about the people who gave you their money for so long, and have grown to love the parasitic eldritch entity that you are? Nostalgia and easy modding.

See, I still love Nintendo and my Wii. They deliver good games (and a lot of bad ones, but who's counting?) and a welcome break from the modern games of XBox 360 and PS3 which seem to be too serious and extremely focused on online play, even when it is completely out of place...Ghostbusters. Beyond that, I hold the minority opinion which I may have just made up that Nintendo intentionally left the Wii easily mod-able. They knew that it would sell like crazy, and that most of those people would not have the skill or know how to hack it. This way, they get money, and keep their most loyal fans happy and hacking. I mean, how much money do they really need?

Okay, so I've gotten a bit off topic.
Modding. You remember grade school? You remember tag? You remember X-Men TAS? Okay, the first two are important for this exercise. Tag was awesome! But then, someone realized there were, dun dun da, other kinds of tag! Freeze tag, tv tag, safety tag, and I'll bet you made up some of your own versions of tag. Congratulations, you are a modder.

2nd law of Modding Dynamics: As time increases, all game mods tend towards Calvinball.

Yes, modding is as simple as taking something which already exists and "modifying" it within it's pre-defined reality. This works very easily with tag because everything is within our defined reality. With games it's a tad more complicated, though there really should be no sarcastic emphasis on the word "tad'.

Within the world of a specific game, modding must take place within that reality (the game's source code). This is much easier with PC games and, by extension, ROMs. Imagine then my surprise when I found out about a moddable hack of Brawl called Brawl +. I played a very bare bones mod of it, and had more fun with Brawl than I ever had before. Characters were rebalanced, Sonic was amazing, speed and gravity were upped, hit stun turned up, basically it was what I had wanted Brawl to be from the beginning.
I shared this with my younger brother and softmodded his Wii for him so he could do it himself from there. Well, imagine my surprise when I came home for Easter to this.

I did not mean/to blow your mind/but Brawl+ does it/all the ti-I-ime.

It's like Mugen, but a mod for a home console! Do you have any clue how awesome that is? This just blew my mind. They made a Hyper Sonic mod, new stages, ridiculous costumes, new menus, and a HYPER SONIC MOD! It is so much fun. I talked about how some of the fun of MvC2 was its brokeness? Same goes for the god mods in Brawl+. Hyper Sonic cannot lose. I mean, he could suicide, but if being played by a retarded monkey with one working hand, he will win. Not quite as true for some of the other super mods, like my beloved Storm Fox, but that should not take away from their supreme awesomeness.

Now, I like to have something important to say about whatever my topic is. To that end, I wanna use this as a continuation of my previous comment on game balancing. Yes, game balancing is important. I don't think anyone wants to be "that guy", the one who looked at Metaknight and said, "Yes, this is will be a perfectly well received addition to a game with a history of competitive tournament play." I enjoy Brawl, Brawl+, and the super modded variation of Brawl+. I also enjoy the original Super Mario Bros. as well as the insanely unfair mods of that game. I play Devil May Cry on Easy, Normal, and Dante Must Die all for very different reasons.

What I'm trying to get at is that there are a wealth of different ways to enjoy games, whether it be the basic run through, the "I am a magnifying glass among ants" run through, or the "more infuriating that the Valley of the Kings" run through (get that reference, and I'll send you a pack of nerds jelly beans). Developers can only put so much work into a game, and only design a few different ways to enjoy it. While I usually am happy with the end result at the very least, I would love to see more games get the Brawl+ treatment. I look forward to a future where level editors (would have made Mirror's Edge sooooooooooo much better), open source games, and mods are common place. Where game designing is an open exchange between developers and gamers. Where everyone loves Suda51 and gives him money (hey, it's my idealistic future). And finally, where Billy Mays is a playable character in every videogame ever.
A toast, to the future.



So, what do an architect, a male model photographer, and a whore have in common?
They work with studs all day! And have existential depression; just like all of us.
:'(