Chrono Trigger – SNES

/sigh

So I was writing this post on my phone and apparently when one does that, one must remember that the WordPress app is REALLY anxious to publish your post. One (me) did NOT remember that and a half-done version of this post was live over the weekend.

Sorry about that.

Anyhoo, ON TO THE ACTUAL POST!

http://chrono.wikia.com/wiki/Chrono_Trigger

I haven’t written in so long that I wanted to take any opportunity to start contributing to the blog again.

SO I decided to try out an Android emulator (after some quick research I bought SuperGNES) and spend some time with Chrono Trigger! This game is a bit legendary BUT I’VE NEVER PLAYED IT and I basically know nothing about it.

So. In the interest of actually posting something on this damn blog, I’ll forgo convention and just post!

This is going to be rad!

First off, I can only choose a name that’s 5 characters long… I’m glad THAT part of old games has died a horrible death.

Then IS THAT FREAKING PIKACHU? IS THIS WHERE GORD-DAMN POKEMON COME FROM???

Nope. Turns out that cats just look a lot like Pokemon in Chrono Trigger. To be honest, I’m a little disappointed.

No matter how many old games I play I always find the lack of hand-holding a little jarring. They were ok with having you wander around a bit being a confused. After all, aren’t you smart enough to figure this stuff out on your own (I’m not)? Does that ever happen anymore… aside from sandbox games?

To start off Chrono Trigger I’m supposed to go find Num09 (you get to name some of the characters, i’m guessing she’ll be part of my party later on – later I named a girl who ran into me and dropped a pendant, Penny… for obvious reasons). I named her Num09 because she’s an inventor, so obviously she would have a number in her name.

I’ll have to look into the bloodlines here, because aesthetically Chrono Trigger really reminds me of Final Fantasy, but I have no idea which one came first… that seems like a long, dark, deep, nerd hole to fall into. Heck, maybe all the RPGs looked like this – I mean: it works.

Side-note

The controls in this emulator work surprisingly well. I wouldn’t want to use SuperGNES to play anything that required precise or quick controls, like Contra, but for an RPG they’ve been totally usable so far.

This is an involved game

I didn’t play for all that long, maybe 30-45 minutes in total spread across a few days, but I’m going to keep putting in time on this game and I’ll keep you updated. I’ve found that the small phone screen discourages me from long play-periods, which will draw this out, but the overall experience is pretty solid. I’ll probably write more on that later as well.

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Blades of Steel on NES – Game the Game

THIS IS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED IT TO BE! UP IS DOWN, DOWN IS UP, AND ICE HOCKEY IS THE ONE WITH THE DAMN PLAYER SELECTION!

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As you may remember, I posted a Pre Game with my mind’s eye not being able to distinguish between Ice Hockey and Blades of Steel. Well, dear reader, as you can tell from the headlines… was I wrong. So very wrong.

Here are some notes I wrote frantically whilst my entire world crumbled around me…

• Whoa whoa whoa… when you lose a fight YOU’RE DOWN A PLAYER!?!?!?!
• I can’t figure out how to pass – looks like it might be a problem with the emulator I’m using… apparently passing is actually a feature
• You control your own goalie – there’s an arrow that floats up and down in the net
• I can be Edmonton (whose colours are green?) AND NOT CALGARY (muaa ha ha)

MUAA HAA HAA, stupid Calgary!

In short, Blades of Steel is a very solid game. It’s just not the game I remembered… not in the least. The controls were also a weird adjustment for me.

(I’ll likely post about this in the future, but I was/am/always will be a huge fan of the early NHL games on the Genesis. They were probably THE fundamental series of games of my childhood. And lately I’ve been trying to get into the more modern NHL franchise with… limited… success. Anyway, all of this is context to me trying to get my little brain around the controls in Blades of Steel.)

It’s me, not you

My first few plays didn’t go phenomenally well (this image is of the CPU scoring… which it did a lot of), but that’s not a game issue. It’s entirely my lack of skill + total and utter loss and how I had misremembered this game. I’ll definitely be playing more Blades of Steel.

And stay tuned for my Game the Game for Ice Hockey!

COBRA TRIANGLE – NES – Actually Playing the Game Now!

We’ve had the Pre Game, now on to: GAMING THE GAME

They’re boat’n through your ocean, snatching your people up,
tryin’ to steal’em
so you better

hide your kids
hide your wife
hide your kids
hide your wife

and hide your motorboat
cause they’re stealin’ everybody out here…

– my wife, singing about Cobra Triangle
inspired by the classic: Bed Intruder Song

Wow, I had completely forgotten that this thing is fundamentally a racing game.

With that shock over, I quickly started shooting all of my motorboat enemies… though I’m not sure why we’re enemies… and why do they get shore-based weapons? It’s no matter as dispose of a few of them.

Right, I have a health bar. OOO powerups! It damages my body to run into the shore, makes sense, and I’m done the first level. That was pretty easy.

And this is the part that I’m really sad about forgetting: to get to the next level, my body sprouts a helicopter rotor and flies away! A HELICOPTER ROTOR! Dude, let’s just use that thing for the whole “race”!

So, are you trying?
– my wife commenting as I die for the seemingly 100th time while failing to prevent the enemy from making of with 8 helpless swimmers

In my first real attempt, I didn’t get very far. The first level is easy, then it’s kind of a bonus powerup level (that may be unlocked by performance, I’ll have to look that up), then it’s a damn guarding level. 8 helpless, drowning, terrified looking ‘people’ are arranged in a diamond with me at the centre to protect them. It’s horrifying! Enemy boats come and DRAG THE PEOPLE AWAY! … and the boats have UFOs!?! What in the blue hell is going on here?!?!?

And that’s as far as I got. I’m sorry that couldn’t protect you random, identical people… *single tear*

Look at this poor guy… THIS GAME IS DELIGHTING IN OUR TERROR

We now know fear.

COBRA TRIANGLE – NES – Pre Game

Original Box art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_Triangle)

This is one of the defining games of my childhood… for some reason

I remember playing a lot of this game as a kid, but I don’t actually remember much about it or really remember liking it that much. It’s strange that I remember anything about it, come to think of it.

There’s definitely a boat, and I remember jumping stuff using powered platforms or something. Maybe there were weapons that I probably had to pick up??? There may have been puzzles and random things shooting at me because I remember dying all the time and I don’t think there was a save feature (did ANYTHING have saves* back then???).

SSSSSEEEEECCCCCSSSSS

In fact, the only thing that I clearly remember about Cobra Triangle is that each level has a timer labeled ‘secs’. And why do I remember such a weird detail, you may ask? Well, asky-pants, I remember because one time my old friend Neil once tricked me into yelling “SECS” with my mom just just outside my room.

OK, if you don’t get why that’s funny, say ‘secs’ out loud to yourself… and pretend you’re like… 10.

I bought Cobra Triangle a long time ago (probably years ago) when I first got my NES-as-a-grownup and never got around to playing it because: a) I’m kinda lame, and b) I don’t spend enough time playing games!

What others say… er… said…

IGN gives Cobra Triangle a 7.4, Good, rating and says it was released in 1989. They also rated it 66th on their top 100 NES games of all time. Cool.

* hilariously, my phone originally autocorrected ‘saves’ to ‘sadness’. Touché autocorrect, touché

PS – I wrote this pre game whilst doing fishing dailies in WoW. For the record, the Dojani Eel and Wolf Piranha quests can just go shut the hell up with each other.

Next up, the GAME GAME coming soon.