This video review was produced for my multimedia class. I realize it’s a bit rough around the edges – future installments will have much less me in them – but hopefully folks will enjoy this. I’m going to look into video capture for the future, but I’d love to hear any other suggestions/ridicule.
-Justin
An episode of strife and terror. The group struggles against Internet disconnects and rampant bladders. Amid this chaos, Tony discusses World of Warcraft addiction misconceptions; Justin reflects upon the virtual Wild West; and Tom, Kaz, and Nick talk up the Killzone 2 and Halo Wars demos. Nicolo wraps up the episode with a GameStop lament.
This week, tempers flare as Justin and Tony duke it out over Link’s Crossbow Training. Seriously. Tom conscientiously objects to Nick’s Pacifism score and Kaz participates in the Resident Evil 5 debate. Plus, delicious red food coloring!
Big things are happening here at the Rumble Pack. In addition to Resident Evil 5 and Skate 2 impressions, the guys talk to former 1up FM star and current Rebel FM star Nick Suttner. They pick his brain on everything from gaming in print to his future podcasting plans, and he even lays down a new “gauntlet” for Tony. Does Mr. Divito have what it takes to become a Made Man?
“It all began ages ago, when man’s ancestor picked up a shard of a strange
red rock… Its power, which was beyond human comprehension, cultivated
dreams… In turn, love and hate were born… Only time will see how it all
ends.â€
               –Belthasar
For all of the endless praise and message board worship lavished upon Chrono Trigger, the initial setup is fairly simple, at least initially. You have an intrepid young group (including a mute hero and a tomboy princess), a brooding villain, and a mysterious force that could destroy the world. However, for a game that employs so many role-playing archetypes, it still has its own unique charm over a decade after its 1995 release. In the following series of essays, the five of us discuss why Chrono Trigger has remained such a highly sought-after classic. Is it the Toriyama artwork? The lively battle system? The time travel gimmick? Perhaps the charm lies beyond these details.
You may be asking yourself why we chose to base our first Rumble Pack feature on this particular game instead of the many other classics in Square’s SNES oeuvre. Where was this essay collection two months ago when the DS update was released? Well, for one of us, this is his first time playing through Chrono Trigger, and we felt it was important to remind readers what it was like to play the game with fresh eyes. Besides, this is one of those few games that has been universally embraced by the hardcore gaming community, so think of this as getting to know us better through a common gaming touchstone.
Click on illustrations to be taken to corresponding essay:
There’s a lot to love about JRPGs. Diverse worlds to explore, the essential feeling of empowerment over time, and debatably, a stronger focus on characterizations and narrative. However, when Japanese bigwigs like Square Enix President Yoichi Wada bemoan stagnant Eastern development, this particular genre receives much of the blame. After all, the core mechanics of the JRPG haven’t changed much in the 23 years since the original Dragon Quest put it on the map.
As I simultaneously play through DQ IV and last year’s Lost Odyssey, I find it striking how similar the game play and pacing are between the two titles. Ditto for most of the other turn-based throwbacks, like Blue Dragon and Sonic Chronicles. To be fair, the Persona series and others have shown that there’s still some life in the subgenre. Going back through my catalog of PS2 RPGs however, I find that they’re usually just chores to play. Too often, I still find myself grinding away at oversized farm animals and “playing for the story,†which in the end usually limps along to some anticlimactic conclusion anyway. Even recent successes occasionally fall into the same obvious traps – all of them, except Chrono Trigger.
Chrono Trigger. Chances are that if you’re reading this blog, you’re quite familiar with it. In fact, even if you haven’t played it, you’d know that to even describe it means to delve into the most glowing pool of praise that video game criticism, be it either professional or pure internet trolling, has ever seen.
To put it briefly, Chrono Trigger was one of the late, great SNES RPGs. It represents one of the strongest collaborations of Japanese game-design talent ever seen, and was released at the height of the install base of one of the most popular game consoles to ever grace either side of the pacific. Is it any wonder why, with all of that talent, (Hori, Toriyama, Mitsuda, Uematsu and Sakaguchi) we have what is regarded as one of the best, nostalgia-soaked RPGs ever made?
I don’t think so.
– Team up for devastating double and even triple attacks!
– Artwork by fan favorite Akira Toriyama!
– Unleash the power of the Epoch to travel to the end of time… and back!
– Over 60 hours of mind-blowing gameplay!
– Multiple endings mean the story never ends!
Since the rise of the RPG in the western world, marketing divisions of software companies have forever been parading out similar claims formatted as bulleted lists on the back of game boxes. One game will supposedly keep you enchanted for hundreds of hours while another will blow your mind with a new exciting spin on the classic turn-based battle system. It wouldn’t take any seasoned gamer long to figure out what game the “back of the box†blurbs above are describing. However, there’s something different about Chrono Trigger: a game that holds a special place in the heart of almost everyone who has played it. What sets it above its contemporaries? What makes it so memorable that it barely takes more than two notes of the introductory music (or a literal swing of a clock’s pendulum) to send you back to a place where a 15″ color TV and grubby gray Super Nintendo controller were the truest definition of happiness?
This week, Tom pays tribute to the (Sneak) King, Justin feebly scribbles some praise for Crayon Physics Deluxe, Tony bitches about his broken PSP, and Nick informs the group about the domestic release of cameo-rich X-Edge. All that, and tales of a magic forklift and the conclusion to an epic Pac-Man C.E. rivalry.
