Robo Racing an Empty Jetbike? (V.Net Dash Paper ROM Magazine Scans)

[Reld]

I just noticed a bug that's relevant to my description of the differences between builds. I'm sure somebody's probably noticed it before, but I wasn't aware of it until now.

I had mentioned before that the "gray pixels" were removed from the dialogue font for the final build, but that's not exactly true. Instead, it looks like the palette for the dialogue font was changed and those light gray pixels were just made much darker. The bug is that entering a battle causes a different palette to load for the battle UI (which includes the light gray), and the correct palette for dialogue doesn't get reloaded until you leave the area, so the appearance of the dialogue font changes a little depending on whether you've fought a battle on the current screen or not. This extends to the English version as well. Here's a comparison gif of reading the sign at the entrance to Guardia Forest before and after engaging in battle.

[ZeaLitY]

Huge thanks for the Super Famicom scans. I always hate having to keep things offsite, especially since (knock on wood) the Compendium's survived since 2003 while witnessing tons of other fan pages go down and get lost forever. I've literally got a folder nestled next to my Compendium backup of other sites' content, just as insurance.

I'll get started on adding these now to the encyclopedia. I'll then take a pass through ye olde faithful (Labx8).

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The Super Famicom editor is hilarious, because he's speculating on literally every single screenshot without having a single idea what they're depicting. Man, it looks like Square didn't provide any captions or information about this first batch of mockups, did they? :/

~~~

For Game On! November 1994 -- I had this for some reason under that category:

https://www.chronocompendium.com/images/wiki/6/69/I-img1200x900-1548056574cajfow199895.jpg (November)
https://www.chronocompendium.com/wiki/index.php/File:Game_On_October_1994.jpg (october)

Do you think I may have had these out of place? I'll go ahead and put your scan under November for now.

Fed the page through DeepL as well, and nothing too interesting. The editor is once again just speculating on most of the screenshots (on the Robo one, it's "Is this a race?!")

~~~

The attached Mystical Knights concept art is totally new, right? Do we think it was done by Toriyama? I'll get it on Official Art. I have to add that Crono timeline explanation art, too, even if the magazine did it...

[Reld]

For Game On! November 1994 -- I had this for some reason under that category:

https://www.chronocompendium.com/images/wiki/6/69/I-img1200x900-1548056574cajfow199895.jpg (November)
https://www.chronocompendium.com/wiki/index.php/File:Game_On_October_1994.jpg (october)

Do you think I may have had these out of place? I'll go ahead and put your scan under November for now.

That was my mistake. The Game On! scan I posted is from the December issue, not November. I just corrected my post. I scanned that one separately a while before the others and at the time I was putting together a timeline in my head and I was focused on when I thought the issues were actually published, and I think I labeled the image "Nov 1994" for that reason.

The attached Mystical Knights concept art is totally new, right? Do we think it was done by Toriyama? I'll get it on Official Art. I have to add that Crono timeline explanation art, too, even if the magazine did it...

I could be wrong, but I think that artwork was created by the staff at Dengeki Super Famicom. It shows up in one other issue that I have but haven't scanned yet, plus I believe that Flea artwork showed up in a Twitter post around the same time that the character concept art for the PSX cutscenes did, and I think It was from another Dengeki Super Famicom issue that I don't have (the poster never said which issue).

[ZeaLitY]

Do you recognize this cover, by chance? I saved this to the "future update" folder and have totally forgotten what it is. I see CT advertised as featured in the bottom left, but no clues through reverse image search.

[Reld]

The two big kanji are 覇王 which apparently means overlord(?) and is pronounced the same as the smaller  "HAOH" in the middle. I've never heard of it before though, sorry.

[ZeaLitY]

Got it. Okay, yeah, LabX8 put a ton of Overlord issues on their wanted list, so that must be it.

I feel guilty for being disappointed that Video Game Densetsu is still updating, since that means I can't upload the V-Jump Koryaku-hon world maps they did yet (the claymation-looking ones). Alas, I'll keep them in deep storage.

[ZeaLitY]

I've started going through things with DeepL as a stop-gap, but wanted to point out this Mystery Interview I saved from a Japanese Geocities site untold years ago (maybe I'll discover it's from one of the magazines you've scanned).

https://www.chronocompendium.com/wiki/index.php/Mystery_Interviews

The first third has them discussing the active time event system, and Aoki seems to reference the Manoria Cathedral Goon scenario. The bottom third has Kato and some others talking about what was added after the 24 to 32 megabytes decision. DeepL really struggled there, but it's clear that the elaborate courtroom graphics, the intro to Magus's castle, and the Blackbird (which part?) were added after the increase in ROM size.

[Vehek]

That first one at least looks like the one Shmpulations translated.
https://shmuplations.com/chronotrigger/
But I'm guessing it was taken from the same Japanese site and thus its original source is still unidentified.

[ZeaLitY]

Getting through more with DeepL. Shinichiro Okaniwa is zerohime524. This is in reference to the translucent floating world map. Sounds like it was meant for "antiquity" (12,000 B.C.)

ネットで見つけた古代編のボツマップ。ガラスでできた半透明の浮遊マップっていうお題が降ってきのですがSFCの仕様と当時の技量では全くもってムリでした。 pic.twitter.com/s34vq8EJ7z<Br />
— 524 (@zerohime524) 2017年4月21日<Br />

This is a rejected map of the ancient version that I found on the Internet. I was given the task of creating a translucent floating map made of glass, but with the SFC specifications and my skills at the time, I was completely unable to do it.

[ZeaLitY]

I took a crack at https://www.chronocompendium.com/wiki/index.php/Chrono_Trigger_Scene_Logs

One of the posters is almost definitely describing the Prerelease prototype, so that probably settles that. But interestingly, it shows that the Prerelease may have first popped up after being dumped to a CD of Super Famicom games sold in Hong Kong.

I have to wonder how a normal user would play the games at this point, considering there weren't common emulators yet. I guess they would've had that actual SNES pirate hardware that the anti-theft SRAM checks were designed to detect.