Firstly, a new set of long-term glorious achievements for the Chrono Compendium has been released in the old goals thread. Priority one is contacting Masato Kato, while two and three include releasing the retranslated Chrono Trigger script and finding someone to translate a lot of Japanese material still unknown to English fans. A larger post on the subject is forthcoming. Read the whole list
here. Secondly, the modification section has been updated. New
event tricks have been posted and Vargose's
guide to importing spcs has been formally released. Curious how Dancing Madly would sound in Chrono Trigger? Take a hex editor and Temporal Flux for a spin and find out. Vargose has also released a guide to easily finding and decompressing Chrono Trigger's character grahpics for editing; find it
here.
Next comes music. A post from Vehek reminded me that a bunch of ambient tracks still lay hidden in the ROM of Radical Dreamers. I've ripped these pieces and added them to a new Chrono Compendium Radical Dreamers soundtrack archive. The tracks now clock in at twenty-four total. I'm pretty embarassed that I forgot to rip these in 2003; at any rate, download the archive directly
here. Now, we come to Chrono Trigger's music. SNESMusic.org, host to SNESAmp and several spc archives, recently updated their Chrono Trigger archive and added a Chrono Trigger Prerelease archive. However, problems are numerous. Though the erroneous Prerelease tracks are gone in the CT release, several odd songs have replaced them -- including Underground Sewer without water (probably a mistake or achieved by muting the water through Temporal Flux), The Hidden Truth Finale (which I'm having a hard time locating in the game), Magus's Castle with Bat Sounds (probably another accident that occurred when someone was ripping Magus's Castle), and two different versions of ambient songs (whose source we're currently investigating). They also added the ambient tracks and the Unknown Fanfare from the Compendium. Not that crediting counts for something like this, but they especially noted that they couldn't find the ripper for "Unknown Fanfare" (try searching Unknown Fanfare Chrono Trigger on google).
The biggest problem with the new archive is the inclusion of sound effects lifted from the sound effects pack and passed off as music, such as the sirens loops and Ozzie's laugh / scream. Another glaring problem is that "Final Battle" sounds muted in some parts compared to other spc rips of the same track. The Chrono Trigger Prerelease archive was also mishandled, as the creators threw in a bunch of ambient tracks from the final game not found in the Prerelease ROM. They also added more sound effects from Chrono Trigger. Currently, the Chrono Compendium's archive remains the authoritative source for the Prerelease. However, since the Chrono Compendium Chrono Trigger soundtrack was created from a blend of our own material and that of SNESMusic, we may have a problem (if the "Final Battle" thing happened to other tracks, that is). This means that the Chrono Compendium is going to have to undertake its own comprehensive spc rip of Chrono Trigger. I'm going to try and get this project underway soon, since I've probably put a lot of fear and doubt into the hearts of Chrono Trigger audiophiles with this post.
