Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes Demo 2 Feedback

[NeptuneNavigator2001]

Yeah; I had a few experiences similar to that one, too - but, ironically, not THAT particular one - behind that mountain.  I can't remember most of them at the moment, but they ONLY happen if you try to go back; and sometimes, when you try to go back, and then, say, you don't want to go through a wrong door and lose to the Golem, well, it doesn't work - I think you either end up going to the Golem anyway, or the door just doesn't work...  I'm sorry I can't be of much more help, but I'm kinda busy at the moment, and I won't be back up here at my grandma's for too long anyway...

[BC92188]

Hey, I tried to find the path from Ioka to Singing Mtn. but I couldn't find it.  I tried going on the coast to the west of Ioka, but at a certain point I couldn't go farther than a certain point (Screenshot), is there any other way to get there? 

Where I got stuck on the map (click it to make it bigger):

[ZeaLitY]

Try starting on the eastern side of that huge mountain above the forest. Singing Mountain is near the center of the continent on the north coast.

[BC92188]

Try starting on the eastern side of that huge mountain above the forest. Singing Mountain is near the center of the continent on the north coast.

Oh, I found it, I was going the completely wrong way, haha.  Thanks for the help.

[Bauglir]

Playing through, and noticed that on Denadoro, all of the corner tiles (IE, the ones that have diagonal land with a transparency behind it) are tinted a bright yellow. The maps seem like they need to be bordered by something in some cases; in the original CT, there was always some actual object keeping you from walking off the map, even if it was just some apparently insanely thick trees, whereas in this it just seems like, in some cases, you should be able to keep going, but can't (examples are the Beasts Forest and the Patio in the Vanguard Headquarters). Finally, the stone walls seem to repeat too much too quickly, and seem to be pretty sloppy. They don't look like the same wall, they look like someone took a picture of part of the wall and repeated it. The Reptite's Lair would make a nice thing to work from to fix it, I think. Finally, Magus' text was good, but I think he took up the Elder's quest way too easily, that doesn't seem very Magus-y. And the whole Magus passing out and then being found by the Elder seems a little... eh, contrived is the best word I think. Other than that and what's already been mentioned, the plot seems pretty solid, and there's some great work graphical work here. Great job on that Zeal guy at the end there.

[Kire]

With regard to giving the sword to Renault, if you go there before you're supposed to (ie before dropping off the other two items), the priestess in the arboreatum still tells you that he's in the chapel.  However, he doesn't actually show up in the chapel until you unlock him (and the immeadiately disappears again), which felt very unsmooth to me.  Then again, I feel that forcing the player to do the three items in a certain order is wrong to begin with: why not do it in any order?  It would also be nice if the mother would remind you where they were supposed to go: I had to start up a new game to get the destination list over again.

Also, after you beat the Prologue and it's shifting around showing various timelines, there were a few graphical glitches in Glenn's, namely the corners of rocks and cliffs were of an inappropriate color.  And I can't use the save-point in the Last Villiage (furthest left hut at beginning of Magus chapter).  Walking over the big hole on the worldmap feels odd as well.  Both collections of huts are called "Last Villiage" on the world map, yet one of the people in the cluster to the right says that they should be called "Mist Villiage", and another man in that same cluster refers to "Last Villiage" as a place different from where he's at now.  While Dalton's leaving, he doesn't flutter or walk, he just glides without animation.  When you come back to the "Commons", there is a gravestone over the Elder, but all the dialouge of the people there remains the same, which felt VERY weird.  Often in the "Beast Forest" the enemies come in on the top of the screen yet the default position of the battlebox is also on top.

[Kire]

So I guess I've taken it upon myself to be the nitpick beta-tester, here's what I saw last time I played:

- Dalton's dungeon needed more combat, the only things to fight in there (Lasher/Golem) kills you in one hit
- why can't you have Dalton be a real boss battle (where you can loose) but after you win, he falls to one knee, then does what he does anyways?
- the music would reset every time I went back into the central room in Chronopolis
- to get into the Collesium, I went off the bottom and instead of coming in the top, I came in the bottom; I realize the Collesium is imported from another hack, but could I suggest an intermediary room to make the transition more natural?
- there were no save points in Chronopolis, and I definately wanted to save every time I visited
- the sword Crono gets in the downstairs of Chronopolis is vastly more powerful than anything else you have access to at that point in the game
- the Porre encampment wasn't anywhere on the world map, it should be re-vistable, even if there's a guard in front
- same camp: and the general tiling I felt was weak, looked more like an early FF game than CT
- when Marle is prompted to talk by Crono she says "what a great memory! i'll ask" - lowercase "i'll"
- Porre doesn't have to look like a buffoon if they come out and say "mission failed", it hurts to have Guardia trashed by bozos, let them tell a hardnosed lie
- Marle asks "how do we get back to the Future (tm)" - trademark?
- why don't they have to report back to Guardia?  why go directly to Balthasar?  that felt out-of-character to me
- Marle says "what's going on?, Lucca?" - can you put commas and question marks in succession like that?
- there exists a "first time using Epoch" scene in CT, why not use it in CE?  it was a bit anticlimactic to just show up in Chronopolis
- when all the alarms go off Balthasar's text makes it seem like whatever he just left the room for CAUSED the timeflux (not a drill, etc)
- Crono's aforementioned sword makes the DragonTank battle trivial
- when I destroyed the dragontank body first, the head and wheel remained there floating and still fighting
- Balthasar says "report to me any" on the bridge without any follow-up text
- still on the bridge: during the fight with the hench, Crono stays in place and does not jump forward to melee when you choose to attack (he swings in place)
- the dialouge at the end of the bridge fight felt wrong; Renault's surfer-style "Righteous!" attitude is bothering me
- also, it fades out on Renault, then blips back to full bright before the scene transitions fully to mom's house
- the dialouge in the mother's house is misleading: this is a game about timetravel, so when the exact same text was used twice, I thought GroundHogsDay was happening
- I couldn't find the King of Guardia, I wanted to tell him the news of what had happened
- why can't I quick-cut through the woods in front of the castle now?
- with regard to the ferries: now that I have to be stealthy about traveling it doesn't cost any GP?  weird
- in Medina square, there's a gargoyle whose color scheme (purple maroon?) looks wrong
- the singer says "mirai ni fuku", shouldn't it be "miraku fuku"?  without the Kanji I'm not sure what that word's trying to be
- back in Melchior's house he's missing! and you can't read his notes, which I really wanted to now that he's gone
- I know overworld animations are tough, but at least Medina and Chorus need static docks, it just feels wrong without them, and it helps in quickly finding your way back
- the Chorus port looks like it has an attached house but I can't enter it, should the roof color be red?
- nice work on Chorus overal
- when you encounter Mystics in the tunnel to the Epoch: where is that music from?  is it original to CE?  I like it
- keep the (above) music for the fight with the Barghest, it's more epic, don't switch down to normal battle music
- while nice from a dungeon perspective, it didn't make sense to have enemies on BOTH sides of the SEALED door the Epoch was behind
- after Robo joins, why isn't Lucca standing around elsewhere?  she went poof; I wanted to see her tapping away at a keyboard or something
- once you enter battle-mode downstairs, Robo's graphic goes under the one for the laserbeams
- the talking scene right after said fight is really awkward: Robo should type on the keyboard and fret about, not instantly say it's fixed, Melchior needs to work in his dialouge alot more smoothly, it felt massive out of place
- there's a gotta be an easier way to work in Magus joining than the "slayers of Lavos" idea, it felt dirty

I think I got harsher and harsher as I went down the list, but I really am enjoying this game alot; once it gets done I'll probably take out the time to burn it to a cartridge.

Thanks for working on such project, this is awesome.

[Agent 12]

Kire, that is great work and is the kind of thing beta testing is made for.

I'll make note of all of these.

a couple quick notes on the first one

- same camp: and the general tiling I felt was weak, looked more like an early FF game than CT

---there are no outdoor tilesets, so actually this map is quite amazing.  It's made using the "indoor tileset" (the walls of the house are actually floors if you look carefully). 

the (tm) is a joke about the movie "back to the future"

--jp

[Kire]

Sure thing, I love beta-testing.  Those notes are kindof rough to read through though, if you'd like to me to clarify what I meant by some of them or why I thought they were problems I'd be glad to.  As you can tell, I'm kindof playing the the game in splurts, I'll give my opinion of overal theme and play balance later.

No outdoor tilesets you say?  In that case, perhaps try and play with the geography some more, wandering troops or buildings with attachments or something.  While I'm on the topic, I felt weird when I went up to the soldier and all of a sudden I was clocking him out taking his clothes.  Based on the NPCs I (hadn't) talked to, that felt incredibly random and out of place, I would have appeciated Lucca explaining to me why we're doing it, and/or given a menu option to decline.

a few notes from this morning:
- when I got Magus from the Last Village and came back to Dalton's Dungeon with my party, I killed the Lasher and everyone in the party leveled up multiple times (I think Robo got 4 levels), then Magus made a comment about it that sounded like he should have said it the first time through
- I went back to Dalton's Dungeon a few times and found I could powerlevel like nuts, everyone gaining two levels every time I killed that guy, who just kept respawning and Magus kept making that comment
- I would have appreciated some commentary for going to Dalton's backroom, either in the form of a book to read or Magus saying "damn, he's gone"
- nothing stopped me from going up into Dactyl's Nest, where the enemies were too strong for my level, but if I braved it out (or dodged them), I also found equipment up there that was inappropriately powerful
- when I got to the top of Dactyl's Nest, my lead character (Marle) became invisible, and had to guide myself by my teammates (quite tricky) and I couldn't scroll off the topic of the screeen - very glitchtastic
- the Mystic Mountains were also more powerful than I should have been able to visit, but not as bad as DN
- when I go off the top screen in the MM, my characters slide off the bottom and the game hangs and I cannot continue - very glitchtastic
- Marle does not have any good weapon options at this point in the game and her attack option is pathetic (I know it's supposed to be weak, but this is overly so)
(the things I flagged as "very glitchtastic" are more than just nitpicks)

Still, loads of fun, it feels very good to play.

[Kire]

Well, I beat my first run through:

- the child in Ioka village says "try to protect Ayla and child" - there's no period at the end, and every other villager punctuates correctly
- when I talked to the villager who told me to go to Singing Mountain, since Crono was 2nd in my party, it said "Crono: Did you hear that?" - Crono talks
- someone mentions I should go to Singing Mountain, but that was never in the original game, how should I know where it is?  wander around until I luck out?
- the woman in Survivors Cave says "we fight many times" and also lacks punctuation
- most of the fights in Singing Mountain have the default location of the battle menu  on top when it should be on bottom
- on the 2nd outside map screen for SingMt, near the top by a chest that contains an InstrumentP, there are two Avian Rexs, but only one is visible (the other's graphic is behind the mountain)
- in SingMt, there were a few "Tusk Helms" being given away as treasure, but that was a pretty lame find, these could already be purchased cheaply in town and all my characters had them already
- the name "InstrumentP" made no sense to me; why not "Harp of Earth", "Chimes of Water", etc? or at least an Item-tip on the menu screen (missing for most custom items in CE)
- the way the riddle is asked in SingMt, it requires you to keep notes or remember a string of 4 numbers; when being given the option to choose "1,2,3 or 4" it should have something next to it reminding us what that number meant
- it is of course very easy to "game" the number puzzle: since it tells you you fail after one wrong guess, you can brute-force it with less than 10 guesses garunteed (since no place is used twice), and considering the first 2 is 1 then 2, the player will probably only guess wrong once if a brute-force tactic is used
- when I would fail to guess the order correctly, there was a (seemingly) random number of  "Dang!"s that would follow afterwards, sometimes just one, sometimes more
- when Nizbel jumped around, there was no sound, and it felt very hollow
- Lucca was my main character, and when she threatened Nizbel, it played Robo's computer sound  (Robo was my 3rd character at the time)
- during the fight with Nizbel, the top left corner of his head kept disappearing behind a black tile
- when Ayla says, "Ayla have kid and Ayla wish you luck!" the indentation is messed up
- despite being wounded and needing to stay behind, Ayla does quite alot of walking in place
- if you return to SingMt, the room that previously held Nizbel does not have any music or wind
- when Ayla gave me the piece of Lavos's shell, it did not appear in my inventory
- when the voiceover says "Epoch you are cleared for landing, go ahead and bring her in" there's no period at the end
- when you're in the OceanPalace/introChaper3 the green gasses floating around have their right sides abruptly cut off
- when you go down the elevator at Chronopolis, the camera is centered on the character, until you move down, then it locks into place, should it be locked from the start?
- I never went to 600AD or did anything with Frog and still beat the game, is that okay?

now to go back and get all the secrets...

[Ishmayl]

I hope you want us to list bugs and such in the game; the game is so cool, I feel the need to help out in whatever way I can so that it will be a success. 

Glitches/Bugs Found Thus Far:

* In Sargon's home, the table in the back of the room is not layered properly; you're able to just walk on top of it.
* In the overworld map in 12,000 BC, some of the icons/sprites are not layered properly; the "Beast Forest" and several of the ruin structures act odd when you walk over them.
* In the Cathedral in 1000 AD, after I completed the first 2 errands, the door to the Arboretum acted strange.  It wouldn't let me go through unless I kept hitting the Up button.
* In the Beast Forest, the edges should have something blocking them (such as trees or mountains) so that you don't think you're supposed to be able to go that way.
* Also in the Beast Forest, there's an encounter in the southeast section which acts strangely; the screen centers on you as the beasts approach, but the map ends at a certain point, and you can see the green area where there is no map (if that makes sense).
* Dalton says, "I have a date with with immortality."  Should get rid of one of those "with"'s.
* After defeating the Boss Golem, the boss music keeps playing until you leave the screen.
* The save point in the Last Village (in the far-west hut) doesn't work.
* Magus' second weapon, the Iscariot, is ridiculously powerful, jumping his damage on beats from an average of 100 to 850.

Also, not necessarily so much a glitch, but it's kinda annoying figuring out what to do after you beat the Boss Golem; no one really gives you any discernable clues or hints.

Anyway, looking great so far, thanks so much for this, I'll keep playing and finding more.

[sletia]

Hi! Just joined to share my thoughts.

What I liked:
-new buildings, redesigned locations (i.e. Leene Square)
-how Porre v.s. Guardia storyline was played out
-Singing Mountain's design
-Magus flashbacks
-new developments with the Mystic race, and introducing racism

What I disliked:
-death of elder in 12,000BC. It wasn't necessary and didn't make much sense. Putting in a gravestone was even weirder. (morbid, even)
-why did you kill Kino?
-Lucca and Marle seem to lack personality.. they almost act the same. Marle was always funny to me in how she overreacted and freaked out over everything; Lucca is missing her smugness.
-Beast Woods needed better design.
-Dalton's hideout needed to be bigger. Different riddles for variety. More enemies.
-Magus was too physically overpowered, but I know you know that. ^^;
-Chronopolis needs to be bigger. World map, even. Why am I restricted to just that building?
-Plot seems rushed in parts. Why did we have to keep going back to Chronopolis? Part of the charm of the original game was that you ended up helping conflicts in different time periods as you were doing the main focus (Lavos).
-Just collecting people that you used to fight with seems dull. They originally joined you for a reason. They need some kind of reason other than "omg must save world." i.e. Ayla no longer has reptites but the world is getting colder. Glenn needs to feel the queen is threatened. etc.
-the beginning of the game when we had to deliver crap. Why? Maybe just one item to someone important like the mystic elder. Running around like a delivery boy seemed boring. Most people who play rpgs explore on their own, you don't need to give them a reason to go places.
-You get Epoch way too fast. I think Lucca should have dismantled it then now in the game that you need it she has to rebuild it. Or even collect parts for it in different time periods.
-In the same vein, being able to explore the whole world so soon is kinda bad.

Other things:
-Will 2300A.D. make a cameo, even as a lost future? (kind of like CC had). I always enjoyed the bleak hopelessness of that future. (I love post-apocalyptic stuff.)
-Please please please bring back Ozzie/Vinegar, Slash/Soy Sauce and Flea/Mayonaise. Even as a comedy act. They're too funny to not use.
-Prehistoric times need to be expanded on badly. It suffered from a lack of quests there in the first game. I hope you make more dungeons/villages. Showing how humans evolved in the first place would be awesome.
-Will Dragonians make an appearance in this game?
-New characters to replace some old ones that don't wish to fight (i.e. Ayla) would be lovely, but not necessary.
-Since the PSX version showed Lucca getting Kid, will she appear in this game?
-Why aren't Crono/Marle married yet?
-You should tie Dalton in with the Porre mess, that way Magus has a reason to join.
-I notice Gaspar is still there in the Y menu screen. Will he come back?

[Chrono'99]

Thanks for your comments Kire, Ishmayl, sletia and everybody else. They're very appreciated and important to us. We fixed all those bugs and typos. Sletia, I can't really answer your "other things" questions as we want to keep all surprises (we're not posting screenshots either), but what I can say is that you weren't "exploring the whole world" so early, so don't worry

[Den Schwarz]

I DON'T run it!!!
Name of my ROM file -  Chrono_Trigger_(U)_[!].srm .
I rename  CEDemo2-Headered.ips  file to  Chrono_Trigger_(U)_[!].ips , copy it to ROM directory, load ROM in ZSNES (it patched ROM automatically) and... see empty black screen. What problem is here? How do I can play it???

[Chrono'99]

I DON'T run it!!!
Name of my ROM file -  Chrono_Trigger_(U)_[!].srm .
I rename  CEDemo2-Headered.ips  file to  Chrono_Trigger_(U)_[!].ips , copy it to ROM directory, load ROM in ZSNES (it patched ROM automatically) and... see empty black screen. What problem is here? How do I can play it???

Did you try with the CEDemo2-Unheadered.ips file instead of CEDemo2-Headered?