SUMMER'S CRY ULTRA UPDATE! A lot of stuff plus CE chapters!

[kid123]

Hah, 3 people replied to the last CE video saying they're going to play Chrono Cross for the first time now. That feels good.

Perhaps SE should have remade Cross if they foreseed this.

One of that person is me(kid0123). But I said replay,not the first time. I decide to say that to give some kind of 'air of motivation' to any people around reading my comment. Both that are not familiar with the series and the one who doesn't play Chrono Cross shall have some interest now.

Anyway, an excellent job from you guys! Never I seen professional hack as good as that ! All CE team contribution will never perishes from Compendium memory. And I bet some people will have some interest in developing any CT/CC fan project after watch the video footage.

[knuck]

So okay, it's finished. Good job guys, probably one of the few fangame RPGs that are actually done. The first for the Chrono universe. Congrats! =D

Now 2 weeks ago I promised to comment on each video, BUT, I realized that I'd have to watch CE again for 11 hours and I simply don't want to do it right now xD. However, I'll comment on the things I can remember off the top of my head:

About maps:
- Most new maps were faulty, they had either:
* Bad tile placement
* Too empty at parts
- Usage of glitchy tiles. ok I'm talking about the destroyed ocean palace and that last dungeon (which was indeed awesome) but you could have avoided using glitches. They look wrong, especially in the fangame realm.
- The glitches used in the 1000AD map, though those were minor and in a way they were done right
- Did I mention how awesome Dalton's castle was? Still I wanted more monsters in there, or at least in different places

Graphics:
- Lack of new sprites
- Lack of new tiles
- Lack of new graphics overall. New graphics make the game more attractive, and it helps fix problems like glitches. =p

Sound:
- Lack of new music
- Lack of new sound effects, though this is minor
- Changing music too much. Like, some videos ago there was a scene where we had 3 songs in the same dialog
- Some songs simply didn't fit the scenes imo.
- The 2300AD song in the 1000AD map felt wrong because of the snowstorm effect

- Battles:
- Techs:
* Robo had waaay too many new techs compared to others
* Characters shouldn't have the techs from the old games. I'd say it's ok if you changed the animations or only kept the classic ones like Cyclone for Crono, etc. But keeping them all is kinda boring. "Hey I leveled, what tech did I get now? Oh, Spincut... again...". It's no fun and feels too fangamey.
* Double Techs! Triple Techs! I've seen 0 of them in the videos xD. You just killed the best point of the CT battle system xD
- Monsters. There weren't any new monsters. I mean, we had bosses like Kasmir but I expected and overhaul of the monsters, even if just changing palettes for some of them.
- Bosses: Some bosses felt just wrong. I can't remember right now but I remember some boss fights where the bosses were equivalent to Imps.
- Battle placement. A great number of battles required the characters to move whole screens in order to fight, and it just feels wrong.

Storyline:
- I disliked every Glenn line. I don't know why, maybe I'm just used to Woolsey's Glenn?
- At the beginning of the game where you see 384309 things happening at the same time, it scares the player.
- Some of the names felt not Chrono, like Ashley. Though I liked most names
- The dreamtime (or whatever it was called) felt off. Maybe I expected new graphics, dunno. The battle that occurred there felt rushed.
- Some things inevitably felt fanficsy, but that's because of the nature of the game
- Dalton shouldn't have died. He's just not the kind of person who should die in an RPG (then again I never pictured him destroying Guardia)
- Marle killing Cambyses (or whatever he was called) with poison felt completely not Chrono. You should have made them just make him give up or lose a battle, but death by poison is so wrong
- King Zeal was cool
- I liked Crono getting mad over dead Marle in reptite timeline. I didn't like Crono saying "Die" or whatever he said after that though
- I didn't like Crono saying most things he said (yeah, I know)
- Sidequests felt completely rushed. Go there, kill X, receive Y. Go there, find Spekkio
- Spekkio battles lacked Spekkio music
- Lucca liking Crono is just a No imo
- Kino dying could be cool, but we just saw him there going off and never got any details iirc
- Prehistory had so few stuff to do
- Ayla was unplayable for too much time imo
- The possibility of Ayla dying is cool, but since Ayla didn't do anything epic etc the players easily wouldn't be compelled to save her life
- The Cedric dude using the Flame to kill people felt so wrong. Specially when the players were on his side. I liked the Reptite timeline Cedric more =(
- Last boss should have been 3 fights, not 2 ;D

There are more things but I'd have to rewatch the whole thing. Damn how I wish I were a beta tester so I could have said this before. =p

Nice game/hack, I liked a lot of it and it definitely was fun to watch it. Will post again once I remember more stuff (either that I liked or disliked). Ah, yeah, obviously by now everyone agrees that 98% became more like 90%, right? ;o

EDIT:
- Guardia's fall felt wrong, specially with the Mystics siding with Porre. Some things there also felt rushed "hey we are partyvan we break in and kill king in 2 seconds"
- Most important: As much as I like Gurren Lagann, I dislike how Lavos' race was just an anti-spiral ripoff =(

[DBoruta]

Now that the game is finished, minus alternate endings vids, here's my comments.

First, I love how you took from the old Frozen Flame discussions to give more background on the Frozen Flame and also have it be an integral part of the plotline.  Of course, I was really excited to see my comments on the Frozen Flame possibly being in the Mammon Machine and the Ocean Palace disaster an attempt for Lavos to reclaim the Frozen Flame become part of a fan game.  It made me feel really good knowing that discussion from the Compendium became a big backdrop for the game's plot. 

I'm going to be honest here - I didn't like Ayla's new techs.  It felt like you were trying to give her magic, and that just didn't rub well with me.  Granted, it didn't make her a broken character.  Glenn is a completely broken character, however.  If the game were ever put out, he would have had to have been toned down a bit.  On that same note, I felt Magus was underpowered, even in the late game.  I liked the addition of several new techs, especially that shadowbolt-type tech.  On that same note, the addition of all these new techs took away from double and triple techs, which was one of my favorite features from CT.  If you had time, would you have made double and triple techs more prevalent?


The new music was amazing - I wish you guys had used that more than you did. 

My favorite dungeon really was the last one.  Props to you guys - that was just awesome. 

Last, I think the game lacked boss battles.  Granted, there were a lot more harder fights in this game, but I feel there could have been a few more boss fights thrown in. 


Anyway, great job on the fan game - it's a shame those idiots at SE don't know how to interact with their fans anymore. 

[Yourgingerestfan]

The final battle sprites were nice , and everything leading up to it ws nice also , its a pity it had to end

[FaustWolf]

I'm going to be honest here - I didn't like Ayla's new techs.  It felt like you were trying to give her magic, and that just didn't rub well with me.  Granted, it didn't make her a broken character.  Glenn is a completely broken character, however.  If the game were ever put out, he would have had to have been toned down a bit.  On that same note, I felt Magus was underpowered, even in the late game.  I liked the addition of several new techs, especially that shadowbolt-type tech.  On that same note, the addition of all these new techs took away from double and triple techs, which was one of my favorite features from CT.  If you had time, would you have made double and triple techs more prevalent?

Funny thing is, in practice CE would have made the player rely far more on double and triple techs than anything else, by virtue of the fact that enemies are so much stronger than in the original CT. It's unfortunate that I somehow managed to screw up tech progression on my New Game+ runthrough, or you would have seen a lot more use of them. I think we could have made a couple triple techs more flashy -- giving Dreamless to Magus/Marle/Lucca would have been an easy task with the knowledge we had acquired by May, for example.

In my mind Ayla wasn't using magic so much as channeling natural energies through tribal song and dance -- Chrono'99 made sure that this we promoted this message in her tech descriptions. It might be more akin to the Elements in Chrono Cross, only using one's voice as opposed to an artificial construct to summon the energies, and Leah could use the artificial constructs just fine in Chrono Cross. Ayla's very name means "Song of Land" or "Song of Earth" or something like that, so it seemed fitting, and they definitely would have remained in.

Glenn isn't quite so broken as he appears to be given the number of times I use Nirvana X just to get battles over quickly in the New Game + runthrough. His "Braveheart" is based on a subtraction of his current HP from his maximum HP * approximately 3, so when he's only got 250HP, it's not a huge boss destroyer, and only for players who want to pursue a high-risk strategy. His magic never reaches a high enough rating to make *Venom Mist a crowd destroyer, but its poison effect makes it useful even late in the game, which I thought worked really well. The fact that Nirvana X gobbles huge amounts of MP isn't shown either because I gave Glenn either a Silver or Gold Stud all the way through.

[Chrono'99]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

Knuck, I agree with a lot of your points. Most of them are due to the fact that we didn't polish the game as much as we could have; the team had settled on a release date of May 31, and I was too burnt out to actually make the most out of the remaining time (or to refuse the date and prolong development, for that matter).

About maps:
- Most new maps were faulty, they had either:
* Bad tile placement
* Too empty at parts

I agree with "too empty". Most of my polishing involved reducing the size of the locations. Generally I think the best rooms are those in which the player can see at least two walls wherever he is standing. It feels wrong when you're standing near a wall and can't see the opposite wall without having to scroll the screen.

- Usage of glitchy tiles. ok I'm talking about the destroyed ocean palace and that last dungeon (which was indeed awesome) but you could have avoided using glitches. They look wrong, especially in the fangame realm.

The destroyed Ocean Palace was definitely one of the hardest maps to manipulate. I still think the destroyed OP rooms were better done in Prophet's Guile, but it still didn't look perfect. I disagree with avoiding map glitches in the DBT dungeon though. It's a place which is specifically meant to look glitched and wasted; the way the team made conscious use of these glitches is a testament to the fact that CE was a ROM hack and never pretended to be an official installment.

- Lack of new sprites
- Lack of new tiles
- Lack of new graphics overall. New graphics make the game more attractive, and it helps fix problems like glitches. =p

More new sprites were done and meant to be inserted but we hadn't come to it when the C&D struck.

Sound:
- Lack of new music
- Lack of new sound effects, though this is minor
- Changing music too much. Like, some videos ago there was a scene where we had 3 songs in the same dialog
- Some songs simply didn't fit the scenes imo.
- The 2300AD song in the 1000AD map felt wrong because of the snowstorm effect

We hadn't come to the music arrangement and new music insertion phase yet.

- Monsters. There weren't any new monsters. I mean, we had bosses like Kasmir but I expected and overhaul of the monsters, even if just changing palettes for some of them.

1,000% agreed. I always assumed we would palette-swap the old enemies and change their names at some point, but we never actually did and when I realized it I was in my "burn out" mood so I just let it slide away, but it's definitely a shame.

- Some of the names felt not Chrono, like Ashley. Though I liked most names

Ashley? If you're thinking about Ash, the kid, it's a character from Chrono Cross (the assistant of Toma XIV).

- The dreamtime (or whatever it was called) felt off. Maybe I expected new graphics, dunno. The battle that occurred there felt rushed.

1,000,000% agreed. When I drafted that part of the plot it was supposed to be an amazing, flashy place with fantastical DBT-like energy bubbles floating around and emanations sprouting out of magical stromatolites and other crazy things. However, I was away (busy with school) when this part was actually mapped, and the result is honestly underwhelming. We could have done better with time, and palette changes and a custom layer-3 effect.

- Marle killing Cambyses (or whatever he was called) with poison felt completely not Chrono. You should have made them just make him give up or lose a battle, but death by poison is so wrong

Agreed. I didn't really like the idea of assassinating him.

- Sidequests felt completely rushed. Go there, kill X, receive Y. Go there, find Spekkio

That's because they were. (though things like the Samuel minigame still came off well I think)

- Lucca liking Crono is just a No imo

Agreed. The first time I saw this was in the playthrough video, and I rewatched that scene at least five time because I just couldn't believe we went there  What the Frozen Flame showed the characters was not necessarily the truth, but we shouldn't have relied on this copout explanation IMO.

- The Cedric dude using the Flame to kill people felt so wrong. Specially when the players were on his side. I liked the Reptite timeline Cedric more =(

This I disagree. It's 1 AD, an age of foundation myths. It makes sense how everything was more violent back then. Think Old Testament, Greek and Roman mythos, etc. The players weren't so much on Cedric's side as they were just trying to "go with the flow" to avoid removing Guardia from history. IMO the Cambyse stuff feels wrong because the assassination was as gruesome as it was easy. Cedric or his men could easily have poisoned Cambyse themselves; it feels weird that the players have to do it themselves. Fighting Cambyse in a duel and having him die due a desperate move of his own might have been better, perhaps, though his sprite lacks fighting animations.

- Guardia's fall felt wrong, specially with the Mystics siding with Porre.

Medina didn't side with Porre, they sided with Porre's grievances, which are legitimate. And they didn't really plan to attack; the attackers were Kasmir's troops from the Middle Ages and the secret Porre Black Wind units led by Dalton; Kasmir and Dalton were both acting under King Zeal's orders.

- Most important: As much as I like Gurren Lagann, I dislike how Lavos' race was just an anti-spiral ripoff =(

Never saw Gurren Lagann, but from what I've just read on Wikipedia there doesn't seem to be meaningful similarities. The race of Lavos embraced evolution, they didn't reject it or wanted the destruction of the universe. Maybe the hints weren't clear enough, but the race of Lavos and humanity are one and the same in CE. Chrono Cross told us that humans act like Lavos; CE points out that Lavos acts like humanity as a whole too. The Dream Devourer is different and has a corrupted view and objective.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I think there are other peoples that think like you but didn't feel like posting or something. I say post your feedback, everyone. We'll take anything, whether it's positive or negative. If you post something negative, chances are I'll agree with your points most of the time.


EDIT: Also, yeah, Ayla uses something akin to Elemental power. Her Pangea animation for instance was actually an attack from Azala in CT, which was "Telekinesis, teleports a stone!" or something.

[FaustWolf]

Oh man, I absolutely loved how Cedric turned out in all timelines. Comparing Cedric in the Reptite timeline with Cedric in the human timeline reveals a huge message, that humanity seems to find something to fight about no matter what...as if it's just in our nature. Ayla's worldview as revealed in her Flame trial trounces the Frozen Flame, because she seems to rise above this, or redefine what "natural" is. She's truly become Nietzsche's Übermensch (or at least according to my inevitably flawed understanding of what the Übermensch is), and worthy of arbitrating with the Flame.

As for Lucca x Crono, I felt that was completely natural and I was glad to see that included when I played through (I don't think it was in earlier builds, so it was a surprise to me too). I mean, there's always some level of sexual tension between opposite-sex friends; that's why ultra-conservative movements from time immemorium have tried things like single-gender schools. Rising above those feelings and developing a real friendship based on shared interests, etc., is part of one's maturation as a human being. The Frozen Flame seemed to sense some latent attraction to Crono within Lucca, and like the demon in The Exorcist, it weaved together lies and truth in an effort to throw its target off balance. Through contact with the Arbiters, Lavos seems to have learned the ins and outs of human psychology, even its deepest, darkest recesses. The fact that I'm able to go on and on about these kinds of things is what makes CE a truly great story.


As for things I'd nitpick about, the CE team really needed some new sprites for hugging scenes. Crono and Marle do a double high-five after the Fall of Guardia, and Magus pokes Schala in the eye after they reminisce about their childhoods -- those animations really ruined otherwise tender moments.

I also felt Schala looked past Magus' sordid history a little too fast, but that could be interpreted as a true expression of love for a family member or lack of full knowledge of Magus' activities after landing in the Middle Ages. Having access to historical records in Chronopolis though, I can imagine a scene where she'd find out just how much a monster her little bro had grown into. And Magus is monstrous -- no less so than Cedric. He had been so warped by his hatred for Lavos that he even passed up opportunities to save Schala during Chrono Trigger to pursue the destruction of his nemesis. In a way, Magus may be the human character most like Lavos.

[Truthordeal]

Way to go guys. You've completed probably the most ambitious ROM Hack ever created. And now through Youtube, you have proof of this.

Of course, I hope you do realize that you've set our expectations extremely high with this. Don't be surprised if people start clamoring for a Crimson Echoes 2 in the near future.

The Dream of Zeal is Still Alive! Hoooah!

[lunar7]

Sound:
- Lack of new music
- Lack of new sound effects, though this is minor

this is what i was going to ask about - is it easy or hard to put new music directly into the game? i've already written a lot of game themes that i can save as MIDI files, I'm just wondering about how to swap them into the game for other themes. i hope it's not inappropriate to ask here...

[lunar7]

Hah, 3 people replied to the last CE video saying they're going to play Chrono Cross for the first time now. That feels good.

that's sort of how i felt too, although i've played it through at least once before. CE really strengthened the link between CT and CC, renewing my interest in what would have otherwise been a fairly weak plot link. don't get me wrong, CC is still really awesome, but CE really helped me to picture the links in the theme as being a lot more than simply arbitrary, strengthening my interest to play through the game and really pay attention to the plot this time around.

[Chrono Mizaki]

Decided to throw in my two pence, as I've watched everything from beginning to the end (baring the sidequest, but I wanted to desperately see the ending).

...I got to say, despite all those glitches and such. The whole game beamed with endless imagination and efforts from the whole team and despite it being non-canon, you did all your effort to tie Trigger and Cross together. I like the references of Cross (never fully understood them, except for Turnips. But I never completed Cross). I'm surprised to see that you haven't focused it all on Dalton, but instead focused it all on King Zeal and I found him to be a excellent antagonist.

I never got the whole 'It's too dark". It's linking between Trigger and Cross. We know Cross was very dark, so it was inevitable that CE was going to be dark. I'm really glad that it still manage to keep the quirky Trigger humour (I lol'd at the maid, who shouted "I'm so getting a raise' at the most serious time). And I like Agent12's NPC status. I just question why he got more of part, when others like Zeality were consigned to hidden areas, so you have to 'find' them. But then again, it didn't ruin the experience for me.

Also, I love how Z handled the characters, especially the conflict between Magus and Glenn. It just felt hilarious a lot of the time, yet very fitting. The Reptite timeline and the DBT are amongst my favourite, whilst The Fall of Guardia comes to a second. Heh, makes me wish I could've taken a more active role on the forum. But CE makes me... I dunno... to do a project of my own? I know it will never materialise, but I'm still set on in the Game Industry as my future, even if the industry is bleak and hollow compared to what I call a golden age. If I start my own fan project, I would feel like I'd be closer to my dreams. Eh, I can prod my classmate to start one with me and then I can work on Writing and Scenario Planner (Fleshing out the story, a script, etc is my favourite part).

There are some improvements I wanted. I remember saying at one of the topics that I thought the introduction of King Zeal was killed with a wrong choice of music imo,, but I never manage to answer back. Something like Magus' Castle theme or a original (or an ocremix) would've captured the mood a lot better. Yet King Zeal was saved by an excellent dialogue and character development. I love characters with grey-area qualities.

I feel quite sad that it's over though. But forget that, even when SE shut it down, you still got your story told. Your fan-project still got an airing that people has witnessed. People should be greatful for that. Instead, after the C&D, people were whining and bitching about SE and CE that I want to kill the fan community. Yes, some of you I wanted to smash your head in the wall because it was so aggravating. Not only it was annoying, I felt as if some of you tried to cause headache for the CE team. Like this MSN PM I've been having for a while "If I ever see a whiny Chrono fan complaining about SE and CE, I will kill that bastard".

But eh, it's an example of your monumental achievement. Who knows? You might get something worthwhile out of it, srsly. It's an achievement of your abilities in a game. It's a mod nethertheless and it can lead up to wonderful things. I just wish Square were more like valve (i.e embrace modding, so the fans to the game and the creators can become creators themselves, creating excellent games in the future).

Oh well. tl;dr: excellent game, hope you use your abilities in the near-future. If I see you on another (original, maybe?) project, I would gladly support you.

PS: I got addicted to Sefiros - Transferred Conciousness. Damn that twat for having great taste in music and used it extremely well in CE (despite not being in-game).

[FaustWolf]

Sefiros' music is really awesome stuff, I hope he gets a job doing videogame music or something. His earlier albums at least have this consistent "Midgar" feel to them, like they belong in a really well-done, psychologically heavy FFVII spinoff. He's linked all his albums from his MySpace page here:
http://www.myspace.com/sefirosoriginal

I think Sefiros may even have done a Chrono remix or two.

Oh, about sprites -- we're going to get a really nice credits reel featuring all the new sprites created during CE's development, 75% of which did not make it into the build shown in the videos.

[Magihunter]

I finished the videos last night and simply had to watch the ending once again today. The whole CE team is truly an inspiration to one such as myself. Seeing what you guys accomplished, even with everything else going on in your lives, really gives an aspiring coder and hopefully future game developer a boost in what can be done if you put your mind to it.

That being said, I am going through Chrono Cross now and have begun to put more effort into my little side project  RPG I am working on.

Bravo everyone! Bravo!

[coheed]

I'm a long time lurker first time poster as far as I remember but I just would like to say thanks to everyone involved in CE and for putting up those playthrough videos which allow us to experience your masterpiece.

I'd like to think all the grievances people have with the game would have been resolved in the final 2% considering how well the staff did with the rest of the game.

[VIsius]

It was great that (except for the DD, and maybe Dalton) there were no true "villains" in the game, but rather just "antagonists". They were all either being controlled by the Flame, doing what they thought was right or trying to save their dimensions...I loved how instead of the typical Good vs Evil thing, CE's plot was more like, a lot of takes on what's right that collided (King Zeal and even the Lavos species were doing what they thought was the best for the universe). It's much more real that way...and much more scary, since when you finish the game you're not quite so sure if the decisions the heroes made were the right ones (I would've sided with Zeal).