SHA-ZAM EGM Chrono before Prerelease

[ONSLAUGHT]

Pardon the title but I feel very happy about this find. Alright, title fixed. There's the prerelease. And then there's this as well. Just yesterday as part of my B-Day present my grandparents bought me a box full of well over 100 old gaming magazines and this happened to be in EGM Number 7. The cover shows Eternal Champions CD, but I feel THIS is the real treat.
Here you go. 2 pages of fun.
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/1655/chronotriggeregmpage1.jpg
Right off the bat, newbie in the second screenshot of Crono, rather than be a 2 handed sword fighter he fought one handed? Possibility of maybe more than one weapon like Glenn in CC?
Frog has a different blocking sprite, looks like he could send the enemy back.
The Giga Gaia scene looks even sweeter here than in what actually happens I think. Frog knocked out, Marle and Crono fight.
Also, Crono didn't always live in Truce...no the town was originalyl Stoal.
That's the new stuff I noticed from this page.
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/7880/chronotriggeregmpage2.jpg
The first screenshot should be familiar to EVERYONE here. Marle I guess WAS supposed to be a fire magic caster! Arc Impulse!
What's this? Crono, Robo, and Ayla seem to have a different Triple Tech. I know this much since Ayla has a new magic summoning sprite(Ayla had magic?! WTF?!!!). It looks like some sort of seismic wave I'm guessing. And it looks like they're fighting on eof those bat like enemies somewhere other than the Black Omen as well. The forest in fact. It actually looks like a forest area from the DS(another level they had planned and left out? Or possibly Singing Mountain?)
Looks like the battle with Queen Zeal. Except she wasn't a face and hands, but a vampire! Who could've seen that coming?
Truce appears very different. A lot mroe forest than before(go green!). The village is either larger or much more compacted than before. In particular though I spot a new building, a church. I also notice, the bridge to Porre isn't even there! In fact, a lot of stuff doesn't even seem to exist yet! Not even the fair! But as you could read on the first page they had the story already! Festival was all there was so maybe something else was supposed to happen! Maybe the festival wasn't next door but at the castle?! Leave it all to speculation I suppose.
The Epoch's initial take off scene is slightly different, but generally the epoch is the same.
The campfire scene more similar to the artwork. Only Crono, Robo, and Ayla are there and monsters surrounded them(including the prerelease ape!)
I don't know. The bat thing in the church is just bizarre. In fact, it looks like the same location where you fight Yakra for the first time...was that thing supposed to be originally the first boss, or maybe some random Mystic that decided to move in when the place was cleaned out?
The courtroom. it seems darker with the king sitting right overhead the judge. Also notice Crono isn't wearing the same orange around his neck(forgot what they're called) but it's more like some sort of elastic band now, or a belt?(y'know how SE loves putting ridiculous numbers of belts on characters).

This is everything I noticed in the pics. I did multiple tries, this is the best quality you can get unless you get the magazine yourself. I'm on magazine #12/100 something right now, so I may find even more early stuff given to magazines to tease us in the past! It makes me so happy thinking I could find more!!!!!!!!

[FaustWolf]

Onslaught, thanks so much for this! I love that winter environment on the top-left corner of the second page. Was there anything like that environment in the beta or final? Those snow-covered leaves are beautiful.

[Vehek]

Some of the pictures look just like the Prism Cards.
(Specifically, Queen Zeal battle, Forest at night, Courtroom, and Giga Gaia)
Edit: The exact camera positioning is a bit different in some.

[Dialga_Palkia]

Incredible. And I thought my bizarre dream of Chrono Trigger last night (heck, King Zeal was even there) was enough, but this is the real deal! Thanks for sharing and happy birthday! I see you also share a birthday this month. Man, just seeing those alpha (or beta, because they look like it) stages just amazes me and I wish they kept them. Man, pre-guardia looks compacted there. And notice how big the towns are, along with the overworld sprites?

[FaustWolf]

Vehek, did we ever get sprites of those scythe-armed Zombors, or do we completely lack access to those since they were in the alpha? Those Zombors are simply badass.

[Vehek]

Well, before you even asked, I went back and looked through Jlukas's posts to find a post I remembered reading.
By the time of the pre-release, those graphics were already replaced.

3) Those sprites are from an earlier beta version.  The graphics packets were updated with the newer designs.

So, obviously, the answer is no, unless we somehow get one of the earlier versions.


On the magazine scan:
It's obviously impossible to be both on the ground and flying the Epoch, so it might be a mockup.

[ONSLAUGHT]

Yeah, it looks just like the style of those cards so I'm guessing they made those pics before the prerelease as well.
When did they release the cards cause I'm curious about which of these 2 was earlier, this magazine or the cards...

Still haven't found anymore in the magazines.

Although looking at the cards as well I'm noticing even more differences.
Lavos 2 looked more muscular from it's scrunched up ness.
Frog has a side sprite looking up.
I'm still very curious about Bat-Lady AKA Queen Zeal.

Vehek, did we ever get sprites of those scythe-armed Zombors, or do we completely lack access to those since they were in the alpha? Those Zombors are simply badass.

Yes, I feel sprites of all these should be gotten. but I feel those Zombors ought to be top priority.
I also just noticed that Giga Gaia's hands are ever so slightly wider than before. Not enough to make a fuss about however.
I see another sprite of Ayla! I'm now more sure that they had the idea of her using magic as well now!
I didn't notice the blimp in place of the blackbird before... huh.
The nun looking at Crono and marle is fatter.

I have to say, I would've loved had they kept a lot of these things.
Most notably those badass Scythe Hand Zombors!!!!!!! THAT should've been one of the DS bosses! As well as bat lady Zeal!

Onslaught, thanks so much for this! I love that winter environment on the top-left corner of the second page. Was there anything like that environment in the beta or final? Those snow-covered leaves are beautiful.

I love it too, but sadly I've spent time just now looking over CTDS snowy areas, it does not exist. Beta, I'm not sure however. Maybe. But CT on DS or SNES is out. No place like it.

[Dialga_Palkia]

Man, that snowfield looks beautiful how you look at it and just think it could have been Earthbound (on that isolated snowfield perhaps?) or it could have been a reference (just like the campfire scene) for Toriyama's artwork. Either way, it looks awesome.

[ZeaLitY]

Thanks, these are great. Not to be really demanding, but I do wonder if the dot matrix printing of EGM can be compensated for, just so we could get some better-looking screenshots. It's probably impossible, given the small size of the screenshots...

The Alpha Version page grows and grows.

[ZaichikArky]

Hey, cool find! I too wish the quality could be a little higher, though. Unless you're looking at the magazine, a lot of details are lost.

I find it funny they were calling her "Marl". It really is the way her name is supposed to be pronounced, but in English, it sounds too butch D:. I'm glad Woolsey added the extra "e" so that people were confused about whether to call her "Marl" or "Marlee" (most of us call her Marlee, so it's all good : ) ).

[ONSLAUGHT]

I can try for better quality I suppose although it would be hard. But hey, anything good needs hard work put into it right?

[ZeaLitY]

Just checking in on the effort.

[ONSLAUGHT]

It comes out the same everytime I try. And I've tried everyday. I can't think of anything.
Suggestions?

[ZeaLitY]

Oh, that's fine. From the existing scans, the dot matrix was really evident, so it was only a longshot that we could get better quality.

Thanks for trying. Now i can add this to the encyclopedia!

[ONSLAUGHT]

Yup. Still going through my magazines. Nothing else yet, but then again the've almost all been from NES and Genesis ages. SNES has hardly shown up.