Am I a butterfly dreaming I'm a gamer, or a bowling ball dreaming...

[Kitt]

...I'm a rolling stone?

Hi, everyone!  I guess I should take a moment and introduce myself, since there is this nifty section here to do so.  I'm Kitt, sometimes Kitt Chaos.  There was a time when I was sort of a rare bird, as I am a woman and older than the 'average' gamer, but, I am glad to realize there is no such thing as an average gamer, anymore.

***One gamer's long and detailed personal history of gaming and related hobbies cut to spare readers (some) and get to the relevant stuff***

Years and years ago, my younger brothers discovered FuncoLand and bought an SNES console.  They traded and played games a lot -- Ranma 1/2, any and everything Mario (to this day I fail hard at any sort of Mario-esque timed jumping platform game), car racing games, fighting games...

Then they got Chrono Trigger.  I was entranced.  It was like the best part of a really good D&D adventure without having to deal with that one gamer who just wanted to get drunk and act stupid, or the girlfriend of the week hanging around, pouting about how 'boring' it was, and breaking up the gaming session early.  The look and feel of Chrono Trigger, the music, the story flow, the characters, the emotional impact -- all of it so balanced -- it was an entire, amazing world contained in that cartridge and I couldn't wait to delve in and explore it myself.

My brothers found it 'boring' and traded it in.  The very next day, I bought my own SNES console and a copy of Chrono Trigger.  After completing it that first time, I went back to see what, if any other games might be like it and discovered Square did indeed have other titles.  Final Fantasy III (which we know now is FF6) was my second ever video game, followed by Final Fantasy II (FF4) (wherein Cecil Harvey claimed a hold on my heart as deeply entrenched as Glenn did in Chrono Trigger).  On the strength of these three games, I bet that the upcoming Final Fantasy VII would be awesome enough to be worth it to get the Playstation console, a decision I have never regretted.
       
Relevant to this forum, I have only ever played the SNES version of Chrono Trigger, and just recently started a playthrough on the PS1 version (up to 'Unnatural Selection' currently).  I haven't played Chrono Cross or any of the interquel or fan generated games so the sum total of my knowledge of the Chronoverse is contained in the first SNES game. 

As I have always had a soft spot for knights and chivalry, as well as redemption arcs, Glenn is my favorite character.  It's a quirk of mine (that got me into no end of grief when I first started posting a CT fanfic) that I intensely dislike playing characters whose names are merely what they are, so I do change the character names in my fan fiction.  As another HUGE fandom for me is Gen One Transformers, I used that as the basis for a naming theme for my story, only changing two of the girls' names to something more suitable (Lucca had been 'Gears' and Ayla 'Brawn' during my playthrough the second and subsequent times) but soon discovered that to some fans the names are absolutely sacrosanct.  That, coupled with an immense writer's block once I completed a pivotal Magus-centric sub-plot stopped that story cold back in 2006 and I have never completed it.

However, playing Chrono Trigger again, finding that all of those balanced, beloved game elements have retained their charm and power even after playing more modern games -- I want to finish that story again.  I want to bring it to the proper ending that the story, the characters, and the readers (if any still look at it) deserve.  Searching to confirm memories of events later in the game than I have yet to play up to this time around to brought me to this Compendium and this forum, and I am delighted to discover that a vibrant community of members who appreciate Chrono Trigger is still active.

And, if you made it through all of that --
Hi, I'm Kitt.  It's very nice to meet you!  >^o^<

[ZeaLitY]

Welcome tot he party!

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Indeed! Welcome tot he party!

I was sort of a rare bird, as I am a woman and older than the 'average' gamer, but, I am glad to realize there is no such thing as an average gamer, anymore.

You're in good company here; we have a good mix of ages! Especially since Chrono Trigger is a series now 25(!) years old, there's a lot of us that grew up on it and are in our 30s, 40s, and above. Just goes to show how this game stands the test of time!

... my younger brothers discovered FuncoLand and bought an SNES console. They traded and played games a lot -- Ranma 1/2, any and everything Mario ...

I miss FuncoLand. This is where I bought my favorite RPGs besides Chrono Trigger. Games like Lunar: Silver Star Story, Secret of Mana, etc... I don't think I realized they had anime, though!

Relevant to this forum, I have only ever played the SNES version of Chrono Trigger, and just recently started a playthrough on the PS1 version (up to 'Unnatural Selection' currently).  I haven't played Chrono Cross or any of the interquel or fan generated games so the sum total of my knowledge of the Chronoverse is contained in the first SNES game.

Ugh... The PSX version is by far the worst version of Chrono Trigger, lol... Those load times are abysmal! Although the anime cutscenes were a nice add. If you ever want to change it up and don't mind using emulators, there are quite a few hacks that you can play that add some new content or change things up. A few years back the Compendium also sponsored a re-translation of Chrono Trigger directly from the Japanese script, without all the Woosley-isms.

And there's Crimson Echoes / Flames of Eternity, our own fanon ROM hack sequel to Chrono Trigger that helps bridge the events of Chrono Cross. It's a great game in it's own right and carries on the Chrono legacy even as Square Enix has essentially abandoned the franchise.

... As another HUGE fandom for me is Gen One Transformers ...

Right on! Same here. Who are your favorites? Even though he's technically Gen Two, I admit that I love Hot Rod / Rodimus Prime. Judd Nelson was the man back in the 80s! I also enjoy Beast Wars and how it ties back into Gen One (loosely).

Searching to confirm memories of events later in the game than I have yet to play up to this time around to brought me to this Compendium and this forum, and I am delighted to discover that a vibrant community of members who appreciate Chrono Trigger is still active.

The Compendium isn't insanely busy these days, but we do have a very solid group of regulars. We have next to no drama and are a bastion of old school forumites. We also have a Discord if you're into that kind of thing.

Oh, and thread necromancy is both okay and encouraged, do don't worry too much about strict rules or anything.

[Mauron]

Welcome tot he party!

I am a similar rare bird. Let's flock together.

Did any of the Ranma 1/2 games make it into English? I thought they were Japanese exclusives.

[Acacia Sgt]

Hello there. Welcome! Always nice to see a new member join up.

[Kitt]

The Ranma 1/2 was a side-by-side fighting game (similar to Street Fighter) if memory serves, but it played on their SNES console, so it had to be English, I think.  My brothers had it for all of a week before trading it in.  They were really into the Mario games and the only one of those I can stand is the RPG (Geno for the win!)

It's awesome that there is a spread of ages here!  I might not have to explain my dated cultural references all the time!

I don't think FuncoLand had anime... but I rediscovered anime through video games.  Xenogears led me to Fushigi Yuugi which led to Cardcaptor Sakura (the fan subtitled version) and Vampire Hunter D, Petshop of Horrors, Sorcerer Stabber Orphen, Bakurestu Hunters and ultimately Yu-Gi-Oh!  (Kaiba is way more tolerable in his Japanese incarnation, though I love dub Kaiba voice actor's band).  One of my hobbies for a while was collecting anime cels.  I have a gallery online here -- Forever Dreaming though I haven't collected any new cels in years.  Still, it will give an idea what fandoms have caught my eye.

Yeah, the load times with PS CT have been bad.  I only resorted to it because my SNES cartridge was giving me a visual hiccup with the very first time tunnel effect and I thought it was broken.  It wasn't until I got to the same section in the PS game that I recalled that first time tunnel is that much longer than the later ones, so I just need to be patient and see if the visuals return after the travel sequence.

I have noticed the various CT fan games for sale on eBay and have been torn about them.  On the one hand, I would dearly love to play more games in the CTverse with the characters I fell in love with, but, on the other, I really try to respect IPR.  I buy game and anime music CDs only from Japan, even though they are so much more expensive, to avoid supporting the bootleggers like Son-May.  It's different when it's clearly a labor of love by fans, but...  it's still a bit in the gray area.  Clearly, I'm still wrestling with it.  On the third hand (hey, I'm a writer at heart, I can just whip up whatever I need to make something work!) until I get some of these CT fic out of my brain and onto my screen, I don't risk adding more information about the characters to the mix or I will never, ever get them done.  Itchy fic-writing brain is an awful thing!  I just realized today that with a decent amount of careful thought, I can redeem a good story that started its life infested with a Mary Sue, and bring it from something I would never post online to a credible AU story in the CT universe.  That makes me really happy because while it's Glenn-centric, it's got a lot of really fun Magus stuff in it, and I would love to be able to share.

Transformers...  Well, my nickname Kitt comes from my deep affection for the car from Knight Rider, so falling for Transformers was bound to happen.  Optimus Prime is my absolute favorite but I really liked Michael Bell's voice acting for Prowl, too.  Scatman Crothers for Jazz, Dan Gilvezian for Bumblebee, all of them were just amazing.  I always found myself wanting to kick Starscream in the shins, and realize now that evoking such an emotional reaction using only one's voice is the pinnacle of the voice actor's skill.

To this day, even after all the various villains from video games, anime, movies and tv shows, Megatron is the one who scares me the most. Pure, utterly cold, irredeemable evil.  Frank Welker is simply amazing.

Among the writers for the original show, David Wise wrote all of my favorite episodes.  I was crushed when he passed away last year.  It was awesome to see the Transformers on the big screen, but they threw too many new characters at us with not enough reference, relegated almost all the original characters to being just background visuals, then killed most of them off, then killed Optimus.  I too loved Judd Nelson's version of Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime, but didn't like the character, if that makes any sense.  If they had given us decent lead up to the events of the movie with episodes that laid some groundwork (like how Ultra Magnus became Optimus' right hand 'bot instead of Ironhide, and why Optimus took Hot Rod under his guidance), I would have liked it much better.  Pretty much everything after the movie wasn't to my liking, as I felt it broke too much from the canon they had established prior.  I mean why would the Quintessons, as what, five faced beings floating around on a bunch of tentacles, be inspired to create giant bipedal robots?  It made no sense!

Geez, I write a lot!

[Mauron]

Yeah, I was mistaken. One got a US release, another got a super localized release as Street Combat.

Fushigi Yuugi, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Yuu Watase and CLAMP in general are all excellent. I finally got the first volume of Fushigi Yuugi: Byakko Senki in English only to find out it's on indefinite hiatus.

I must give the Sakura anime credit for cutting out most of Rika's "romance." That was quite ugh.

As far as hacks on carts go, don't go that route. Every hack involved has been distributed freely online, and the hackers have no involvement with the cart makers.

As for fics... I generally write the first half of <insert series>, but gayer, then get bored.

I missed out on a lot of G1 transformers, but got into Beast Wars a bunch.

[VidKid369]

Hi, Kitt! Welcome, I'm fairly new here myself! Lol, I've loved Chrono Trigger since I was a little kid, too. Omg, I loved FuncoLand I managed to get a couple of really good games there like Breath of Fire and Final Fantasy II. (U.S.)  It was always pretty cool how they had T.V.'s set inside the walls and you have to stand up to playtest the game you want to buy. I always thought it was a toy/computer store but I walked in on a whim one time and couldn't believe it actually led to a paradise of video games. The employees there were also always actually pretty cool.

Lol, that your brothers's first impressions were that it was boring! If I'm being really honest, that was my first reaction to RPGs too, but I trudged on and I found that I fell in love with the reading.

Anyway just wanted to say welcome again!

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Optimus Prime is my absolute favorite but I really liked Michael Bell's voice acting for Prowl, too.  Scatman Crothers for Jazz, Dan Gilvezian for Bumblebee, all of them were just amazing.  I always found myself wanting to kick Starscream in the shins, and realize now that evoking such an emotional reaction using only one's voice is the pinnacle of the voice actor's skill.

You're right about both the excellent voice acting (especially for the early 80's) and the overall Gen One versus Gen Two. Even though I love Hot Rod as a character (gotta love a good underdog daredevil thrust into leadership), I do agree... Transformers: the Movie, while entertaining, totally RUINED the original run of the franchise. The unceremonious slaying of most Gen One characters, not to mention the move to outer space adventures for Season Three -- all in the name of selling more toys. "Out with the old and in with the new!"

At least Bumblebee remained unscathed. Barely, hahaha... But Orson Welles as Unicron... Legendary. Same with Leonard Nimoy as Galvatron.

My favorite episode of the series is actually the Pilot (followed by Fire on the Mountain). I love seeing Cybertron as it was in the Pilot, including the Cybertronian vehicle transformations of many of the OG characters.

In fact, I got really into the early Dreamwave/IDW Transformers comic series in the early 2000's. The first miniseries, Prime Directive, https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Prime_Directive, bridged the gap between Season Two of the television series and the Movie, and it was quite good overall. It essentially followed up that the Transformers defeated the Decepticons and tried to leave Earth after Season Two, but the Ark II was destroyed after blasting off, seemingly killing every Transformer and Sparkplug, who was on the Ark with the Transformers when it exploded. Spike returns to civilian life, gets married (and widowed), and has Daniel. Years later, the government comes back to Spike and reveals that they have found the Transformers, some damaged and dormant on the ocean floor, having survived the explosion of the Ark. Events happen and all of the Transformers are ultimately revived, now committed to Earth as a new home.

They also made a War for Cybertron miniseries (which has since spawned an animated miniseries on Netflix, although I've not seen it yet) which followed the Transformers - with their Cybertronian vehicle modes - during the early years of the war. It was a bit dark and made some canon changes, but was overall quite good.

Much of the comics are pretty good if you are into that sort of thing, and introduce some now-staples of the franchise, such as the existence of the Fallen, the Thirteen Primes, etc.