Enhasa Halls - Chrono Series Analysis > Other Topics and the Prerelease
Robo Racing an Empty Jetbike? (V.Net Dash Paper ROM Magazine Scans)
Reld:
I recently bought some Chrono-related stuff online and the seller threw in a few bonus "posters". One of these "posters" was a magazine foldout that, after some research, I figured out is from the October 31st 1994 issue of Weekly Shonen Jump. It was apparently a semi-regular feature about video games called "V.Net Dash Paper ROM Magazine". I'm only mentioning how I got it because I'm mildly amused by the fact that I essentially stumbled across it by accident.
Here are the scanned pages:
Page 1
Page 2
Anyway, the main reason I decided to scan these is the images at the bottom on both pages that appear to show Robo and an empty Jetbike on the track where you race Johnny. I don't recall ever seeing this before. I did a quick scroll through the alpha screenshot page and didn't notice anything, so I think this is totally new (to us at least).
A few other interesting observations:
Blade-armed Zombor on Zenan bridge. I know I've seen blade-armed Zombor a few times, but I don't remember seeing a shot of him on Zenan bridge. I could be wrong about that. I didn't actually check for this one. The map itself is also different though. The bridge is narrower (like the super old "Omokage Bridge" screenshots) and there's a patch of grass on the right side that isn't in that spot in the final game.
An intermediate world map that has shown up in a few scans. I've seen it before, but this is the first time I've gotten a good enough look at it to notice that the town graphics used to feature a church steeple with a cross on top. It's on the upper edge of the bottom-right semi-circle of buildings, partially overlapping the trees.
A pretty decent shot of the four elemental stats in the menu.
Edit: I was just taking a closer look at that menu screenshot out of curiosity. Crono has equipped:
Father's Katana
Leather Hat (on his torso apparently)
Leather Clothes (on his head?)
Holy Ring
Also, I watched some video about CT speedrunning strats a while ago and somebody mentioned that the playable characters have some sort of hidden elemental affinity stat (apparently Ayla's is fire). Is that what these elemental icons are for, and the stat just wasn't always hidden?
Boo the Gentleman Caller:
A few other interesting observations...
1.) The official art of Marle casting Fire magic fighting a Hekran in the snow is created in the Trigger engine! I'm pretty sure that's nothing new, but this the first I can recall in seeing it. How cool!
2.) The overworld of Zeal Kingdom seems to have {recolored?) Crono sprites (as in plural) also on the overworld.
--- Quote ---An intermediate world map that has shown up in a few scans. I've seen it before, but this is the first time I've gotten a good enough look at it to notice that the town graphics used to feature a church steeple with a cross on top. It's on the upper edge of the bottom-right semi-circle of buildings, partially overlapping the trees.
--- End quote ---
3.) I've seen a variety of alpha and beta version screenshots before, but to add to your observations, I don't think I ever noticed that the Guardia Forest trees were different!
Reld:
--- Quote from: Boo the Gentleman Caller on February 07, 2021, 09:34:07 pm ---1.) The official art of Marle casting Fire magic fighting a Hekran in the snow is created in the Trigger engine! I'm pretty sure that's nothing new, but this the first I can recall in seeing it. How cool!
--- End quote ---
Definitely not news to me, but it might be the first time I've seen it explicitly acknowledged in print that the screenshot and artwork are depicting the same thing.
--- Quote ---2.) The overworld of Zeal Kingdom seems to have {recolored?) Crono sprites (as in plural) also on the overworld.
--- End quote ---
I think this is probably just a result of stitching multiple screenshots together to create a larger image. You can see a really obvious seam in the image of Magus's castle where they did this.
--- Quote ---3.) I've seen a variety of alpha and beta version screenshots before, but to add to your observations, I don't think I ever noticed that the Guardia Forest trees were different!
--- End quote ---
The graphics for the land meeting the water and the fountain in the center of town are different too.
Razig:
Interesting stuff. Maybe they used Robo as a placeholder before Johnny's design was finished? The background colors are also wildly different from those in the final game.
A few things that stood out to me in these pictures:
* At the trial, the king is seated above the judge, and Pierre and the chancellor are replaced by a couple of 600 AD soldiers.
* In the picture of Guardia, the Epoch is flying around even though the characters are on foot.
* The battle with the Dragon Tank is happening just outside the prison tower, instead of the barracks tower.
Reld:
--- Quote from: Razig on February 09, 2021, 04:30:08 pm ---Interesting stuff. Maybe they used Robo as a placeholder before Johnny's design was finished? The background colors are also wildly different from those in the final game.
--- End quote ---
Your guess is as good as mine. The jetbike sequence may have even been something else entirely instead of a race against Johnny at one point. I find those shots totally perplexing.
--- Quote ---
* In the picture of Guardia, the Epoch is flying around even though the characters are on foot.
--- End quote ---
Yeah I'm pretty sure that's just a mockup to show things off, but interestingly enough I do believe it was created in the game's engine rather than just cobbling the various graphical elements together. If you look at the first image in this tweet there are a couple of pictures of someone who appears to be working on the overworld. He has two computer monitors, one displaying the overworld graphics and one displaying what looks to me like a full-screen picture of the characters from Secret of Mana. In the top picture (to the left of the Chrono Trigger logo) you can also see a little black monitor hooked up to what I believe to be a Super Famicom dev unit. That little black monitor is displaying the same overworld image from the scans in my first post.
As an aside, I think the tweet I just linked to from Frank deWindt II/@Bo_deWindt was missed when all of those tweeted scans were added to this site. At least I couldn't find them here, which is why I'm linking to a tweet instead.
Edit: The way twitter handles linking to tweets is very annoying. In case it's not clear, the tweet I'm referring to is the one from Jul 16, 2019 that says
--- Quote ---Some early Chrono Trigger scans from the VJump Dec 1994 issue I scanned
Nice pics and coverage of the "Dream Team" and other Chrono Trigger staff
Part 1/2
--- End quote ---
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