FaustWolf's progress thread and bug report

[FaustWolf]

Not much to go here yet because I haven't started actually playing -- before I do that, I want to take care of:

*Inserting and assembling Zeal at Night overworld (mostly background work, so I won't disturb any overworld events hopefully)
*Inserting and assembling Sorin

Before I forget, anyone have savestates handy at a scene just before Zeal at Night is shown and/or just before a scene in which Sorin appears? Those would be useful for testing.

Zeal at Night is going swell. I'll go through the appropriate check out/check in process late tonight and get that done.

[FaustWolf]

I see this in the "Dark Ages" overworld when I patch with Chrono'99's latest patch (not accessible in this Beta Test board):


I'm going to fix it while I've got the ROM checked out unless those tiles are meant to be there or something. The misplaced purplish tiles are fixed in my ROM.


This is how Zeal at Night appears in Temporal Flux -- I still need to take a look at it in-game, since there might be some kind of shading applied to the original graphics...

[Agent 12]

--JP

[Chrono'99]

Wow, that looks nice! Shouldn't the cloud horizon be higher though? I think if the player stands on the central island here the clouds might not be visible, unlike in CT, as the horizon line is too far down.

I suspect there might be two issues ingame: the shading effect will probably make the stars a bit darker than here, and both the clouds and stars will scroll due to the layer scrolling command. I guess we can just scrap the scrolling effect. And let's hope the stars will still look great with the shading.

[FaustWolf]

New version, and this time I cropped less so people more familiar with events and scrolling on this map can advise me on whether more stars or clouds should be added.

[ZeaLitY]

Sorry to make a vacuous post in a FaustWolf thread, but man,



WE STARTED THIS PARTY WITH A BANG

That looks great, but the real test will be how it handles in the ROM. I can't wait to check it out. Someone will have to disable the OW events making the screen dark blue, though; anyone know what to remove?

[Chrono'99]

I'm not sure where the scrolling commands are, but the overlay is determined by a couple commands right at the start of the event code:

http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,4743.msg83962.html#msg83962

Perhaps a very faint overlay can be used (like in 1 A.D. but blue) rather than removing it completely?

[ZeaLitY]

Sounds good.

[FaustWolf]

Okay, I'm going to do one post per chapter, starting with my pre-game "walkabout."

Ahhh, I remember in 1995 when I first fired up Chrono Trigger, I just spent some time literally exploring the world. I got this goose-bumpy feeling because the game world was so immersive, and that feeling returned to me in Crimson Echoes. Not to mention, it's actually an improvement on Chrono Trigger due to the serious role of international politics. I really like how there's this surreal atmosphere, with political tension hanging over people who are just going about their business, and yet everyone's talking about what's happening in other countries. It feels like you're walking through pre-WWII Europe or something.

Now onto bugs:

1.Tile solidity issue in Leene Square. However, it probably wouldn't be a problem if Crono actually gets up after succumbing to curiosity. yea he'll be alive in the final product


2.Pickle table tiles disappear when Crono's tripping. Seriously, the choice of the word "pickles" here was rather naughty.  JP NOTE: well...it just doesn't scroll with the rest.  It's on a different layer (so something can be on top of it)  He's tripping anywyas so..meh

 

3.Tile solidity issues in the forest ruins of Medina. There's lots of places here where you can just step right up on the ruin platform from the ground, but maybe it's supposed to be that way?


4.Choras is rich, the people need to speak well! Haha! Kudos for this being the only typo I've found in the script so far.


5.Chancellor's palette? Is he supposed to be smurfish in this minigame?   JP NOTE:  Ugh.....yea i noticed this after awhile, it's a problem with the number of pallettes in the casino....



Difficulty Report
I'm speaking only from experience leveling up in Fiona's Forest 1005AD  so far. Man, I love it! Level 1 Crono totally got his ass kicked by two seemingly immortal Hetakes and a Roly the first time around, but after that experience I discovered that if I approach the Hetakes a certain way, Crono could pummel them into submission with the Slash tech. Got Crono to level 3 this way, and pretty quickly. Hmph, those Hetakes are chumps. Defeating them felt like a real accomplishment.

I know a lot of beta testers have been complaining about the difficulty, and I agree that the casual player who's there solely for the story and world immersion is going to find it rough going. However, I really dig how you have to strategize heavily to survive even regular battles. I almost wish a "hardtype" version would be released alongside the "regular" edition to satiate us strategy fans.

However, my opinion of the difficulty could change with time. I speak only from my experience in Fiona's forest.

[ZeaLitY]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pickle

Aw, am I missing something? I honestly intended it to be real, actual pickles, not drugs. They do sell them at fairs in Styrofoam cups.

Thanks for the qualitative feedback, too!

[Agent 12]

Fiona's forest was tricky....i knew people would go in there with only crono however, it also serves as the only place you can level up before a boss fight in a future chapter and at that time you have crono/lucca/ marle so i had to make it hard..but not too hard haha.  Thanks for the encouraging intro!

--JP

[FaustWolf]

Chapter 1: Legacy of Zeal

I'll start with a "Hip hip hooray, I love CE!"

Seriously, it's getting really good, really early. Which is a seriously awesome sign.

Bug Report:

#1. During Golem Boss fight, OmniShield glitches if you use it more than once! It only plays for a fraction of a second. This happens regardless of whether my improved OmniShield patch is applied.

#2. Do you guys mind that the clue tombstones in Dalton's Dungeon disappear during battle?



#3. Tile overlap issue in battle with some statues. Not a huge deal, anyway.


#4. I mercilessly destroyed Dalton. Is that okay? Does Magus just collapse from exhaustion if he wins?

I really thought I was going to trip you guys up by leaving Dalton's Dungeon just after completing the first battle, because I figured the event would replay (this happened once when I defeated three demon dudes and meet Frog for the first time, but granted that was an earlier build I tried out a month ago). Instead of properly coding the event so it didn't replay upon re-entry, you further made it so that the Zealian guy actually walked over to the table in the meantime. It might seem like such a small thing, but I really appreciated that. It lends the game a sense of realism.

Difficulty Report:
Good God, you must do something about the Golem Boss. Instead of nerfing it strength or HP-wise, I'd slow it down a point or two if you can. It's agile enough that it can get two licks in to Magus' single turn, a deadly prospect due to its attack pattern. The Burrp revenge attack is strong enough that it has a good chance of wiping Magus out even if the player acted smartly. If you don't want to slow it down, maybe a prominent Earthbound NPC could at least advise Magus that Dalton is bound to use Golems, and that Magus had better stock up on Mid Tonics in that case. Any way for the store owner to push his goods that way...?

"Hey, I hear you're going after Dalton! Better stock up on Mid Tonics. They're on sale for just 200G apiece!"

Magus: That's what you were charging before.

"...C'mon, I'm the only salesman in the known world. Can you really argue?"


When I play through CE a second time, I'm going to grab the wallet in Choras and equip it on Crono so as to free up the Bandana, which I'll give to Magus for the speed bonus, which I think would solve some of the frustration with the Golem Boss. However, that's a cheap exploitation of the game system...or is it?

[Agent 12]

I really thought I was going to trip you guys up by leaving Dalton's Dungeon just after completing the first battle, because I figured the event would replay (this happened once when I defeated three demon dudes and meet Frog for the first time, but granted that was an earlier build I tried out a month ago.

Did the whole scene replay or was it just that one battle?  I'm pretty sure I set it up so that you see the entire scene once but if you leave and come back you can still battle them? 

*shrug*

I actually HATE that battle so i wouldn't mind removing it it's one of the few "forced" battles in the game though there's alot where if you're anyone but me you have to do the battle (i know the exact tiles to walk on to get through each area )


--JP

EDIT: Ack! It is the whole scene.....BUG'd

Double edit:  Hm....golem boss may be so hard cause i toned down the beasts.....I'll tone him down a bit and probably take V and others suggestions to up Magus starting level.  That's probably not a good sign about magus Omnishield...very very weird bug..  Everyone is kicking dalton's ass....i thought he was much harder i'll take a look

[FaustWolf]

So far the OmniShield glitch happens just during the Golem Boss battle. It repeats perfectly fine during all the regular battles. Maybe something about the map you fight the Golem Boss on? Any weird "can't use Layer 3 effects" properties enabled on that, perchance? I can't really fathom why OmniShield is acting that way there.

Oh, I should note that I had a slight problem with Savestates in ZSNES during Chapter 1. I had been just using Slot 0 (.szt), then when I wanted to go back and do another video capture of a previous scene, so I switched to using Slot 1 (.zs1), and suddenly I found that ZSNES wouldn't load either Slot 0 or Slot 1. However, I followed the perrennial rule of "if it doesn't work, reboot it" and everything worked out fine. It was just a hiccup with the emulator and not with the game as far as I know. I'm using ZSNES 1.51.

[Chrono'99]

Oh, I should note that I had a slight problem with Savestates in ZSNES during Chapter 1. I had been just using Slot 0 (.szt), then when I wanted to go back and do another video capture of a previous scene, so I switched to using Slot 1 (.zs1), and suddenly I found that ZSNES wouldn't load either Slot 0 or Slot 1. However, I followed the perrennial rule of "if it doesn't work, reboot it" and everything worked out fine. It was just a hiccup with the emulator and not with the game as far as I know. I'm using ZSNES 1.51.

Did you "disable SPC emulation" while recording the video, by any chance? Savestates that have SPC emulation enabled don't load correctly if you disable it.