The Beneficent Lord J's Largess as Dictated Electronically to ZeaLitY

[ZeaLitY]

1. The Lemonade Kid at Leene's Square has a buggy menu.

3. The Telepod is still at Leene's Square after five years? I think
Lucca would have taken it down once the Millennial Fair was over. She
also probably would have continued its development, time permitting
(and pun intended), in which case it probably would have found useful
application in Guardia by now.

4. When the King says "Take your seats, Gentlemen" to the Porrean
envoys, there aren't actually any chairs at the table. (Note to JP: change it to "Take your positions, gentlemen"

5. I would recommend the "Tyrano Lair" music in lieu of the
"Underground Sewer" for the meeting with the Porreans. (Note: tackle this after Lord J completes the playthrough in case he feels Tyrano Lair would be overused)

6. Superfluous line break on "Something just isn't right with those
two" at the meeting with the Porreans.

7. Perhaps a little more drama prior to the breaking of the Time Egg?

8. The Crimson Echoes title screen, in what looks like a Zealish hall,
is a bit understated. I expected some kind of event to happen, but
it's just an empty room. The music doesn't fit with that.

9. When the point-of-view switching to Magus, Magus has all of the
items that Crono had, even though they haven't interacted yet. There's
really no reason for Magus to have cakes and postcards, or even the
tonics and shelters that Crono had.

10. What was the Elder of the First Village doing following Magus, and
how was he unafflicted by whatever was wounding or enervating Magus?

11. I don't mean to be a pessimist, but how likely is it that the
villagers in the First Village would still be so optimistic and
untroubled after five years in a very harsh environment following a
catastrophe that undoubtedly killed most of the people in the world?

12. I also notice that the Zealish are still dressed in their
glittering robes. Five years of living in the muck should have left
their clothes as tattered and raggedy as those of the erstwhile
Earthbound.

13. A snappily-dressed person in the leftmost hut of Mist Village says
of the crashed cities of Zeal "They don't serve much else use," which
is grammatically improper.

14. He then says that his notes will probably be lost "long after I
die," but the meaning seems to be "soon after I die," or perhaps "not
long after I die."

15. It's hard to speak with Sargon without walking over the wealstone.

16. The wealstone "HP / MP Restored" message comes up too easily,
sometimes appearing twice in one crossing. It also tends to obscure
the player's view of Magus and Magus' path.

17. The Beast Forest is, in my opinion, much too difficult. It took
all of my tonics and mid tonics just to get to the boss, whereupon I
then proceeded to get my ass handed to me royally. I withdrew to the
perimeter of the forest and spent a long time grinding my way up
several levels higher. At Level 7, the area was no problem, but it
took a long time to grind up to Level 7. I know some players like
having to do that, but I don't, especially right at the beginning.

18. Dalton's Dungeon was well-balanced given the time that I had spent
leveling up for the Beast Forest. It might make sense to start Magus
out at Level 5 or 6, to cut down on the difficulty of the two initial
dungeons.

19. The brief Ocean Palace music when Dalton shows up at the end of
the dungeon probably isn't necessary.

20. Missing period after "I am formally known as Mother Brain v2.8"

21. When Montcrief is talking about the "automobile," the word
"weapon" should be plural.

22. Perhaps the music at the Porre Camp could be the "Keeper's Dome" music.

23. William Ishita's (Spekkio) music should keep playing until the
party leaves the room, and the dialogue with him should be more
substantial in order to build up some dramatic anticipation.

24. The sentence by the person in Fiona's Shrine at nightfall who says
she is on her way to Truce is cut off.

25. The lines of the Guardia soldier in Fiona's Shrine have some
spotty punctuation.

26. When the party goes to sleep in Fiona's Shrine, the sleepy music
is cut off before it finishes.

27. In the following scene, where the Engineer is talking about "The
future is now!" perhaps the music could be "Gato's Theme." Or, for a
slightly darker mood, there could be no music until the end of the
scene, with "Sealed by a Mysterious Force" playing as he hammers the
tank, and no second rendition of "Goodnight" as the scene returns to
the adventurers in the shrine.

28. It feels as though something more should have happened during the
night, be it with the party, or out in the forest, or back at the
Porrean camp.

29. Given the difficulty curve so far, the tank battle at Zenan Bridge
could actually be beefed up a little bit, perhaps by increasing the
tank's difficulty, or tripling the number of armored guards that go in
after the tank is destroyed--and giving them a commander or other
miniboss.

30. It's kind of cute that the person at the top of the castle who is
"about to ask for a raise" is right next to a 500 gp treasure chest
that Marle immediately loots. I hope her paycheck comes from another
chest.

31. It may not be a bug, but when reporting to King Guardia upon first
arriving at the castle after fighting the tank, he doesn't say
anything.

32. The Chef in the castle reminds me of somebody. =)



33. There is a superfluous line break in Belthasar's line, "He
apparently retrieved Lucca's gate key and used it to travel here."

34. The battle to save the reactor is too easy.

35. After securing the reactor, Belthasar mentions the blue gates
having appeared two years ago. Doesn't he mean five years ago?

36. The message with the guy who says that mall duty rules appears
twice instead of just once.

37. That is one ghetto-looking mall, by the way. No good tilesets?

38. The huge domed city nearest Chronopolis has no name and can't be entered.

39. I might be getting confused here, but Chronopolis looks to be
located on one of the main continents, near Choras. Isn't it supposed
to be out in El Nido, on the Comet Islands?

40. "Agent 12" in the Sunken Palace could use some grammar cleanup.
Also, the agent says that the teleporter is only working one-way, but
your party is able to sell items as well as buy them.

41. The Ocean Palace music doesn't actually fit with the Sunken Palace
very well. I might suggest something like "At the Bottom of Night."

42. One of the Deceased in the Sunken Palace room with the Xocotl Suit
treasure chest seems to be messed up.

43. Magus' and Schala's dialogue is a little stilted. Then again, I
guess Frog set a precedent in the original Chrono Trigger, eh?

44. There's an extra line break in the latest Chronopolis News Uplink
message, the one about the robot activist.

45. The Kajar scientist in the reactor room has a verb tense
disagreement when he mentions that Chronopolis would have been
discovered had its power failed.

46. One of the operators in the reactor room says "don't" when it
should be "doesn't"; i.e., the central regime doesn't expect to find
anything.

47. Cake stealing scene = win

48. The person at the Inn in Truce in 605 A.D. who says that Glenn
should be near Denadoro has his sentence cut off.

[ZeaLitY]

7. Perhaps a little more drama prior to the breaking of the Time Egg?

Suggestions welcome from any source.

9. When the point-of-view switching to Magus, Magus has all of the
items that Crono had, even though they haven't interacted yet. There's
really no reason for Magus to have cakes and postcards, or even the
tonics and shelters that Crono had.

The Entity did it. (We don't have a good solution.)

11. I don't mean to be a pessimist, but how likely is it that the
villagers in the First Village would still be so optimistic and
untroubled after five years in a very harsh environment following a
catastrophe that undoubtedly killed most of the people in the world?

Reevaluate upon completion of the game (it's stylistically addressed).

12. I also notice that the Zealish are still dressed in their
glittering robes. Five years of living in the muck should have left
their clothes as tattered and raggedy as those of the erstwhile
Earthbound.

Kept for stylistic reasons, I guess. Good point, of course.

28. It feels as though something more should have happened during the
night, be it with the party, or out in the forest, or back at the
Porrean camp.

Suggestions welcome from any source.

38. The huge domed city nearest Chronopolis has no name and can't be entered.

We're going to create a residential / commercial building lobby without access to upper levels for this.

39. I might be getting confused here, but Chronopolis looks to be
located on one of the main continents, near Choras. Isn't it supposed
to be out in El Nido, on the Comet Islands?

Will be remedied with an explanation that one is transported far from Chronopolis.

43. Magus' and Schala's dialogue is a little stilted. Then again, I
guess Frog set a precedent in the original Chrono Trigger, eh?

Yeah, that was one of my worse pieces from 2006. Still, I have no earthly idea how to communicate Magus's reaction upon being reunited with Schala. Help from any source would be appreciated, because wow, that's...

[Lord J Esq]

I want to add that my notes are observational in nature and should be taken as advisory, lest ZeaLitY's talk of my "beneficence" obscure my genuine appreciation for all the good work that you guys have done putting this game together.

I'll have more notes to add as I continue to play the game.

[Agent 12]

Thanks for the notes!  The cake scene still cracks me up, it's one of the few scenes where I don't fast forward 

Um....one  small note, the first chapter with magus....I'm pretty sure is not supposed to be 5 years in the future.  It's kind of ambiguous on when it happens but he's in stasis for awhile.  I guess we need to make it more clear.  That being said there's not much we can do with the sprites since they are used several times throughout the game (Chronopolis comes to mind immediately).  But maybe it makes the dialogue flow a little better. 

One unfixable bug with this time jump is that I think the year will be wrong when you press select on the OW map.....however I think Justin is the only person in the world who has ever done that

--JP

[Chrono'99]

Nah, the first chapter is definitely in 11,995 B.C. It was changed some time ago when we connected Dalton to King Zeal. It happens that year because King Zeal (freshly resurrected) is the one that asks Dalton to search for artifacts, including the Silver Streak, in order to rebuild his kingdom later.

[Agent 12]

oh......uh oh haha.  I mentioned that cause Zeality gave me some dialogue that pointed to him being in stasis for awhile.  Zeality you may want to rethink the post Magus Last Village dialogue?  We can take this to IM or the other board so we don't hijack this thread.

--JP

[Lord J Esq]

49. When Glenn first shows up and his music plays, that music currently stops as soon as you decide on his name. It would have more of an impact if it kept playing through his battle with the Hench and his conversation with Crono's party, up until the party selection screen with the End of Time music.

50. After emerging from the branch of the cave where Glenn's party encounters Samuel, there is a fight with a single Hench. When this occurs, the party is bunched up into a single point on the screen, making it hard to see which character is taking damage.

51. The party bunching problem seems to occur at other occasions throughout this dungeon.

52. In at least two battles, the Roly Bomber's attacks only damage itself, and not the party. This is cute, maybe even worth keeping, but probably not intentional.

53. In the room where Lucca says "let's find Kasmir," there's a Power Tab that has a graphics problem. I briefly saw something on the screen that said "Miss" or "Missing"; I didn't get a long enough look at it to be sure. Afterwards, though, the Power Tab stopped glittering.

54. NOTE ERASED.

55. In one Mystic Den near Kasmir's Fort, there is a Mystic who says "People came in the forest dwelling to the south." I'm not sure what that means. Could benefit from clarification.

56. In Roget's line about making port, there is an extra line break. There's also some confusion in the line about Kasmir's forces waiting for the Guardian troops to be safe.

57. The entire conversation with the Vangaurd captains is confusing, and really needs to be cleared up.

58. The decision menu asking Glenn if he has made his choice yet is buggy.

59. The Mystic Den where the scene with the Vanguard captains occurs is hard to spot. I didn't even notice it the first time, and I ended up on the other side of the continent. A more prominent graphic would help.

60. In the Mystic Den after Lucca and Marle return, Glenn says to go to talk to Belthasar. I had to walk my party all the way back to the Truce Canyon Time Gate; that probably ought to be skipped by scene-jumping straight to Chronopolis.

61. Just out of curiosity, I stepped into Kasmir's Fort to see if there was the possibility of sequence-breaking (i.e., playing the story out of order). I didn't go past the front lobby, so I don't know if it's possible to break the sequence, but the possibility may exist, and you might want to check into that.

62. The lighting level in Zeal is too low. I had a hard time seeing things.

63. The "Corridors of Time" music may seem like an obvious choice for Zeal at night, but it really doesn't fit with the mood. I have a couple of alternative suggestions. I would recommend the Radical Dreamers song, "The Girl Who Stole the Stars." Alternatively, you could use the RD song "Under the Moonlight" provided that you silence the flowing water sound.

64. Marle's line in Janus' room; "Poor guy..." is missing a period at the end.

65. The Zeal Palace music also seems out of place. I'd just stick with whatever theme you choose in response to Note No. 63.

66. In Schala's room, Lucca's line is missing. It even says so!

67. The "Land Bridge" text on the Main Island of Zeal does not appear properly.  JP NOTE: Does this repro?

68. I assume there is some significance to the four dreamers in Enhasa (and the fact that each one of them has a different style of qualifier), but I didn't figure it out.

69. As Belthasar is explaining things back at Chronopolis, there is a point when the picture of the caveperson, Crono, and a Zealian changes to a picture of two people around the Frozen Flame. At this point, whatever text message is supposed to be there is garbled completely, and unreadable. (So much for Belthasar's admonition to "listen well"!) All of the remaining text, up to the point where the scene switches back to Chronopolis, is garbled and completely unreadable. This is a major story point, and I missed it! (ZeaLitY has advised me that this bug has been fixed.)

70. Be wary of cornering the player into plot advances. When I was in Enhasa, I was careful to explore the city before going into Belthasar's laboratory. If I had done it the other way around, I would have missed the opportunity to explore.


--- END CHUNK 2 ---


Now I take a step back to make some general points on tacticals.

71. I think the Mystic Tunnel is very well-balanced as far as dungeons go...probably the best so far in the game.

72. Gameplay seems to be disproportionately more difficult during the sequences I have played thus far where only one person is in the party.

73. I like the style of having battles against fewer but harder enemies with higher hit point levels and defensive powers.

74. Tech skill development seems to be erratic. Party members learn a whole bunch of Techs up front, and then things get very barren. I think the balancing act on this curve needs to be completely reworked.

75. Magic is much more necessary in this game than in the original Chrono Trigger. Kudos for that. The dearth of save points and the expense of ethers threatens to make ether purchase a significant expense for me, although I haven't gotten to that point yet. In many RPGs, the expense of non-equipment items is nontrivial only in the early game. By reducing gold availability and increasing the need for ether purchases, you have introduced an element of strategic decision making into the game which I appreciate. Ideally, I expect to have to ask myself to choose between equipment upgrades and item purchases. Already I have been forced by limited gold to upgrade my equipment on some party members and not others.

76. Lucca and Marle are even weaker than I remember them. Is this Krispin's doing, or is it an attempt to force the player to use these characters' magic rather than their physical attacks? (If so, it worked.)

77. I like the fact that the lead character changes almost from scene to scene, with the best-suited person taking point in each case.

78. It was a clever gambit to introduce that Nu riddle in Kajar. It took me about six or seven tries to guess correctly. That's a very smart riddle: Obvious enough to eventually occur to everyone, yet difficult enough to not be throwaway-cheap. I enjoy these non-combat puzzles.

79. No acceptable explanation is given for why Crono & Co. are kicked back down to a low level and lose all of their equipment from Chrono Trigger. I'll grant that five years is long enough for everyone to get flabby and sell all their weapons and armor, but would that really have happened to all six characters?

80. Lucca's speed stat is miserable. No...Marle's is miserable. Lucca's is obscene. When the fastest characters can get two turns in for every one of hers, the combat becomes imbalanced. Lucca's usefulness is constrained primarily to Double Techs and to attacks against fire-weak enemies.

81. I like Magus' new shield spell. It was a lifesaver in the Beast Forest (as it was presumably meant to be). I like it so much that I'm hoping he develops an "Omni Shield 2" spell later in the game that works better and covers the entire party. (Such a spell would throw a wrench in combat balances, though, as it would either make Magus an essential character in every party, or it would make battles far too easy. This challenge would have to be overcome somehow for such a spell to be viable.)

82. This may be outside the realm of convenient programmability, but one thing I enjoyed about Chrono Trigger enemies is that sometimes they would take multiple turns to store power for an attack. Even Magus did it. It would be cool if party members could do the same thing. Here's how I imagine it would be easiest to program: Give characters each a "store energy" Tech that, each time it is used, cumulatively (and significantly) increases the character's Magic stat while simultaneously decreasing their Stamina stat. Then, once another Tech is used, the attack will be made using the higher Magic valueAt that point, the Magic and Stamina stats are reset to normal. Make sure to balance the Magic stat increase high enough (and the Stamina decrease low enough) so that it can be worth it in some instances (but not all) to forfeit multiple turns in order to use a stronger attack. It would also be smart to make the Magic stat bump larger with each successive use of the store energy Tech. For instance, magic might go up by a percentage rather than a fixed amount...say, 40 percent each time. So if a character's Magic stat begins at 10, storing energy once would increase it to 14, storing energy again would increase it to 20, storing it a third time would increase it to 28, a fourth to 39, and a fifth to 55. This percentage might be adjusted downward, or a cap placed on the stat gains or the number of times the Tech could be used successively, but I think you can see the appeal of energy storage.

83. Weapon upgrades have been spotty so far. It might be more fun if more upgrades were available. (This also goes for helms and armor.)

84. Nice Kasmir and Zeal sprites, by the way. Who did them?

85. One thing I really enjoyed about Chrono Trigger was its humorous etudes prior to combat. My favorite is in the cathedral dungeon near the beginning of the game, when the monster (I think it's a Hench) says: "I'll give you this; you know what you're doing," even though the party threw out the stairs completely by accident. Crimson Echoes has a couple of these, and I highly encourage you to write more of them.


--- END INTERLUDE 1 ---

[Vehek]

63. The "Corridors of Time" music may seem like an obvious choice for Zeal at night, but it really doesn't fit with the mood. I have a couple of alternative suggestions. I would recommend the Radical Dreamers song, "The Girl Who Stole the Stars." Alternatively, you could use the RD song "Under the Moonlight" provided that you silence the flowing water sound.

A while back, Zeality suggested using a re-instrumentation of Corridors of Time. "Under the Moonlight" came up too as a possible song to use in the game.

edit:
Was it OK for me to reveal that?

[Agent 12]

Vehek....yea Lord J seems to be very good at giving music suggestions so he should know CE's music history.

Lord J - it's really refreshing that you're telling us what you like as well as what you don't like thanks a ton!  A lot of these Zeality I'll let Zeality comment on.  I can provide a little bit of insight into some of them though:

Party positions in Tunnel:
- This is super tricky...i'll try my best to fix it but it's hard cause it's one of the dungeons where the fight could happen anywhere (cause enemies chasing you and such).  I have noticed the bunching up though and agree it's annoying.

-The dreamers sequences are coming

Techs
- It was one of my goals to make techs more important. 
- OmniShield2, as amazingly awesome as it would be would break the game i feel like I made haste, and protect affect everyone to make the parties a little more balanced.
- yes, learning techs is broken...i realized this partway through the game and soon enemies will be tossing TP at you like candy at a parade.  Totally my screw up and I'll have to fix it.  What happened is I used CT original to judge how much TP to give you mapping it to it's corresponding chapter in CE.  But i goofed because you start with 3 techs....and the 4th tech obviously takes way more TP than the first tech did.  So it feels like FOREVER just to get one new tech.
-  Riddle is total props to Zeality
- New sprites is total props to Chrono'99....in fact i wish i had a stronger word than props cause they really do make the game
- Weapon upgrades:  Hm.....i was under the impression that new equipment was available either by chest or shop per chapter.
- Lucca does seem slow.....really slow.  I didn't....purposefully change that is it different than in CT original?

--JP

[Chrono'99]

Party positions in Tunnel:
- This is super tricky...i'll try my best to fix it but it's hard cause it's one of the dungeons where the fight could happen anywhere (cause enemies chasing you and such).  I have noticed the bunching up though and agree it's annoying.

Since the tunnels are all spread out horizontally, I think a solution would be to do a check coordinates before each battle and trigger different sets of move commands depending on where on the vertical axis the sprites are. Like if vertical coordinate <0F then they move somewhere, if it's >10 and <1F then they move somewhere else, if it's >20 they move somewhere else, etc. That should take care of enough different situations without requiring to code for every single coordinate individually.

[ZeaLitY]

61. Just out of curiosity, I stepped into Kasmir's Fort to see if there was the possibility of sequence-breaking (i.e., playing the story out of order). I didn't go past the front lobby, so I don't know if it's possible to break the sequence, but the possibility may exist, and you might want to check into that.

There should be a Kasmir illusion barring passage akin to the Cyrus ghost that haunted the Northern Ruins in Chrono Trigger.

62. The lighting level in Zeal is too low. I had a hard time seeing things.

This will be fixed within a day as FaustWolf's "Zeal at night" starry background will be implemented.

63. The "Corridors of Time" music may seem like an obvious choice for Zeal at night, but it really doesn't fit with the mood. I have a couple of alternative suggestions. I would recommend the Radical Dreamers song, "The Girl Who Stole the Stars." Alternatively, you could use the RD song "Under the Moonlight" provided that you silence the flowing water sound.

Agreed, albeit I have heard some good attempts at "Zeal at night" that we might implement. I'll tag this for further review.

68. I assume there is some significance to the four dreamers in Enhasa (and the fact that each one of them has a different style of qualifier), but I didn't figure it out.

In the near future, talking to each dreamer will let you see into their dreams for a short scene. These scenes won't have any bearing on the plot.

78. It was a clever gambit to introduce that Nu riddle in Kajar. It took me about six or seven tries to guess correctly. That's a very smart riddle: Obvious enough to eventually occur to everyone, yet difficult enough to not be throwaway-cheap. I enjoy these non-combat puzzles.

I lucked into that after failing to come up with a different, "harder" riddle.

79. No acceptable explanation is given for why Crono & Co. are kicked back down to a low level and lose all of their equipment from Chrono Trigger. I'll grant that five years is long enough for everyone to get flabby and sell all their weapons and armor, but would that really have happened to all six characters?

A previous version of the draft stated that Lucca's incomplete Time Egg caused damage to their elemental powers (using the GrayLensman theory of elemental power, I guess). But that was dropped, since it seemed more weak than just unabashedly making it a tenet of the gameplay.

85. One thing I really enjoyed about Chrono Trigger was its humorous etudes prior to combat. My favorite is in the cathedral dungeon near the beginning of the game, when the monster (I think it's a Hench) says: "I'll give you this; you know what you're doing," even though the party threw out the stairs completely by accident. Crimson Echoes has a couple of these, and I highly encourage you to write more of them.

I'll be in contact for suggestions after you finish the game, if you have any.

[Lord J Esq]

86. The “station” in 1999 A.D. seems like an ordinary underground tunnel. That's a bit low-tech!  JP NOTE: haha....yea I do agree with this.  If I have time I'd like to make a "under water train".  Just so you know it is better than what we had before. I added it about a day before beta testing, before you'd click on the station and it'd just put you on the other continent (no location, no tunnel nothing).

87. Toma LII (in the Coliseum) is missing the upper half of his head. 

88. In some instances, when I started a battle at the Coliseum (full party, easy) I would go into the first room, the host would ask if my party was ready to rumble, and, after affirming, the boss battle music would play, no enemies would appear, the host would not disappear, and the battle menus would not come up, effectively forcing a reload from the previous savestate. I haven't been able to determine why this happens some times and not others, but it seems more frequent when, after signing up for battle and being deposited on the staircase, I go back down (to where the three guards will prevent the party from leaving / entering the battle area).  JP NOTE: This is fix'd assuming it's the same bug I fix'd before and not something much, much worse

89. In the Coliseum, when bad armor, weapons, or accessories show up, they remain in place after that battle (as best I can tell), and after the entire sequence of battles (for sure). That's a major disadvantage for the Coliseum cycle, and a hassle to have to reset all the equipment manually afterwards.  JP NOTE:  If you had to choose between not having handicaps, and having to fix your equipment after which would you prefer? I personally prefer handicaps but maybe i'm in the minority here?

90. That unused battle music sounds great in-game! I've never listened to it before while playing a CT battle. Nice music choice for the Central Regime, too.

91. There's something wrong with the Central Regime's wall sconces.  JP NOTE: any in particular, or the lack of them in the first room?

92. In the central corridor of the Central Regime, there's an NPC who appears at the top of the room and walks out the bottom of it. Thing is, once he leaves, he reappears again at the top, ad infinitum.

93. Back in the prehistoric era, my party was sent to search for the Dragon Tooth, but the cues and clues once I got there were pretty thin. I ended up going to Singing Mountain, but only because I'm sure that the location has a special purpose—not because of any information I got in the game (other than someone in the village who told me the direction to Singing Mountain).  JP NOTE: Second person to say this, i'll check it out

94. Good call keeping the location music playing continuously rather than using the battle music during fights.

95. Singing Mountain was a little too hard. I learned Fire Sword and Ice Sword just in time. I recognize this is a special dungeon (a “boss dungeon” if you will) and that the difficulty level is supposed to be higher. Therefore, rather than dumbing down the challenge, I think that if victory gave out mid-ethers instead of ethers, and a little more often, I think that would fix things up nicely enough.  JP NOTE: unfortunately i can't control the "rate" that they are given out, but i'll switch it to mid ethers

96. Nice drum puzzle.

97. Awesome scene with King Zeal! Good music choices in that scene and the dimensional scene afterwards.

98. Zeal has two spelling errors. The word “a” is missing when he talks about Marle's realm. I forget the other one, but it's later in the scene.

99. Good atmosphere and tension with Marle's fight through Astur Hill and in Cedric's village. Good music choices too. The game is starting to feel like it's got spirit.

100. I'm guessing that this is the 1 A.D. period, but the world map says 1999 A.D.  JP NOTE: Fix'd in a later patch

101. The Silent Light music in the forest isn't right. ZeaLitY wasn't kidding when he said you guys used it to death. Try a different, low-key music.  JP NOTE: Hm zeality want to look into this?

102. In Dinopolis there is a room near the entrance (but much further in) guarded by a green and a brown Reptite. Nearby is a small area with a treasure box, cut off by a chasm in the ground. Whenever I try to battle these Reptites, the same problem as occurred in No. 88 happens here: The enemies will freeze and the battle menus won't show up, requiring a reload of the game.  JP NOTE: I believe this is fix'd in a later patch...I can't repro it.  I tried with both robo/lucca and CMG.  It also sounds like it was something that would happen fairly consistently so I'm guessing it got fixed somewhere along the way.

103. I've noticed that Crimson Echoes tends to features enemies with high hit point values. This has the effect of prolonging battles. These get to be especially lengthy with Marle all by herself in a party of one. I'm not complaining about the difficulty level so much as the time it takes to fight. I get the feeling that it would be better if, at some point in the course of her chapter, she were to get an all-enemy spell like Ice 2. As it is, she only just got Haste toward the end of Dinopolis, and only with Haste and a Shield can Marle (at Lv. 20) take two brown Reptites at a time, given that she can only hit one of them at a time, and they do heavy damage. I would see about greatly reducing the Ice 2 requirements, and increasing the availability of ethers and mid-ethers so that she can use her magic more often. Her magic spells would greatly speed up these battles, but I am constantly having to fight physically so as to conserve magic due to limited ether availability, which itself is due to limited gold availability, which in principle I think is kind of cool because it forces more strategic thinking, but which in this case seems to be a bit imbalanced in the direction of not enough availability.  JP NOTE: Hm...i'll actually reply to this post about this

104. Very good map design throughout “Emerald Dream III,” although the town where they first arrive is a little disjointed. Usually one does not expect to battle monsters while crossing from one end of town to the other.  JP NOTE: I know right Chrono 99 went above and beyond here.

105. After the timeline has been altered, Marle appears in the new 1 A.D. and recalls that Cedric is the son of Ann Guardia. In the Reptite timeline, Cedric was the husband of Ann Guardia. Is this is a mistake?  JP NOTE: hm...zeality?

106. The soldier in the Lost Woods who says “Oh, it's not a kilwala...” has a run-on sentence.

107. The “Guardia's tribe at least” has the words “at” and “least” fused together.  JP NOTE: Hrm....i looked for this and couldn't find it do you remember if it was an NPC, or in one of the cutscenes?

108. In the new 1 A.D., I think it's wryly amusing that Marle seems to be the strongest living creature in the world, defeating armored warriors in one hit and completely overwhelming anything that gets in her way. I'm thinking the change of pace is nice, but I'm hoping that the difficulty level goes up soon!  JP NOTE: haha, the battle field was added by chrono'99 later and he reused the guard enemy (who is fightable in chapter 4).  I may look into just making a "second" guard enemy and making it a little stronger.

109. The only part about it that wasn't amusing was the battle with Antaeus. Great opening line, but the battle itself was a major bore. It took me about ten minutes to spam him to death with ice, during which time there was no challenge whatsoever. If he's going to be such a weak opponent, he may as well die in one hit like the others. Or maybe two hits, so that history will remember him as the one who was twice as strong as the others against Mega Marle.  JP NOTE: yea FW mentioned this to I think

110. Also of interest in the Battlefield; I liked that bit with the kilwala. Kilwalas are my favorite CT monster, and I think of Spekkio as The Kilwala Who Made It to the Big Time.

111. In Chronopolis when the party has been reunited, the Mother Brain line “Under their leadership, the rebellion has resisted the Vanguard” should be “Regime” instead of “Vanguard.


--- END CHUNK 3 ---

[Agent 12]

hey I was wondering if I could get some further feedback on the Marle chapters difficulty you mentioned above.  Marle alone is definitely one of the unique parts of CE she definitely wasn't meant to be a solo character. 

It sounds like 1 AD first run was a little to hard, 1 AD second run was to easy.  It sounds like at this point in the game you had Haste.  Were you using marle the whole time? I'd like to know  if you had haste cause she was one of your main characters or did you learn it just cause you were forced to use Marle in this chapter?  Marle's techs are kind of a pain cause all of her cure spells are shared animations between her/frog and maybe even robo so I can't really edit them.  What I'm THINKING about doing is making aura stronger, repointing her cure => protect, and swapping haste and Ice 2.  I think since haste is boosted up it's not a big deal to give it later in the game.  So she would have

Aura (boosted stats to cure more)
provoke
Ice
Protect
Ice 2
Haste2 (affects entire party)
cure 2
Life 2


Also did you get the new bow from the second forest (where the runon sentence was).  It casts stop on enemies though we don't have that in the description yet :-/.  Finally you mentioned lack of ethers/mid ethers.  You mentioned it's cause of lack of gold.  Would you say thats a problem of enemies not giving enough gold or ethers costing to much?  If everything except ethers has been affordable I would lower the cost of ethers, if you can't afford anything I'll have enemies give more G.

--JP

[Lord J Esq]

I'm not going to say that her first 1 A.D. run was too hard. It was definitely hard, but I think some variety in the level of challenge is a good thing. So far, if memory serves, only Beast Forest, Dalton's Dungeon, and Singing Mountain were too hard. The first two can be balanced by starting Magus at a higher level. The mountain can be balanced...I think I said something about more ether availability.

One thing, though: I found Marle's Cinderella top upon her arrival in the first 1 A.D. sequence, in a semi-hidden chest. That gave her a huge defense boost, without which I expect that the level of difficulty could have been insurmountable. It's important that the player find that item.

The second 1 A.D. run was very easy, probably the easiest run of combat in the whole game so far. Once again, though, I'm not necessarily recommending that you make it harder. In fact, by all means leave it easy. The only change I'd recommend is that you cut Yakra's hit points by about half and Anteaus' hit points by about eighty percent. Or more! I was half-serious when I said that you should make him killable in just two hits. Since Marle's victory is guaranteed in both instances, drawing the battle out doesn't make sense, whereas making it absurdly short could have comedic value.

As for your question about whether I was using Marle the whole time...I might be misunderstanding you. In 1 A.D., Marle is the only playable character I know about, so of course I'd be using her the whole time. If you're talking about other chapters, per my advice in the party thread, I'll be using Ayla on lead whenever she's available, and Lucca and Marle whenever they're available (usually with Marle in the lead if Ayla's not around), and Crono when any of those three isn't available. If any two are unavailable, I'll probably use Crono plus Magus (if Marle is still available) or Crono plus Robo (if not). It hasn't come up yet.

As for the order of spells, I really, super-strongly, recommend against making haste available even later in the game than it already is (or cutting it out completely). In fact, I'd recommend it appear earlier for her, ideally around the beginning of her first 1 A.D. sequence. Ice 2 would be great if it came in roughly around the time that she is beginning or midway through Dinopolis (i.e., the point at which Haste currently becomes available). Of course, more ethers will need to be made available so that she can use these powerful spells.

I want to stress that Marle is a slow character, and, when she's in her own party, Haste makes not only a huge tactical difference; it also expedites an otherwise interminably slow battle sequence.

I also want to ask about Provoke. Does anybody ever use that spell? By chance could you change it to something more useful, like an HP and / or MP absorber spell? Such a spell (especially if it absorbed both, or randomly one or the other per cast) would solve the MP shortage problem right there, and would also increase Marle's tactical offensive power in the single-tech magic department from one spell (Ice) to two—both by herself and in a full party situation.

About the bow you mentioned from the Lost Woods: the Fay Arrow, right? Yeah, I did get it, in the second 1 A.D. sequence. But it didn't matter. I had already bought the HoarFrost from the Coliseum, which is a much more powerful weapon. And I think the HoarFrost appears in a chest somewhere in her first 1 A.D. run, because I had two of them and sold one well before I ever went to the Lost Woods.

Lastly, your question about ethers and mid-ethers: They're naturally expensive. It was never an issue in CT because enemies dropped them so much that, between those and the recovery points, I never needed to buy any. In CE, I have bought a few. They're extremely expensive, and I only buy mid-ethers, because the math works out to 2400 for 30 ether points versus 2000 for 30 mid-ether points. This is the opposite of the tonic curve, where the superior tonic costs disproportionately more rather than less. I suppose you could cut the price of ordinary ethers in half. I wouldn't change the mid-ether price.

[ZeaLitY]

I used Provoke in 1 A.D. to take the sting out of battles. By making a Kilwala or...whatever those other things are called (I'm getting embarrassed here!) confused, I removed an enemy from play, cutting my need to heal in half and letting me take on the others one or two at a time.