Chrono trigger plus

[KingMike]

I've definitely seen people who never played a game vanilla before ask for a ROM hack recommendation as their first experience (like the Lufia 2 thread).

[ThegreatBen]

I definitely like the idea of a Magus interlude before starting the Reptite castle, I'll take a day and play through PG to get an idea of what it's about, then I'll make something similar of my own design and put it in using the existing maps.

The game has a flag that's only set on ng+ so it would be easy to make the scene only playable then.

[The Timekeeper]

I've definitely seen people who never played a game vanilla before ask for a ROM hack recommendation as their first experience (like the Lufia 2 thread).

I mean, those people are asking to be spoiled. And progress shouldn't stop just to accommodate a few lost souls.

@Ben, are you planning to add the Lost Sanctum and the Dimensional Vortex from the DS Version? I've read all the threads here and you said you'd rather add something else, but maybe you've changed your mind in the meanwhile. But if you still don't want to add them, maybe you could add the Dream Devourer at least. And that would tie in with your Schala non-cannon ending. In the DS version you can't save Schala by beating the devourer, but you could modify this and save her if you beat the beast.

All right then, I am not patient enough to wait until spring, so I'll take your word that I can replay the game with the new stuff, without having to start from scratch, so I've started playing. I'll try to report bugs. The first thing you need to know is that I am playing on the latest Snes (Version 1.57 as of now), 64-bit, Windows 10 installation. I'll try to keep my reports neat and tidy into this one thread, but if it two or more replies come after it, I'll just start a new one so I'll spare the forumers from keeping track of my edits.


By the way, really like that you added an increased difficulty with many enemies inflicting poison. Really nice touch! Also, I suggest the Nes difficulty patch be integrated into the game, rather than it being optional. It's challenging, but not punishing, so it shouldn't really be optional.


BUGS

Native town, beginning of game.
1. The music is kind of glitchy in the beginning of the game. It's only mildly annoying, but thought you'd like to know.
2. If you go to the Mayor's Manor and talk to the guy dressed as a solider (iron armour + purple clothes) and he teaches you how to battle enemies, you're not shown the yellow line that points towards the little blue imps. Aside from that, the area-of-effect circle right at the end does not show up, either.

Guardia Castle Forest 600AD
3. Right after going to 600AD for the very first time: the shaky bush from which that white monster pops out and runs away while dropping a Shelter is glitched and won't allow me to interact with the bush, thus no monster pops out.. Moreover, when I touch the bush, it just stops shaking.

4. I think this has been reported, but when learning Wind Slash, the game will say that you learned just Wind.

Guardia Castle (1000AD) Prison.
5. When the Omnicrone is defeated he drops some kind of sword, but its name is glitched and you don't actually get it. I checked my inventory and there was nothing.
6. When you sneak up on the guard next to the room in which Fritz is bound to the guillotine and you kill said guard, he'll pass out in front of the switch and you won't be able to trigger it. It's not game breaking as you only need to exit and re-enter the area to fix it, but I am just passing it along.

End of Time (the first time when you get there)
7. After whooping Spekkio, he says 'I am the master of War, sometimes I scare myself etc.' and then the game blacks out and I am kicked out of the room. Nothing game breaking, but mildly annoying. Also, interesting thing: before being kicked out, he is in his frog form and after that after the game locks and you re-enter the room, he is in his regular form.



SUGGESTIONS
1. There's a dead guy in Guardia Castle Prison (1000AD, right after rescuing Marle in 600AD) (has the sprite of those poor fellows from 2300AD) who turns into a skeleton when interacting with him. The skeleton doesn't do anything, it just lies there, but I thought he could be changed to some surprise mini-boss, or just a stronger Decadent. Just an idea for a little backstory there.

2. Could you enable selling accessories? That would be pretty neat and useful. There's so many useless ones lying around.

3. Would you consider adding an ultimate magic tech for Marle, too? It's really bothersome that only she, out of the trio of mains, does not have an ultimate. Chronos has Luminaire and Lucca has Inferno, so maybe Marle could have Ice Age? I know she already has Life/Arise, but to compensate, maybe you could increase the MP needed for Life and also ditch Allure/Provoke (nobody uses that, anyway) and have Poyozo Dance be based on this new skill.

4. In the scene where Robo gets his ass handed to him by the blue R-Series (his 'brothers'), but before Marle yells out his name, could you make the characters look more shocked during that scene in which he's being beaten? Especially in the very beginning when he's sucker-punched. They just watch the whole thing without showing any gesture at all as if they were sociopaths or something.

5. Maybe you could change SilvrSword to Plate Sword or Grey Sword? Because the name looks awful when it's shortened like that. Just a thought. Actually, would you consider using the DS names for techs, items and so on? They sound better. If you're willing to do that, I can gather a list for you, if it helps.

[Mauron]

1. When the Omnicrone is defeated he drops some kind of sword, but its name is glitched and you don't actually get it. I checked my inventory and there was nothing.

This sounds like the Wolflobe Sword glitch. I'm not sure what causes that one.

[ThegreatBen]

Nope still no plans to add the DS crap, the Dream Devourer was cool but would require a new Sprite.

I checked the music couldn't find what you meant.

Checked the soldier, it seems I did turn off the lines somehow, probably just a layer three thing?

The Omicrone drops a potion I think, what you saw was as Mauron said the wolflobe sword glitch, if Mauron doesn't know how to fix it then don't expect me to.

Shelters are too good so to limit their availability I made the Kilwala only appear if you have no Shelters on you, I also increased their price.

Not sure about wind slash, I check my strings when I have time.


As for the guy in the prison I think there's already enough fight able skeletons there.

Sellable accessories is certainly easy enough to do, would make for a good optional patch.

Speaking of optional patches, people like having options, that's why I'll leave the difficulty as is.

As for Marle's techs I'm working on making status effects a bigger part of the game, both for enemies and the player so I'll see how that goes first.

[The Timekeeper]

Nope still no plans to add the DS crap, the Dream Devourer was cool but would require a new Sprite.

But couldn't you import the already-existing sprite from the DS version?

As for the guy in the prison I think there's already enough fight able skeletons there.

Eh, not sure about that one, there's only 3 skeletons in total. I feel that something could be done with that poor fellow. He could be 'revenged' through beating him and then he'd drop something which you could later exchange for something else. He could be the ancestor of some person in the game.

Checked the soldier, it seems I did turn off the lines somehow, probably just a layer three thing?

So.... are you turning them back on?

Not sure if bug or intended:
1. There's Lab 32 (I guess) that you need to get through either by racing Johnny or by 'manually' going through it. Now, there's those grey mutants which have the Lightning Bit attack: are they supposed to be THAT powerful? It causes over 700 damage. There's no way beating three of them, unless you're powerful enough to kill them in two shots as they're using the attack quite often, thus there is no way to 'manually' go through that sector, meaning you're forced to win against Johnny. Is this intended or is it a bug?
2. Is Sir Krawlie supposed to be that much of a weakass? It took me very little to can his ugly mug.


Also, I'll modify my findings to fit the latest replies:


BUGS

1. I think this has been reported, but when learning Wind Slash, the game will say that you learned just Wind.

Guardia Castle Prison (1000 AD after getting back from 600AD)
2. When you sneak up on the guard next to the room in which Fritz is bound to the guillotine and you kill said guard, he'll pass out in front of the switch and you won't be able to trigger it. It's not game breaking as you only need to exit and re-enter the area to fix it, but I am just passing it along.

End of Time (the first time when you get there)
3. After whooping Spekkio, he says 'I am the master of War, sometimes I scare myself etc.' and then the game blacks out and I am kicked out of the room. Nothing game breaking, but mildly annoying. Also, interesting thing: before being kicked out, he is in his frog form and after that after the game locks and you re-enter the room, he is in his regular form.
4. After having mastered magic and talking to the old guy, he'll still say 'check out the room behind me' instead of his usual rant about magic and whatnot.
5. The bucket that leads to Lavos is inaccessible. Is this intended? I have a faint memory of reading something about this in this thread...
EDIT: It isn't accessible on the spot, but if you return to the end of time (I returned to it in-between Medina and 600AD), it's again accessible.

Medina Village
6. Weird texture glitch: https://prnt.sc/lhzvnf

Prehistoric Era
7. When trading with the guy (feathers, petals etc.): two items are misnamed when he offers his merchandise: Mammo Tusk for Mammoth Tusk and Stone Fist for Stone Arm.



SUGGESTIONS
1. In the scene where Robo gets his ass handed to him by the blue R-Series (his 'brothers'), but before Marle yells out his name, could you make the characters look more shocked during that scene in which he's being beaten? Especially in the very beginning when he's sucker-punched. They just watch the whole thing without showing any gesture at all as if they were sociopaths or something.

2. Maybe you could change SilvrSword to Plate Sword or Grey Sword? Because the name looks awful when it's shortened like that. Just a thought. Actually, would you consider using the DS names for techs, items and so on? They sound better. If you're willing to do that, I can gather a list for you, if it helps.

3. I have another possibly cool idea for accessories. What if, in addition to being able to sell them, also have the possibility to integrate some of them within a character's stat? For example, some of the integrateable ones could be: Sight Scope, SeraphSong (https://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/SeraphSong.html), Green Dream and all other stat-enhancing ones like Third Eye, Power Glove etc.

Here's what I had in mind: you'd need to do four good deeds to enable accessory consuming:
a) Give the Naga Broom to the old guy for free
b) Give the jerky to the lady in 600AD for free
c) Combine my prison guy-to-skeleton idea and give the item, that you obtain from him, to his descendant.
d) Receive a full not guilty verdict from the jurors during Chrono's Trial (not necessarily a good deed, but to make it worth having achieved this)

Of course, accessory integration should be allowed much later in the game, possibly after the Heckran Cave trip. It could be Melchiot who does it OR

do a fifth good deed: save Fritz -> he or his father is the one who provides this service as a token of gratitude for having saved him. The service should be expensive. Not only that you'd need to use cash, but you'd also need to use other items. 5 x elixir for Bananda, for example.

And, of course, some accessories could only be integrated when you reach a certain level or complete a certain game event.

[ThegreatBen]

Importing those graphics isn't as easy as it sounds, as for the dead guy I'm not sure what the fascination is but he is just there to show that the Chancellor locks people up to make them disappear.

The missing lines are unintended I'll try to get it fixed at some point.

I just didn't want crossing the ruins to be the easier option over racing Johnny, it has better loot now to compensate though, also Krawlie was always a pussy.

The frog form of Spekkio has always existed, most people just don't see it because you need to get there under level 10, now he changes only when a form is beaten, though I could make it a little less abrupt. Gaspar repeating his 'door' line needs to be fixed.

The bucket should always be accessable, no idea what that is.

You're probably right about the animations during the Robo scene, if it's not a huge pain I might do something with it.

Silvrsword is ugly, I'll fix that.

The Hero medal can gain a permanent effect in this hack but the problem with doing more is that I'm not smart enough to do it by myself so I need Mauron to write the code each time then translate it to hex so I can add it in.

[The Timekeeper]

Importing those graphics isn't as easy as it sounds,

Ehm, which graphics? Are you talking about the DS names for items? Aka the retranslations?

Silvrsword is ugly, I'll fix that.

There's actually a lot more that are ugly, not to mention those whose name are made up of two different words, but have no space in-between. There's TaniumVest for Titanium Vest.


Also, I was thinking, maybe the extra 'petals', 'fangs' etc. could have another role, other than the trading one. Or maybe just enable to option to sell them, so as to keep the inventory neat and tidy.

Lastly, I have an item in my inventory called 'Lunch Box'. It seems I have received it instead of Jerky from the Chef of Guardia Castle 600AD. Is this intended or is it a bug?

[Gi Nattak]

I've yet to really get down to playing/testing this wonderful mod, though I intend to soon, but in regards to the music issue reported, Ben, have you swapped around any of the instruments for any songs? There is a strict limit of how much instrument data any one song can have, without producing nasty pops and glitchy sounds. UNLESS you are playing on ZSNES which somehow ignorantly let's this issue slide. Not sure if this is in fact the issue or if there is one, but it certainly is for what the Flames of Eternity fellows did with that mod, so I figured I'd throw that out there. As far as I know, the total amount of 'blocks' (9 bytes each) used by all samples in one song must not exceed 3746, at least that's what it is for FF6 so I'd imagine it'd be the same for CT having such a similar music engine.

Oh, one thing I did notice while briefly playing the other day, is the character visibly goes right through the top of the door frame of Chrono's Mom's door to her room when running to get into there, not walking (layer issue). You see it as the map fades out.

[ThegreatBen]

I meant the Dream Devourer graphics.

I fixed the soldiers tutorial, changed Silvrsword back to Lode Sword, fixed the reference to the Stone arm to Stone Fist, left Mammoth tusk as is, added a 2 second delay before Spekkio tosses you out, fixed Gaspar's line, not sure if I fixed Wind Slash it will need to be tested, everything else needs to wait till my save file is farther.

Never messed with instruments at all, I play with the CD music.

Really do need to fix that stupid doorway though.

[The Timekeeper]

1. Nice secret room in 12000BC! Is the Martello inside it supposed to be THAT strong? It one-shots my ass each and every time (lvl 28 currently). Also, there's a small, mildly annoying bug that makes it a litter harder to get inside the room.

2. About Lab 32 where you're supposed to race Johnny - I understand you made those beasts intentionally harder so we're forced to race Johnny, but I think they're a little too hard because you won't be able to beat them unless you're over level 70 or so. While that's not a major issue, is the loot inside even worth its value at that level?

3. So, I won't insist on this matter, but I'd like to know: will you consider adding the DS retranslations? They're much much better, especially when fighting Azala. Her line is ridiculous 'Stain the earth.. RED!'. Haha, what?

4. I was thinking that most of the armour/swords you get in the game are pretty bland. Most just enhance your defence/attack, but wouldn't it be nicer to make them more interesting? Nothing game changing, just give them a tad bit more value, like some could boost additional stats or could absorb elemental/physical damage. Not by much, of course.

5. The dialogue when encountering Magus in his castle is awful. I thought he'd know we're coming for him, yet he acts surprised and uses too many exclamation marks. I expected him to be a cooler, level-headed guy and not lose his shit like a 9-year-old.

[ThegreatBen]

The Martello is a bit strong, unfortunately he is the best enemy for that spot thematically I could think of, and although I already nerfed him quite a bit already I'm afraid if I nerfed him more he will be too pathetic for the Omen, do you have a better enemy in mind? BTW he isn't there on your second visit to Zeal.

The loot in lab 32 is tierd to the enemies imo

I actually like the DS translations better too, especially the Ayla Azala final scene, I actually would like to update that.

I have no plans to edit the weapons any further.

Is the Magus dialog any better in the DS version?

[The Timekeeper]

The Martello is a bit strong, unfortunately he is the best enemy for that spot thematically I could think of, and although I already nerfed him quite a bit already I'm afraid if I nerfed him more he will be too pathetic for the Omen, do you have a better enemy in mind? BTW he isn't there on your second visit to Zeal.

Is the Magus dialog any better in the DS version?

1. You need to also battle the Sun King or whatever's his name, so the Martello can stay. I don't see that much of a problem in getting past this stage in NG+.

2. I honestly can't remember. I've beaten the DS version 3 years ago. I only know the dialogues were MUCH better and so were the equipment/item names.

Also, could you modify Marle's Cure II to include all allies? I feel that the original game didn't do her justice on this one, with her being a certified healer and all. And if you do that, then you could also ditch Cure I and add that Ice Age tech I suggested earlier, so as to make the character more in line within the original trio.

[ThegreatBen]

Beating the Son of Sun isn't really necessary, though the option is there, the real point is to see the gurus and learn Poyozo dance.

Everyone seems to have different ideas about Marle's tech list, I'm not sure I want to open that Pandora's box.

[The Timekeeper]

Everyone seems to have different ideas about Marle's tech list, I'm not sure I want to open that Pandora's box.

What if you've made them optional patches? I really think Marle should get a little bit of justice, be it through an optional patch.

[ThegreatBen]

I'll consider it, tonight I'm going to try to upload the latest fixes here in this topic.

[The Timekeeper]

Eh, by the way, you said you did not want to have a play with Magus turning into the prophet before NG+, but when you face Magus as the Prophet, he'll use his ultimate skill which will say 'Magus's strongest attack'. Add to that the fact that he is using barrier change and whatnot, other skills of Magus.

Also, are the Golem Twins supposed to be THAT overpowered? I am getting my ass handed like there's no tomorrow and can't get past them, even though I am level 43. Their five-sphere orange thing one-shots any member of the crew. Not to mention their insane speed, leaving me no time to heal or revive. What level am I supposed to be to stand any chance?

[ThegreatBen]

It's not supposed to reference Magus, I'll take a look later.

As for the golems they attack you with the element that was last used on them, either get the fire absorbing vests that are available to you by now or hit them with ice every turn since their ice attack is pathetic.

[The Timekeeper]

As for the golems they attack you with the element that was last used on them, either get the fire absorbing vests that are available to you by now or hit them with ice every turn since their ice attack is pathetic.

Haha, only if I could do that. By the time I have managed to open my tech skill, I am down to one member who is also very low on health. Is this related to the nes difficulty patch or maybe you've accidentally overpowered the golems? They're supposed to be strong, but surely that strong can't be intended.

[ThegreatBen]

I never touched the Golems at all, they are no stronger on Nes difficulty than they are normally, level 43 should be more than enough, try accessories to increase your magic defense or hp?