Chrono Trigger 5 - Mindless Mountain Climbing

Well, my boyfriend no longer has immediate access to the internet with a malfunction of his laptop charge plug, but he's still updating on paper until things are sorted out, so I'll follow suit, I suppose, in the same way I always have been.
Your prayers, please, not just in the case of his laptop, but as he travels tomorrow.

Anyway, hour five.
Y'know how I said that things were calming down a tad in Chrono Trigger? Well, that certainly didn't last long. An extreme source of evil in the form of a creature named Magus is responsible for unleashing that lava monster upon the world and allowing it to spiral into chaos, and so our team travels back in time once more to the Middle Ages to seek this Magus character out and rid the world of him before he wreaks havoc.

This little hour of the game was perhaps my absolute favorite so far. First of all, it had the slightest of Lord of the Rings essence. There's this epic battle on a bridge between small continents, between 'fiends' and humans, and with human defenses hardly sufficient to hold the enemy back, it's up to my team to help out. Doesn't seem very LotR-esque, I know, but it is, trust me. It's more of a slightly brother-to-brother love moment that makes it seem that way.
Regardless, after plowing my way across the bridge, keeping the enemy at bay and running off one of Magus' generals, he sends out a tough little creature named Zombor, or 'Junk Dragger' in Japanese.

Zombor looks a little something like this:

Intimidating? Yes, I think I would agree. Fighting this guy was my favorite battle in the game up to this point. He's rather tough, but not tough to the point of where I lose my cool in trying to heal my team and fight him at the same time. But man, he was a challenge, and he was pieced together in two parts. Certain types of magic healed his top or bottom half, while others took a nice amount of damage, but I had to find all of this out in the midst of him chipping away at my team's HP. It was difficult, and I'm honestly surprised that I succeeded in defeating him in one try, but it was worth it. It put a real smile on my face to have completed such a feat. I hope to come across something similar to him in the future, as I love games that require quick and efficient battle technique.

Anyway, after defeating Zombor, I reached the southern continent, where apparently this Hero resides, and is here to save everyone. I am currently trying to find him, at least...I think I am. I'm just wandering around in the vast landscape of a mountain at this point. I wonder where it'll take me.
At this point, I'll stop posting links to my boyfriend's blog, at least until he is able to get online, but keep an eye out for when he is able to update again.

- Cheryl-Buddy

Chrono Trigger 4 - The Frustrations of using an IPod

I'll be out of the house for pretty much the entire day, so I'll be posting today's blog post from my iPod touch, and any grammatical errors on my part as a result from my fast typing are worthy of apology. In other words, sorry for any mistakes on my part due to autocorrect. I'll probably correct these mistakes next time I'm at a computer.

-ahem- ANYWAY, things in Chrono Trigger are beginning to slow down, plot wise. I was able to makeover my team through the a nice little factory filled, of course, with enemy robots and floppy little creatures that peeve me just a tad with how resistant they are to physical attacks. I swear, there was a moment or two where I was almost confident that I was going to lose Robo to his own kind, which would have greatly disheartened me, as I had just added him to my team. Regardless, things were made well once again, concerning the return back to the present.

It's kind of funny, how the game makes a dimension called the End of Time. Never really thought that the end of time could be considered an actual place, instead of a void in time. Regardless, it's pretty neat. It even allowed me to learn magic from a cute little White troll. I now reside in a village named Medina, where I am honing my magic skills, as I've never had the ability to use them all that much before. Well, my iPod touch is acting up, so I'll have to stop here. Seems my boyfriend may actually be catching up to me in progress. See what he has to say.

- Cheryl-Buddy

Chrono Trigger 3 - With Antici...pation

My goodness, only three hours into the game, and already I'm having a tad of trouble staying within the hour's time limit. This game is pretty wonderful, and now it's finally beginning to get some shape.

I was correct in my assumption that my team was currently in the future, and what a bleak future it is. People living in broken down domes, bundled in corners in rags, looking as though they've all starved and passed on. Makes me feel so sorry for them...
But things in the actual gameplay are beginning to take shape as well. I finally have come across enemies that require more than simply waiting for your metre to fill up before you whack at them with your handheld weapon. I finally have a chance to actually look at my options and use them to overcome enemies, like using magic or combos. Stuff like that, yes.

I'm glad, however, that I stocked up on healing supplies while still residing in the present, as these lands in the future are pretty rough to maneuver through - plenty of robots who take quite a few hits to defeat and whatnot, and take a nice dent to your HP.
Chrono Trigger has, however, also satisfied my intense sorrow upon losing Frog. In the attempt to warp back to the present, the team came across Robo. I'm not nearly as fangirlish about robots as my boyfriend is, no doubt, but it makes me happy to have a high-defense team member finally along for the ride, as that's my preferred fighting style, defense.

I'm pretty excited to see what happens as we finally make our way back to the present to take on an unknown evil that is apparently responsible for the destruction and languid state of the future, but I'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

Keep my boyfriend in your prayers, if you would, during this season of monsoons. His updates are just as important.

- Cheryl-Buddy

Chrono Trigger 2 - Amateur Stealth

 So my boyfriend decided to post an extra blog post for his second hour due to expected bad weather, so here's mine, a tad afterward.
I'm unhappy. My little family of fighters has been broken into pieces.
...Well, maybe not literally, but it always pains me for a member of my team to leave, whether they are switched out for someone or not. Poor Frog has left my team after we're able to find the real Queen and return her to her rightful place in the Middle Age Guardia Castle. My strongest team member, gone. ; n ;

Fortunately, access to the present is quickly achieved afterward, and as narcissistic as it may seem, I feel like I should be praised for not wasting more time in the fair, as I was required to pass back through it in order to return Marle/Nadia home.

I found it rather interesting to be arrested so hastily upon returning the Princess, and even more interesting that the game kept a record of all I had done, or hadn't done, during the fair, such as returning a girl's cat or eating an old man's lunch. I'm curious as to what would have happened to me, had I been more guilty than I was considered during my trial after arrest, but regardless, I was sent to jail, as close to 'not guilty' as I was. Which brings me to my currently favorite part of this game - your ability to move around your enemies.

I have always been so used to walking about in a dungeon in Final Fantasy games and simply waiting for that inevitable "WOOOOOOOSH" that comes when you have an enemy upon you. Those moments used to more-than-often scare the living shit out of me, and occasionally pissed me off, as I was sometimes not prepared to fight, or simply didn't wish to, so this feature literally made me smile from ear to ear when I found out I could sneak past guards and giggle as I was making my breakout from the dungeons instead of having to battle each and every one of them - alone.

So yes, I was able to to escape from prison, met up with Lucca, who had come to save me, just a tad too late in the game, and defeated their dragon tank.
I must say - The Guardia royalty are quite brash, allowing their princess to run away and chasing after her and her team with the intent of double re-arrest. Because of this, my team was forced to travel through time again to a place that I would presume to be the future, and quite a bleak future at that.
That is where I left off my journey.

So far, this game might just prove to be worth the summer.
We'll see how things go.
Check out my boyfriend's blog for his own updates.

- Cheryl-Buddy

Chrono Trigger 1 - Like a Little One in a Candy Store

For the record, here's where I'll put my spoiler alert, because I'll obviously be talking of the game's plot, and don't want to anger anyone who's interested in playing it, so here - you've been warned.

**SPOILER WARNING**

(The following blog post includes the plot of Chrono Trigger. No desire, no read.)

There we go...now.
I imagined that this game would have a very similar approach as Final Fantasy has in the past. I was wrong. I feel as though I will truly enjoy this game. You start off in actually a way more juvenile aspect than what I would imagine for such a game. You're actually more like a kid, going to the Millennial fair and whatnot. This fed into my inner child, as I love fooling around in places where you can bet on racers for free and get free rewards for betting right, defeating easy enemies for more rewards and free experience points, et cetera. I'll be honest, I spent quite a bit of time at this fair.
I can't help it, it reached my soft spot!
I'll be honest, I didn't do that much exploring around the rest of the land, because I do love a good fair, and that seemed the most important to me at the time.
Anyway, the game was introduced smoothly, had an unconventional approach to introducing the beginning conflict, but I don't mind that, and I'm enjoying the game so far.

One question, however.
Merle...I'm not sexist against women in games - no, not at all. But why, why, why must she represent the little bimbo that I so often see in teenage RPG's? You don't know her. You have no responsibility for her. You bring the conflict upon yourself. You're a brave man and all, playing Crono, but she doesn't necessarily treat you very kindly during your day at the fair. She chuckled at everything you do, with a:

Or a:

Had someone treated me with such manners, I would have thought twice about traveling back in time to save them.
But that pretty much sums up my first hour of playing Chrono Trigger. I currently am trudging through the Cathedral with Crono, Lucca, and - whom I find to like very much - Frog.
I suppose we'll have to see what becomes of my Chrono Trigger experience.
In the meantime, see what my boyfriend has to say about his first hour in this lovely game.

- Cheryl Buddy

Genesis

Alright, so today marks the embarking of my boyfriend across the Pacific ocean to Asia where he will no doubt see sights that I could only dream of seeing, being the travelphile that I am. With that, however, will come a time of hardship - 12-hour-apart time zones will mean a very limited communication line between the two of us, so we won't get to speak to each other much.

We have, however, mutually agreed upon starting to blog over the rest of the summer, and what better way to spend your time blogging that with video games?

 This is the game that we will be playing. It's a nice little RPG for the Nintendo DS that will surely keep us busy as we wait out the summer. The rules of the game are simple, I suppose: We'll each play for an hour at a time, and blog about that hour's experience. There's no doubt to be plenty of harmless mud-slinging and moments of fanboy/girl-ism, so there might be reason to feel nervous.
The game starts this evening, so make sure you stay tuned here and my boyfriend's blog, Fins of Air, for frequent updates.

I'll miss you, corazón. Have a good trip. <3

- Cheryl Buddy

Why CB doesn't like Fighting Games

I was at GameStop early this afternoon, asking some questions concerning a few games that I plan to trade in. For the most part, it was a lovely little experience, give-or-take. Some of my games are old, and won't be accepted, but I feel like I'll get a minimum of $10 for my trade-in of 14 'eh' games. But thing is that 2 of my games, Wii games at that, are on the fighting platform.

I think that I may be a magnet to frustrating people when I walk into a game store. I've experienced more n00bs upon approaching the checkout counter at GameStop than I have eating at IHOP at midnight. Maybe it's a sexist thing, with female gamers being scarce in North Carolina (from what I can tell, anyway), maybe it's a sign from God telling me to stop going to the same GameStop every time I want to buy a game, but there reside many a sad/hilarious story of people making small talk with me in the checkout line to discriminate my style.

Today's lovely incident included me standing with a small handful of my games, maybe 5 or 6 of them, waiting to be assisted with my questions. The guy behind me apparently noticed that I had Castlevania Judgment chilling on top of my little game stack. Big mistake on my part, I suppose, because said guy tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hey, you tradin' that in?"
As I nodded to confirm that I was indeed planning on trading it in, he let me know rather quickly that he had played the game, that he enjoyed it, that he thought it was a bit dumb for me to trade it in, and then asked me if I didn't like fighting games.
Had said guy been a pre-teen/teenager like many of the other people who come up to me with these types of comments, I would have let his words go in one ear and out the other. He wasn't. I'd say he was in his mid 20's.

Well, to answer your question, Mr. Hat Man, no, I don't like fighting games.

I don't find fighting games to have much meat. Lots of blood, yes. But the plot line that each fighting game includes doesn't really seem to be a 'plot.' It seems more to me like a filler content substance used to somewhat distract the player from the mindless violence that really coins a fighting game.
I can't really help it - I like my games to mean something to me. I like the plot line and the actual gameplay to harmonize, not get in the way of each other or distract each other.

Aside from content, however, fighting games have a tendency of being too structured for my liking. It's as though I'm eating a five-course meal, and all five courses are brought out to me at the same time. In a video game, I don't like that. There's no surprise, not much of a goal of becoming better. You may get a power-up on occasions as you progress through your battles, but...the game just feels a bit boxed in, I suppose, if the five-course meal analogy doesn't make much sense.

Now I'm starting to consider finding another close-by GameStop to cling to...
Oh well.

- Cheryl-Buddy