My second attempt at keeping a log on my progress with the giant pile of JRPGs that I'm working through. As you can see, I only tackled two of the games on my list, although I probably should note that you could also add Golden Sun and Suikoden to the list but I really only played both for about an hour each in the past couple of months, so I wouldn't really worry about them.

Without further ado, here are my exploits for the past two weeks. The Chrono Trigger bit is loooooong... feel free to skip.

As always, remember, plenty of spoilers.

Chrono Trigger



Estimated Progress: Half-way through? Maybe more. I know it's a short game.
Where Am I? When you last heard from Modus (Crono) and his crew, they'd just entered the End of Time, with the strange man waiting at a lamppost for us. Also open was the opportunity to fight Lavos, which upon loading the game, I figured I might as well try for. So, Lavos is a collection of every boss fight in the game, huh? That's what it seems like as I chopped through his many forms. At first, he was ridiculously easy, and I just used the same strategies that I did for the bosses the first time around. And then I fought a couple of bosses I'd yet to encounter - a bit of a spoiler for myself, perhaps, but what the hey. I was surprised enough that I could mow through a few more with no problem. The third boss in from where I was at in the game, though, eventually killed us. I can't remember exactly what the form was, but it was a fairly easy victory for Lavos. Needless to say, I wasn't ready to fight him.
So there were portals open now to Prehistoric Times, back to the year 600, the Proto Dome in 2300, and the village of Medina (I think? Funky and cold?). I thought about heading back to the past, but figured that I needed to get everyone back to our time. So I headed to the village of Medina, a weird monster-ran village where everyone was dancing around a statue of the big baddy, Magus. The village isn't particularly friendly, though. Pretty much every monster guy I talk to ends up fighting me, and I have to graciously slam their ugly monster faces into the ground. Possibly not the best behavior for a guest, I admit. Everyone is enjoying their magic powers, except for Aygo (Robo) who didn't get any. What with being a robot and all. So, Modus, Fabia (the girl), and Aygo go next door, to this human guy hiding in a cabin. He seems unusually located, but still offers to sell us stuff. I buy, and then we head into the cave. Ah, Final Fantasy caves. That is to say, this area seemed very Final Fantasy-like. I run a big sweeping path through the place, getting to the whirlpool at the end quickly. The boss there is dispatched easily, no match for our skill.
From there, we are unceremoniously ejected from the water spout, and sent flying back to the village where the game started. From there, I find another time portal thingie, and head back in, which pushes me back to the End of Time. From there, I head back to the year 600, why, I can't quite remember. There I find that the kingdom is in a big kerfuffle with the monsters to the south, and everyone is talking about a new hero kid walking around. There's lots of wounded soldiers, and the cook is acting like kind of a dick because he's pissed off with his brother fighting down south. I go to the bridge, and see soldiers getting their asses handed to them. I can't go and fight with them, for some reason, although I'm pretty sure at this point I could easily destroy the enemies there. No, I have to go back, convince the cook to do his fricking job, cart that food back to the bridge, and then finally fight wave after wave of skeletons. Easy enough. Then I have to fight a zombie boss, whose legs and head are separate creatures. Still, not too hard, though I think he did end up killing one of my people. The bridge cleared, I make my way to the two available towns to see if I can find the hero. Everyone's talking about him, but he's not there. They also mention a frog hiding out in the forest, so I check that out. Tigra, the frog knight, is there, but he feels cowed by the new hero everyone's raving about. I go out to the mountains, and find out that the hero is actually some scared kid who found the hero medal. Then I get some flashbacks to the frog, who was previously human, watching his knight friend get totally owned by Magus and his floaty friend.
Some more fighting, beat a boss, get the sword part of Masamune. I take that back to the frog man, stopping by way of the hero's house to watch him get totally scolded by his dad. Little dork. Take everything back to the frog, and I get both parts of the sword. By deciphering the clue on the sword, which is helpfully explained to me by Aygo, I realize that I have to bring it back to that guy by the village of Medina. Christ, that's a lot of time hopping. I do that, and he says he can fix it if I get some of those red rocks that haven't existed for thousands of years. Taking the cue, I know that I just need to go on one more ride in the whirlpool, and head to the Prehistoric Era.
Fabia, Ignis (Lucia), and Modus all get prehistorical on people, fighting through some jungle areas and meeting a new friend, Agila (the cavewoman there.) There's some partying, some dancing, and then I'm told about a hunting ground I can take everyone on where I can some rare loot, d00d. I go to what I think is the hunting ground, but is actually a valley that I need to go to much later. I'm curious about why the enemies are so difficult, but press on until the end, where I find... nothing. Nothing but an oddly glimmering red star which I figure has absolutely nothing to do with something later. So I go back to see Agila, and this time, we end up needing to get our time-travelling pendant back. Stolen by some dino-jerks. I follow the footprints back to their tower, eventually, and then get instantly bugged by this maze.
I realize eventually you can fall through a variety of holes as dug by the little burrowing guys, so I try foolhardily to get every damn little treasure chest out there. No luck, I can't figure out how to get into one of the entrances, and I'm tired of fighting the same damn enemies over and over. I give up, and then slaughter the big dino-boss, and get my pendant back. Agila stays in her time, but I get the impression I'll see her again soon.
Back in the year 1000, I get the sword fixed, with the help of Aygo, in a very vintage-90s cutscene.
I take that back to the year 600, give it to Tigra, who decides to quit his whining and help out. We all head over to Magus's hideout, which ends up being a very NES looking castle. (The outside view of the castle isn't exactly a graphical highlight of the game, even if it's detailed.) Then I do some rummaging around inside, fight Slash and Flea (oh, I get it.) before tackling big floaty Ozzie. Easy-peazy, Japanesey, especially with the Tigra-Aygo-Modus Delta attack.. From there, I launch an all-out assault on Magus, who turns the tables by triggering some kinda time thing. Not exactly sure what happened there, but it wasn't good. I end up back in Prehistoric times, Agila joins me, and then Rooo points out where the actual hunting grounds are. Oh. So I go do some fighting there, kill a Nu thing, and then go back to that place where I found the red star before - which turns out to be good ol' Lavos coming in for some killin'. From there, I confront the king of all the Dinos (for some reason). After besting him, he whines a bit, and then... uh. I think somehow I end up in 12,000 BC, in which the world is covered by an ice age, and snotty intellectuals float up in the sky. I meet a brother and sister, get arrested by their bitchy Mom, charge up my pendant, and then narrowly escape, the portal back to that time being sealed.
And that's about where I am now. I went around looking for magic-locked chests in a couple of time periods, got bugged that I couldn't upgrade Agila with magic (She's from a time before magic? Pffft. Whatever.) and then went back to the Proto Dome time. I was challenged to a race again, which I lost at the last second, ugh, and got a race log. Oh, Square games, always making me do shit I don't care about, like future car racing or Blitzball. Anyway. I went back to the place I remembered a magic-locked door from, the dome with the depressed villagers. No luck getting to the door - I can see it, but can't reach it. I'm trying to remember if I saw another one around there. I'll do some more exploring soon.
Thoughts So Far: It reminds me of an action-RPG that has turn-based combat almost imposed on it. I could see the whole game working relatively well as a Secret of Mana action RPG, not much would really be lost on it. The combo system with your characters is my favorite part of the relatively simple combat system, reminding me of some awesome combos you could get going in Phantasy Star IV. The game works best due to, and I think is so fondly remembered because of the myriad little adventures included in it. Instead of having one overreaching goal with which you are handed irritating roadblocks, the game seems very episodic, with interesting little chapters, each with their own goals. Only after defeating Magus did the forward momentum of the plot start to lag. I know what I'm supposed to do right now, but going back here just isn't too exciting. And I have to find the right damn door. I see one. Why can't I open the stupid thing? Why? Oh well. I'll figure it out.

Lost Odyssey



Estimated Progress: One quarter of the way through? Onto disk 2 now.
Where Am I? Last we left our heroes, we were in Numara, and I was looking into getting some crystal fragments for a whiny artist. I decided to bite the bullet and go west, which I knew would lead me to about two hours of crying. I was right. That's a whole lot of crying. Kaim is reunited with his daughter, and grand-children, Palom and Porum. Most of the direct control during this sequence involves stick gathering and flower-picking. It cuts back to some very Final Fantasy XII / Tactics style scenes involving the conniving (yet kinda hot) Gongora and the noble prince. The prince gets attacked and kills that one mustached guy, but then you see that, wait, the mustached guy was actually killed by a giant snake, who either is Gongora, or is controlled by him, or something, as evidenced by his big laughing head being super-imposed over the snake. Anyway. Back to funeral time, and the ridiculously dressed funeral coordinator bosses around the kids for a while until, in an actually rather poignant scene, they burn the ties binding them physically to their mother, who floats off to the sea. Lets hope she doesn't get snagged on some rocks nearby, or the kids are gonna have a nasty surprise in a few weeks when they investigate what the seagulls are pecking at.
Mack, being a child, gets into trouble by running away. Unfortunately, there is no option to "shrug your shoulders and move on", so I have to go save him from the spooky forest. I stop by Numara first, find a couple of dreams, buy some items, and then experience the joy of the game crashing. I find the dreams again, find a third dream, rebuy the items, get my skills all linked and in order, save and try to leave Numara again. The game crashes again.
I leave the game for the night, and come back to it, working my way through the forest, my progress halted by three more irritating crashes. The worst seems to be when the Kelokons (or however you write it) call for help - frequently when they summon aid, the screen freezes and then gives me the unreadable disk error.
Before wrapping up the crimson forest, I decide to call Microsoft to see about getting my older 360 serviced. I'm told that the extension to the warranty only covers the Red Rings of Death, and then the ever-so-helpful support guy told me how to clear out my cache, which I've already done before. Oh well. No luck. I go back and attack the final boss of the disk, an epic fight against... Mack! Unfortunately, my strategy of making everyone attack him results in his quick death, so in attempt 2, I stumble around with status effects until I find the one that works. Porum's rescued, flowers grow, and then... insert disk 2! Which Rooo is still finishing up with, so Lost Odyssey is on hiatus.
After ejecting the disk, I notice that it is a little dirty. Hm. I'll try cleaning it, and there's always the freezer trick, which recently resurrected a copy of Blue Stinger and Deus Ex. Oh, the freezer trick.
Thoughts So Far Makes me wish I had a newer 360. This unreadable disk shit is annoying. I'll clean the disk and get a DVD lens cleaning disk too, just to make sure that that's not a problem. I would like this game a whole lot more if it didn't crash, or the music didn't randomly halt.
As for the game itself, well... I like the stories. The three that I found were good, especially the one about Myna. Myra? The Letters from a Weakling one. The combat is great, but the stalling is getting so distracting that I rue it. Plus the frequent random encounters do take a little too long.

So that's it. No Lost Odyssey for a little while, or at least, until Rooo is done with Disk 2. Going to try to finish Chrono Trigger and go back to Earthbound and Final Fantasy XII.

I'm not sure if I'm happy with this format. Too long winded... just trying something new. I am thinking about getting a RCA-to-DV box and directly recording some gameplay, cut down on the writing and just bringing you the highlights and videos of my actual gameplaying, which would be a heck of a lot more interesting. The box is less then a hundred bucks on the eBay..