[Game Journal] gimmegaming

[gimmepie]

Limbo - Overall Thoughts
Limbo is only a couple of hours long, so I played through it in one setting. Story wise, there's not a lot for me to say since it's not narrative driven, but the gist is you're a boy trying to locate his sister in a horrific world filled with monsters, traps and environmental hazards that all want you dead. What the game lacks in story though, it provides in atmosphere. Limbo is entirely in black and white and makes use of grain effects and some extremely cool lighting in combination with a minimalistic soundtrack to create a very eerie atmosphere. It doesn't pull any punches either, the gruesome deaths that await you when you fail (and that are often foreshadowed in the background) only add to the eerie add disturbing feel of the game.

The gameplay itself is mechanically very simple. There's really only three commands: move, jump and interact with an object (to push buttons or shove/drag objects). The developers did a lot with such simple controls though incorporating all kids of different puzzles and platforms. The game can be tricky at times, sometimes frustratingly so, but it never feels impossible. It sits in that happy medium of being challenging but not obnoxious. That being said though, the ladder wagon puzzles kinda suck and sometimes it will take several tries to get through an area even if you've solved the method of the puzzle because you have to get the timing just right. Overall though, Limbo is a really fun puzzle platformer.

Story: 2/10
Visuals: 10/10
Soundtrack: 7/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Total Score: 27/40

 

[gimmepie]

Chrono Trigger - Chapter One
Chrono Trigger is off to a good start.

I explored the two available towns a bit, talking to characters and trying to learn some more about the world. Then I headed into the fair where, in a very uncharacteristic moment, I got distracted by the mini games for an hour or two. I kept messing up the clone mimic game because I instinctively reversed left/right lmao. Eventually I won some prizes though...after beating up a robot a few times and chugging a lot of drinks. Like a lot.

I also ran into Marle who joined my party, commenting on everything I did. I gave her a pendant back, ate some guys lunch, found a cat and took it to its owner, repeatedly told a dude I wouldn't help him scam a woman out of her jewellery and shopped for candy for some reason. Then it was time to see Lucca's invention... which worked for me but had a bad reaction to Marle's pendant and sent her away... into another time period as it turned out.

I followed her back in time where I discovered her now pretending to be that time's queen, because "for some reason" they look basically identical. Then she vanished again. Lucca re-joined me and we went and fought some Naga's in the creepy church. During the fight, a Frog appeared to help and joined the party. Fairly sure he's the famous knight some of the guards in the castle mention, but we'll see. We descended into the demon base under the cathedral from there where we unveiled that monsters had been disguising as humans to infiltrate their settlements. Including one who was pretending to be the Chancellor.

We fought that guy, the boss, and killed him. This meant we could rescue the real queen and chancellor and bring them back. Which we did. We're not assholes. We were then thanked by the royalty and parted ways with Frog, before meeting back up with Marle - who was revealed to actually be the current princess (to the shock of none) and returned home to our own time to await the next adventure.

I'm enjoying the game a lot. It's very reminiscent of old Final Fantasy titles and was clearly made by the same people. Hell, it even contains homages. The combat is basically identical with FF although with a gimmick where enemies frequently shift around during battle, changing move effectives as a result. Not much to say about the story yet, but I'm curious to see how it unfolds.

Character wise, you play as a silent protag so not much to say there. I really like Marle so far, and Frog seems cool too (but I need more time with him). I'm not really sure about Lucca yet, but I hope she'll grow on me.

 

[Izanagee2005]

Ayyy you're playing Chrono Trigger too! I'm playing the DS version currently. The story gets really cool chapter 2 onwards. I won't spoil anything tho. Hope you enjoy playing it :D

 

[gimmepie]

Ayyy you're playing Chrono Trigger too! I'm playing the DS version currently. The story gets really cool chapter 2 onwards. I won't spoil anything tho. Hope you enjoy playing it :D

I'll probably play the next part tonight, so I'll look forward to it!

 

[gimmepie]

Chrono Trigger - Chapter Two
I took Marle back to the castle where I was immediately accused of kidnapping and treason and put on trial. Thankfully, the trial went pretty well for me with 6/7 jurors finding me not guilty. That one guy must have been really displeased about me eating his lunch. Despite the innocent verdict, I was still sentenced to three days of solitary confinement... that the modern chancellor managed to have bumped up to the death penalty because fuck me I guess.

I chilled in my cell for a bit until Lucca busted in and rescued me and we then started making our escape... only to be stopped by a bigass tank. The tank killed me, so I had to redo that segment. That boss fight proved much easier when I actually used my brain. From there we met up with Marle who joined us in running away. We were pursued though and backed into a corner though, so had to flee into a time gate.

Said gate led to the future and boy was it bleak. People survive a frozen, barren hellscape in domes, slowly starving while horrifying mutants roam about. We eventually found ourselves inside a particularly unfortunate dome, descending into the lower levels to hopefully free their food supply from the crazy robots guarding them. This involved fighting one such crazy robot for a seed and a hint from a corpse, but thankfully it wasn't too tough a boss. I then got a door code from a rat and prepared to move on.

I left it there, but I'm still enjoying it. Lucca is starting to grow on me now and I still really like Marle. Not much of the overarching story has been revealed yet still, but I am enjoying the background story and worldbuilding we get by exploring and talking to NPCs. I'm excited to see how the rest of this segment plays out. I expect the time jump shenanigans to start causing problems soon.

 

[gimmepie]

Chrono Trigger - Chapter Three
I watched a video log that showed why the future is so messed up (and showed Marle knows the monster responsible hmmmm) and brought back the seed to the survivors of that dome before making my way to the abandoned sewers. There I slayed my way through a bunch of frogs and the centiscorpion boss for some nice loot. Next step was, weirdly, a street race to get to where I met Robo - who is fucking adorable. With his help I then got through the derelict factory, facing down an army of slimes and robots to open the door to the Time Gate we were aiming for. The gate itself lead us to the End of Time which is inhabited by a mysterious, sleepy old man and... Spekkio who is some sort of war spirit. Spekkio taught the party magic then beat the shit out of us for fun.

The plot of the game has become clear now: use time shenanigans to prevent Lavos from fucking up the future. It's a simple premise, but it's a fun one anyway. The characters continue to be solid too. Robo was a really cool addition to the team.

Chrono Trigger continues to be a good game.

 

[gimmepie]

Chrono Trigger - Chapter Four
I made a fair bit of progress this time. First, I did a little grinding back in the future so I could come back and nuke the shit out of Spekkio, setting up more convenient portals as I did so. After that I visited a fiend village in the modern era and met an old man named Melchior who sold me some good shit. I went through a cave system after that, jumping into a whirlpool that carried me back to Lucca's house where I got some new gear for her.

After that it was back to the past where I discovered the king had been injured on the battlefield and a legendary hero had apparently appeared. I fought my way through General Ozzie's undead minions to help out the human army, and eventually managed to meet up with Frog, but he wouldn't rejoin claiming he wasn't a hero. From there I eventually encountered the kid pretending to be the hero and claimed the broken sword he was trying to get. He then revealed he got the hero badge from Frog.

I went back to Frog and obtained the other half of the broken sword but "Totally Not a Hero" Frog still wouldn't join us. We did find out that Melchior was the one who forged Masamune (the sword) though, so I went back to visit him only to then be told that I need to go back to ancient times to get the material to fix it.

Character-wise, Marle's starting to drop off a bit but Frog's only getting more compelling and Lucca picked up a little. Robo is still lovable. Combat-wise, Robo isn't that great. He's tanky, but he loses out to Chrono, Lucca and Marle in damage/utility. I can do crazy damage with dual techs now and have good healing too.

About half through now and still thoroughly enjoying myself.

 

[gimmepie]

Chrono Trigger - Chapter Five
So, I went back to the ancient past where I met a cave woman and won the dreamstone from her in a drinking contest (as you do). In the morning though, I found that the gate key had been stolen, first by a jealous cave man and then from him by lizard people. With the cavewoman, Ayla, along for the trip I fought through a bunch of lizards, dinodragons and winged-monkeys to eventually confront the lizard people's leader. He tried to sick a giant monster on us, but we killed it and he forfeited the key before running away. Well, he also ranted about how his people would always rule the Earth but there's none of them in the future eras so....

Anyway, from there, I went back to Melchior and he reforged the Masamune. I then gave Frog back the sword triggering a flashback where I learned he is, in fact, not Cyrus. He is actually Cyrus' squire, Glenn. Cyrus was killed by Magus. Well-played Chrono Trigger.

That was a clever and well-written twist. Honestly, the fetch-quest for the dreamstone didn't do much for me. Ayla's pretty boring and the human v lizard conflict didn't really have enough depth to be interesting. I also didn't need to watch Melchior and Lucca's sprites moving around randomly while the blade was repaired. I did enjoy the Frog reveal though and the lizard boss fight was a good one.

 

[gimmepie]

Chrono Trigger - Chapter Six
I spent the first little bit getting Water magic unlocked for Frog/Glenn and trying to get him some less shit armour. In the end I just upgraded Lucca with new Taban stuff and gave her Stone Helm to him rip.

From there, I made my way through the magic cave into Magus' castle where a NOT AT ALL SUSPICIOUS bat started following me. I checked out both available routes and found nothing but illusions of people I'd met. On returning though, I encountered Ozzy again who sicked some weak monsters on me and told me I'd have to fight... fucking Slash and Flea to move on.

Slash was up first, and he was a tough fight. He hits hard and he hits a lot. Blessedly, Ozzy had let slip he was a swordsman, so I came prepared with Lucca's Protect. That helped a lot, reducing damage and allowing me to spend more time hammering him with my best Techs and Dual Techs. It did cost me a lot of healing items though as I was not using Marle (Chrono and Frog are mandatory party members) and Frog didn't gain Heal until after winning. With Slash defeated, and his sword stolen, Flea was next.

I knew from Ozzy's blabbering that Flea is a spellcaster, so I decided it was best to go in with a physical team of Chrono, Frog and Robo (who got to be useful for once!). What I did not know was that Flea is also an asshole. Firstly, you have to fight a bunch of monsters disguised as people important to you as you make your way up to him (Lucca for Robo, Leene for Frog and Chrono's mum). Then the "Flea" you first fight is a decoy that dies in one shot and take all your MP with it. The real Flea is actually disguised as the god damn bat that's been following you. Finally, although he isn't super powerful, he bombards you with annoying status ailments the entire fight. What a dick. But hey, I unlocked my first Triple Tech.

With the two "lesser" generals beaten, I then had to chase Ozzy down through halls full of traps and monsters before engaging in the easiest boss fight I have ever experienced using Chrono, Lucca and Frog. While Ozzy is basically immortal and invulnerable, you can just drop him into the abyss by hitting each of the switches around him once. So that happened.

Then, it was finally time for my first confrontation with Magus. He's a bit problematic because every time you hit him, his magical barriers make immune to every type of damage except raw damage and one elemental type. Then, once his barriers drop, he starts hitting you with a powerful spell called Dark Matter. Oh and every time his barriers change he drops a level two elemental spell on you. I went in with the mandatory Chrono and Frog as well as Marle. Between Frog's Heal, Marle's Cure and Chono and Marle's Aura Whirl Dual Tech, I had shitloads of healing which meant I could basically shrug off Magus' Dark Matter. Marle also brought Haste to the table, effectively doubling my damage output with powerful Dual Techs like Sword Stream, Lightning Rod, Ice Water and Ice Sword. Honestly, this was a fun and dramatic fight but it was a fair bit easier than Slash.

Once defeated, Magus revealed that he didn't create Lavos but only summoned him and threw us into a time gate. Chrono dreamed about marrying Marle or something like that and then the party woke up back in Ayla's time. I'm currently suspecting the reptites might actually be responsible for Lavos.

After the tedium of the last segment, I really enjoyed this one. The cut scenes were amazingly animated, the music was fantastically ominous, Frog continued to be a brilliant character and the combat was really fun... although I don't know how to feel about Ozzy.

 

[gimmepie]

Chrono Trigger - Chapter Seven
I joined Ayla in tackling the Reptite's Tyranno Castle, slaughtering my way through legions of scaly mooks before getting to fight, first the Reptite boss from last time - which was significantly easier this time. After that it was time to fight Azala, the Reptite leader, and their gigantic Black Tyranno. This wasn't exactly a difficult fight, but it was prolongued and a lot of fun. After defeating them, I learned of Lavos' true origin - via watching him slam into the castle as a meteor, rip open a time gate on impact, kill all the Reptites and sink into the earth.

I went into the new gate and arrived in a new time period between the ancient time and Frog's. This time period was full of magic and had floating islands and stuff. Here I learned a lot about Melchior's past and put more pieces of the over all story together just in time to have the crazy queen and her advisor throw a crazy golem at me. This was a pretty tough fight at first since it immediately does fuckloads of damage. Once you get into the swing of things and dump some Lucca fire on him, things get much easier though thankfully.

After destroying the golem, I was captured anyway but the prince and princess saved my ass and negotiated my escape back to ancient times in exchange for that gate being sealed. Upon arrival, the party realised that the crest that was everywhere in the magic age was also present in the future, so that's the next destination.

 

[gimmepie]

Chrono Trigger - Chapter Eight
I started things out this time by jumping back and forth through time collecting a bunch of items I could now access thanks to the activated pendant. From there I jumped right back to the antiquity age I came from and busted Melchior out of prison - which involved the most intense boss fight up to that point. That point (more on that later). Shortly after we were visited by the prince and princess but that Dalton asshole kidnapped them.

We followed along behind them, kicked the crap out of Dalton and chased him, the Queen and her followers down to the underground palace where Lavos was starting to come back. I collected a bunch of cool gear on the way and killed legions of monsters to come face to face with Dalton again... and he summoned a pair of crazy strong golems that immediately murdered me. Round two against them went better, but it was work.

Then it was time to confront Lavos for the first time, joined by Magus who seems to actually be on our side. Lavos fucked us up, disintegrated Chrono and dropped the floating islands from the sky triggering gigantic tsunamis. Then, to make things worse, the aftermath saw Dalton arrest the remaining party members, claim the title of king, confiscate their stuff and lock them up.

Things are getting intense now but it's all coming together.

 

[gimmepie]

Chrono Trigger - Chapter Nine
I escaped from prison and defeated Dalton, reclaiming by inventory and the Epoch in the process. Then I talked to Gaspar and obtained the eponymous Chrono Trigger, allowing me to brave Death Mountain and revive Chrono with some time shenanigans. After that I went on a bunch of sidequests as directed by Gaspar allowing me to get several characters their ultimate weapons and the best armour available. Sounds quick but it actually took several hours lmao.

Then it was time for the final confrontation... sort of. Actually it was time to fight through a seemingly endless boss gauntlet and a bunch of unavoidable regular fights. So, remembering that there was intermittent normal fights for a lot if it, I worked my way through three mutant creature bosses each stronger than the last (although the second was actually the hardest imo), then Queen Zeal's three different forms and then finally Lavos who was a boss gauntlet all by himself.

His first form imitates the first nine major bosses you face in the game one stage after the other. This is actually pretty easy as you can heal between them and they have the same power level as the actual boss so most die in a single hit or two. His second stage is his out shell, which breaks open upon defeat allowing you to enter his inner core. The inner core fights are where the difficulty is turned up.

It's a two stage fight. The first stage does hefty damage and can remove your status immunities. It takes work to beat, but the second, disturbingly humanoid form is the really tricky part. It has two satellites around it, a nearly invincible one that can revive the other destroyed parts and one that heals the "main body" and other satellite. The trick here is that I used quotation marks for a reason, the main body is actually the nearly indestructible satellite - the humanoid body is a decoy. It took me a few round of re-killing the healer sattelite to work it out. Once I did though, the fight got way easier and I was able to finish it off.

After that, it was onto the epilogue. A parade was thrown in honour of Chrono and the rest of the party, celebrating their efforts as they marched to the time gate. Then it was time for some emotional goodbyes as those from other times made their ways home. Then Chrono's cat ran into the gate and his mum chased after it, signaling the beginning of a new adventure as Chrono, Marle and Lucca left in pursuit.

This was a really fun game. The gameplay was fun, typical Square (Enix?) RPG but with a twist thanks to the way enemies move about and the existence of dual/triple techs. The story was well written and the characters were mostly compelling. Marle, Lucca, Frog, Robo and Janus are all fantastic. Ayla is a bit less interesting, but fun enough. Chrono gets a pass on judgement as a silent protagonist. Game-wise, I favoured Chrono, Marle and Frog (who were my final party) in combat but every character feels useful and well-balanced.

The music is also really solid, I especially like the music for the Cathedral and the Magus and Lavos fights. The animated cut scenes were cool, but weirdly some cut scenes still used sprites instead and the choices of where animation or sprites were used sometimes felt weird. Especially the times that you basically watch the same scene twice, first animated and then with sprites. The art style also felt a bit weird. It's really good, but the way Toriyama reuses designs is a little off-putting at times.

Overall, an excellent game. It's not without its faults, but I highly recommend it.

Story: 9/10
Visuals: 7/10
Soundtrack: 7/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Total Score: 31/40

 

[Devalue]

Congratulations on finishing the game. Agrees with your opinion on the music for Magus and Lavos (and overall). Wants to add a few notes of interest.

1. Cannot take Ayla's weapon (Fist). Becomes an excellent choice for the Blackbird jail escape.
2. Accesses Lavos without the Black Omen too. Could have crashed into Lavos with the Epoch or taken the bucket. (Probably knew that. Feels proper to destroy the Black Omen, also.)
3. Features multiple different endings, depending on when you defeat Lavos. Recommends watching them.

 

[gimmepie]

Congratulations on finishing the game. Agrees with your opinion on the music for Magus and Lavos (and overall). Wants to add a few notes of interest.

1. Cannot take Ayla's weapon (Fist). Becomes an excellent choice for the Blackbird jail escape.
2. Accesses Lavos without the Black Omen too. Could have crashed into Lavos with the Epoch or taken the bucket. (Probably knew that. Feels proper to destroy the Black Omen, also.)
3. Features multiple different endings, depending on when you defeat Lavos. Recommends watching them.

I actually had Ayla out of pure chance because I was trying to catch up her techs a bit xD

 

[Cherrim]

The music is also really solid, I especially like the music for the Cathedral and the Magus and Lavos fights.

The cathedral BGM is one of my favourite tracks in the game and I so rarely see people bring it up when they talk about the OST, so I was really happy to see it get specific mention here. It's such a good track!! :D

 

[gimmepie]

The cathedral BGM is one of my favourite tracks in the game and I so rarely see people bring it up when they talk about the OST, so I was really happy to see it get specific mention here. It's such a good track!! :D

Yeah, it's gorgeous and not many people seem to rate it as a favourite.

 

[Zeostar]

Regarding the note of silent protagonist, I liked the scene with Chrono sacrificing himself for the party. It was a great way to give him a bit of character.

 

[gimmepie]

Regarding the note of silent protagonist, I liked the scene with Chrono sacrificing himself for the party. It was a great way to give him a bit of character.

It definitely helps in the moment. There's not really enough beyond that for it to be fair to comment on him as a character though.

 

[gimmepie]

Final Fantasy IV - Chapter One
Got through a decent chunk for my first gameplay session. I learned early on about Cecil's questions about the morality of his kingdom and was introduced to the white mage, Rosa, and the Dragoon, Kain. I also met this game's Cid. The King was quick to discover Cecil's misgivings and demoted him from his leadership role, sending he and Kain to fight off an eidolon and deliver a necklace to the village of Mist.

We killed the Mist Dragon eidolon and soon reached Mist... where the necklace's spell activated and burned the place to the ground. We met Rydia in the aftermath and took the kid summoner in out of guilt for the party's role in her mother's death... but she had an emotional outburst that summoned Titan, ripped open a chunk of continent and separated the party from Kain.

Taking the only route open to them, Cecil and Rydia went to Kaipo, where they ran into Rosa again... sort of. She had come to warn Cecil but gotten ill on the way and needed a pearl from an antlion nest to recover. So Cecil and Rydia headed off that way, meeting a sage named Tellah who was in search of his daughter, Anna, who had eloped with a bard from a neighbouring kingdom.

We retrieved the pearl and made it to the kingdom where we quickly met the bard, actually the kingdom's Prince Edward and Anna. But Baron, Cecil's home kingdom, attacked and stole the crystal from them, killing most - Anna included. In the aftermath, Tellah left to hunt down the enemy commander so we returned with Edward to heal Rosa. After that we set off to warn the next of Baron's likely targets. On the way, we met a Monk who was the last survivor of an expedition used as a trap to lure away the target kingdom's forces.

We returned to his home just in time to defend it, but were pushed back. Kain and the commander, Golbez. Kain attacked us, allowing Golbez to kidnap Rosa while he took the crystal.

I already like this more than FFV. The characters are much more personable, developed and compelling already and the story seems much more interesting. The gameplay is fun too. That being said, the narrative pacing feels extremely rushed in places and some plot events seem to happen in weird spots where they'd make more sense and be more gripping later on. Nevertheless, I'm excited to see where things go from here.

 

[gimmepie]

Final Fantasy IV - Chapter Two
Did a smaller bit of gaming this time, but some noteworthy stuff happened. The party went to speak with Fabul's king to plan their next move. They decided they needed Cid's aid and that they'd approach via ship because, despite controlling the skies, Baron had a weak navy. Along the way though, the ship was attacked by Leviathan and dragged underwater. Cecil woke up on a beach alone, presuming Rydia, Yang and Edward dead.

Cecil then found himself in the mage village of Mysidea, the place he had attacked in the prologue (and where the locals will poison him or turn him into a frog or pig gladly). He talked to the elder and was given a chance at redemption: challenging Mt. Ordeals to become a paladin. If he could do that, he'd gain access to the road back to Baron. With two apprentices called Palom and Porom from the village as watchdogs/assistance, Cecil took on the mission.

As they fought their way up the mountain, they encountered Tellah again, who was there trying to regain memories of the spell Meteor. Eventually, the team were confronted by Scarmiglione, the Earth fiend - a servant of Golbez. He was quickly defeated, returning as an undead abomination who was promptly murdered again. With that out the way, Cecil had to confront a mirror of himself and willingly refuse to fight back (but also not die) to earn his transformation to a paladin, being spoken to by a strange light that called him "son". The twin apprentices implied they knew something about this but didn't say what. Also Tellah spontaneously regained his memories of all his spells for no apparent reason.

With that out the way, it's now time to march towards Baron.

Again, I'm impressed by how much better written this is than FFV. The story is far more compelling as are the cast of characters, all of whom are likeable and/or interesting. The story does continue to suffer pacing issues though. Also, as a game told primarily from Cecil's perspective, the character writing does take a bit of a hit because of the frequent rotation of party members. I'm still enjoying this plenty though!