Chrono Trigger - Kangaroo Courts
That was not a welcome Crono was expecting.
Just as I feared, Crono is taken into custody the moment he walks into the castle. Princess Nadia’s pleas fall on deaf ears as the Chancellor drowns her voice out while painting Crono as an abducting villain. On hearing all the commotion, the King comes out only to admonish Nadia and leave again. He may be royalty, but we know who wears the pants in this kingdom.
Court is in session
There is a sham trial where the Chancellor acts like Crono’s guilt is a foregone conclusion. Then he calls in a few people to further cement his position. None of them are here to talk about the actual crime this trial is for so they can not be called witnesses. The old man is angry because Crono ate his lunch. The little girl complains about being ignored and Crono did not help her find her kitten. While socially questionable behavior, this in itself does not amount to crime. It is certainly a fairly long leap to assume a man who steals lunch is a kidnapper. But the logic and truth are just obstacles the Chancellor will sidestep to bring an innocent man to the gallows. One does wonder what is he hiding that drives him to ask for Crono’s death. Maybe being tortured by Yakra caused genetic modifications that were carried down the generations. Thankfully, Crono has done enough good deeds to not be sentenced to death. The jury decides Crono is not guilty, but the judge can not let an innocent man go. So he decides to still punish Crono by putting him in jail for 3 days on trumped up charges. The King shows up once again to show us how useless he is.
Crono is taken in custody. The Chancellor relishes the chance to walk him down to the jail. Here we find out that he has not given up on his dreams of seeing Crono hang. He tells the warden that Crono is to be kept here until he can be executed for acts of sedition. When the warden protests by saying he does not know anything about this person getting the capital punishment, the Chancellor makes up some excuse about a hold up in paperwork. He then threatens the warden until he falls in line. For some reason these people don’t take away Crono’s weapons. When the jailer comes in for some old-fashioned police brutality, he gets a face full of sword.
Guardian Empire unleashes their most fearsome weapons on their own innocent subjects.
Cronos escapes his cell and tries to find his way out. A mini boss of sorts presents himself here to put a stop to the escape attempt. After getting a light beating, he decides he does not get paid enough to get wailed on by innocent people (only enough to give a beating then huh?) and exits the stage quickly. Crono continues on his quest to find his way out of this jail. He gets to the warden, who tries to make a run for it, only to find himself on the wrong end of Lucca’s pea shooter. She has come in to save Crono, only to find out he is managing pretty well. There is another scenario here which I have never seen. If Crono does not try to escape, he is taken to the gallows where he is rescued by Lucca. I am always to impatient to wait three days for Lucca to come rescue him. Before the two leave, they see a document lying next to the warden. It is a report on the new secret super weapon the empire has been developing, Dragon Tank. The head can heal itself, so it is impossible to defeat it. The only weakness is the heads susceptibility to swords and pea shooters. But then again who will be foolish enough to attack a tank with swords and pea shooters. Right?
The hunger thing drives home the dreadfulness of the future
Crono and Lucca get to the bridge, only a few steps away from sweet freedom. But before they can make their getaway, the damned Dragon Tank shows up. It rolls out right on to the bridge. Just from the engineering point of view, this does not seem like a good idea. I don’t think the bridge was made to take this kind of a weight. Especially not the walking bridge between the jail and the castle. In fact, why is there a bridge connecting the jail and the castle? I would definitely not have a bridge to invite the criminals from the jail into the house the monarch lives in. Only if the Chancellor wasn’t too busy hanging innocent kids, he would at least do his duty of protecting his king better.
A sword to the head turns out to really be the Tank’s weakness. The Chancellor and his guards show up just in time to see the bridge break and the Dragon Tank to fall through. They helpfully make a human bridge to help the two champions walk over their bodies to freedom. But even as they make their way to the main door, the guards surround them. The Chancellor has somehow pulled himself to safety and hurried down here to see Crono arrested again.
Marle sees the miscarriage of justice and becomes so disillusioned from the governance of the kingdom that she abdicates her position and decides to run away with her new friends. As the three run into the forest, they find themselves still being followed by the royal guards. They have no choice but to jump through an unknown time portal. They have escaped the tyranny of their present-day government only to find themselves in a desolate future.
The place looks foreboding to say the least. Once we get into the overworld, the true bleakness of the times comes into focus. Our friends have ended up in a post-apocalyptic future. Everything is in ruins. People are begging and in tatters. There is no food. A machine heals everyone but never takes away their gnawing hunger. Crono has to travel to the next dome over to find answers, but to get there we will need to go through some dangerous ruins.
11-25-20
This place has seen better days
Persona 5 - Okumura’s Spaceport
For the past week or so I have only been playing Persona 5. Haven’t touched Resident Evil in a while, don’t know where I’m at in there. Shelves full of unplayed games and I can not stop playing Persona 5. With 5 out of 8 palaces done, I am now definitely past the halfway point.
Space port of Big Bang burger has been demolished. We as players get to see the black masked stranger for the first time, but the Thieves miss him. He comes in to take out the palace boss, Okamura. As with the previous palaces, the second run has been smoother than the first. Running through in one go really makes a difference. Once I know how far I have left to go, I can better plan what items to use and when. The HP raising items are kind of useless. It is much better to use healing spells and then use coffee and curry to top up SP.
Even though I did die a few times through the palace, but it was definitely less than last time. Having the freedom to exploit the enemy weaknesses brings about a new level of enjoyment. It is not just about being able to use my SP freely. The fact that I have more shadows/demons to use helps too. Usually over-level and brute force my way through whenever I play a JRPG. For the most part, this is what I did in the first playthrough here, too. Once I got over my hang-up of hoarding up items, I quickly found out there is no need to grind as much.
Persona 5 is a game that primarily deals with the social issues of our time. It specifically targets the problems prevalent in Japan, but to some extent it is relevant to every modern society. As such, it does throw out some seriously dark scenarios at the player. Some of them are problematic. Others are set up to force the player to acknowledge the problems marginalized or outcast people face in our society. The most recent example has to do with the owner of a popular fast-food burger joint. Okamura is a businessman who runs a successful franchise. His palace takes form of a space port. The whole palace shows his attitude towards the workers. They are only as good as the work they put in. Once they are no longer able to provide service, they are sent down to become fuel for the station. As with everyone else, the villain strips away the humanity of the people they rely on to be successful. In this case, the workers are no longer humans, but nameless robots. It is telling in how Okumura views those working underneath him. It is also indicative of how little he cares about their well-being.
Callous attitude towards his employees is not the only problem with Okamura. Aside from running a successful business, he also harbors political ambitions. This is where his ties with Shido come in. He is also working towards getting Shido elected, and in return he hopes to get some kind of political power. It is not clear what exactly is he hoping for. Not one to put all his eggs in one basket, Okamura has also set his daughter up with son of another nameless politician.
Haru Okumura is also a student at Shujin. She is one year ahead of Joker and friends. Unlike tropey single child of a wealthy family, she is not spoilt at all. In fact, she comes off as a quiet, shy girl. When Morgana has a big blow up with the rest of the gang, he recruits Haru to take on the metaverse. During the first foray into the Space Port, Joker and his team meet the two. Haru comes off as someone who is unsure of her place inside the metaverse. In fact, she is so flustered when meeting the Thieves, she forgets her introductory speech she had memorized for the occasion. How she met Morgana, and how she was first exposed to the metaverse is not explained. She must have visited the other side before meeting the cat or else she would not have been able to understand him. When and how that happened remains a mystery.
Haru is not really interested in her betrothed but is going along with her father’s wishes. Sigumura, the fiancé, is a positively despicable person. He is abusive and a borderline pedophile. The reason he is interested in Haru mainly has to do with his predilection for schoolgirls. When Haru shuns his advances, Sigimura becomes violent. Haru is saved when the Phantom Thieves show up and stop him. Sigimura threatens them as he leaves.
Haru comes home and tells her dad what happened. Okamura is unfazed. He tells his daughter to go apologize to Sigumura and then comply with his wishes, in effect sacrificing his daughter on the altar of his political ambitions. To its credit, the game is successful in making the player uncomfortable. Both these guys are supposed to be villains and should be hated. At least one of them meets a terrible and abrupt end. The other is probably still out there perving on schoolgirls.
The rebel persona in Haru wakes up when shadow Okumura tries to pimp her out to the shadow Sigimura. It is odd Haru’s persona is named Milady, one of the most dangerous and cunning women in literature when she herself is the most naïve person of the group.
During their efforts to steal the treasure, the thieves discover the whole station is also a means to an end. It is supposed to destruct while launching Okumura into space. Again, not very subtle, but symbolic of Okumura’s ambitions to use his business to launch himself into politics. Even though this palace is called a Spaceport of Greed, it is Okumura’s lust for power that is mainly on display here.
5-17-20
Persona 5 - Futaba’s Palace
I have been playing Persona 5 for what feels like an eternity and I think I might be halfway through the New Game Plus. Futaba’s palace has been razed, confidants are maxing out left and right, Principal of Shujin is dead and the Phantom Thieves are on their way back from the beach episode, ahem, their vacation in Hawaii. Beach episode is a long standing anime trope. Persona 5, the most anime of all JRPGs, was not going to pass up on it.
Today I went through the whole of Futaba’s palace as well as the final boss in one sitting. I am enjoying these palaces more in my second play through. Familiarity makes the traversal and puzzle solving smoother. This pyramid felt more frustrating last time I was here. I enjoyed the aesthetic more when I was not constantly worrying about running out of SP.
With every new confidant hitting the max level comes a new perk. I’m sure they carry over to the next game even if the confidant levels don’t. Last time around having finished Sojiro’s short story, allowed Joker to make coffee and curry much earlier this time around. Which has helped ease the pain of running through the dungeons. I am keen on maxing out the “Tower” since it will give me the ability to knock down any shadow. That is going to be immensely helpful in filling out my Persona “pokedex”.
Futaba reminds me of Lucca from Chrono Trigger. She has the same colors and the persona of “misunderstood genius”. Although Lucca was a well adjusted person with friends. So almost like the opposite of Futaba in all other senses.
In this instance, the team does not come upon the palace right away. Instead, the have to ride in the Cat Bus, in stifling heat until they get to the pyramid. Upon entering, the team realizes they are still in their normal clothes. Since Futaba does not feel threatened by them, they do not switch over into their personas. This sets up a nice twist for the end game.
Similar to other palaces we have been going to lately, the front entrance closes as soon as Futaba is threatened by the team (team suits also change at this time). To get anywhere in this pyramid, first the thieves have to head out to a nearby village and steal the papyrus Futaba wants. The shadow with the papyrus is a sneaky one. We have to chase him down until he is trapped at a dead end. After beating him and taking the papyrus, Joker brings it back to Futaba. She reveals it to be the map of the palace, hands it over to Joker, and promptly drops our heroes in quicksand.
From here on out, the thieves try to find their way back to the top. With each successful puzzle completion, a little more of Futaba’s story is revealed, and one more door in her psyche is opened. Wakaba Isshiki was Futaba’s mother and a renowned “psientist”. She studied the metaverse and predicted its existence. She was absorbed in her research too much to spend much time with her daughter. This neglect adversely affected Futaba. Watching her mother getting run over by a car and die did not help much either. Over time Futaba became a recluse and shut herself in her room. Her psychosis manifested as auditory hallucinations of her mother berating her and accusing her of causing death and destruction.
As we go forward, the team figures out Wakaba’s death was no accident. Someone out there did not want the metaverse brought to light and they made sure Wakaba did not live to tell the world about her discovery. Sojiro was dating Wakaba at this time. Even though she confided into him about her concerns of safety, Sojiro disregarded them as paranoia. After her death, Sojiro felt responsible for Futaba and started taking care of her. Not knowing much about raising children and even less about raising neuro-atypical children, Sojira felt helpless in getting Futaba the attention she needed but he has stuck by her .
This brings us to the pyramid and the final boss of this dungeon. It starts out as the Beast That Rules the Palace. Clearly, Wakaba and her death has left a significant negative impact on Futaba. It stands to reason, she will be the entity Futaba fears the most. She is paralyzed and unable to help in the beginning. After a few hits in, the Beast changes in Wakaba Isshiki. From here on out Futaba finds her courage and is able to help us defeat the Shadow.
The team makes their way out as the pyramid collapses around them. Futaba, having been freed from her tomb, accompanies them out.
Once in the real world, Futaba is so exhausted she falls asleep right away. That’s all good but we do kind of need her to fix the whole bind she has put the Thieves into by setting up their beef with Medjed. First it was a concerning, but as her sleep went on for days, it became hilarious. On the last day before Phantom Thieves are exposed, Futaba walks into the café nonchalantly and remembers she was supposed to help the Thieves keep their identities hidden. She gets on her computer and saves the day, only to fall back asleep right after getting done.
From here on Futaba is the teams guide and cheerleader. She never enters the battle herself but analyzes the enemies and the layout of the dungeon.
This is around the time when the greater conspiracy starts to take shape. There are definitely evil forces working together, to achieve some kind of nefarious purpose. They won’t hesitate to kill. With Wakaba and also the Shujin principal dead the stakes are higher. If these people find out the true identities of Joker and his friends, their lives could be in serious jeopardy. We know at the very least the police has been bought out by them.
The thieves aren’t just trying to stay in school anymore. They are trying to stay alive.
5/13/20
Resident Evil - Tunnels
Resident Evil is a masterpiece when it comes to ramping up the tension. One of the ways it manages to do so is by introducing new enemies deep into the game. The player is always on the backfoot because of the uncertainty these new entries create. Throughout the game I never felt I had full control of the situations Jill was being thrown into. Loss of control has been the theme running through the entirety of Resident Evil. I have talked about it multiple times. Creating a sense of vulnerability is a staple of horror movie genre. But the movies are consumed passively as opposed to the video games which are actively consumed media. To be able to make the player feel helpless without literally taking away control (by constantly switching to cutscenes for example) can not be easy. Instead the game relies on changing camera angles, introduction of new enemies, jump scares (and rarely switching to cutscenes) to never let the player settle down. At any given moment, it feels like Jill is only one misstep away from getting seriously injured or dying. These clever mechanical as well design decisions are the reason why Resident Evil has aged so well over time. RE:make is not a “from the ground up” rebuild like RE:2. Yet it holds up as a genuinely fun game to play.
Once Jill finds herself outside of the mansion, there is a path leading to the residence with a small shack on the way. In here she finds Lisa. Lisa is a thoroughly misshapen monster. She chases Jill down, slowly but still faster than the usually shambling zombies. To top it off, she is also invincible. There is nothing Jill can do except to run away. I emptied all my ammo into her multiple times as she clobbered Jill to death before learning my lesson. First there was tension in trying to kill this thing as it just kept coming at Jill. Then there was helplessness because nothing I did would take her down. Finally, it dawned on me. This is not the kind of a game where we need to kill everything. The game has been hinting at this throughout, with scarcity of ammo and giving ample space for Jill to go around the enemies. But in the heat of the moment I still forgot all about it. In fact, Resident Evil had explicitly punished me for killing off zombies and leaving their bodies unburned. These zombies turn into Crimson Heads. They run faster, hit harder and take longer to die. The first time Jill walks into one of these is an unexpected jolt, especially more so if the player has been keeping track of what rooms the zombies are still in. The real kicker is these downed zombies don’t come to life right away. Jill may walk by the dead body a few times and a nothing would happen. When you least expect it, Jill opens the door to find an angry red zombie waiting to exact some revenge.
Jill does her thing at the residence and heads back to the mansion. As she enters the door, the camera immediately switches to first person. But this is not Jill’s view. Whoever this is, they are running much faster than anyone else has moved in this game until now. This thing is following the same path Jill just took, so clearly she will have to face it very soon. This was one of those rare instances where the game uses cutscenes take away the player power. The dread of inevitability is a brand new kind of fear I had not yet experienced in this game yet. I found myself muttering “NO, NO, NO” as the thing came running at Jill. Once the mansion comes in to view, we are back in control of Jill. A brand new enemy, Hunter, is here. He moves fast and bullets barely faze him. I just blindly shot at him in panic until he was down.
Even the whole of mansion has been explored, as players we feel the same trepidation, we felt the first time we came here. I am now dreading to find out which zombies I had not burned and how many hunters are lurking here and behind which doors. This deep into the game, Resident Evil still maintains the air of uncertainty. Jill makes her way to the tunnels only to find Barry is already here. You would think sticking together would make Jill safer, but you would be wrong.
All the misgivings I had about Barry are coming true. He tells Jill to go on ahead and scope out the place. As she is making her way forward, Jill hears the elevator leave. Barry has once more flaked out and abandoned her deep into the tunnels with unseen monsters. I am really starting to not like Barry. Jill is going to have to go through the tunnels and find a new way out. And there are spiders in there, only made more terrifying with upgraded graphics. After burning down one that is about four times the size of Jill, small spiders start popping out. I am glad I play this game with the lights on.
Lisa is back. And with the claustrophobia inducing narrow tunnels, it is harder to get out of her way. So many of these new enemies have popped up on me, by this time I am running low on ammo. I have more hidden in the storage, where it is of no help to me. All I can do is curse myself for not picking up another gun or a few more bullets. Whatever ammo Jill was carrying, has been used up while taking panic shots at the hunter. This is the perfect time for RE to sneak up a real nasty surprise on me. One that the developers had anticipated and set in place much earlier, at the beginning of the game.
Upon exiting the tunnels, Jill lands into the kitchen. She had been here earlier at the beginning of the game when I was trying to find my way through the mansion. There was a lonely zombie here, who I decided to put out of misery without thinking too much about it. This is before, Jill finds some lighter fluid to burn the zombies down. The horrifying memory of killing this zombie comes flooding right back as the angry Crimson Head takes a running start at Jill. With no ammo left, all I could do was call the elevator and run around to avoid Crimson Head. After what felt like an eternity, elevator shows up and Jill gets away.
Once Jill comes up to the shack again, there is a zombie walking about. I was relieved to have not shot him up earlier, because by this time I have no more energy to fight off another Crimson Head. Jill easily avoids ‘normal’ zombie’s lunge and heads back into mansion. It is time to enter the final area of the game. The Labs.
6/7/20
Chrono Trigger - Rescuing Leene
If you talk to the maid in one of the towers, she exclaims Chancellor is a man of faith. He is so devout, he goes to the cathedral every day. Let us go there and see if we catch him there. Even if you don’t talk to the maid, the cathedral is the only place left unexplored.
Inside the church, there are a few people praying. It does not take much for them to drop the act. Lucca and Crono make short work of the initial attack, but then get ambushed. Just when things seem dire, green flashes across and the enemy lays dying. There is a human sized amphibian with a sword here. This is Frog and he will be the new edition to our party. Lucca is a little creeped out by a giant frog (who is also named Frog) who looks like a distant cousin of Peppy (of Starfox fame). When she sees how competent of a fighter Frog is, Lucca gets over herself quickly. I remember Frog talking in old timey English, but that’s not the case here. He talks just like everyone else. I think it was to represent the time he came from. Now I want to see if Ayla will talk normally or not.
Inside, none of the fiends are wearing disguises. Some of them even question why our team members are still wearing their costumes. With some exploration we find the switch that opens the door to the inner hall. Here the imposter Chancellor is threatening Queen Leene. The persona of Chancellor is shed to reveal the true form of Yakra, the first boss we will face in our adventrures. This might be the lowest overall level of my team while fighting Yakra. Usually I grind before I come in here. But this battle is still pretty short and sweet. Once he is defeated, Crono frees the real Chancellor from the chest he was locked in. With both, the Queen and the Chancellor saved, we head back to the castle, hoping we have unscrewed the past.
Back at the castle, the King is happy Leene is back. There is a much needed sense of joy in the midst of an ongoing war. And Frog is here to throw cold water on it. He takes Queen’s kidnapping as a personal failure. As such he has decided to leave his job and become a hermit. Frog declares he brought danger to the Queen by being here and will leave to protect them. The King and Queen don’t try too hard to stop him either. Their silence is a little damning. Someone else pipes up about cracking down on the fiends in the name of security. This might be the beginning of fascism in Guardia. Chrono tries to convince Frog to not leave but he is adamant he has to go. We are going to let him be and work through his issues, because we have our own problems to take care of right now. Crono and Lucca run to the Queen’s bedroom to see Marle come back into existence.
Marle is alive again and right off the bat, she drops some existential horror on us. She talks of being in nothingness and this nonexistence sounds deeply horrifying. This game is too colorful and peppy to dwell to long on the questions of mortality and I am thankful for that. There are other instances in Chrono Trigger, where the narrative turns dark. It contrasts well with the visual themes of game.
Marle realizes her friends know that she is a royalty when Lucca calls her Princess Nadia. She immediately apologizes to Crono and Lucca for lying about her identity. She only did it because she felt that will be the only way she would be able to enjoy herself at the fair. With all of this out of the way, it is time to go back to our own time. Only if they knew what they are heading into.
Lucca opens the gate to the future and all three go back. Princess Nadia invites Crono to the castle to thank him properly. Nothing bad will happen over there right?
11-21-20