Chrono Trigger – Part 4: Attack of the Nuns!

Summary: Invaded Yakra’s cathedral. Freed Queen Leene from the clutches of the evil yak monster and his army of snake nuns. I feel blessed to write that sentence.

Forest and Around

-I regret not exploring the town before the fair in 1000 AD more fully. Would’ve liked to see the castle, the cathedral, and more, but I was afraid that if I ventured out of town before first going to the fair I would face tougher random encounters and die.

As I think about it now, maybe I don’t regret it. It was a reasonable choice imo to not venture outside the town itself. Yeah, I’m okay with that decision.

-Starting to see all these ways that Chrono Trigger was ahead of its time. Small things. (And all I have to compare this to is the FF series, so perhaps it was industry standard even except for FF, or they copied it from other games, etc. Just my experience, not historical fact. ) It’s pretty neat that they show all the characters in a party on the main world map walking around rather than stacking them up.

-Lucca’s victory pose is amazing.

-She got her first tech. Flame Toss, something she throws out in a line.

-The Dual Tech between her and Crono is pretty great. She throws some fire onto Crono’s blade and he whirls around with it like a boss from Dark Souls.

-Got back to town and bought some potions/revives/equipment upgrades. Selling off my old stuff. Maybe it’ll be useful down the line, but I doubt it. Would rather liquidate it.

-Checked out the Zenan Bridge. Yup, it’s pretty destroyed.

-This of course may change, but it seems like there are no random encounters on the overworld map. Love it.

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Cathedral

-This is the only place on the map left to go. Let’s try it.

-Lucca found the royal crest, a hairpin, on the cathedral floor. The nuns surround me and turn into EVIL FIRE SNAKE NUNS.

Naga-ettes.

-It’s not really a boss fight, just a bit of a tougher regular fight than the imps. Fire Whirl and some follow-up attacks takes care of them.

-One more nun comes out of nowhere to attack Lucca, but fear not! A frog knight saves her. p.s. wtf is this game XD XD XD

-Not just any frog knight. A noble, “thou dost”-speaking frog knight. This must be either Cyrus or Cyrus’s friend.

-hee! Lucca has a fear of frogs, and so I can’t blame her hesitation. But she’s trying at least.

Never has a frog ever looked so done.

-oh god im dying, that portrait.

He introduces himself as such a serious character and his portrait (since he’s now a party member) is so delighted.

-Elemental note: Lucca is “Fire” and Frog is “Water.” Can’t wait to see which party member is Heart.

-Played the organ, opened a secret door, and headed deeper into the cathedral.

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Cathedral Dungeon

-It’s SO COOL that I can see the monsters before I fight them. Got used to walking around when all of a sudden “ZHHHHWOMP!” and I’m in combat. This also gives me more freedom to explore, since exploration doesn’t feel punishing.

Say what you will about Dirge of Cerberus, but having a lack of random encounters was a pretty big step forward imo for this same reason. I could explore and backtrack without feeling punished for it.

-Combat itself is dynamic and fun. Gotta evaluate the positioning at the start of each fight. I probably should be saving up my MP for a boss fight, and I am usually, I’m still using the techs when they line up just right because they’re so damn satisfying.

The biggest lesson I learned from FFVII and FFVIII which I’m trying to apply here is to embrace the most fun aspects of the individual characters rather than relying on the vanilla attacks for conservation. The techs are a blast to use, even when I technically (heh, sorry) could just use regular attacks and tonic up.

-New 1-tech for Crono: Slash.

-Frog’s tech seems to be for out-of-combat use only: “Slurp” (lol), a heal. [Later edit: I was wrong; it can be used in combat too.]

-Came across a monster break room. A Diablos, a Naga, and a monster I haven’t yet met (a turtle thing maybe?) chilling out and relaxing from the stresses of pretending to be human.

-AHA! Yakra, that forest monster, is actually pretending to be the Chancellor.

-It’s kind of great that the monsters here are just regular workers with shifts and everything.

-Sounds like there are captive soldiers here to rescue.

-Picked up a “Naga-ette Bromide” which triggered some Henches (the turtle-looking folk) coming it to stop us. We killed them but I don’t see the Bromide in my inventory. Hm.

-Found the captured guards, but can’t seem to rescue them at the moment. They just kind of chill out in their prison room.

-They mention a room dedicated to Magus in this dungeon with some treasure. Gonna keep an eye out for that.

-Pushed through to the final room. The “Chancellor” is here along with the actual Queen Leene.

-Some great boss music, and the false Chancellor takes his true form: YAKRA! Which… yeah, it’s like an evil yak. XD

-Yakra hits pretty hard, but a bunch of X-Strikes (the 2-teceh between Frog and Crono) slam him down. Victory!

-Hah! Opened up a treasure chest in the room and the actual Chancellor was stuffed inside. Poor guy.

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Castle Guardia

-Reunion at the castle, but not all is well. Frog feels ashamed for not having initially protected the Queen well enough and leaves. I both hope and expect we’ll see him again.

[Non-rhetorical question for y’all: how does a monster’s distance from a party member impact damage? It seems like if the monster is right next to a ranged character, the character just kind of swats at the monster with their gun for low damage. Is that it? Or does a melee character far away from an enemy do less?]

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Next time: seeking out Marle/Nadia.