Chrono Trigger

How do I begin to tell you about Chrono Trigger? It's like talking about Citizen Kane. It is widely regarded as one of the best video games of all time, and last month it was re-released on the Nintendo DS. First, before I talk about Chrono Trigger I want to talk a bit about the Nintendo DS. My wonderful wife bought me this portable wonder for my last birthday, and I have had so much enjoyment out of it. This is where the action is in the Nintendo world. Unfortunately, the Wii is being neglected by both Nintendo and the 3rd party community as it is being used as a casual “party-game” system. While I don't consider myself a “hardcore gamer”, I do enjoy more involved games than what is currently being released on the Wii. The DS, on the other hand, is home to a whole lotta awesomeness right now. Currently on in my “to play” queue I have Final Fantasy IV (I'm about 50% done), Final Fantasy Tactics A2, The World Ends with You (99% done, just the last boss left), Hotel Dusk, and lastly Chrono Trigger. That is pure gaming gold. The funny thing is, there's still more where that came from. I could pick up Dragon Quest IV, and a host of other really great titles if I wanted to. Long live the DS because it is a great handheld system.

Now back to Chrono Trigger. As a testament to its goodness, it is one of the few console games that I have actually beaten. I am famous for getting a game, playing it until I get bored, then putting it on the shelf. I just find that a lot of the time games get repetitive and I don't have the 30-40 hours (at least!) to put into it. I'm a very busy person with school and I certainly can't take 6 hours some Saturday afternoon to sink into a game. I have to chip at it here and there until its done. Anyway, Chrono Trigger is on a very short list of games that held my attention until the very end. I have played it twice before, the first time was in the summer/fall of 2001, then again 2 summers ago. I ended up not beating it the second time, but I did sink probably 15 hours into it. A couple of weeks ago I went and picked up the latest release on the DS. At first, I was very disappointed that it didn't get the remake treatment that Final Fantasy IV received as it is pretty much a straight Super Nintendo port with a couple of DS tweaks. I had been enjoying the FFIV remake a lot, so I was taken aback that this classic wasn't given a similar treatment. In retrospect, I think they made exactly the right choice. After putting about 5 hours into it, I went back and played a little more FFIV and decided I like the older Super Nintendo art style better. You see, in FFIV, they used 3-D polygon rendering for the characters. As awesome as the DS is, it is not a particularly powerful system and thus the polygons are pretty blocky and low resolution. Chrono Trigger is drawn using sprites which are essentially animated 2-D pictures and they are just so colorful and well drawn. I've concluded that I prefer this style to the low poly-count rendering done on FFIV.

Another great feature of the game is the music. I'm quite sure it's considered one of the strongest soundtracks ever put into a game, and perhaps only Final Fantasy VI is its rival. The tunes reflect the tone of the story perfectly. At the beginning of the game at the Millennial Fair, there is an up tempo whimsical song that conveys the happiness of the environment. Later, in the "future" segments, the music is somber as it reflects the predominant emotion of that time period. Spekkio's tune is perhaps my favorite as it cleverly sums up the little creature. It's hard to know what I'm talking about unless you've played it, but take my word for it: this is a strong musical score.

What about the DS improvements? I would like to consider myself somewhat old-school, so I told myself I was going to play this “classic style” as you were given the option use either when playing the game. After about 30 minutes, I decided to turn on the DS style controls and I haven't looked back. It is essentially the same as the classic style controls except that the menus and status bars have been moved down to the lower screen and the upper screen it completely uncluttered allowing the animations not to be blocked. What a great idea. I'm still controlling it using the D-pad and buttons but the new screen layout is great. Another improvement is a slightly tweaked translation. I never found it to be bad before and I have to say that it seems fine now. The most noticeable word change is that the “tabs” that you pick up are now called “capsules”. I just realized that the “tabs” were likely short for “tablets” and that capsules now makes them sound more like pills. It makes so much more sense.

In conclusion, I can't wait to put more time into this game. I'll probably play it quite a bit on the trip over to China, maybe get to Magus's castle. Anyone who has played this game knows what I mean. This DS re-release is great for anyone, even if you have played this game. It's great being able to have this gem at my fingertips whenever I want to play it.

Cookin' Bacon

This morning I cooked some bacon for my baked beans and I was instantly transported back about 15 years. You see, I rarely ever buy bacon, I think this may be the first time in probably 2 years, maybe more. We also never ate bacon much at home (which is a good thing, and it made bacon an extra special treat when we did have it). Anyway, I was frying up the bacon and the smell made me remember when I used to visit my Grandfather on my Dad's side. My Gramie would cook bacon in the morning and I was thinking of all the wonderful memories from up there. It was a really cool moment, and got me thinking about about something I haven't thought of in a long time.

I feel I must comment

I have read many criticisms of the new Star Trek trailer. While I don't think it's perfect, I really have no serious problems with it. The Star Trek franchise needs a total reboot, as there hasn't been a good Trek movie since First Contact, and that was 12 years ago. They've been complete and utter dreck since then. I'm not saying that I will automatically like the movie when it comes out, but I simply feel that they can't continue making terrible Star Trek movies again and again. Let's see how this goes, then we'll decide whether or not to continue with the franchise.

Fast and Furious

Today is going to be fast and furious, with no Diesel power (ho ho!). First, we start off with a 3 hour lecture that will be the densest 3 hours of information this week. Then, we move into my Journal Club presentation at 1 then finally ending the day with another recruitment night.

Seriously though, it's not going to be too bad but still, I really haven't felt like I've been able to get my feet under me with this new class. To compound the issue, I have a conference that's going to take most of the weekend. At least on Monday we don't have tutorial meaning that I'll be able to take the beginning of next week (Monday & Tuesday) to get my notes in order so I can begin to start studying for this course. Another plus is that I will have another weekend between me and the midterm. All in all, it's going to be a busy couple of weeks, but I suppose it's never any worse than it ever is.

And on the back of my mind is getting my mark back from the last course. That'll happen either today or tomorrow. Hopefully today.

This Week's Crunch-Fest

I'm not exactly sure how this Friday's LI is going to be finished. This afternoon and tonight I'm going to be working on the big Journal Club presentation for tomorrow. Tomorrow morning is HLB's therapeutics class, tomorrow afternoon is the actual JC presentation, then tomorrow evening is another recruitment night. Finally, Friday morning is a practice exam for our big test next May! I simply don't see 6 hours in there to do a learning issue.

I'm looking forward to when LI's are a thing of the past. Surely there can be no more than 6 to go.

Welcome!!

This blog is designed to complement Twitter. I will definitely be keeping Twitter going as I seem to be able to come up with 140 characters (Twitter's maximum size per post) on a decently regular basis. Also, I'm sure that this blog will not be updated nearly as regularly as Twitter as I'm extremely busy with school and don't have the time to put into longer posts. Think of this as a way that I can put longer thoughts than can fit into Twitter posts. As long as you're checking Twitter, you won't miss a blog post as I will announce when each new post is made.