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Chrono Trigger: Prophet's Guile
Chrono Trigger: Prophet's Guile, by Kajar Laboratories. A rather impressive romhack that shows what happened to Magus between the battle against him in his castle and the disaster in the Ocean Palace, when he was playing prophet for Queen Zeal. The game is really short--the game clock was at just under an hour when I finished it. Still, I'll give serious credit to the hackers for the sheer amount of text they re-wrote and details they were careful about, and for managing to put this together in the first place, really. The sequences you play are interspersed with scenes of Crono and company, and what they're doing at the same "time" as these events.
The Chrono Trigger engine wasn't really intended for solo battle, and though he starts at level 37, Magus only has three spells and they're all expensive hit-all attacks. It's pretty easy to die in the first dungeon, because the enemies and chests only give you Ethers, and you don't start with any HP-restoring Tonics either. As the dungeon is short, it's easiest just to avoid most encounters and run for the boss. Actually, that's a decent tactic overall, since most battles cost you more in resources than the items you'd win would restore, there don't seem to be any inns available, and you could only gain two levels at most, which isn't enough to change the outcome of any encounter.
The second dungeon is Mt. Woe, where you're tasked with locking up Melchior. (So Crono and company can rescue him later.) Enemies will "bump" him and cause him to flash, though it's not clear if they can actually damage him and cause you to fail. The enemies here are no less nasty than in the first dungeon, and include one who uses Lock All, removing your spells and items for that battle. Again, it's best to run or just avoid battles. (I don't know if I ever used the run feature in Chrono Trigger; I used it a lot here.) This dungeon is also quite short. The game unlocks a fourth Tech for you afterwards, not that it's particularly useful.
There's a brief bit of "Where do I go next?", then a puzzle battle against some Nu. Then you're sent down to the Ocean Palace, at which point SNES9X freezes. (Apparently this is a common problem. I needed to hard-patch the rom with Lunar IPS, switch my save to Z-SNES to get past that cutscene, and then switch back.)
You then get another small dungeon with seriously nasty fights you're better off avoiding. (In a battle with four enemies, one monster will reduce your MP to 0 if you use magic on it--remember, all of your spells are hit-all!) Then there's a sudden but inevitable betrayal, and you have a boss fight that basically comes down to which runs out first: Your item inventory, or his HP. At which point the plot has caught up to where the party arrives in Chrono Trigger, and the game ends.
This was a neat idea, and a fun use of an hour. Kinda pointless if you haven't played Chrono Trigger, of course. Rumor has it that a complete version of the Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes patch leaked; perhaps I'll hunt that down at some point.
The Chrono Trigger engine wasn't really intended for solo battle, and though he starts at level 37, Magus only has three spells and they're all expensive hit-all attacks. It's pretty easy to die in the first dungeon, because the enemies and chests only give you Ethers, and you don't start with any HP-restoring Tonics either. As the dungeon is short, it's easiest just to avoid most encounters and run for the boss. Actually, that's a decent tactic overall, since most battles cost you more in resources than the items you'd win would restore, there don't seem to be any inns available, and you could only gain two levels at most, which isn't enough to change the outcome of any encounter.
The second dungeon is Mt. Woe, where you're tasked with locking up Melchior. (So Crono and company can rescue him later.) Enemies will "bump" him and cause him to flash, though it's not clear if they can actually damage him and cause you to fail. The enemies here are no less nasty than in the first dungeon, and include one who uses Lock All, removing your spells and items for that battle. Again, it's best to run or just avoid battles. (I don't know if I ever used the run feature in Chrono Trigger; I used it a lot here.) This dungeon is also quite short. The game unlocks a fourth Tech for you afterwards, not that it's particularly useful.
There's a brief bit of "Where do I go next?", then a puzzle battle against some Nu. Then you're sent down to the Ocean Palace, at which point SNES9X freezes. (Apparently this is a common problem. I needed to hard-patch the rom with Lunar IPS, switch my save to Z-SNES to get past that cutscene, and then switch back.)
You then get another small dungeon with seriously nasty fights you're better off avoiding. (In a battle with four enemies, one monster will reduce your MP to 0 if you use magic on it--remember, all of your spells are hit-all!) Then there's a sudden but inevitable betrayal, and you have a boss fight that basically comes down to which runs out first: Your item inventory, or his HP. At which point the plot has caught up to where the party arrives in Chrono Trigger, and the game ends.
This was a neat idea, and a fun use of an hour. Kinda pointless if you haven't played Chrono Trigger, of course. Rumor has it that a complete version of the Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes patch leaked; perhaps I'll hunt that down at some point.
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