Chrono-Trigger

Brono, Bucca, and Brog face-off against Yakra to save Queen Leene! Will they be able to defeat the boss? Will they X-Slash? Tune in to find out!

Brono’s search for Barle continues in AD 600. Will he meet Brog?

Were you thinking, “Boy, I wish Giant Bomb would do another Endurance Run so that my life could be complete yet again…”? Well worry no more! Ryan Davis and Patrick Klepek are ER-ing Chrono Trigger, one of my favorite games of all time. Oh man, I hope they name Crono “Charlie” or “Tunoku” or something like that, but that might just be a Vinny thing. Enjoy! ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“The first game I ever saw New Game + in and my favorite one too!”] [/caption] I was thinking about Pokemon this morning (like I usually do) and I was lamenting the fact that the campaigns, while fun, are hardly difficult. The hardest battles you ever face are gym leaders and the Elite Four. In later versions of the game they added in bonus bosses or battles that were more difficult and challenge rooms, but it’s all post-game stuff and it doesn’t have a real narrative tied to it (most of the time). ...

I got this idea from Kill Screen (who got this idea from Pitchfork) to talk about my gaming life in five year increments. Pitchfork does it with music and really it can be done with any media, but I’m doing games. AGE 5 (1991) One of my first video game memories is sitting in my parents’ living room in Hialeah watching them play a Bowser level in Super Mario Bros. I remember being scared of the creepy black castle level. This was the launch year for the SNES, but I’m sure we didn’t get it until 1992 or 1993. Instead we mostly amused ourselves with Contra, Mega Man 2, and Bubble Bobble. ...

It’s always a pleasure to listen to Laura Shigihara play piano. Listen as she improvises “Frog’s Theme” on piano.

Dragon Quest is inexorably tied to the Japanese video game space. The series was the first big hit RPG and its core qualities, simplicity, relative ease, and lightheartedness touched that first generation and continue to bring the same degree of fondness with each installment. It is unquestionably the premiere mega-franchise of Japan. Somehow it just never caught on in the states. In the states we play Final Fantasy. ...

The taste of Cuban food, the smell right before a thunderstorm on a summer afternoon, the sound of disco music, the oppressive feel of summer heat, and the sight of a pink building all remind me of my childhood home. Everyone knows that the senses trigger strong memories. It’s also common sense that the media we take in over our lives can have a profound effect on our memories of our past and development. From the simple books of my childhood to the games and music I played and listened to along my 23 years of development, there are certain pieces of media that are just inseparable from the circumstances surrounding their initial consumption. They range from the simple joys of childhood all the way to the angst of high school and the harsh realities of adult life, but I wouldn’t trade these associations for anything. ...

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen. I figured I’d start with BlazBlue today, since the game just came out and I sunk an evening in playing it. I don’t have all that much to say about it yet, but it’s intriguing in a very not Street Fighter way. The fighters are all insanely detailed and designed in an intricately anime fashion, leaving no moe niche unserved and the fighting system is deceptively simple, but actually WAY complicated, as most of these things are nowadays. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to sink into it, especially because Street Fighter IV has nabbed my attention yet again, but I will keep posting impressions as I play. ...

Just about every serious adult (and employed) gamer has one thing in common, regardless of his/her tastes: the pile of shame. It sounds a lot worse than it is, because it’s definitely not a stack of Barbie Horse Adventure games or anything, it’s a stack of games that have all received critical acclaim or come highly recommended, but that the gamer has no time to get around to playing, mainly because of other releases or just being too busy. ...