PrinceWatercress plays Chrono Trigger (Super NES) - Part 2 of 70

There's quite a bit to cover here, much of it covering the battle system. Hope you're paying attention.

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World Map (by Rick Bruns)

There's not much else to do for the time being, so let's head to Leene Square.

Leene Square Map (by Rick Bruns)

There are quite a few things that you can do in Leene Square.

There is a high striker all the way to the left side when you enter. Press A to start playing, then press A when you're all the way back to score one Silver Point. Silver Points are a currency only good in Leene Square in exchanges for a few things.

There are two stores near the fountain, but you won't be able to get much of anything from them due to not having a lot of money.

To the right of the fountain, there is Melchior's booth. You can afford the Iron Blade, but you'll need quite a bit of money to get the Lode Sword.

Further to the right is the foot race. When the next foot race is about to start with all four runners side-by-side, you can pick who will win between Steel Runner, Green Ambler, Catalack and G.I. Jogger. If you win, you get twenty Silver Points. You can hold B to run around the other racers to ensure that the racer you picked wins, but it doesn't always work. The man watching just near where the foot races start and end will tell you who he thinks will win, and it will be a different racer for every race.

Further to the right is Norstein Bekker's lab, where you can use some of the Silver Points you've earned to play games. The 10 point game allows you to play the shell game with the three soldiers Biggs, Wedge and Piette. The three soldiers walk around, and you're supposed to figure out which one is Biggs, Wedge or Piette, depending on which one you're told to identify. If you guess correctly, you'll get a Pozoyo Doll, which will play a tune in Crono's room when you go back to it and press A.

When you go up the stairs on the north end, you'll run into a girl. You'll need to move into her in order to advance the plot. When the bell rings, the girl will get up, and she will wonder where her pendant is. Talk to her first to check on her and see if she is okay, then go up and right and walk into the pendant and press A to pick it up. From there, talk to the girl again. When she asks for her pendant, return it to her. After that, you'll be introduced to your first new party member: Marle.

At the middle of the square, you can do a few things. Far to the left, you can fight Gato to get fifteen Silver Points upon winning, but you'll probably need to level up a few times in the Guardia Forest first.

There is an old man moving back and forth finding a place to enjoy his lunch. Do not press A while facing the pink bag. While it will refill your health, it will have negative consequences later in the game. Also near the old man is a cat, and if you press A to talk to it, it will follow you. (Do not press A again, or else it will run away and you'll have to leave the area and come back to get the cat to reappear.) From there, you can take it to the little girl on the right end of the middle area - who is looking for her cat - by talking to the little girl when her cat is nearby. Thankfully, the cat does not have much trouble following you. (For best results, do not talk to the little girl before returning the cat. This will come in handy later.)

In the middle of the square, you can exchange 10 Silver Points for 50G, which can be a little useful early in the game.

To the right of the little girl who is looking for her cat. For best results, do not talk to the little girl before returning the cat. This will come in handy later. Further to the right is a soda guzzling game. Press A as quickly as possible to drink all eight cans and get five Silver Points.

All the way to the right is a prehistoric band. A, B, X and Y will allow you to briefly pose characters as if to dance.

In the very middle of this middle section is the stairs leading up to the north end of the square. To open it up, go back to the lower section and talk to people. You'll eventually be told that Lucca's invention is ready at the north side of the square, which will advance the plot.

While here, if you talk to Melchior to look at his wares, Melchior will ask if you want to sell Marle's pendant. Pick "Sorry" to refuse (doing otherwise will work against you in the future).

We'll check out Lucca's invention in the next video. From here, I do some things that are more or less optional for this point in the game.

If you talk to Crono's mom with Marle in your party once, you'll introduce Marle to Crono's mom. You can do this with all of the other playable characters.

I also go to the Mayor's Manor in Truce. Here, you can get a basic tutorial on the battle system. Here, you'll learn that are multiple types of weapons in the game and that only one person in the game can equip each time. You'll also learn how to use the sparkles that work as the save points: press A on them and you can save your game. You can also press X to save your game anywhere on the world map. Aside from armor and accessories, you'll learn that swords get better by increasing Power while bows and guns get better by increasing Hit. Also, you'll learn about the "Shelter" item, which can be used to refill the HP and MP of the entire party at save points or on the world map.

You can open chests by walking up to them and pressing A.

You can walk while reading messages, but the message box will disappear if you go too far. Also, pressing Y moves the message or battle window up or down.

If you go up the stairs, you'll learn more things. The most important thing you'll learn about are techniques, which work like spells and cost MP (magic points) to use. Some techniques have an area of effect that will hit any enemies near the one you choose, while there are others that can hit enemies in a straight line on the way towards hitting the one you've targered. There are others still that can only be done when you are surrounded by enemies and hit all nearby enemies who are swarming you.

You'll also learn about status ailments.

• Poison slowly decreases HP and weakens attacks. (indicated by blue bubbles above the character)
• Slow increases the time between attacks. (indicated by the character's silhouette slowly flashing white)
• Sleep lows your guard, and can be healed by an enemy's physical attack. (the character will be lying down with two Z's near them)
• Chaos confuses you into attacking allies. (indicated by a rotating yellow star above the character)
• Blind makes it harder to hit with physical attacks. (indicated with an eye followed by a blue X, with the status ailment image flashing between the two)
• Lock keeps you from using techniques. (indicated by the blue question mark above the character)
• Stop immobilizes and disables you. (indicated by the stopwatch above the character)

Status ailments go away after battle, and they can also be healed with a Heal item or a technique that can heal status ailments during battle.

If a character's HP goes down to zero, you'll need to use a Revive on them to bring them back to life. (You will have to heal them if you do that, though.) If all party members are down at the same time, the game is over.

From the Mayor's Manor, we head to the Guardia Forest to fight some enemies. Unlike in other RPGs, in which enemy encounters are random, you can run into the monsters you see to fight them, and you can also choose to avoid them if need be.

Guardia Forest (by Rick Bruns)

The Hetakes just jump at us every so often. Bugs will attack whoever from wherever. The Avian Chaos can cast Chaos on either party member. When you win battles, you'll get experience points to level up and get stronger, tech points for learning techniques, gold and, if any monsters are carrying anything, items.

The D-Pad and the A button can be used to select things, while B cancels. Att. lets you attack, Tech lets you use techniques, and Item lets you use items. You can see the names of the enemies to the left, as well as the status of your character's HP, MP and battle gauges to the right. When a character's battle gauge is filled up, you can perform an action with them.

Here, I cover techniques a little bit further. By learning certain techniques, you can learn Double Techs and Triple Techs. If Crono learns Cyclone - a spinning slash attack that attacks any enemies near the one selected - and Marle learns Aura - a technique that can heal a single character for a few HP - both characters can cast Aura Whirl, which heals the entire party for even more HP. When both Crono and Marle have their battle gauges filled, Tech will turn to Comb on their menus, and you can use the technique. It requires MP from both characters casting it, so watch your MP! Triple Techs, when you have three members in your party, can be obtained and used the same way and work more or less the same way, but they are even more powerful than the Double Techs.

I also talk about the first three screens on the menu, which you can access by pressing X. The first one is the status menu, where you can see your party members' (and reserve members') stats, HP, MP, armor, weapons and so on, as well as how much gold you have. You can equip weapons, armor and accessories here.

The second one is the inventory, where you can see what you have in your inventory, what it does, who can use what, and so on. You can even use the Organize option to organize items by type.

The third one is the techniques menu, where you can see the techniques you've learned and what they do, as well as how many tech points it takes to learn the next technique. Unlike in other RPGs, where you learn certain spells at certain levels, you have to get points to learn techniques, which you can learn at any time. Only characters in the active party can get and accrue tech points.