PixlBit

Lesson 4

Summer has seemed to have come back with a vengeance this week where I live. For some this could be seen as a blessing or a curse. I see it as yet another excuse to spend more time down in “my dungeon”. But it also helps to set my mind into another aspect of summer I that usually don’t find myself in every summer. This mindset doesn’t happen often nor is it a guaranteed event to happen for me. But it usually comes around near the potential “end” of summer. The actual “end” of summer can be marked by any aspect depending on who you are and how you view things at any given moment. For kids of school/college age summer’s over when they have to go back to school. For others is when Labor Day comes around where the “unofficial” end of summer is recognized. To some it can be the actual weather change of “summer” or the calendar notification that fall has begun.

But for me it’s the mindset and conditions of the summer end moment that most will not understand. Even now I’m finding a hard time trying to put it into words. Best I can explain is with examples that I’ve had in the past: It’s that kind of summer moment where it’s a calm, quiet hot day when there is a sense of things soon coming to an end. The moments where you hear the summer locusts making their chirping noises just before sundown as a light breeze blows thru the slowly changing colored leaves, making a wind chime sound which brings a sense of zen-ness to your world.  A summer moment when your near a cool body of water and know at that moment it would be perfectly find to just dive in. It’s a summer moment when you for some odd reason just wake up in the middle of the night, just feeling the moments of that very summer slowly slipping into the dawn of the day. And the sad part about these entire specific “summer moments” is that this feeling can come around when summer may not actually be coming to an end.

 

But as a gamer I’m able to sum up this moment a little better for me personally by just saying two words: Chrono Trigger.

When I last spoke of a retrosummer RPG it was during a time when the temperature is so hot that it’s just unholy to be outside at that moment. This RPG on the other had happens during the aforementioned “summer moments” I feel at any given time during a summer. It actually happened last year for me yet I didn’t bother to document that particular retrosummer game title. The reason being was because I had actually decided to buy this game for the reasons being thought to be just a random choice in making this purchase. It’s not till now at this moment do I realize that it was no accident that I bought Chrono Trigger when I did at that time.

The first time for me to play this game was during the summer/fall moments when school was back in session yet the lingering of summer were still felt to me. Though I usually associate the end of summer with the beginning of school, that particular year it didn’t feel right. During one weekend I was lucky enough to borrow a cousin’s SNES after a rough week of school so I decided to treat myself by renting Chrono Trigger from my local game rental to see how it was. I’d read all the reviews and talk about how this game was a masterpiece, so I figured why not give this game a try.

 

It’s was the best decision I had ever made.

I’m sure we all know what to expect when one speaks of Chrono Trigger. A time traveling RPG that broke the norms on what to expect out of an RPG. A cast of unique characters that not only broke the mold of their “Dragonball” templates, but also spanned every time era in Chrono Trigger’s world. From the caveman times to the doom future the game showed an array of different time settings that made many RPG veterans’ heads spin. The game’s plot so interconnected thru time that I’m sure if this game was released today, they would’ve released each time era specific quest as episodic content. And the music, oh the music! It was the first RPG that compelled me to buy the actual OST soundtrack along with the arranged “Brink of Time” CD along with it. And this was back in the day before the internet. I had to MAIL ORDER these and pay COD chargers.

 

I don’t know what exactly compelled me to consider this game to be played during a moment of summer as it was coming to an end. I can’t even recall exactly what stage, song, quest, time era, boss or plot point that occurred. All I know was that once I picked up that SNES controller on Friday night, I hardly put it back down by the end of the weekend. My mother was so upset with me, hardly eating or going to bed. But for some odd reason my mother let it slide. Perhaps she sensed how hard a week at school I had. Perhaps she felt the same way about “summer moments” when she saw me play this game, she did check on me every once in an awhile, and figured I needed to get this game “out of my system” so I could focus on school after that. Though I didn’t beat the game by the time my weekend rental was due, I had a fine time exploring the world of Chrono Trigger.

 

After it was all said and done this game felt like a perfect end to the summer. I never got around to beating the game, perhaps with the fear that once I did then the story would end. And this was a game that made me wish it never came to an end. I loved running thru Guardia Forest as “Secret of the Forest” played in the background. I reveled as I explored the world as “Memories of Green” or “Silent Night” played as ventured form for adventure. From “Brink of Time” to “Black Omen” all the songs I heard from that game not only fit Chrono Trigger’s theme but fit into my personal soundtrack to an “end of summer”. It was a game like this that fit into “the end of all things”. And it was an ending that I didn’t want to end if that can make any sense to anyone.

So when I ever get that “feeling for the end of summer”, Chrono Trigger is always the game I go back to when I want to finish off the summer right. It doesn’t happen often or right on my personal track. Sometimes summer feels like it wants to end as if someone is flipping a light switch. Other times I might be too busy to even notice the change. There are times when I am unable to take a step back and be taken in by the summer moment. But when I do have the “time” to do such, this game is my go-to game to end the summer.

 

Now I know I’m going to catch a lot of flak for this but even though the version I played of Chrono Trigger long ago was on my SNES, the version I play today is the PSN/PS1 version of this game. I know what you’re all going to say, that this version of this game is crap. It loads slow, the music samples are not quite right and despite having new anime cut scenes, as well as special modes to help replayability, this version of the game does not do Chrono Trigger justice. Oddly I personally have to disagree. Though it would be nice to play the original on my SNES I can’t bring myself to pay the steep fee to own a copy. And even though my wife owns a Nintendo DS and an iOS device, it doesn’t feel right to me in buying a copy of Chrono Trigger to play on her own personal systems of gaming choice. I know I could’ve bought the Virtual console version on the Wii but instead I decided on this much hated version. Why? I originally bought Chrono Trigger off PSN because I felt like it, but I eventually came to realize I would be able to play this game on my PS3 as well as my PSP thanks to the cross-sharing feature of the Playstation Network.  Though I do enjoy playing this game on GameRig One, ver. 2.0 as if it were on the SNES, there is a sense of flexibility to be able to take Chrono Trigger on the go with my PSP akin to a Nintendo DS.

 

Plus I can use my PSP’s component cable to play this game on GameRig Three, my retro game set up of choice.

Whether it’s playing on GameRig One, ver. 2.0, PSP or GameRig Three, playing this game feels just like it did so long ago. You’d think the long loading would hamper my nostalgia yet oddly it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s because of the hacked version I played on a long-dead PSP years earlier. Now THAT game had LONG load times. Compared to the PS1/PSN version that hacked game was virtually unplayable no matter how much I tried to fiddle with the custom firmware ROM settings. Perhaps I’m getting older and more patient when it comes to games that have long load times. Perhaps it helps space the time in between battles so I can soak in the theme and the feel of the moment. Either way Chrono Trigger is my go-to game for a “summer end” feeling. Even now I’m playing the games OST as I prepare to enjoy this game for another weekend. I just have to decide where to play it. It is getting cooler so perhaps on GameRig One, ver. 2.0 upstairs. Or maybe on GameRig Three right next to the other retro consoles nearby. Or perhaps I should just lay back in my recliner down in “My dungeon” and just play on my PSP till my wrists start to hurt. I can hear the locusts as the sun begins to set.

Perhaps I should go back to “the end of time”.

Ta-ta

“N”