Chrono Trigger - 100% TAS in 5:17

Recorded on Snes9x 1.43-improvement12 (but should work fine on future versions of the Snes9x 1.43 series as well)

Sync Settings

  • WIP 1 Timing: ON
  • Left+Right/Up+Down: OFF
  • Volume Envelope Height Reading: OFF
  • Fake Mute desync workaround: ON
  • Sync samples with sound CPU: ON

Attributes of this run

  • aims for fastest time with 100% completion (definition below)
  • takes damage to save time
  • manipulates luck
  • avoids glitches for classic, natural sake
  • Genre: RPG
  • Total Frames: 1243936

About the Game

Chrono Trigger is a great role-playing game made by Square. It is known as one of the best RPG games of all time. The story is about time-traveling in which a group of young adventurers is trying to save the future by defeating a mighty creature called "Lavos" which has infected and destroyed the world.

Moviemaking & Comments

Finally it's done, a run I wanted to TAS for a long time already, 100% for Chrono Trigger in legit/glitchless conditions. This 100% completion requires:
  • getting at least 1 of every Item/Weapon/Armor/Helmet/Accessory (186 unique items)
  • collecting all Power/Magic/Speed Tabs (except of LV99 Pink Nu reward)
  • opening all the Sealed Chests (Black Boxes) / Sealed Doors in every time period
  • finishing all sidequests
  • defeating every boss
  • defeating every form of Spekkio (except LV99 Pink Nu - separate demonstration of that form available here)
  • learning all Single/Double/Triple Techs for each character
Game clock completion is 5 hours and 17 minutes at the moment the Lavos Core is defeated, which is pretty exactly a 4 hour improvement over my 100% ZSNES run [dead link removed].

Thanks

  • hero of the day - for the Masa&Mune strategy
  • inichi - for the critical hit tables
Enjoy!

Nach: Sorry for the delay, I spent a long time analyzing this, and mulling over what everyone had to say.
Watching the run carefully, a few important points occurred to me:
  • A non-typical full Chrono innocent verdict was achieved.
  • Many chests are skipped which will make people question how can this be 100% if they were missed?
  • A lot of planning went into route and selections to optimize this. The route and selections were very well selected. In a few places, it looks like some time can be shaved, but overall, this is superb.
  • I know the game extremely well, yet I was surprised by a false wall demoed in the run which I wasn't aware of. Other people in the thread who also know the game fairly well were surprised by a few points (which I myself found surprising that some people weren't aware of them), so this game probably has something fresh to offer to pretty much everyone out there.
  • A typical RPG player goes hunting around all the areas for items, and doesn't just rush to bosses like TASs do, so this run feels more natural, except for the fact it's done in a third or quarter of the time most would expect.
  • Many of the interesting side things the game has to offer were skipped.
To address some of the negative aspects:
  • Snes9x v1.4x was used, which doesn't emulate this game as well as it can be. However, this run was submitted right on the border, and clearly was in development for a long time prior, so I will let this slide.
  • There were a few boring grinding parts, but thankfully they can be fast forwarded without missing anything, and didn't detract too much from the run, as the voting showed.
  • This run is not 100%. In my opinion, a true 100% would leave no chest unopened, and would demonstrate every variation of every single ending, which would need at least two full runs through the game. However what this run did do, and do well, was acquire the maximum amount of unique equipment it could in a single pass, and dealt with all significant chests and side-quests.
  • The run indeed was not perfect, but very few people know the game remotely as well as Saturn has demonstrated, to even notice or know of the flaws, with most of the commented flaws in fact being misunderstandings about the game.
  • The demonstration right before Lavos indeed wasted time, but I felt was a very nice polish which made the run even better, and allows random viewers to appreciate what was collected.
All in all, after careful deliberation, I find this run publish worthy if an appropriate label is given. Accepting as a new branch for Hoshino Trigger, whatever it will be called (not 100%).

DeHackEd: Need to redo the videos since the branch name has changed. In progress.

Saturn: Way to go to turn an appropriate standard label into one based on a subjective opinion of one person. Allow me to ask this:
  • How does "All techniques, Max equipment" mention things this run does that otherwise wouldn't be necessary, such as fully completing all sidequests, fighting all bosses/Spekkio forms (with one exception mentioned above), and collecting all Tabs and sealed chests/doors? You could probably save around an hour from skipping all that by aiming for solely "All techs and max equipment", for a gigantic obsoletion of this run.
Let's face it, it will be impossible to get an unanimous agreement on what a 100% run for a game like this one is, since opinions will always be different. One could argue that you have to talk to every single talkable character, max out the money to 9999999+ G, use every weapon and tech at least one time on every possible enemy, spend hours on meaningless, boring, and repetitional quests to get max cat food, cats and all clones, walk over every pixel in every possible room in the game, and other nonsense like that.
This run gets/shows the most essential things that contribute to a 100% completion in an entertainment oriented way, and there is hardly any better single-term that can sum up the actions done in it to make the watcher clear what to expect overall.
Otherwise please go ahead and rename the Secret of Evermore 100% run to something else as well, since it also doesn't open every chest.
EDIT: So it looks like Nach isn't interested to provide reasonable arguments against the point mentioned above or the several comments in the discussion thread that pointed the obvious flaws of this incomplete and misleading label change after all. Clearly defined common sense goals like this 100% one, that were easily accepted here in the past, are apparently too difficult to recognize for some of the judges nowadays, and the other TASvideos staff members seem to be not interested to have properly named content on their site either. Alright then, so be it.


Editor, Active player (297)
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OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Do you attempt to feed King Guardia the jerky?
That wouldn't do any good. Although perhaps a tidbit, it's hardly a tangible achievement...
Demon_Lord
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Oh my! I was just rewatching the glitched TASes and wondering if a newer full run would see the day. You just gave me one of the best Christmas present I could wish for. Can't wait to unwrap (watch) it! Can I ask Santa for an every-endings run next year? :-)
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Pasky13 wrote:
Voting yes, it's a shame you used snes9x 1.43 though.
I'm going to go on the assumption that for a 5+ hour TAS, Saturn started the run before the 1.43 obsolete topic was even discussed.
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Bisqwit wrote:
What was done about the prism stuff that you can only choose one of?
The 3 Helms. Their magic defense boost along with status and physical protection outweights the Dress at low levels.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Do you attempt to feed King Guardia the jerky?
Same as what was already discussed. Too time consuming and useless. The outcome after the guardia sidequest is the same anyway.
ComicalFlop wrote:
I'm going to go on the assumption that for a 5+ hour TAS, Saturn started the run before the 1.43 obsolete topic was even discussed.
Summer 2011 to be precise.
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
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Well having finished Chrono trigger the normal way with the good ending I can't give it anything less than a yes. One thing that kinda puzzle me is why do we see a couple misses? Does it affect the RNG damage output?
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Bahamut wrote:
One thing that kinda puzzle me is why do we see a couple misses? Does it affect the RNG damage output?
The misses depend on the battle RNG, and happen only on enemies that have unusual high evade rates, on which they can only rarely be completely avoided. The strategies used for them were the fastest I could get after various tests. The damage numbers also depend on the battle RNG, and are fixed. This is why I could pre-equip the needed armor on Robo long before the critical battle where he takes damage, to adapt his defense in order to get the last HP-digit being a 9, which is required to get most damage out of the Crisis Arm.
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
Player (100)
Joined: 3/20/2008
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I forgot to add, it would be cool if you made your submission comments more detailed. Explain things like: -What was your goal from grinding in Tyrano's lair (seemed to be to get Marle to learn haste) -How did you plan out getting each character to learn all their techniques? In particular, how you figured out how to shuffle your party in the Dark Omen so everyone learns their double/triple techs as well. -How you planned out money usage -Explain some of the equipment decisions you make since it's done way too fast in real-time to keep up -How you distributed tabs (!!!)
marzojr
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Five hours later, this is an easy yes vote for me. The boring parts (level grinding) were over quickly, and the movie was more than enough fun to warrant publication.
Marzo Junior
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I second Vykan's wish.
Player (89)
Joined: 11/14/2005
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Very nice run, Saturn. I really liked some of the new boss strategies which are only possible in a higher level run. yes vote. Any plans to do a non-glitch any% run?
They're off to find the hero of the day...
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Vykan12 wrote:
1. What was your goal from grinding in Tyrano's lair (seemed to be to get Marle to learn haste) 2. How did you plan out getting each character to learn all their techniques? In particular, how you figured out how to shuffle your party in the Dark Omen so everyone learns their double/triple techs as well. 3. How you planned out money usage 4. Explain some of the equipment decisions you make since it's done way too fast in real-time to keep up 5. How you distributed tabs (!!!)
1. Main goal was learning Charm for Black Tyrano, as otherwise 2 Tabs get missed. Shortly after that you also need it for 2 nowhere else to get Helms from the beasts before Mt.Woe. Having Haste was just an additional handy bonus to that, which due to the considerably faster Tyrano fight and stronger characters for the next quests probably didn't cause much of a delay in the long run compared to skipping the leveling up part completely. 2+3. Many tests and various calculations. The good thing about techs is that you only have to concentrate on the triples, the doubles get all learned along the way as long as the required singles are already available. So that's 10 battles that have to be planned in with the most efficient character combination for each one. 4. Slowdown function might be handy in such cases. Generally the equipment was changed if it helped to speed up / survive a battle for a given character combination without additional healing delays. 5. That can be seen pretty well in the run. The idea is to max out the status of the most used character to benefit from the tab gains as long as possible.
hero of the day wrote:
Any plans to do a non-glitch any% run?
Nope.
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
Player (246)
Joined: 8/6/2006
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If there are some speed / entertainment tradeoffs, should it really be called 100%? Isn't there a better branch name?
Joined: 5/9/2005
Posts: 752
It is not 2014 so I have not finished yet (one hour to go) but; As some one who has not played Crono Trigger, this was really entertaining. I can follow what is going on in term of plot, gameplay, and extras. Really like this. Please move on to rpgs with hardcore 100% definitions that I have played!
Joined: 1/5/2013
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that was epic. I can't believe I missed so many tabs. . .
Joined: 1/5/2013
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I noticed how you skipped the jerky event because you don't really get anything from it, but you watched the Toma Pop event even though that doesn't get you anything either(you don't need to do that to do Giant's Claw). Seems kind of inconsistent.
Spacecow
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Quality run, so I vote yes. I third Vykan's request; there is so much that happens, I'd love to see your strategies/tricks/routes/other thoughts as the run goes on. IMO long runs like this are vastly improved by an inclusion of notes/subtitles/commentary that capture the reasons for doing something, and how that helps achieve a larger goal -- otherwise many subtleties can be lost as you continue to watch and try to understand on your own how everything is structured and what's going to happen next. Or maybe I'm just a little slow!
Joined: 11/24/2012
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Well, finally managed to watch it (couldn't before because of reasons, bleh) and, as someone who played Chrono Trigger multiple times, I have to say, I was quite entertained. Due to the lack of glitches (which I really appreciate, it's nice to see glitchless runs once in a while), it was just like I was watching a really good speedrun of the game instead of a TAS. Yes vote because I didn't get bored at all, and it does look really well done and optimized.
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I'm not sure what to make of it. On the one hand, it's nice to see an unglitched run for a change; on the other, the goal choice here is pretty arbitrary. I'm not sure how you can call this 100%, really; you've just picked some things to do and some other things not to do based on no clear criterion.
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It's not a bad run but I wasn't that entertained by it. It's worth a moon.
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I watched this TAS with 3 of my good friends (all of whom also occasionally watch TASes) to make sure we didn't miss anything important or funny. Here are our highlights, in order of comments made in the SyncTube channel we watched it in: * Smooth opening of treasure chests without losing time. * Defeated the Guardian right before he resurrected the bits. * Robo punches Masamune in the crotch. * Party does a dance while waiting for the second Nu in the hunting grounds. * Navigates menus like a boss. * So motivated by Azala that they all go berserk and kick Nizbel's ass into next Tuesday. * Bugs Melchior to no end while the Masamune is crafted. * Crono dreams about being Marle's lover when Ayla would obviously be a better choice. * Ayla hands out false promises regarding her sexy figure to convince enemies to give her free stuff (mostly Tabs). * Magus owns everything in Geno Dome with repeated usage of Lightning 2. He subsequently largely just stands there striking his badass poses to remind the party of this achievement to demand his share of the experience for otherwise doing mostly nothing. * Robo repeatedly Falcon Punches every Lavos creature he meets. I'd also like to note that I appreciate your taking a bit right before the final battle to go into your menu specifically to prove you collected your entire quota. For a TAS of this length, it is, in my opinion, aesthetically pleasing, and worth it. I absolutely say Yes to publishing this run, and I say it should be published to at least the Moon tier. An extremely well-done run in our opinion, and well worth the nearly 6 hours of our time it took to watch it.
1/60 of a second is important; every frame matters.
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I just finished watching this, and I was about to post exactly the same as Ace of Hearts posted above:
Ace Of Hearts wrote:
I'd also like to note that I appreciate your taking a bit right before the final battle to go into your menu specifically to prove you collected your entire quota. For a TAS of this length, it is, in my opinion, aesthetically pleasing, and worth it.
Repeatedly stuffing the characters (especially Robo) full of pills was funny and disturbing. I had no idea there's such an abundance of those tabs in the game, when you steal them from bosses! I was somewhat disappointed to find out that you discarded equipment when exiting Blackbird. I was worried that your "100% completion will not have all equipment in the end after all. I guess that was a needless worry. Also surprised to find out that the question of Prism equipment becomes moot from 100% completion perspective when you can steal the other type of item from Zeal. Why did you not complete Black Omen three times, though? Is it not possible to get tabs from each one of them? Doesn't not doing that actually undermine the "collecting all Power/Magic/Speed Tabs" goal? I'm pleased to say this TAS is everything one could hope from a 100% completion of the game. It is entertaining to watch, despite its length. I did fastforward some scenes, but I did watch it to the end, which is something I can't say even for many short TASes.
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Bisqwit wrote:
Why did you not complete Black Omen three times, though? Is it not possible to get tabs from each one of them? Doesn't not doing that actually undermine the "collecting all Power/Magic/Speed Tabs" goal?
If I recall correctly, the wall panel enemies that give Speed Tabs can only be done once; even if you start in 1000 AD and work your way backwards they won't be there on the repeat visits. The other Tab-giving enemies are unlimited so you could just duck in and out of rooms on the one visit if you wanted to max out on Tabs, but you wouldn't really be "done" until all your party members had ** stats and there were 99 in inventory...
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Hopeful Death wrote:
I noticed how you skipped the jerky event because you don't really get anything from it, but you watched the Toma Pop event even though that doesn't get you anything either(you don't need to do that to do Giant's Claw). Seems kind of inconsistent.
Tomas Grave must be visited due to the Speed Tab anyway. Besides the Pop event makes a visible hole of the GiantClaw entrance on the map, and the delay is relatively small, which IMO is enough to warrant its use from the 100% perspective.
Spacecow wrote:
I third Vykan's request; there is so much that happens, I'd love to see your strategies/tricks/routes/other thoughts as the run goes on.
The strategies were refined step by step with the help of multiple tests, which I did before the final recording of the critical parts. The route-planning got only difficult after you get the flying Epoch. Basically I tried to design one that keeps the time-switches and flying distances to a minimum, while getting the most helpful stuff as soon as possible to save time on the later quests.
Radiant wrote:
I'm not sure how you can call this 100%, really; you've just picked some things to do and some other things not to do based on no clear criterion.
The criteria is listed in the submission text, which I think is clear enough.
Bisqwit wrote:
I was somewhat disappointed to find out that you discarded equipment when exiting Blackbird. I was worried that your "100% completion will not have all equipment in the end after all.
You get it back after the Dalton fight, as the equipment chests were apparently taken into the Epoch for some reason. The only thing that gets lost is money, which I could afford through the expensive item compensation, for a serious time gain.
Bisqwit wrote:
Why did you not complete Black Omen three times, though? Is it not possible to get tabs from each one of them? Doesn't not doing that actually undermine the "collecting all Power/Magic/Speed Tabs" goal?
Luckily as Derakon said the Tab-giving enemies (with the exception of the unlimited Tubster near the 2 Nu room) do not reappear after their first encounter, and there is no stuff that I couldn't get from the 1st Omen trip already to make a repetition necessary.
See my perfect 100% movie-walkthroughs of the best RPG games on http://www.freewebs.com/saturnsmovies/index.htm Current TAS project (with new videos): Super Metroid Redesign, any% speedrun
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Saturn, you decided on a scheme of goals that result in a TAS that does a great job of showing off this game. I appreciate it, and many other people will too. Thank you.
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la mammal wrote:
Saturn, you decided on a scheme of goals that result in a TAS that does a great job of showing off this game. I appreciate it, and many other people will too. Thank you.
Agreed! Why not call it a "showcase" run (or something) instead of 100%? Sorry for bringing it up again, but my concern wasn't addressed.