Insane Difficulty: Chrono Trigger Hardtype Download And Description - Insane Difficulty

Game File:
Download the ROM here

General Description:
This is a hardtype hack that drastically increases the difficulty of the original game, as well as rebalancing various aspects for the sake of difficulty, balance, customization, and/or fun. A key part of the rebalance in this hack is making most Dual Techs and Triple Techs significantly stronger than in the original game, compared to Single Techs.

Summary of Changes:
-Entire game made substantially more difficult. Usually not so much as to require substantial grind, though by endgame having max of certain defensive stats is necessary, but also reachable long before max level.
-Particular detail has been given to endgame bosses and enemies, often involving extensive changes of their battle scripts.
-Running from battles is no longer possible.
-From Death's Peak onward, enemies give substantially increased XP compared to the original game, in order to speed up the endgame leveling process.
-Dual and Triple tech power generally improved.
-Some rebalancing of endgame skills, especially: Luminaire, Flare, Dark Matter, Shock, and Dark Bomb, but others as well.
-General rebalance of characters, but staying within their given themes.
-Endgame equipment has been partially redesigned with new stats and effects in the interest of balance and providing more complex equipment setups.
-Once you have the winged Epoch, no one-time-fightable enemies from that point forward will have unique charmable items WITH THE EXCEPTION OF OZZIE'S FORT. This frees the player from having to include Ayla in a great many boss fights. Typically, the bosses now drop their charmable item instead, if it was something special.
-Special Uber Boss: Nu Spekkio is now 10x the force he was in the original game. Try him out if you're looking for a battle potentially even more epic than the final battle.
-Easter Egg: Lucca's Pico Magnum can be found somewhere in the game, but it's rather annoying to acquire. It's a good weapon for her when you get it, but mostly it's just a trophy.
-Lapis item now heals for 350 instead of 200
-Megalixirs can now only be used on the field

Updates v1.1:
-Lapis now correctly displays "350" in its description instead of "200"
-Fixed a bug with Inner Lavos that made it possible for him to kill himself through a healing bug under certain circumstances.

Updated summary of changes to include "Running from battles is no longer possible." This is not an update to the ROM, I just forgot to mention it in the description.

nice man! this looks fantastic i wish i could say i would play this but i just doubt i will go through the game again as i just beat it a few months back.

Vanish Mantle, on 06 October 2012 - 07:10 PM, said:

It's the thought that counts

CT is one of my all time favorite games. I was at work yesterday n was checking facebook n bout shit myself. Glad you did this sir. As soon as I'm wiping my ass with Final Fantasy 8, imma hit this up. Hope its as awesome as its sounding to be

Zekelas, on 07 October 2012 - 04:54 PM, said:

Your ass is exactly where FF8 belongs (unless you're referring to some hardtype version of it), but glad to hear you're exited

Released an update to the ROM (see patch notes at the bottom of original post). 3 people have played through the game now, so I'm calling it out of beta, but let me know if you find any issues!

lol @ the FF8 hate

I could disrespect FF8 all day , but not Triple Triad, that shit was the bomb.

i just got the broken masamune, this game was so fun, and still is... thx for the great mod, anyways i was stuck because of a bug that kept teleporting me to the residential home whenever i entered the festival, right after learning magic... anyways it was fixed after i downloaded the latest patch.... umm anyways i'm a little drunk, and just wanted to say hi, well peace out, god bless

iwannabetheguy, on 28 October 2012 - 11:25 AM, said:

Strange, all I can think is that your ROM got corrupted somehow, because I've never touched anything related to maps/events/etc in the game. Glad that the issue resolved itself, though! Thanks for the feedback.

You really buffed up Magus, eh?

meohmy, on 14 November 2012 - 12:44 PM, said:

As a playable character? Yeah. Mostly in the Dark Bomb region.

zombero, on 15 November 2012 - 06:09 AM, said:

Dark matter seems to scale better too, relative to the other characters ultimate. Magus sure could have used a lot of improvement. in the original

I have a fix for Omicrone Spekkio (much less damage, and a bit more life, the damage he was dealing was a bug resulting from empowering his skills after balancing his stats... and forgetting about it later) as well as Aeon Veil (status immunity now works). It has to be uploaded to ID still, but in the mean time it can be found here: http://www.mediafire...44ywpisly0n2mmt

zombero, on 15 November 2012 - 08:36 AM, said:

Ahh, so it was a bug I stumbled on. You know, I was thinking about the "absorb armors" and how getting both the mail and vest items from the sealed chest really makes several boss encounters, dare I say, trivial, that otherwise would be pretty challenging. You might consider limiting these somehow. just an idea.

While some bosses can be trivialized with elemental mails, some other fights (later in the game) absolutely necessitate that you have a whole bunch of these.

Thanks for the Aeon Veil fix!

Obob, on 15 November 2012 - 11:29 AM, said:

i think the only boss i've seen so far in that category is the mother brain. Maybe the vests could be changed to resists instead of absorbs. Or maybe towards the end game when they might be required just have them be easily stolen from some common enemies?

I may be forgetting a couple, but these are the fights that were substantially easier because of elemental mails. I'm up to the 3rd mutant in black omen, and I don't remember the rest of the bosses, so there might be more later.

Giga Geia:
Without elemental mails, my party was just wiped immediately. With them, it was still challenging, although not nearly as bad. It helped to have several mails of each type here.

Golem twins:
These guys just seem way, way too powerful to reasonably stand a chance without the elemental mail strategy. But if you even have a single absorb mail, you'll easily win.

Son of Sun:
Having more than one red mail doesn't really make a difference here; if one member is immune you'll win.

Rust tyrano:
Red mails help, but I seem to recall his ultimate wasn't lethal. This fight is kind of boring anyways; he has way too much HP in my opinion. Once he starts firing his ultimate faster you might be in trouble without the mails.

Robo's sidequest and mother brain:
Black mails are useful here, and somewhat trivialize all the enemies with laser attacks. That said, those enemies are really strong without being able to absorb shadow, and still reasonably strong if you can. The dark mail helps a little against MB, but there are probably other ways of winning.

Later bosses typically have multiple super strong attacks of multiple elements. They also often have status effects. This means using a slot to absorb one element isn't even that great (although it is occassionally necessary: even with max MDEF and a barrier up, some bosses are able to do about 1050 damage unless you resist the specific element).

I really don't think the elemental mails are that big a deal. Most bosses are ridiculously hard until you figure out the right equipment setup, and only a handful actually become easy once you have the right setup.

The fact that your stats basically cap out around level 60 or so for most characters is pretty novel for an RPG like this. You'll need to hit this level to progress in the game, and from that point on the only thing you can do to be stronger is pick the right team and gear (and use your speed/magic tabs intelligently; power is a worthless stat as it is maxed so easily). Rest assured you'll need all the gear you've gotten.

Pretty decent list, though I'd probably add the ozzie fort final fight. Their delta attack thing is shadow damage..

More interested in a list where you think you couldn't win the fight without 2 absorb armors. Again, for me it was only mother brain. i havent touched omen yet though.