And so concludes Guybrush Threepwood's thrilling quest to learn the Secret of Monkey Island! He did learn it, right? The secret? Surely there was a secret learned in there, somewhere? Well... that's what you get for spending more than 20 bucks on a computer game.

What were your favorite (and least favorite) moments? Favorite puzzles? Most frustrating ones? There are, in fact, a number of SECRETS to be found in The Secret of Monkey Island! Like these:

Share your stories below. Was this your first experience with the game or a nostalgic return? How has it held up over the years, in your estimation? Timeless classic or overrated turd? Don't hold back, we can handle it. We've spoken with apes more polite than you.

So here we are at the end of another colossal month. Next up, we'll ring in the new year with @datavoid for our January 2026 play of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker! In the meantime, if you're so inclined, consider checking out the rest of the Monkey Island series:

• Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
• The Curse of Monkey Island
• Escape From Monkey Island
• Tales of Monkey Island
• Return to Monkey Island

OK, that's it, turn off your computer and do something constructive.
Like play a little racquetball. Or wash your car. Or cook dinner. Or join a funk band. Or travel to a foreign country. Or run for president. Or talk to a member of the opposite sex. Or lube your car. Or host a weenie roast. Or dig for buried treasure. Or milk a cow. Or have a yelling contest with your neighbor's dog. Or perform brain surgery. Or paint a yellow line in the center of your driveway. Or write your name in the snow. Or teach basket weaving to clams. Or sing Welsh folk songs at the bank. Or plant trees on public property. Or confuse the person next to you. Or make a triangular table. Or hop, skip, and jump. Or ride a train. Or organize your sock drawer alphabetically. Or go bowling with your mom. Or train potato bugs to do tricks. Or make a quilt. Or publish a magazine about pencil shavings. Or eat lime jello with pineapple in it. Or pave a freeway. Or learn to draw. Or take up photography. Or learn to tell time. Or photocopy money. Or go out for pasta. Or sew a dress. Or bathe your iguana. Or go fishing. Or paint a stranger's house in the middle of the night. Or take up windsurfing. Or change your hair style. Or sharpen your whiteboard markers. Or feed a toucan. Or enjoy the sun. Or do a crossword puzzle. Or buy some cool clothes. Or go to the beach. Or play croquet with your dad. Or water your plants. Or build a doll house. Or invite some friends over for salmon and white wine.

See you next month!

switches to an emotional ending music

Once upon a time, in the sun-dappled realm of Millefeuille, a tale of courage, folly, and friendship came to a close. After enduring countless trials born of pride and greed, our gallant yet hapless Prince of Sablé has reached the end of his journey.

It all began when the Prince learned that the radiant Princess Tiramisu had vanished, spirited away just after his umpteenth defeat in a duel against the ever-boastful Prince Richard. Barred from sailing beside his rival, our humble hero took to the road alone, his purse light and his hopes heavy. What he lacked in fortune, he made up for in heart (and the occasional odd purchase).

Along the way, he fell for a trickster's promise, a ludicrously-expensive potion said to restore his human form "at any time", though bound by more strings than a puppet show. In his kindness, he even repaid the damages wrought upon Saltwater Town, tossing a mountain of Nuts to a boy whose gratitude shone brighter than gold.

Though tempted by greed and misled by pride, the Prince of Sablé's heart remained pure. Through tangled mazes and fierce foes he pressed on, never losing sight of his mission to rescue Tiramisu. By the end, even the proud Richard bowed his head, moved by the Prince's resolve to fight without malice and spare his old rival from needless harm in their final duel.

Yet behind every fairytale lies a clever twist. For while our Prince was chasing glory, he unwittingly became a key piece in the grand design of Polnareff's scheme to save Millefeuille from the sly serpent Delarin. His bravery, fuelled more by sincerity than wisdom, turned the tide at last.

And where was the Princess, you ask? Why, she was by his side all along! In disguise as the wise witch Mandola, Tiramisu guided her beloved Prince more times than he ever realized. Perhaps he should have noticed the resemblance in their mannerisms a bit sooner.

And as our story fades to its final act, the air fills not with solemn silence but with the rhythm of celebration, a raucous DJ's beat spun by a mad scientist in his whirring metal giant. A strange ending, perhaps, but a joyous one all the same.

So then, dear travellers, as the curtain falls on this comical and heartfelt adventure, let us gather 'round and share our thoughts on the tale of The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls, a story where even the smallest frog may leap into legend. I'll start.

The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls feels less like a traditional video game and more like an interactive storybook, something remarkably ahead of its time for the early '90s. The combat, platforming, and puzzle segments are kept simple on purpose, serving as stepping stones for the charming storytelling that carries the whole adventure.

Battles play out automatically when you bump into an enemy strong enough to challenge you, with the outcome depending on your stats like HP, attack, defense, and speed (plus whatever items you might have on hand). It's a good idea to keep your health up and hunt for stat-boosting items if you want to make steady progress.

A sprinkle of puzzles and light platforming keeps things fresh, and the ability to switch between forms adds some fun variety, the strong human, the amphibious and nimble frog who can breathe underwater, and the slinky snake who can turn some foes into stepping blocks.

Sure, none of these mechanics are deep by modern standards, but their simplicity works in the game's favor. It keeps the spotlight on the story, one that explores how kindness, greed, and good intentions can intertwine in unexpected ways. It's funny, heartfelt, and often downright ridiculous in the best way possible.

While I might not revisit this one as often as other Nintendo classics, I'm glad I played it. Not only is it interesting to see where Link's Awakening borrowed a few ideas (and a certain prince!), but it's also worth it for the humor alone.

As I make more progress in Cure Dolly's Japanese lessons, I might even try the original version one more time someday. Who knows what little translation quirks or cultural touches I've missed?

That about wraps it up for this month's game. Our time in the whimsical world of the Millefeuille Kingdom may be over, but the adventure continues.

Next time, u/vili takes us on a trip to outer space aboard an overly complicated spaceship, hopefully with fewer spacetime mishaps... but no promises.

Until then, jot down your thoughts and memories; no moment of gaming glory deserves to be forgotten!

THE END

(sorry for my rookie attempt at photographing this screen in real life!)

              ____----------- _____
\~~~~~~~~~~/~_--~~~------~~~~~     \
 `---`\  _-~      |                   \
   _-~  <_         |                     \[]
 / ___     ~~--[""] |      ________-------'_
> /~` \    |-.   `\~~.~~~~~                _ ~ - _
 ~|  ||\%  |       |    ~  ._                ~ _   ~ ._
   `_//|_%  \      |          ~  .              ~-_   /\
          `--__     |    _-____  /\               ~-_ \/.
               ~--_ /  ,/ -~-_ \ \/          _______---~/
                   ~~-/._<   \ \`~~~~~~~~~~~~~     ##--~/
                         \    ) |`------##---~~~~-~  ) )
                          ~-_/_/                  ~~ ~~

Yokohama

1999

You've got big shoulders and big dreams

Headlights flash

I challenge you to a race

 You            Me

START          START
  |              |
  |              |
  |              |
  |              |
   \              \
    \              \
     \              \
      ----           ----CRASH
         |               
         |
         |
         |
       FINISH

Drat! It's always those hard turns, isn't it?!

You and your big shoulders win

Take your prize from my loser car

                          ______    ______   __                     
                         /      \  /      \ |  \                    
 ______ ____   __    __ |  $$$$$$\|  $$$$$$\| $$  ______    ______  
|      \    \ |  \  |  \| $$_  \$$| $$_  \$$| $$ /      \  /      \ 
| $$$$$$\$$$$\| $$  | $$| $$ \    | $$ \    | $$|  $$$$$$\|  $$$$$$\
| $$ | $$ | $$| $$  | $$| $$$$    | $$$$    | $$| $$    $$| $$   \$$
| $$ | $$ | $$| $$__/ $$| $$      | $$      | $$| $$$$$$$$| $$      
| $$ | $$ | $$ \$$    $$| $$      | $$      | $$ \$$     \| $$      
 \$$  \$$  \$$  \$$$$$$  \$$       \$$       \$$  \$$$$$$$ \$$      

For those that didn't play the game, that's basically Racing Lagoon in a nutshell! Except, well, the plot gets more involved (and... weird), and there's a city map you get to cruise on, and you can save at a gas station, etc.

But the key points are all there:

• Racing
• Getting new parts
• Big shoulders

Anyway, let us know what you thought of the game!

Next month will be hosted by the inimitable and incredible @J-Chiptunator and we'll be playing Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls).

Source for the ASCII art car
Source for the prize text
Source for the race art (It's me, I drew that. Art is my passion.)

Welcome back, Heroes of Wind! (For the sake of full disclosure I myself am not yet a Hero of Wind, but should be within an hour or so...)

Hopefully everyone enjoyed their second consecutive month on the high seas as much as I did - I'd say at this point, we can basically consider ourselves a pirate club!

I had initially planned to actually plan something to write about in this post, but due to taking on way too many things this month I unfortunately haven't really had a chance to do any research beyond my own (almost) completion of the game. Hopefully any Wind Waker veterans in here will be able to help us out with any important insight that I am certainly overlooking!

For me, the most notable thing about The Wind Waker is how strongly it influenced the most recent two Zelda games. I'd say it seems to be the game that contributed the most to the modern Zelda formula. The freedom it offers you in being able to simply choose a direction and start exploring is a feature that is more or less missing from most 3D Zelda games. Also, the sheer scale of the world is really only comparable to BOTW and Tears. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Koroks - I had no idea that was a Wind Waker thing!

While I had heard about it in passing, actually seeing the underwater kingdom in this game was a strangely nostalgic experience. The way they tied in the old angular Link statue was very cool; I imagine it is safe to assume that an extremely long time passed between Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker to allow for such evolutionary toon-ification.

I wish I had had more time to finish exploring more thoroughly and compile a list of secrets. I just finished exploring the map today, and know there are still plenty of things that I have yet to see. So instead of rushing through the last dungeon, I decided to post this for now, then come back to share more thoughts in the comments later.

Next month, join us as u/Kawa guides us on a trip to the lagoon... the Racing Lagoon!

Until next time, you filthy bilge rats!

Hey! You wanna know why we're here? Go read this. It's because Sony UK's marketing department misappropriated £100k for random campaigns they couldn't possibly get in front of higher execs in time, which they used to make cardboard flyers saying the PS1 was "more powerful than god" and had perforations in the perfect size to roll up as roaches for people to toke up in the Playstation room at your local club. Yeah, baby.

They also mention the same T-Rex that Rodney Greenblat saw! That had to have been one rad fucking dinosaur. Anyway.

We've had more than our fill of rapping, bunnies, crises, electric shocks, and Pepsi this month. Outside the novelty, why do these crazy-ass games matter? WELL:

• It's great upheaval! CDs weren't just a major shift in storage, but production and cost. CDs took something like a week to order instead of two or three months. Imagine you have an extra eight weeks or so to develop an idea and put it in front of an exec, and they're not spending buckets on the cartridges. Why not accept those ideas? Why not take the risks? We're not quite at the indie boom and the internet, but it was certainly quite a step in development and risk-taking for the end product.

• Fuckin' money! Much like Nintendo's infamous war chest, Sony firmly planted themselves at the top of the pole for a long while. All this speed meant that - per GamePro's approximation in 1997 - there were 400 PlayStation games were in development by the end of 1996, whereas the Saturn had ~200 and the N64 had ~60. That variety lead to something like a 4-game attach rate to people buying a PS1 console, and the games themselves cost less because the CDs were cheaper. I was an N64 kid, but those cartridges were expensive. (Plus all the rando peripherals - the transfer pak? Expansion pak? The VMU for Hey You Pikachu!? Jesus, my parents were good to me.) The PS1 probably gave people leeway to take a buying risk on a zany idea. Even from more conservative spenders, it had to have been way more appealing to anyone on the fence.

• Music games! We had two here, and the Playstation was the home of Bemani for quite a while. Not much question why for the developer of the Walkman...

• That T-Rex! Golly!

• Age! Mascots and color grabbed kids, but kids aren't necessarily attracted to cool vector line art and an outlet for enormous CD collections. (They also, hopefully, weren't rolling too many joints at the club?) There was plenty of room to attract kids with Spyro or Crash - why not push the median age up at the same time? One study estimated that the "average gamer" was something like a 30 y/o woman in the 00s; nudging that number up and broadening the appeal had a lot to do with Sony's aggressive marketing. Another neat idea I saw mentioned was that the number of extreme sports games being produced gave video games another angle as a sort of lifestyle machine; Tony Hawk's Pro Skater itself was just as skate-punk as its people and bands. It sounds like a lofty thought, but THPS2 got me to pick up a skateboard, sooo...

• Finally, Japan! Obviously the 80's and early 90's brought so many mascots and characters out of Japan with enduring appeal, like Mario and Sonic, but their impact was very often with localization or marketing crews adapting that. Here we have stuff that's very distinctly Japanese making its way over here, rather than getting edited in trepidation over the original idea attaching. Why not? Throw a couple CDs our way, see what sticks.

And as a reminder, we're only scratching the surface! This console is a trove. I wanted to wait until the Remove thread to discuss more games, so the biggest one I'd leave everyone with is LSD: Dream Emulator, which is as much an art installation as it is a "game". You wander around randomized environments and "wake up" after 10 minutes or by being killed by things like lions, cars, or giant dudes coated in kanji characters. It's pretty fucking weird, and it was a fairly obvious point of growth from other projects like Yume Nikki, itself a springboard for dozens of ideas in games like Doki Doki Literature Club and Undertale. More recent popular projects like hypnagogia 催眠術 and Ena: Dream BBQ have obvious lineage - the former was from an LSD-themed game jam!

There are SO many others. Gaball Screen, a shoe-flying simulator (??) released by a music label where you collect music videos produced by Tetsuya Komuro. There's Heart of Darkness, a puzzle-platformer and influence for contemporary "gore game" horror titles. Its greatest puzzle is perhaps its absolutely baffling E rating! And No One Can Stop Mr. Domino... Really? No one?? Who possibly can???

We're left a neat legacy of ideas, experiments, and a time capsule for the advent of the CD-ROM, to those brave enough to dig through the library. Nintendo may leave a creative mark of their on their games, but the marks all over these games are maybe left by the machinery itself. A console that was willing to foster weirdos and prop up their chance to shine? The Playstation was radical.

_{Yo, and that T-Rex tho?}

That concludes this month of our COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURE! I imagine this was a less-accessible month, so for those tenacious enough to get the games running I salute you!

This topic is to share your thoughts on our selection, and weird shit on the Playstation in general:

The good
The bad
The fun
The interesting
What ideas aged well
What ideas were total crap
The things it reminded you of
Other games that belong here
And absolutely anything else!

We've got an extra ten days. so feel free to keep playing or to throw other PS1 curios at the group.

Next month, December 2025, will be The Secret of Monkey Island, hosted by the esteemed u/balooga! Thankfully that should be a MUCH easier game to get running than Vib-Ribbon, so be ready to walk the plank! (For less than twenty bucks!)

1995 A.D.

I traveled back to this year to revisit the release of Chrono Trigger.

The game is out for the Super Nintendo Entertainment system in Japan and the United States. It is not available in Europe or Australia. Those regions won't get an official release until Crono uses the Epoch to visit the Nintendo DS in the year 2008 A.D., over a decade later.

I travel around and speak with different townsfolk. Everyone seems to have opinions on the game.

My first stop is a little cave called GamePro where I speak with Sir Scary Larry:

Chrono Trigger is another satisfying and superlative game from Square. If you've finished FF III and are itching for some fantasy field work, pick this one up. Thankfully, the fantasy isn't final yet.

I then meet Al Manuel in a little town square by the name of Electronic Gaming Monthly:

THIS IS AWESOME!! Chrono Trigger is an RPG that combines the best features of the FF series and Mana and puts them all in a game that easily gets my vote for RPG of the year! As with all Squaresoft games, the visuals are drawn with stunning detail, and the music immerses players even further into the quest. Of course, the game's best feature is its endearing story line. Add multiple endings to that and you've got a must-have for your RPG collection.

I wander into some houses and find Video Game Magazine lying on a desk. Geoff Higgins has written about it:

Chrono Trigger is the newest in an increasing number of quality RPGs to come out in the past year. Coming on the heels of games like Ogre Battle and Might & Magic III, Chrono Trigger could easily have paled in comparison. Instead, Squaresoft has brought us another reason to hold onto our SNES.

Right next door is Game Informer, with this posted on their bulletin board:

In contrast to Square adventures of the past, Chrono is a shining new star. [...] The characters that you meet during your quest all have well-developed storylines that make their small sprites seem larger than life. The magic spells advance and become more grandiose as they go to double and triple techs. To put it simply, Chrono is the pinnacle for RPG's on the Super NES and must be played to be believed.

While there, I also speak with Andy "The Game Hombre" McNamara:

Let me tell you a little story. Everytime one of these Square Soft RPG's comes to the office I can't get any sleep. I get so involved in the storyline that I stay up late trying to see what happens next to this soap-opera on a cart. You'd think that one of these days these guys are going to screw-up and I may finally get some sleep, but noooooo. It never happens. Once again, this game put me into that guru floating sensation of "wow." If you're looking for an RPG, you don't need to look any farther. Chrono is the feel-good game of the summer!

I am about to leave, but he keeps going:

Originally, the cover of this issue of Game Informer was going to be graced with Chrono Trigger [...] However, the artwork created for the game was done by a well-known Japanese artist known as Akira Tomiyama. This man is famous in Japan for such artistic feats as Dragon Ball Z and Chrono Trigger -- the hottest game right now in Japan. In his ride to glory, however, he managed to forget the little people.

He and his company refused us the rights to use his artwork on the cover because they felt that any magazine that featured Akira Tomiyama artwork on the cover would instantly be worth quadruple its original cover value. They even went as far as to say that it would be traded on the black market because his artwork is so sought after in Japan.

I think he meant "Akira Toriyama" but I don't mention it. And now that I think about it, none of the places I visited had Chrono Trigger artwork on their main displays. Sure, you can see some of the characters and screenshots tucked away in individual houses and shops, but the banners I see when entering the locations are always for different games: Killer Instinct, Lunar: Eternal Blue, Super Bomberman 3, the Virtual Boy.

Everybody is talking about Chrono Trigger, with many people seeing it as the hero of the time, but nobody is featuring its artwork.

But then I notice a little Game Players shop, and it, quite surprisingly, does have a small picture of Crono and Marle on its door. Interesting. Inside, I talk with Chris Slate, who doesn't mention it:

Can Square Soft do anything wrong? I mean, look at the track record: Secret of Mana, Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy II and III [...] it's hard to criticize near-perfection. The graphics are beautiful, the interface is slick, and the gameplay is just plain fun. It's RPGs like this that wil eventually win over the mainstream.

As I'm leaving, I notice Super Play, the shop across the street, has a full, front-and-center display: Chrono with the Epoch! Did they get permission from To[m|r]iyama? Did they break the rules? Was this actually just fan art drawn by someone else?

Wil Overton doesn't have any answers for me, but he does share this:

This is a fine game and one Square fans will get a lot out of. The time travel premise is superbly implemented, and the way things are intermingled through the different periods means the main underlying story stays strong throughout all the individual quests. Definitely recommended... if you've got the time (ha!).

Having thoroughly explored the region, I hop back in the Epoch and return to...

2025 A.D.

It is here that I noticed that the threat of Lavos still remains, his heat steadily growing, slowly placing the entire planet in peril. Meanwhile, despotic royals lust after power and oppress their subjects to pursue their own selfish glory and greed.

We can use a hero. Maybe Crono will visit our time?

Or maybe we have to pursue this quest ourselves.

Team up, level up, fight for good, support one another, and...

...maybe...

...against all odds...

...change the course of history.

So concludes this month of our COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURE!

For anyone wondering, u/ali asked me to step in and host because they are traveling and weren't sure if they'd have consistent internet. I hope what I wrote is up to their standards!

This topic is to share your thoughts on Chrono Trigger:

• The good
• The bad
• The fun
• The interesting
• How the game was like back then
• How the game holds up now
• Your favorite moments
• Your least favorite moments
• The things it reminded you of
• The memories you have of it
• The memories you made playing it
• And absolutely anything else!

Because we are now removing the cartridge, spoilers will not be hidden in dropdown blocks so please be aware of this if you haven't yet finished the game.

This topic remains open, so you are welcome to post in it whenever you do finish the game, even if it is days or weeks later.

Up Next:

• Current CGA Schedule

Our next month, November 2025, is our very first Arcade Special, which is a group of shorter games that are intended to be played together.

The theme is: PlayStation WHAT? and will be hosted by the esteemed u/Lapbunny.

It's a collection of oddball, off-the-wall games, 4 of which are on the PlayStation and 1 of which is on the PlayStation 2 because someone forgot to check the games' information before bundling them up.

It was me. I'm the someone.

Flames flicker as the once mighty Orient Express lies on its side in pieces, bodies in cartoonishly thuggish costumes scattered all around. After a long three days full of murder, deception, concerts and romance, its final journey has come to a fiery end.

From the inferno, a single figure emerges in a scorched trench coat, dark hair ruffled by the breeze. He brushes off the coat with one hand and smoothly extends the other, and a solid gold bird swoops down from the sky to perch on it. Red flames flicker along its wings and back, but his sleeve remains perfectly untouched.

He walks away from the burning wreckage, arm still outstretched with gleaming golden bird atop it. Sunglasses descend from the sky and land squarely on his nose. A second smaller pair studded with jewels descends and lands on the bird's beak, managing to somehow look cool instead of ridiculous.

“Time to kick some Nazi ass,” the man declares, and the bird caws.

The train explodes behind them and the air reverberates with a “Yeeeaaaahhhh!”

Note: the above scene may not be 100% accurate or canon.

So concludes the first leg of the Colossal Game Adventure!

We hope you enjoyed your time aboard The Last Express. For anyone who missed the initial boarding period... Well uh, luckily this game involves rewinding time, so you can just rewind here to the Insert Cartridge topic when the train was intact. Feel free to post there if you're just starting the game, or you can post here after finishing even if you're only finding these topics months later.

That said, presumably most of you boarded earlier and had a chance to play the game. As such, this post will not require spoilers to be hidden in dropdown blocks. So if you don't want to be spoiled, please adjust your clock and rewind to the previous post.

Use this post to share final thoughts and impressions, post fun little secrets or easter eggs you found, ask questions if you had to abort your playthrough for whatever reason, link video clips, discuss if you completed any of the meta challenges, etc. Or you can share and express admiration for the very nice official Colossal Game Adventure splash screen made by @Boojum which I meant to link last time on "Press Start", but accidentally pasted the wrong link. I have since fixed it, but that was two nights ago so you probably haven't seen it. And dang it this splash screen is too awesome to go unappreciated!!

Otherwise, we can consider this leg of the journey to be complete. That said, the adventure is only just beginning! Wouldn't be a Colossal Game Adventure with only one game, now would it? You can find the current schedule here. Our next destination will be Chrono Trigger with @ali stepping up as the next host. As for me, my time as conductor has come to an end and I will be joining you all as passengers.

If you intend to continue this journey, you can just grab your luggage from the—uh... *glances at the flaming wreckage* ...Well hey, it'll be a little easier to travel without all that extra weight, right?

Onwards to Chrono Trigger!

THE END

> CONTINUE?