October 2025's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games.

Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?

Introduction

Fun Fact: I named my Cat Crono because of this game.

Welcome to Chrono Trigger.
We're playing it for this months CGA.
In my opinion, if you haven't played this game before, you're in for a treat. This game is often considered the gold-standard for JRPGs. Developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi from Final Fantasy, Yuji Horii from Dragon Quest, and Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball.

This year is actually the 30 year anniversary since it's release.
Square Enix has launched some new CDs with the Soundtrack, and a Concert in Tokyo if anyone is interested.
The music is actually what got me into this game. If you want to know, it's this - might be a minor spoiler, but I remember when I first found that music in the game, I was hooked and just stopped to listen. That was the first time since Saria's Song in Ocarina of Time.

So what is this game: I like to think these games are best experienced going in blind, so I will be as vague as possible. (Any additions are welcome). Chrono Trigger is a RPG from 1995. It's got an amazing story, some really interesting mechanics, beautiful characters and an amaing soundtrack. I'll put even the smallest things into spoiler tags, since maybe some people like to go in completely blind.

Chrono Trigger

Versions: Original (1995), PlayStation (1999), Nintendo DS (2008), iOS/Android (2011), Steam (2018)

Platforms: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), PlayStation, Nintendo DS, iOS, Android, Windows (Steam)

Genre(s): Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG), Turn-based RPG

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores:

• Steam -- on sale until Oct 6
• Google Play
• App Store

How Long To Beat:
On a first playthrough, expect about 20-25 hours.
Without giving away too much: there is definitely some replayability.

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

• Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
• What about its system or era?
• What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
• What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
• What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

• Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
• Ask for help if you get stuck.
• Offer help to others.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

Important

• Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

• Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

FAQ

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

With October approaching, it's time to play some horror games! Horror is my favorite genre. It's chock full of emotion and creative game design. It's a genre that has to continuously reinvent itself to avoid getting stale, which leads to dozens of incredible games.

The games I'd like to play for the first time are:

• Silent Hill 2 - I was holding out for a proper remaster for over a decade. It's finally here, but it's $70! I'll probably have to bite the bullet.
• Resident Evil Village - I've been meaning to play this for years and already own it! On sale for $10.
• Resident Evil 4 (Remaster) - I played the original but not the new remaster. On sale for $20.
• Dead Space - Just bought this on sale a few weeks ago. It looks really good! On sale for $12.
• Alien Isolation - Alien is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I should really play this.

Now for some recommendations:

• Resident Evil (REmake) - This is where you start if you're new to horror. Absolutely iconic, and not too scary thanks to its cheesy B-movie script, which can be humorous. On sale for $5.
• Resident Evil 7 Biohazard - This game was a true return to form in the horror department. Absolutely loved it. On sale for $8. Genuine steal.
• Inscryption - Not very spooky. Has a fun card game and a lot of intriguing ideas.

Are there any games you're looking forward to playing?

Do you have any recommendations?

A "Silksong" = a game that you waited a long time for and that met your very high expectations.

• What was the game?
• How long did you wait for it?
• What were you expecting?
• How did it deliver?

(And yes, Silksong can be your "Silksong")

Hi! I'm looking for some fun and interesting casual puzzle games. Some of my favorites, in no particular order, are:

• Sudoku
• Nonogram - like the recent Every 5x5 Nonogram or Picross.
• Tetris - Apotris on GBA is great!
• A few from the Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection
• Sokoban
• Catrap on Gameboy, a bit similar to Sokoban
• Dragonsweeper and Mamono Sweeper that people recommended here a while ago.
• Chip's Challenge - Lexy's Labyrinth is a browser-based reimplementation.

Wondering if we have tilde fellows playing it. I’ve become addicted since last year and it’s fully taken over my regular board game nights… I’ve been storytelling and doing custom scripts and characters.

As someone who DM's a lot of short, casual sessions with rotating members, I burn through a lot of maps. I'd love to hear some of your recommendations for how you guys either find or create maps that suit your situations.

For me: r/battlemaps has some really high quality stuff and gets me 90% of the time. I usually type in a key word or two (e.g. bridge; throne room) and usually I'll find something that gets close to the mark.

I know that some have been using generative AI to delve into this space as well, so if anyone has any experience there, I'd love to hear it!

Schedule

There was a three-way tie for 5th, so instead of scheduling the next 6 months, I scheduled 7. Bonus month!

@CannibalisticApple will be hosting her nomination, The Last Express, for our first month. If you're interested in hosting a month, see the Hosting section below.

Also, I selfishly scheduled PlayStation WHAT? during the Backlog Burner so I can use those games in my Bingo Card. :D

For the rest, I tried to create variety in the schedule so that we weren't playing the same systems or genres back-to-back.

Discussion Topics

Each month will have two discussion topics:

• "Insert Cartridge" - 1st of the month
• "Remove Cartridge" - 20th of the month

Insert Cartridge topics are primarily for getting the game set up and running. Remove Cartridge topics are primarily for reflecting on the game once you've played it. However, the game itself and anything else related to it can be discussed in either one.

Hosting

Each month, the discussion topics will be posted by a different "host" who will act as the emcee for that month.

Hosting is not required, but it is encouraged that people host months for games that they are either already very familiar with or that they are strongly interested in playing.

People who nominated a game will be given preference for hosting, otherwise it will be given to whomever claims it first.

If you would like to host a month, let me know which one and I will add you to the schedule.

Before your month begins, I will send you a "Hosting Package" featuring templates that you can edit to your liking.

If no one claims a month, I will host it as a fallback.

Voting Results

The top 6 games from the voting round were chosen to be played.

Of the remaining games:

• The top 50% will advance to the next round. They will start the next round with a base score of 70% of their vote totals.
• The bottom 50% will be removed from the list.

Removed games will be able to be re-nominated in future rounds if someone chooses to do so.

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

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