You can defeat the Dream Devourer from Chrono Trigger using an int overflow
31 points by ronreiter 4 hours ago | 22 comments

seam_carver 22 seconds ago
In Fire Emblem 3 Houses, the final boss of the Azure route has 199 HP and is standing on a 60 HP heal tile.

If you deal 3 damage, it goes to 196. 196+60=256.

This overflows to zero and you win.

reply
falsaberN1 2 hours ago
I don't want Chrono Cross-contamination in my trigger, thanks.

Chrono Cross is a very interesting game on its own but it's a terrible sequel that is remarkably spiteful to its senior. (The thing with FATE and Robo, the Porre thing, the fate of Crono and co., it's a terrible fanfic made canon).

Trigger only worked because of Toriyama gathering the all-star staff (look up the interview with Torishima giving the details). Cross was out of his hands and it shows.

reply
javchz 11 minutes ago
Cross has an amazing soundtrack tho. I think this is probably the main area where didn't felt like a downgrade.

But I agree. Chrono trigger it's the closet thing to perfection in a JRPG. Just pure mastering of the craft in all areas, music, art direction, gameplay, pacing, etc.

It's not that cross it's bad, not at all, has a lot of innovation, but Trigger has a big shadow to scape.

reply
debo_ 2 hours ago
I loved trigger, got to play it on release. I loved Cross even more. I played that one about 5 years after its release.

Cross has this underlying sense of menace beneath the idyllic (and wondrous) atmosphere of the archipelago. I think it's incredible.

Personally I don't care much about stories in games. Most of them are awful anyways. I really gravitate towards atmosphere, and Cross has that in spades.

reply
noodletheworld 45 minutes ago
You can downvote the parent post all you like, but…

> Personally I don't care much about stories in games

I cant relate to this.

Chrono trigger is a game I love because of the great story.

If you’re playing rpgs and you don't care about the story or characters…

I have no idea. Its like reading a book and saying you don't enjoy the story; you're what, just there for the physical motion of turning the pages?

No idea. Chrono cross left no impression on me. I agree with the parent post.

reply
SmasherEpilepti 14 minutes ago
> I have no idea. Its like reading a book and saying you don't enjoy the story; you're what, just there for the physical motion of turning the pages?

I think you were intending for novels, but poetry books typically don't really have much in the way of "story", just aesthetics. Even for novels, there are many that I primarily appreciate the prose. I love everything about the Kingkiller Chronicle books, but the prose itself is quite pleasant in isolation, and I could probably appreciate the books even if the story and worldbuilding weren't good.

Plenty of RPGs don't have much in the way of story. The story of the first Final Fantasy is nearly absent. Same with the first Diablo, and most roguelikes. Obviously, you can enjoy an RPG without caring for the story or characters, because the main point the vast majority of games is to play them.

reply
monkpit 8 minutes ago
The analogy to a book doesn’t fit anyways.

The closest thing would be telling someone they’re reading a choose-your-own-adventure book wrong somehow, and even then it’s a stretch.

reply
monkpit 11 minutes ago
Why announce that you’re incapable of allowing someone to hold an opinion that doesn’t match yours?

Would it be so wrong for someone to enjoy something in a different way than you do? Or should they be chastised for enjoying it the wrong way?

You’re welcome to ask what brings them enjoyment, to broaden your views, instead of dismissing them.

reply
nubinetwork 2 hours ago
The elixir glitch works on a lot of bosses...
reply
shusaku 22 minutes ago
I feel like this is particularly amusing though because as I understand it this boss is not in the original game. So on a DS which is so powerful you should never have glitches due to such technical limitations, the developers flew insanely close to the sun.
reply
acbart 2 hours ago
There's a live music concert for Chrono Trigger playing right now. That game had one of the best soundtracks of all time.
reply
jMyles 7 minutes ago
I cut a one-take version of Frog with some of my fav. musicians:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCuDk18gGRc

reply
ramesh31 30 minutes ago
>"That game had one of the best soundtracks of all time."

Agreed, there's just something really special about it. You may appreciate these guys, I've had their playlist on repeat for years while working: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p636Rw_L3XU&list=PL1FBFF9D52E7...

reply
tfigueroa 18 minutes ago
100%, really a fantastic soundtrack - still gives me chills.

Thank you for sharing this - here’s what I’ve had on my playlist recently: https://youtu.be/zWeGxKsPXZ4

reply
Founderarcstone 3 hours ago
One of the best games ever made very cool you made this.
reply
sph 2 hours ago
Yet another downside of using ‘safe’ languages. You don’t get cool stuff like this.
reply
JoshTriplett 11 minutes ago
I remember the days of DOS and getting a direct pointer to video memory. And I've enjoyed the long history of video game exploits and even arbitrary code execution. But at the same time, I'm also glad that era is over. The same bugs that help you jailbreak a phone can also be the bugs that help you gain illicit access to one.
reply
CodesInChaos 54 minutes ago
Many safe languages still suffer from integer overflows. For example in Rust and C# you can pick between an exception being thrown, or silent wrapping when an overflow happens.
reply
surgical_fire 2 hours ago
Nuclear Gandhi would never have been a thing.
reply
ufo 2 hours ago
Nuclear Gandhi is an urban legend. Turns out there was no such bug in Civ 1.
reply
tialaramex 38 seconds ago
And in more recent games where there is Nuclear Gandhi it's because of that legend.

If you write a game in a decent language where such a thing won't happen by mistake you can still have it be present on purpose and in some cases that even fits the game's lore.

Random glitches are confusing and bad. Falling off the world in Blue Prince due to collision bugs is annoying for example. However "glitches" which are intended behaviour are fun. I've enjoyed every time I saw somebody get that note and gift from Mrs Babbage because they drafted that particular room in that particular place and it had an effect which in hindsight they now realise was both foreseeable and regrettable...

reply