I beat Chrono Trigger for the first time since I was a kid. It has long been one of my favorite games, but mostly the kind I just remembered being good: I had barely played since high-school.
I used Crono, Marle, and Robo at levels 58-59 to beat Lavos. I gave them all gold studs. I found it relatively easy, if a bit long. The breaks in between forms to adjust helped to recuperate. I hadn’t remembered that was how things worked, and might’ve done things a bit differently had I known the setup. I had one character die once, but had used the lifeline tech, so didn’t miss a beat.
I started out using a walk through, but stopped using it fairly quickly because it made things less fun. The main thing I wanted with the walk through was to make sure I didn’t miss anything important. As a kid, I believe I had missed the black rock and was kind of mad that I couldn’t go back and get it. This time I got it without having to look it up. I did occasionally look up things, trying not to see anything that would give away any puzzles or anything. It would be nice if there was a guide that just told generally where the things are you don’t want to miss.
I got the standard ending with the mom chasing the cat variant (1b in this list of endings). I don’t remember which I got as a kid, but very likely one of the standard variants.
I plan to play through the new game + at some point to try to get all the endings as well as max out the characters and get all the notable items (I did miss some of the better armors and weapons and some rocks). I will probably look at the guides for help now that I’ve beat it.