Community Spotlight: Jerikandra
Written by BusyGamerBelle
Published on January 4th, 2024
LA: How did you prepare for this speedrun, was there anything different that time around that made this achievement different?
JERIKANDRA: In general I’ve been “grinding” to get to 4:20 for a month or so. My last 2 PBs were 4:23 and then 4:22, a month ago. In general, I try to practice certain boss strats and certain menu combinations semi-daily so I have set save files for those areas of the run. For this run, I don’t think I did a whole lot different though. It was just FINALLY the perfect mixture of Good RNG and my own skill coming into play. Maybe lack of distraction and more focus?
LA: How long have you been playing Chrono Trigger in general and 100% glitchless?
JERIKANDRA: I first played Chrono Trigger back in the 90’s. I was at a friend’s house and he had a Super Nintendo (my parents wouldn’t let me have one) and he let me play it. I’d never played an RPG before and I was enamored with the story, being able to name characters, and the battle techs too. It wasn’t until a year or two later when I had my own computer that I emulated it and played it to completion.
Over the years I’ve played Chrono Trigger on other platforms including iPad, and then PC but I kind of took a hiatus from video games in general after around 2009. When 2020 hit, I had been spending all of my time creating costumes for cosplay. Since we were stuck inside, my motivation to make costumes kinda dwindled and I rediscovered video games. I took to live streaming to find the interaction I still needed (because I play primarily single player RPGs).
I replayed Chrono Trigger on stream and then did all of the endings for the first time AND even the bonus dungeons that were added in the DS and PC versions. In 2022, I set up a community challenge to “Speedrun Chrono Trigger”. I had previously seen speedruns but didn’t quite understand the thrill of them but figured, hey why not try it?
Side note: 100% Glitchless is basically playing Chrono Trigger to full completion to get the ‘best’ and ‘most complete’ ending. It involves doing all the side quests for the game.
February 2023, I finally did the challenge. I had read up on the Chrono Trigger Speedrun Community notes and had done an offline run by myself as well. I cosplayed as Ayla ( a cave girl character in the game) and did the run. My first run was 9 hours and 2 minutes, the lowest on the leaderboard by far. And yet I felt completely exhilarated! Speedrunning was a new way to play my favorite game and it provided a challenge.
This became a new ‘hobby’ for me in 2023…to try to beat my last time. It kinda took over my life a bit. I am a published author as well and had some goals for the year to write my 4th book but the evenings I had set aside for writing, I more often felt like sitting down and speedrunning instead haha.
I also wrote and produced a parody song about Chrono Trigger speedrunning to the tune of Dua Lipa’s New Rules , called “New PB” lol.
LA: What were the challenges going into learning to speedrun this game?
JERIKANDRA: As a brand new speedrunner, I had a lot to learn. Chrono Trigger is turn-based but it uses an ATB system, which essentially means the NPCs and yourself get ‘turns’ but when your turn comes up, the enemy keeps getting turns, their timer doesn’t stop….unless you are in the Tech or Item menu.
Battle speed plays a key role in the run and we’re constantly changing it to accommodate the best combination for speed of the run and being able to do things fast enough before the enemy gets their turn.
With that in mind, I had to learn to open that item or tech menu faster. Even start to hit the button before it is your turn pre-emptively. Some of these fights are that tight. If you miss it, the enemy gets a turn and you might wipe or at least have time loss.
The other major thing I had to get used to is the quality of life feature : AutoBattle. In Chrono Trigger DS/PC versions, Autobattle allows you to simply attack on all characters as soon as their turn comes up. This also speeds up all animations by 50%. For the speedrun, we take advantage of this every chance we can: enemy animations, our animations, etc. But if you don’t turn it off at the right time, your characters may simply ‘auto attack’ when you didn’t want them to. So it’s a constant flipping it on and off situation. It took me months to really get this right and there are still times when I choose not to trigger it for an animation for fear of auto attacking when I don’t want to. Or when I do trigger it when I didn’t want to haha.
Finally, the final boss is pretty tough and has a lot of RNG. For example, it can exemplify a certain era at certain times during the fight and that Era dictates what the boss’s attacks look like. The worst era to get is 65,000,000 BC because he does the “Grandstone” attack which does High physical damage and only 1 of 3 characters on the run can survive it. When I first started running, if that era appeared, it would wipe me. It was easy to just ‘freak out’ if that era appeared. The strat is to use a shield sphere asap on one of the characters and then 2 of them survive and you revive the 3rd. I feel fairly confident now whenever I see 65 mil era that I can handle it. =)
LA: How did it feel to accomplish your 4:15:37 time?
JERIKANDRA: Pretty friggin amazing, I have to say. I had been grinding to get to 4:20, hoping to get a good set of RNG and my own focus and started to see the PB time go up and stay up throughout the run. I tried not to get too excited about it because I didnt want to psych myself out but I somehow managed to hold onto it till the end! And shot way past my goal of 4:20! Very exciting and feeling very accomplished hehe.
LA: What's next for you in speedrunning this game or in general?
JERIKANDRA: I set a goal for 2024 for 4:10 for Chrono Trigger 100% Glitchless but maybe I should set it higher! Hehe.
I also learned to speedrun Chrono Cross and Dragon Quest XI although I’ve spent much more time on the latter this year. I have a 2024 goal to get sub-4 hours on the Any% run for DQ11.
Finally i set a sub-goal on twitch to learn to speedrun Final Fantasy X-2 because i love that game and I think we might hit that goal in 2024 so it may be next on the list to learn. =)
LA: Random fact about yourself/Advice
JERIKANDRA: With speedrunning and other hobbies I’ve taken up over the years, people often say I’m “talented” but this year I’ve contemplated that word a lot and I think the fact is I don’t have talent but I do have drive. I spend a lot of time and energy learning and honing the things I’m interested in such as cosplay, latex, speedrunning, writing, cheerleading, parodies, etc. There’s a lot of failures behind the scenes that people don’t often see.
I guess I just want to put it out there for anyone who looks at what someone else is doing and thinks “I can’t do that.”, I disagree. If you really want to do something, jump in and start figuring it out. In the case of speedrunning, most of the communities I’ve joined have been very helpful as well. Spend the time, do the thing! You can do it! =)