Characters / Chrono Trigger

A list of characters from Square Enix's mid-1990s time-traveling yarn, Chrono Trigger.

WARNING! This page assumes you have played through the game. There are also some spoilers for Chrono Cross. UNMARKED SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Main Characters

The whole team

• Badass Crew: Every playable character is some sort of badass, whether by birth or circumstance. To wit, they take down the leaders of multiple kingdoms, an ancient wind spirit, genocidal robots and an Eldritch Abomination.
• Big Damn Heroes: They have a tendency to show up a split-second too early, or a split-second too late. If it's the former, it always involves this trope.
• Canon Name: Characters can be named by the player, but are given their canon name by default. Also, many of the characters use a nickname or other name. Crono, Lucca, and Ayla all use their real names throughout the story; everyone else has a nickname or alternate name.
  • Marle's real name is Princess Nadia. "Marle" is a nickname she made up on the spot because she was pretending to be an ordinary girl to enjoy the Millennial Fair.
  • Frog's real name is Glenn. He was a human man before Magus cursed him with the form of a frog-man, and started going by "Frog" because using his real name reminded him too much of his greatest failure.
  • Robo's real name is R66-Y. Or rather, it's his serial number in the R-series of robots. And even that's not his real name; it's "Prometheus", which is only revealed during his late-game personal quest.
  • The real name of Magus is Janus. It's not immediately obvious, but the game is not subtle about dropping hints that the two are one and the same.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Their ultimate goal is to take down Lavos, an entity of such power that it shaped human evolution.
• For Great Justice: Each of the protagonists could have chosen to forget or ignore what will happen in 1999 A.D., going back to their own times and living out their lives. They choose to fight Lavos simply because it's the right thing to do.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: Three ladies (Marle, Lucca, and Ayla) to two men (Crono and Frog) and one male-gendered robot (Robo). Not counting Robo, adding Magus to the team equalizes the gender ratio.
• Leitmotif: Each of them have their own. If you change your party by talking to the members on standby at the End of Time, it replaces the normal music.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: They all come from their own unique backgrounds and origins^note an ordinary teen, his Wrench Wench childhood friend, a princess in disguise, a robot from a post-apocalyptic future, a cavewoman from the dawn of time, a knight cursed into a froggish form from the distant past, and potentially an evil sorcerer from an ancient magocracy, with only Crono and Lucca, and Frog and Magus being acquainted with each other beforehand. They're all vastly out of their element and in over their heads. But, there's no one else who can do what they aim to do.
• Spanner in the Works: There is no Stable Time Loop in effect, as multiple events throughout the game imply that this is the first time they're happening with Crono and the team's intervention, to the point that the Black Omen existing only happens because they interfered with time. This subsequently means that not a single antagonist or threat in the story can readily account for the party's time travel adventure changing the very course of history up until the aforementioned Black Omen that Queen Zeal awaits the heroes upon; this allows them, and only them, to be capable of subverting Lavos and every consequence of Lavos' existence.
• The Team: Crono is The Leader as the sword wielding primary color wearing silent protagonist. Lucca is his Best Friend and The Smart Guy in charge of building and repairing all manner of technology. Marle is an mage archer with a plot important lineage and is an all loving princess. Frog and Robo are Jacks of All Stats (both with backup healing and offensive abilities) with mysterious pasts and emotional baggage important to the plot. Ayla is The Big Guy, a boisterous cavewoman who is by far the strongest physically, and lacks magic. Magus is also a mage and possess a great deal of information about Lavos.
• Town Girls: Lucca is butch, Marle, ironically enough, is femme, and Ayla is neither. Lucca has been One of the Boys ever since she and Crono grew up together, Marle was born into royalty and has the most feminine qualities in spite of being a Tomboy, and Ayla is a Nubile Savage who doesn't sway too hard into either side of female norms.
• True Companions: There's a strong theme of friendship throughout the game, and very little of the petty arguments found in other RPGs of the time (If Magus joins, he remains rather aloof but never goes out of his way to rock the boat, and the rest of the team accepts him as an ally—even Frog).
• The Unchosen One: The world was originally destined to be destroyed in 1999 A.D., but Crono, Marle, Lucca and Robo aren't about to let that happen. However, there is an "Entity" involved with the creation of the time portals, and it's unlikely to be a coincidence that Crono, Marle and Lucca were the ones to discover them.

Crono

Our hero. A young boy from the village of Truce in 1000 A.D. who lives with his mother and cat. Doesn't say much, but becomes quite the hero after being sucked back in time.

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• Actually a Doombot: Invoked. Crono's body is completely obliterated during the first fight with Lavos. In order to preserve the timeline and prevent a temporal paradox, his friends use the Chrono Trigger to stop time for an instant, replace him with a model doll of Crono from the Millennial Fair, and take the real Crono to safety.
• Affectionate Nickname: Ayla (by default) calls him "Cro" in the Japanese version and will similarly abbreviate any custom name. Averted in the English release, since the handler for this text was removed.
• All-Loving Hero: Part of the reason he is able to attract so many people to join him is because Crono is just that nice. He sees someone in trouble and he has zero hesitation to help.
• Alternate Timeline Ancestry: In one ending, Crono and Marle return home only to discover that people in the castle are strangely "ribbiting" like frogs. They decide to check some old tapes and find out that their ally Frog married Marle's ancestor, Queen Leene, resulting in Marle (and many other people distantly related to her) are now part frog, although they generally look and act exactly the same
• Always Save the Girl: Jumping through a wormhole to save a girl he just met ten minutes ago? You betcha!
• Anime Hair: Of the Spiky Hair variety. This is Akira Toriyama we're talking about; he perfected this trope. If you dyed Crono's hair black or blond, he'd fit right in at Dragon Ball Z.
• Back from the Dead: Although it's more of a Set Right What Once Went Wrong ploy to prevent his death from happening in the first place.
• But Thou Must!: If not for this, Crono could have chosen not to wander around the festival with a pendant-wearing girl who bumped into him, thus avoiding a quest across time to battle unspeakable evils, his own death, and a few days in jail. He's also not allowed to bow out of Marle and Lucca's plan to Screw Destiny.
• Can't Drop the Hero: Until Lavos kills him, anyway. When he comes back, he can be switched out at any time.
• The Chosen One: Zig-zagged. Crono just appears to be some guy, without any of the credentials or special destinies of any of his companions. (For example, Marle's lineage and Lucca's inventions helped shaped the past and future.) However, Gaspar says that the Chrono Trigger won't work unless the person is important to the overall timestream. Furthermore, even if the player chooses not to resurrect Crono, the ending reveals that the party still reunites to do it anyway.
• Cloning Gambit: To prevent his death by Lavos, Belthasar hatches a scheme to replace Crono with an inanimate double won in the sideshow tent at the fair.
• Crash-Into Hello: This is how he meets Marle. No matter how careful you are tip-toeing around the square, Crono has to bump into her in order to progress the story.
• Critical Hit Class: His stronger weapons later in the game make him this, as they often have a high critical hit chance. This is played with via one of his weapons which while increases the damage his crits do, but lowers his overall crit chance by quite a bit as a counterbalance.
• Disappeared Dad: No mention is made of Crono's father or what happened to him.
• Distracted by the Sexy: At least insofar as the animated cutscenes are concerned, when Ayla first appears and begins singlehandedly laying low the Reptite band that assailed Crono and company, Crono just stares on after her dumbfounded, slack-jawed and wide-eyed to boot.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Following their adventure in 600 A.D., Crono returns Marle to the present and it appears the story is over. Cut to Crono being tried for kidnapping and treason. Crono escapes the guillotine by a hair. The charges are never formally dropped, either, which is how he gets yanked back into custody in the game's epilogue.
• The Dulcinea Effect: In fairness, nobody else at the fair was willing to step onto the telepod (and trying to bail will result in Lucca calling him out on the spot). As we later learn in 600 A.D., time is of the essence in locating Marle, or rather, her ancestor Queen Leene.
• The Everyman: Compared to the rest of his party. Lucca is a mechanical genius, Marle is a hotblooded princess, Frog is a hero of the Middle Ages, Robo is a robot meant to end the remains of mankind from a post-apocalyptic future, Ayla is a prehistoric chieftess and the beginning of the Guardia line, and Magus is the lost prince of the lost kingdom of Zeal turned Fiendlord, whereas Crono is just sort of a guy who happens to be Lucca's longtime friend and likes katanas. His deeds, however, end up more or less causing him to become The Chosen One as the Chrono Trigger couldn't work to revive him if he wasn't someone of critical importance to the timeline.
• Expy: To the Dragon Quest Heroes, or more specifically Erdrick, with his affinity to lightning, silent persona, spiky hair, and manner of introduction through his mother waking him up.
• Farm Boy: Compared to everyone else, Crono is no one special—Marle's a princess, Lucca's a genius inventor, Frog is a legendary hero, Robo's a fully sentient automaton from the future, Ayla is the chief of the earliest human tribe, and Magus is a powerful mage called the Fiendlord. Crono is just a regular dude from humble origins who still lives with his mom.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The Lightning to Lucca's Fire and Marle's Ice.
• Fist Pump: Crono does this after every battle. And once in the ending when he's called to action one last time.
• Flaming Sword: Lucca casts magic on his sword and sets on fire. This in itself is pretty sick, but the blade completely immolates any enemy it touches.
• From Zero to Hero: Cannot be stressed enough: Crono is just a regular kid. No legendary hero dad, no part of a lineage of heroes, no noble origins, no nothing. Just a kid who lives with his mom. By sheer determination, willingness to do the right thing and the faith of his friends, he becomes the GREATEST hero in history.
• Good Samaritan: Crono never does anything expecting reward or for any personal reasons, it's just in his nature to help people.
• The Heart: Interesting case of the Heart also being the main hero. He's the kindest, most selfless member of the party, and everyone in the party joins because it's HIM asking. He's so much the hero that when he dies saving his friends, they all IMMEDIATELY work to be able to travel back in time to save him — even Magus is willing to pitch in, as he's the one to suggest the possibility of bringing him back in the first place.
• The Hero Dies: In a break from RPG tradition, Crono dies fighting Lavos before the end of the game, and you don't even need to retrieve him to win.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: His weapon class is katanas.
• Heroic Mime: The only lines he gets are in one of the game's non-canon endings, where Lucca and Marle's slideshow has Crono interrupt to tell them to call it a day. Other characters' responses to Crono indicate that he is speaking, but the player never gets to see what he's saying.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He leaps in front of Lavos's attack to save the rest of the party.
• Hope Bringer: Repeatedly during the course of the story, when the heroes are at their lowest point and thinking all is lost, Crono always steps up to motivate them. Hell, he inspires people to topple multiple evil empires during the course of the game!
• Ideal Hero: If the huge amount of hero-related tropes on this entry don't make it clear, Crono is an A+ hero. He's kind, selfless, inspirational, brave and a loyal, loving friend.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Japanese supplemental material tends to write his name as "Chrono". The Character Name Limit for the original translation is likely to blame for the missing "h".
• Jack of All Stats: He has high attack and speed, with moderate defense, HP, magic attack, and magic defense. Because he can equip some very hefty weapons (including the Rainbow/Dreamseeker), he is one of the primary damage-dealers, graduating him to Lightning Bruiser status.
• Jumped at the Call: Hell, the game even acknowledges it: when Marle gets sucked into Lucca's accidental Time Gate, Crono IMMEDIATELY steps up to rescue her. Cue the main theme. This kid is a hero, folks!
• Katanas Are Just Better: Crono's weapon of choice, which includes some of the most powerful weapons in the game.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Owns a cat (potentially up to eleven cats) and is a heroic figure.
• Light 'em Up: Crono eventually learns Light-based magic (the original kanji has closer connotations to "Sky" or "Heaven", which is why he also gets wind and revival magic, along with Luminaire being über Holy spell).
• Lightning Bruiser: Crono is easily the most well-balanced character in the entire party, boasting high damage, high defense, the highest speed, and the ability to deal respectable physical and magical damage. The only thing Crono can't do by himself is cast healing spells, though he can revive fallen allies.
• Magic Knight: Between his skill with a katana and his Light-aligned spellcasting, Crono is a warrior to be reckoned with.
• Magnetic Hero: Marle tags along with him because he seems like a cool guy (and potentially is, in fact, a Nice Guy to her), Frog accompanies him because he finds Crono to be honorable, and Ayla chooses to join him because he's strong and she likes strong people.
  • Made more evident in the ending where he's never brought back to life. The entire team reunites to save Crono regardless of how their journey ends. Even the destruction of the Epoch and the disappearance of every last Time Gate won't stop them from getting their friend back.
  • If you want to perform Triple Techs that don't involve special accessories, then Crono will be in the party.
• Momma's Boy: He loves his mother very much. Some of the monsters in Magus's Castle disguise themselves as the party's closest loved ones. One of the monsters disguises itself as Crono's mother Gina.
• No Body Left Behind: When Lavos kills him, Crono's body is completely obliterated. Even if he's saved, the Doppel Doll is destroyed in his stead to preserve the timeline, and his real self is whisked forward to Death Peak in 2300 A.D.
• Primary-Color Champion: Fiery red hair, a blue tunic, and a yellow kerchief ensures you won't lose sight of him.
• Prophetic Name: Crono is a condensed form of "chrono", a Greek prefix for time. Since Crono is the lead protagonist in a time-traveling game, this name is very appropriate.
• Rags to Royalty: He gets married to Marle in the animated ending. Since Marle is a crown princess, this would make him a prince.
• Sacrificial Lion: Crono sacrifices himself to save the rest of the party from Lavos's attack.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Wears one around his neck. Aside from his robust red hair, it's his most identifiable feature in sprite form.
• Shock and Awe: He learns lightning magic. However, his element is only Lightning in the English SNES version. In Japanese, it's Heavens, while the remakes change it to Light.
• Shonen Hair: It's surprising that he hasn't cut himself on that nest of hair.
• The Silent Bob: While his dialogue is never shown to the player (except in one ending), he is actually speaking, given the way other characters react to him.
  Lucca: What? Liar! I was a perfect lady last night! But why does my tummy hurt so?
• Spectacular Spinning: Including area attacks and group heals.
• Spell Blade: When teaming up with Lucca or Marle, he gets elemental attacks with his sword, and they are some of the most powerful moves in the game.
• Suddenly Speaking: In the "Memory Lane" ending Crono actually talks to scold the girls for using the credits to talk about the attractiveness of the game's male characters. It ties in with the ending's Breaking the Fourth Wall humor.
  Crono: "This is your idea of a nice little trip down memory lane?"

Lucca Ashtear

One of Crono's friends from 1000 A.D. Lucca is very good with gadgets, a trait she inherited from her father, Taban. She discovered small pockets of distortions in time (which she dubbed "Gates") after an accident at Leene Square hurled Marle back in time to 600 A.D. She has emotional baggage of her own, having buried herself in scientific knowledge at a young age after helplessly witnessing her mother become disabled in an accident.

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• Alcohol Hic: During the prehistoric party in the DS port, she gets smashed pretty fast. She then pushes Crono to try some of the stuff, and you can't say no.
• Anger Born of Worry: Happens a few times in the game, usually when Crono or Robo has nearly (or actually) gotten themselves killed. Most powerfully displayed in the game's main ending when Robo tries to laugh off her concerns that he may not exist in the future they just created. She yells at him for trying to pretend that it's no big deal, then immediately breaks down crying.
• The Atoner: A lot of the work she and her father do are to raise money to support her mother, as she feels responsible for Lara's accident because she didn't pay attention to Taban's instructions in the event of an emergency.
• Badass Adorable: She's a young Gadgeteer Genius who's far more vulnerable than she lets on. But, she'll also wreck your ass if you cross her or her friends.
• Badass Bookworm: She built a robot and a teleporter while living in a quasi-medieval time period, and the Time Key you use through most of the game. Her techo-geekness is established by her house, strewn as it is with books and cabling. She later repairs a robot 1,500 years ahead of her time. She also wields pistols, bombs and fire magic.
• Berserk Button:
  • When the other R Series robots trash Robo, Lucca (if she's in the party) completely loses it.
  • Upon finding out that Lavos is an Abusive Precursor that nurtured and manipulated humankind and its achievements for the sole purpose of feeding itself from them millions of years afterward, Lucca refuses to allow her species' art and science to be fed to some alien parasite.
• Big Damn Heroes: At Crono's scheduled "execution". She starts knocking out several guards. If Crono starts escaping by himself, the only thing that changes is how many are left.
• Black Magician Girl: Lucca has no healing spells of any kind, and is the only mandatory character that doesn't. Nonetheless, she has the second-highest Magic stat overall (only a hair higher than Marle but lower than Magus), and powerful offensive magic and magic-like skills.
• Breakout Character: Lucca is a lot of Chrono Trigger fans' favorite character, most notably Masato Kato himself. As a result, she went on to play integral roles in both Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross. Extending beyond the Chrono series, she would also cameo in other works Masato Kato was involved in; in Xenogears, she can explain save points to Fei Fong Wong in Lahan Village. And Another Eden features an Expy named Ashtear (which is Lucca's surname).
• Celibate Heroine: Lucca is much more interested in science than she is in romance. That said, she and Marle rate much of the male cast in one ending. In another ending, she ogles a human Frog and wonders why he never told anyone he was "such a dish".
• Daddy's Girl: They work as a team quite a few times. Taban refers to her as "[his] favorite daughter" (granted, she's his only daughter). He also makes several very good pieces of armor for her, which besides their defensive value also improve her poor Speed. Some of the monsters in Magus's Castle also disguise themselves as the party's closest loved ones. If Lucca is in the party, one monster disguises itself as Taban.
• Determinator:
  • Her mother's accident inspired her to, instead of swearing off machines and science for good, learn more about them to be able to create things that can still help people without risking hurting them.
  • People in the early game also mention her "inventions never work," but that never stopped her from seeing them through to the end and the payoff comes in the many ways her expertise and inventions contribute to the party throughout the story.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": She insists that Robo just call her by name, and he complies.
• The Engineer: Some of her techs utilize her inventions, mostly in the form of grenades.
• Expy: Her design and characterization can be summed up as "Arale from Doctor Slump, but older and far smarter and without Arale's infamous gag moments".
  • When Lucca's not wearing her helmet, she strongly resembles Bulma from Dragon Ball a bit as well while lacking Bulma's infamous Fanservice moments. Lucca's similarities with Bulma include having the exact same hair color and hairstyle as Bulma's Manga counterpart and being proficient in machines much like her ^note (though unlike Bulma who had a love for science from day 1, Lucca hated it at first and was only interested in science due to older self traveling back in time to prevent her mother's accident that took her legs to inspire her). And like Bulma who's first friend is Goku (whom bares a heavy resemblance to Crono and is The Hero of Dragonball), Lucca's also the best friend to Crono who's The Hero of the story.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The Fire to Crono's Lightning and Marle's Ice.
• Forced Sleep: Hypnowave, which even averts Contractual Boss Immunity sometimes.
• Gadgeteer Genius: With occasional hints of Mad Scientist.
• Glass Cannon: Her spells can deal a ton of damage but she is lacking in the durability department.
• The Gunslinger: Her standard weapons are pistols.
• Homemade Inventions: She built a teleporter that ended up creating a time portal, and some of her inventions can be used in combat.
• In Spite of a Nail: Even if Lucca goes back in time to prevent her mother's accident, Lucca becomes a Gadgeteer Genius anyway. A journal entry by the younger Lucca reveals that the near-miss was enough to inspire the young Lucca to learn more about machines, so that she could stop a real accident from happening.
• Interspecies Friendship: With Robo, a robot from the far future.
• Killed Off for Real: FATE (in the form of Lynx) kills her prior to Chrono Cross when the orphanage is burned down^note it isn't explictly shown, but as she doesn't make an appearance in Cross it can be assumed. However, she is probably Back from the Dead after the dimensions are unified and Lavos is wiped from history for good.
• Like Brother and Sister: Towards Crono. She claims it's this, but the way she says it, the version of the Crono resurrection scene when she's present and Marle isn't, and according to this script, one unused line found in the Japanese version seems to indicate otherwise...
  • Depending on what decisions you make and who is in your party at certain points, the game strongly hints that Lucca has feelings for Crono. In the Updated Re-release, he still winds up married to Marle at the story's conclusion, though.
• Like Parent, Like Child: Double subverted; during the brief trip back in time to relive and possibly avert the freak accident that crippled her mother, you find a diary entry made by her younger self stating how she hates science. Whether or not you manage to avert disaster this time around, the incident affects the younger Lucca deeply, to the point where she makes a point of studying machines, either to atone for her failure to save her mother's legs, or because she wants to be ready for a situation where she can avert a real disaster.
  • More generally, Lucca has inherited her father Taban's scientific smarts. It's also implied to be In the Blood, as Taban's ancestor Banta is a master blacksmith who lives in 600 AD. His wife mentions that he wants a daughter "as intelligent as she is beautiful". We don't know if Banta succeeded, but Taban sure did!
• Mad Scientist: A heroic one, but she checks all the requirements, including an Evil Laugh.
• Mage Marksman: She fights with a pistol, and becomes the party's fire mage once they get trained in spellcasting.
• Mistaken for Gay: A Running Gag throughout the Japanese version of the game is that Lucca was repeatedly mistaken as being into girls, causing her to deny it. This was removed from the original SNES release in America, but the DS version put it back in.
• Ms. Exposition: It is Lucca who realizes Marle is Princess Nadia, and when the team interfered with the search for Marle's ancestor, the paradox caused Marle to vanish.
• Ms. Fixit:
  • "It appears to be a humanoid robot... Incredible. I think I can fix it". She says this of a robot more than a millennium past her technology level.
  • Later, when the party recovers Dreamstone to repair the Masamune, Lucca is the default party member who aids Melchior in fixing the blade.
• My Greatest Failure: Alluded to in the conversation after restoring the forest when Marle asks Lucca if there's a point in time she'd like to return to, and Lucca mentions she doesn't like to think or talk about it. In the very next scene, the player learns it was failing to stop the accident that crippled her mother.
• My Greatest Second Chance: If you do the sidequest to revive the forest, Lucca will go back to her childhood and have the chance to save her mother from being crippled by her father's invention.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: Her laughing sprite emulates the pose.
• Nuke 'em: Her penultimate ability, Megaton Bomb, deals fire damage to all enemies in an area. Her final magic spell, Flare, also evokes a Fantastic Nuke.
• Parental Substitute: To Robo. When visiting Magus's castle, various monsters take on the form of someone close to each of the party members, including Crono's Mom for Crono and Taban for Lucca herself. If you bring Robo in to the hallway where this happens, the monster will take the form of Lucca, implying he sees her as a sort of motherly figure.
• Personality Powers: Hidden deep inside. She lacks the extreme, impulsive hotheadedness one might associate with fire... until you ignite her passion for science, or push one of those Berserk Buttons mentioned above.
• Playing with Fire: Her element, but unlike many in the party, she can use it even without magic, having access to grenades and a flamethrower.
• Science Heroine: "Nothing can beat science!"
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Goes back in time to prevent her mother's accident in an optional sidequest.
• Shipper on Deck: Interpretations differ on her own feelings toward Crono, but there's a little moment of note in 2300 A.D. When the party conceives their plan to stop Lavos and save the world, Crono can choose to be a wimp about it; Lucca takes him aside and eggs him into looking cool in front of Marle.
• Shrinking Violet: In reputation, at least. You wouldn't know it from the way she boisterously interacts with the party members, but the NPCs around her hometown remark that she's something of a recluse (her Mad Scientist reputation not helping matters) and suggest that Crono is her only real friend. Borne out by some of her character development arcs, which suggest that her bravado may at least in part be a cover for a streak of insecurity.
• Signature Headgear: Aside from her glasses, her helmet is her most distinctive feature.
• Smart People Build Robots: Right after returning from 600 A.D. for the first time, Lucca goes home and begins theorizing about how smaller bipedal robots may or may not be (she already built Gato, who has a larger size to properly balance on its legs). Later on, she manages to repair such a robot from more than one thousand years in her future. And in the ending of the Updated Re-release, we find out that she was the person who invented the precursors for those robots, possibly because of her meeting with Robo.
• Squishy Wizard: She's one of the slower party members, and her physical defensive qualities are quite weak, but if Magus isn't recruited, she's the best magic user in the party.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: If you look at her animations, you'll notice that her mallet and her gun are one and the same.
• Teen Genius: This 19 year old genius can fix a robot from a time period long after hers. That should tell you something.
• Tested on Humans: Lucca seizes on the Millennial Fair to test out her telepod, marketing it as an "attraction" of sorts. Unfortunately for Lucca, her reputation precedes her; no one's going to be caught dead near that device.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: She started an orphanage for misplaced youths, and needs to leave her own adopted daughter there a lot while busy with lab work.
• Workaholic: Whenever she gets a spare moment she spends it fixing or building something. In her adulthood this also lead her to apparently spend more than a few all-nighters in her lab.
• Wrench Wench: She displays the Machine Empathy that typically accompanies the trope. Chrono Trigger is an impressively gender-neutral world, though, so her interest in machines isn't seen as awkward for a girl.

Marle / Princess Nadia

A blonde girl with a mysterious pendant who bumps into Crono at the Millennial Fair and tags along. She is actually Princess Nadia of Guardia Castle in 1000 A.D., fed up with the trappings of royal life (ie. not being able to go anywhere without the approval of her father, King Guardia XXXIII).

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• All-Loving Heroine: Marle is, more or less, the person responsible for saving the world, and it's pretty obvious that she will be a kind and benevolent ruler when she does take the throne.
• Badass Adorable: Marle is the most feminine member of your squad, and she's the one with the kindest heart. Her kindness doesn't impede her ability to get things done; in fact, doing the right thing is what motivates her into action.
• Big Eater: According to the kitchen staff of Guardia Castle in 600 A.D., she ate much more than the actual queen did and even came down to the kitchen between meals for snacks.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Her royal name of Nadia in Japan is Marledia, which makes her preferred name Marle make much more sense as it sounds nothing like Nadia.
• Crash-Into Hello: She first bumps into Crono at the Millennial Fair, dropping her pendant.
• Crutch Character: While she's the main healer for the most part, all her healing techs are single target only unless they're combined with somebody else. For this reason, she tends to get ditched as a healer (and thus just plain ditched) once Frog and/or Robo's magic stats get high enough for their party-wide healing to be worthwhile. Her Ice spells also become redundant when Magus joins, and earlier with Frog's Water magic to a lesser degree, given that the two are listed as the same element. Late in the game she does gain access to the Haste skill and can Dual Tech with Lucca for Shadow damage with the Antipode Bomb combos.
• Daddy's Girl: Double subverted. She's estranged from her father, the King of Guardia, because of his strictness, but she still loves him dearly. The double subversion can come when they reconcile in the Rainbow Shell sidequest. Even before that, some of the monsters in Magus's Castle disguise themselves as the party's closest loved ones. If Marle is in the party, one of the monsters disguises itself as the King.
• Determinator: She refuses to accept defeat, loss, or sacrifice.
• Deuteragonist: Marle is, in some ways, more of a protagonist than Crono. It's her family line that is (in one way or another) responsible for the events in every time period, she has the most lines of any character in the game and gets the most invested in bringing Crono back to life, and last but not least, she is the one who demands that the team stop Lavos and save the future.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": After Crono, Lucca and Frog reverse the Grandfather Clause by defeating Yakra in 600 A.D., Lucca, who has figured out her real identity, addresses her formally as "Your Highness", but Marle insists her friends just call her, well, Marle.
• Dub Name Change: Her real name was Marledia (or more accurately, "[Default]-dia") in the Japanese version, making her chosen nickname a bit more realistically "on-the-spot".
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The Ice to Crono's Lightning and Lucca's Fire.
• First Girl Wins: She's the first girl introduced in the story, though Crono has known Lucca longer. In the Updated Re-release, they are confirmed to get married in the main ending, although the original version only has evidence of romantic tension.
• Genki Girl: Her victory sprite is energetically jumping up and down.
• Half-Human Hybrid: One of the endings has Frog marrying Leene while still in frog form, leading to the entire present day royal family (Marle included) becoming half-human, half-frogs, to her dismay.
• Healing Hands: Not only does she gain healing spells when she learns magic, but she actually had a healing ability even before then with Aura. How that works is never mentioned.
• Hot-Blooded: If she has a fault, it's that she's too impulsive. Her eagerness to try out Lucca's teleporter is what sets the entire events of the game into motion, and her refusal to obey her father goes back even further than that.
  • On the positive side, after the shock of finding out that a giant parasite monster destroys the world, her immediate response is essentially "Hell no, let's go kill that thing."
• An Ice Person: Shares the same elemental power as Frog (Water), but hers is associated with ice.
• Identical Granddaughter: Bears an uncanny resemblance to the queen in the Middle Ages. Naturally, this becomes a plot point.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Japanese supplemental material tends to write her name as "Marl".
• Killed Off for Real: Possibly. Guardia is attacked and destroyed by Porre in 1005 A.D. However, if she was killed, she is likely Back from the Dead after the dimensions are unified and Lavos is wiped from history for good.
• Kill It with Ice: While her standard ice attacks aren't particularly powerful, her dual techs can be devastating, such as Ice Sword 2 (with Crono), Ice Tackle (with Robo), Glacier Toss (with Ayla), and any of the Antipode Bomb attacks (with Lucca).
• Mage Marksman: Marle fights with a crossbow, and becomes the party's ice-mage once they get trained in spellcasting. The damage lags behind because her damage is tied to accuracy instead of strength so not only is it slow to increase, but you can't improve on it with items either. However, her ultimate weapon deals a fixed 777 damage, which is around what your physical fighters deal on their normal attacks and can hit enemies like Nizbel or Heckran for full damage.
• Master of None: She has poor physical damage without her ultimate weapon (which does fixed damage anyway), and her offensive magic is the worst in the game. She seems to be focused on healing, but not only does she lack a party-wide heal, Ayla's Kiss ability is probably better as a single target heal if you invest some magic capsules. Marle does have some impressive Dual and Triple Techs, but by herself, she's rather weak.
• The Medic: She only has basic offensive capabilities, but has multiple heal spells and the better of the two revive abilities.
• Medical Monarch: The princess is the most dedicated healer of the team.
• Memento Macguffin: Her pendant is a family heirloom and has a lot of sentimental value for her. It also interacts strangely with the gates, which allows Lucca to build a gate key by studying it. Eventually it turns out to be an artifact from ancient Zeal that was originally owned by Schala. How her family ended up with it is unclear.
• Missing Mom: Her mother, Queen Aliza, died of an illness when she was little. She doesn't remember her very well but loved her greatly. The fake chancellor uses this to further strain the relationship between her and her father by telling her her father wouldn't even come see her when she was sick because he was too busy. Why? Just to be a dick, apparently.
• Pimped-Out Dress: The royal dress she wears in the past, and a similar dress she flings off in the present, each have loads of frills and Giant Poofy Sleeves. She also wears a Fairytale Wedding Dress in the good ending cutscenes in the re-releases of the game.
• Pistol-Whipping: If an enemy is too close for her to shoot at, she instead gives them a good whack with the butt of her crossbow.
• Politically-Active Princess: She isn't afraid to get out and know the people of her kingdom, despite her father's wishes that she be kept away from it all. When the party visits new areas and meet new people, it becomes very clear very fast that she knows how to use diplomacy and negotiations.
• Pretty Princess Powerhouse: She is the princess of Guardia, and she is helping on a journey to save the world.
• Princess Protagonist: Marle fits the Princess Classic, Politically-Active Princess, Rebellious Princess, Pretty Princess Powerhouse, Tomboy Princess and Royals Who Actually Do Something tropes and basically acts as the focal point of everything that happens in the plot.
• Real Name as an Alias: Dropped in the English versions (see "Blind Idiot" Translation above), but in the Japanese original, her real name is Marledia, or whatever-you-named-her-dia if you named her something else. In English translations, her real name is always Nadia no matter what you name her.
• Rebellious Princess: She fits every single facet of the trope. She runs away from home, takes up Tomboy Princess traits despite his protests, brings home a strange boy her father thinks is a criminal, and hates the cushy and lax lifestyle of the castle.
• Ret-Gone: At a basically arbitrary point, she vanishes because with the castle thinking that she's Leene, they never went to rescue the real queen, who is her ancestor. Notably, she doesn't vanish as soon as they stop looking for Leene nor when Leene actually dies. She just disappears. And nobody forgets she was there either, even the NPCs.
• Reused Character Design: In appearance, she resembles a young, blonde Bulma, but without Bulma's intelligence (which was given to the nearly similarly designed Lucca). She even wears the same clothing Bulma wore at the end of the Pilaf Saga.
• Ripple Effect Indicator: Marle serves as this at the start of the game in 600 A.D.
• Royal Blood: She's the latest in a long line of ancestry throughout time. She even unknowingly meets some of her ancestors.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Upon finding out that her world will end in 1999, she decides that this cannot stand, and starts the heroes' journey to ensure a future for mankind. "Doing something" doesn't get more direct than that. She also doesn't like that her father wants her to stay in the castle and be more distant and dignified with the people.
• Sacred Bow and Arrows: Symbolized by the name of her strongest weapon, the Venus Bow.
• Samaritan Syndrome: She's one of the friendliest people you'll ever meet, puts on no airs whatsoever regarding her rank, and her idealism is what leads her to declare that they should screw destiny and change history by opposing Lavos.
• Screw Destiny: Might as well be her catchphrase, given how often she suggests it. She's the first one to say it when the heroes discover the Bad Future. Also, after Crono dies, she becomes hellbent to bring him back, along with Lucca. When the whole world is telling her "You have to let go", she says "Screw Destiny!" yet again.
• Squishy Wizard: While her magic defense is the game's highest, and her best armor increases this even further, her physical defense is downright awful.
• Strong Family Resemblance: To the point that she could seamlessly take the place of an ancestor hundreds of years in the past. Even this has its limits, though, because there's never any comment about her relation to Ayla, Kino or Doan.
• Super Window Jump: In her personal sidequest, straight through a stained glass window to save her father.
• Support Party Member: She has the lowest offensive abilities of any party member, has no access to third tier elemental attacks and her physical damage scales off accuracy instead of strength, which you can't raise with items. However, she does have multiple healing spells, though none of them affect the whole party, and is the only party member with access to Haste, which may be enough to justify using her all by itself. If nothing else, it frees up the helmet armor slot for, say, the Master Crown for Crono or Robo, who are probably the best party members in the game.
• Tempting Fate: She's defiant to destiny, but wondering what that seemingly insignificant button in Arris Dome does ends up changing so many lives.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Although it seemed to be part of her Princess Classic getup, too.
• Tomboy Princess: To the point that her whipping off dresses and transforming into her normal clothes is a common sprite animation.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Marle is still the most feminine of the three ladies on the team, as evidenced by her emphasis on healing and support over offense, tender-hearted nature, and somewhat dainty walking animation.
• Wham Line: "Say, what does this button do?" Cue footage on the monitor of Lavos destroying the Earth in 1999 AD, leading to the group deciding to change history by slaying the alien parasite, Marle leading the charge.
• What Does This Button Do?: In 2300 AD, the group finds out about Lavos destroying the world in 1999 AD all because Marle wondered what a random button in Arris Dome does. That said, Marle is the first one to persuade the group to actually do something about it.
• White Mage: The primary healer of the game.
• White Magician Girl: Subverted. She's too much of a tomboy to fit the trope.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: She believes there's hope, no matter how bleak things seem.

Frog

A renowned warrior of the kingdom of Guardia, hailing from 600 A.D. He was originally a human named Glenn, placed under a curse by Magus and sworn to defeat him to avenge his best friend Cyrus.

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• Absurdly Sharp Blade: In one of the most famous examples of an exaggerated version of this, he slices an entire mountain in half with the Masamune.
• Achilles in His Tent: After he rescues Queen Leene with Crono and Lucca's help, he still feels like he has failed as he allowed her to get kidnapped in the first place, and retreats to his hideout in the Cursed Woods to essentially sulk and brood upon his past shortcomings. The rest of the party helps him regain his self-confidence. Several endings imply that he would have eventually gotten out of his funk to go challenge Magus, though lacking the Hero's Badge or restored Masamune it probably wouldn't have gone well if he made it there before Lavos presumably blew up Magus.
• Actual Pacifist: Despite being good with a sword, he couldn't bring himself to fight humans. By the end of the game, he's developed into a Martial Pacifist.
• Almighty Janitor: Cyrus admitted to him before he came a knight that Frog was always better with a sword than he was. However, he didn't become a knight then because he was afraid he'd "lose it" if he ever hurt someone.
• Badass Adorable: Needless to say, being transformed into a frog definitely does not seem to have diminished his strength...or especially his bravery, for that matter.
• Badass Cape: He wears a long cape that flows dramatically in certain animations.
• Bewitched Amphibians: Frog is basically a full-sized version of this. Unlike other cases of Forced Transformation, it doesn't make him any less dangerous. Quite the opposite, in fact.
• BFS: Frog wields large Western-style swords, as opposed to Crono's katanas. The Masamune is particularly huge.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: One of the flashbacks with Glenn and Cyrus goes into this, with the SNES English translation saying the exact opposite of what the original Japanese dialogue meant. Specifically, Glenn tells Cyrus that he doesn't want to fight because being hit hurts, to which Cyrus responds that Glenn is a "marshmallow", that is, a wimp. In the original Japanese, and in later English translations, it's clear that Glenn doesn't like fighting because he doesn't want to hurt others, to which Cyrus responds that Glenn is too gentle.
• The Champion: To Queen Leene, just as Cyrus was before he died.
• The Chosen One: To fight Magus, that is, though he initially refuses the call due to his Failure Knight angst.
• Combat Medic: Frog has physical, elemental, and healing techs available.
• Courtly Love: Frog is heavily implied to have this with Queen Leene even before being transformed. Leene tells Glenn to be careful when he and Cyrus are leaving to search for the Hero's Badge and Masamune, Cyrus specifically tells him to protect Leene after he's transformed, he becomes her bodyguard as a frog-man, Leene is worried about Frog's whereabouts if you return to the castle without him after defeating Magus, and they watch the Epoch side by side in the closing credits if he doesn't turn back. They even get married in one of the endings. Aside from that, Frog and Leene are both far too honorable to cuckold King Guardia.
• Cowardly Lion: His character development is based around this. The only reason he didn't become a knight along with Cyrus, despite being better with a sword, is because he doesn't handle violence well. When the party meets him, however, he's grown to the point that he comes to the Queen's rescue without hesitation. The rest of his arc deals with getting over his inferiority complex to face off against Magus.
• Cursed with Awesome: Side effects of being turned into a frog may include increased strength, agility, use of a sticky tongue to draw enemies to your range, and the ability to lick people's wounds. Frog even realizes it himself during the battle with Magus.
• A Day in the Limelight: Everything about him screams main character of a fantasy story. He's got a personal connection to an evil overlord, has a magic sword, is on a personal quest for vengeance, has a great destiny and an implied romantic interest in the queen. Indeed, he's The Hero for the 600 A.D. arc and the battle against Magus; it's just that Crono's story is bigger than his.
• Desperation Attack: His Frog Squash tech deals more damage the lower his HP is.
• A Dog Named "Dog": A frog named Frog. He does have a real name in "Glenn", but just says that "Frog will do".
• Dub Name Change:
  • His default Japanese name is "Kaeru"—which, in addition to meaning "Frog", can also translate as "to change" or "to return".
  • The French localization calls him Gren. By happy coincidence, it still means the same thing (the French for "frog" is "grenouille") while resembling the English dub's name.
• Duel Boss: If the player accepts Magus' later challenge to fight and Frog is in the party, Frog will fight Magus one-on-one.
• Dynamic Entry: Part of his Establishing Character Moment is to leap down and kill a Naga-ette that was about to slash Lucca.
• Eek, a Mouse!!: On the receiving end from both Lucca and briefly Marle. Nobody else gives him much comment aside from Crono's mother, who assumes he's a new pet.
• Enemy Mine: Even though Magus is the one who killed his best friend and transformed him all those years ago, Frog will accept working alongside him if it means taking down Lavos.
• Establishing Character Moment: He's first seen saving Lucca from a surprise attack by a Naga-ette. We come to find that he's a superb swordsman who more than deserves to wear the Hero's Medal and wield the Masamune, though he himself doesn't realize it at first.
• Evolving Weapon: Late in the game, Frog can upgrade the Masamune by helping Cyrus' spirit to find peace.
• Failure Knight: Was unable to prevent Cyrus' death at the hands of Magus. The quest chain prior to his recruitment is the party's effort to get his confidence back.
• Forced Transformation: Magus turned him into a frog man. This was intended as a punishment, but he missed by a wide margin. Frog himself even recognizes this.
  Frog: This form has been a blessing in disguise. Without it... (hops and poses with the Masamune) There are things I'd never have obtained!
• Frog Men: The result of his Forced Transformation experience.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Frog's Dual Techs, Bubble Snap and Bubble Hit, involve him lifting Robo and Ayla respectively in a bubble and dropping them on an unsuspecting enemy.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: In one of the endings, Lucca sees Glenn in his human form. She then starts drooling, wondering why he never told anyone he was "such a dish". The re-releases only show him from behind, but as a human, he's quite buff with spiky green hair.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Though not the game's protagonist, he's meant to be the hero in his time. He uses Western-style swords and claymores.
• Insult Backfire: Magus tries to taunt Frog by bringing up his curse, but Frog quite rightly thanks him for it.
• It's Personal: Frog’s initial reason for joining Crono's group. He wants to defeat Magus for having killed his best friend, Cyrus.
• Jack of All Stats: His stats are very well balanced, with decent attack, defense, magic, and speed. He's basically slightly worse than Crono in every stat except for magic, where he's slightly better.
• Jack of All Trades: He's pretty good with physical attacks, magic attacks, and magical healing, but doesn't particularly shine in any one area. He also lacks a third-tier water spell, so even with a lot of magic capsules his late-game magic attacks won't compare to Crono, Lucca, or Magus.
• Kill It with Water: He uses Water spells as attack magic.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Exemplifies the honor, righteousness and sense of justice that go along with this trope. He's also a knight of Guardia.
• Lady and Knight: He has a lot of this going with Queen Leene. They never act on it, as they're both far too honorable to betray King Guardia. Some of the monsters in Magus's Castle disguise themselves as the party's closest loved ones. One of the monsters disguises itself as Leene.
• Love Triangle: It is heavily implied that he is in love with Queen Leene, and in one ending even marries her. However, she's married to the King of Guardia, and has to be in order to propegate Marle's lineage (unless, of course, Marle is fine with being part frog).
• Magic Knight: He utilizes Water magic, but is one of the party's strongest physical attackers.
• Making a Splash: Being a frog, he's naturally good with Water magic.
• Master Swordsman: He's stated to be better than his friend Cyrus, who was the captain of Guardia's military.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: He introduces himself as Frog. Flashbacks establish that his real name is Glenn and he does refer to his real name several times. It's implied that nobody knows that he's the same Glenn that used to follow around Cyrus.
• Overly-Long Tongue: Several of his attacks utilize his ridiculously long tongue. He actually kind of appreciates Magus's curse as a result as it only improved his fighting abilities.
• The Paladin: While he isn't specifically religious (instead being a loyal servant of his kingdom and his queen), he fits every other aspect: an exceptionally moral knight who wields a sword and healing magic.
• Revenge: He seeks to avenge his friend Cyrus, who was killed by Magus. Whether he succeeds in his quest for vengeance or decides to let go of his grudge is up to the player's decision.
• Spell Blade: With Crono and Lucca. His vary from Crono's techniques in that he impales foes with his blade and his ally uses the blade as a conduit for the spell, as opposed to charging the blade before the strike.
• Stab the Sky: Frog with the Masamune in the cutscene where he slices apart a wall blocking your path and triggers a Pillar of Light.
• Stealth Pun: His Slurp special allows him to, quite literally, lick his allies' wounds.
• Summon Magic: Frog Squash brings a titanic frog down on enemies.
• Sword of Plot Advancement: He's got main character written all over him, at least for the 600 A.D. era. As a result, he's the one who wields the magic sword Masamune after it's fixed, even though he wasn't in the party when they proved their worth to the spirits inside it. While it's quickly outclassed, it gets upgraded into his ultimate weapon after a sidequest. Unfortunately, it's probably the weakest ultimate weapon for your physical attackers, though his unique accessory helps make up for it.
• Take Up My Sword: The recipient of this, from his dead mentor Cyrus.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  Glenn: "I cannot hurt another".
  Frog: (to the party before facing Magus in a duel) "Stand back".
• A True Hero: In order to fulfill the requirements of the "Legendary Hero" determined to defeat Magus, both Cyrus and Tata tried to wield the Hero Badge and the Masamune. They both failed. Frog (aka Glenn) is said to be better with a sword than Cyrus and, after overcoming his fear, is far braver than Tata. Thus, the spirits Masa and Mune decide that he is worthy.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: If the decision is made to spare Magus, Frog realizes how much Magus' own vengeance quest against Lavos has cost him, and decides he's Not Worth Killing.
  Frog: Taking your life will not restore Crono or Cyrus theirs.
• Voice Grunting: Frog's lines are marked by him croaking.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: In the English SNES, PSX, and VC versions, his speech is translated this way. The DS and mobile editions retranslated his text to be simply rather formal and somewhat archaic.

Robo

An R Series robot from 2300 A.D. with the serial number R-66Y that Crono and friends find and name in the Proto Dome, seemingly abandoned by his creators. He joins the party after Lucca repairs him in order to help them change the future. He may be surprised to learn that his real designated name is Prometheus, and that his old robot friends have revolted against the last remnants of humanity to establish a new society.

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• Arm Cannon: Some techs such as Uzi Punch depict him using a machine gun in place of a hand (in one case, "uses it" means "fires Frog out of it"). Despite what his artwork would indicate, however, his actual sprites depict his arms as symmetrical most of the time.
• Beam Spam: Robo's lasers have him spinning around in a circle. Comparatively, the attack power is pretty muted, but it ignores radius and can hit everything at once.
• Broken Hero: Robo, in a physical and metaphorical sense... or does a robot having a Heroic BSoD and a Heroic RRoD at the same time count as a metaphor?
• Call to Agriculture: Lucca's sidequest involves him helping return a barren wasteland back into a forest after it was destroyed in the war between mystics and humans. He even rearranges himself into a tractor. Once you come back for him (and fix him), he states he's "gained a new perspective on life".
• Casting a Shadow: His laser attacks deal Shadow damage and are powered by his magic stat, though they aren't considered magical in terms of lore.
• Combat Medic: Later on, Robo gets some really useful party-wide healing abilities.
• Contemplate Our Navels: During the Fiona sidequest, Robo spends 400 years re-cultivating the forest. His remains are stored in a chapel built in his honor. Once Lucca powers him up, Robo reveals that he has gained a new perspective on life. His thoughts on the gates are even enough to gain Magus's interest despite his normally aloof attitude.
• Converging-Stream Weapon: Inverted, his Laser ability fires two counter-rotating beams of dark energy.
• Cute Machines: His extreme loyalty to the friends that he meets during the game especially cements him as one of these, despite how incredibly formidable he is in combat when he is used properly.
• Defector from Decadence: He wants no part in Mother Brain's plans to wipe out what few humans remain.
• Distaff Counterpart: He has one in the form of Atropos, who is pink and wears a bow.
• Do Androids Dream?: He's shocked when Lucca asks him if he has any plans for the future. That question is what sparks him to accompany the party on their mission.
• Doomed Protagonist: Brought up in the game's main ending. Destroying Lavos has the effect of fairly dramatically rewriting history post-1999 A.D., which includes Robo's creation. It is very possible that the act of defeating the main boss will erase Robo from existence. The game never expounds on whether or not Robo survives his final trip "home" through the gate, either. However, some endings do show him interacting with Atropos in a friendly manner, like bumping into each other in the same way that Crono and Marle did.
• Dub Name Change: In the Japanese version, his original designation in katakana is actually one letter short of Prometheus, making it closer to "Promethes" (pu-ro-me-se-su) — contrast to the Prometheus circuit in Chrono Cross, which was always known as Prometheus.
• Duel Boss: Robo's personal sidequest in the end game has him taking on his friend Atropos one-on-one.
• Energy Weapon: He can fire lasers from his body. Strangely, they use the Shadow element instead of the Light element.
• Evil Twin: Evil Hextuplets, actually (six siblings "born" at the same time). They're palette swaps, but the principle's the same.
• Expy: His design and characterization bear a marked resemblance to Tik Tok◊ from Return to Oz.
• Fastball Special: He can throw Frog with the Blade Toss attack and Ayla with the Spin Kick attack. Frog can also throw him with a Bubble Hit attack, trapping Robo in a bubble, moving him over the enemy, and then popping it so Robo's heavy metal body lands on the monster.
• Foil: To Ayla, being a robot while she's a caveman. In addition, while Ayla typically speaks in third-person, Robo typically speaks in fluent sentences.
• Gentle Giant: Not that you can fully tell from his game sprite, but he's by far the largest of the party—but also the kindest, especially after his stay with Fiona.
• Healing Shiv: His lasers can be tuned to Shadow-elemental implements of destruction, or healing rays.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The entire game is about averting the Bad Future seen in the time he's from. By defeating Lavos in 1999, it's no longer clear if he'll ever be created. Despite knowing this, he didn't say a word throughout the entire game until Lucca brings it up after Lavos' defeat. She promises to build him herself.
• I Am Not a Gun: As it turns out, Robo's original purpose was to infiltrate and destroy humanity... a directive he doesn't even entertain following when he learns of it.
• Interspecies Friendship: With Lucca, a human. In Magus's Castle, some of the monsters disguise themselves as the party's closest loved ones. If Robo is in the party, one of the monsters disguises itself as Lucca.
• I Owe You My Life: To the party, after Lucca repairs him twice.
• Killed Off for Real: FATE terminates him in Chrono Cross after Serge makes contact with the supercomputer. However, he is probably Back from the Dead after the dimensions are unified and Lavos is wiped from history for good.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: No pun intended. Robo does not initially remember much about his setting.
• Magic from Technology: He's got technology-based powers to replicate everyone else's magic. For example, a Lightning Gun to simulate Crono's Lightning spell, a Proximity Mine that does fire damage, and a Tissue Regenerator device to replicate Marle's healing. And a Dark Energy beam cannon, which does Shadow Damage. He can also channel these through his allies weapons for Double and Triple Techs.
• Magikarp Power: While Robo can do just about anything, without investment, his ability to actually do those things effectively is hampered by weak stats in the relevant areas. Without tabs, his speed is so low the others can take multiple turns to one of his. His natural magic stat is the lowest in the game, so his healing and magic-based attacks won't do too much. To top it off, even his massive HP does less for him than one would think on account of his low magic defense leaving him vulnerable to massive damage from magic. With tabs and the stat bonus he gets from his sidequest, however, he can become the most versatile and useful character in your party.
• Master of All: He's one of the hardest hitting physical attackers, especially after getting the Crisis and Armageddon Arms, the latter of which is like Ayla's Bronze Fist but attainable much earlier. He has the best non-combo party heal in the game. Even his elemental attacks are quite potent with Electrocute in particularly being one of the most powerful in the game. He is very slow, however, so until you either load him up with speed capsules or do his sidequest he'll be your slowest party member.
• Meaningful Name: Robo's original name of "Prometheus" comes from the Titan in Classical Mythology who created humanity and committed a Heroic Sacrifice to give them fire. He ends up being exiled from all the other gods and divine beings for his efforts, much as Robo's devotion to his human friends separates him from his fellow robots.
• Mighty Glacier: He has a powerful arsenal of lasers, rockets, and punches, but is the slowest party member by a longshot. One of the sidequests he can undertake upgrades his speed, but he's still naturally the slowest.
• Nature-Loving Robot: Over the course of the game, he learns to appreciate all that humanity has achieved from its very beginnings, and even aids in planting a great forest by caring for it over four centuries. Then we learn he was supposed to infiltrate humans so as to better eliminate them once and for all, a plot twist that lasts all of 30 seconds as he refuses to let his friends come to harm.
• Non-Human Sidekick: He's the only member of the party that is not and was never a human, either formerly or presently.
• Multi-Melee Master: Equipped with an array of weapons and hand-to-hand combat abilities
• Pick Your Human Half: Looks very mechanical, but is very human in personality, if perhaps a little subservient and overly polite thanks to his programming.
• Plug 'n' Play Technology: He's compatible with any mechanical arm ever, from Stone Punk fists to Magitek claws.
• Power Fist: He possesses various punching abilities, including a rocket arm and arm cannon.
• The Red Mage: He can't learn real magic, but his lasers inflict shadow damage, he has explosive for fire damage and can shock enemies with electricity. He also has both a single target and party healing move which scales nicely.
• Robo Speak: His text boxes include an electronic noise to indicate this. The Japanese version also has him speak in katakana, a common way to show mechanical speech.
• Robot Buddy: Particularly to Lucca, but the entire party are his True Companions.
• Robot Names: His serial number is R-66Y. Lucca thinks it's cool but Marle rejects it, so the party calls him Robo instead.
• Robot Wizard: Averted and Defied. Despite his skillset, Spekkio specifically says he has no soul, and therefore can't use magic.
• Rocket Punch: Robo's first special attack. His fist returns on a chain. He later learns "Uzi Punch" which repeatedly fires his fist at an enemy.
• Shock and Awe: His final tech, Electrocute, is an electric attack.
• Situational Sword: His ultimate weapon, the Crisis Arm, deals damage dependent on the last digit of his HP. If it is 0, it does no damage. If it is 9, it deals a lot of damage. So long as the last digit is above about five or six it's stronger than any of his other weapons apart from the Armageddon Arm on a crit.
• The Slow Path: Takes it on purpose to help Fiona grow a forest. This renders him centuries older than the other characters (assuming he wasn't already centuries old to begin with).
• Steampunk: Seems to have a boiler, judging from the train whistle and safety valve coming out of the pod on his back. One of his animations has him opening his casing, revealing the underlying circuitry... with a sound like steam hissing. (He does it after exertion, like holding the doors open in the Factory, so it's his cooling cycle.)
• Stout Strength: To the point where he is one of only two playable characters in the game that doesn't need weapons for physical attacks (with the other one being Ayla). Due to being a robot, however, he technically isn't "fat" in the traditional sense.
• Voice Grunting: His speech is marked by robotic sounds when he has a line of dialogue.
• We Can Rebuild Him: He's a broken-down wreck when Crono, Marle and Lucca first find him, but Lucca manages to repair and recharge him. She later fixes him a second time when the other R-Series robots smash him at the northern factory.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Waxes philosophical about this for a while. The ending of his character quest sees Robo basically deciding that he is part of all living things, despite being created by human hands. He declares as much before the final battle in a "No More Holding Back" Speech should he be brought there.
• Wreathed in Flames: Lucca can charge him with fire magic before he punches or tackles them, turning his attacks into a fiery explosion.
• You Are Number 6: His original name is his serial number, R66-Y. Lucca thinks it's cool, but Marle promptly urges the party to change it to something else. Note that you can name him that exact serial number, and Marle suddenly finds it a great and appealing name.

Ayla

A strong, burly, female tribal chief from 65,000,000 B.C. As a leader of the early humans, she is a key figure in the struggle for supremacy against the Reptites. Among her achievements is notably the naming of Lavos, as it stands for "fire" (La) and "big" (Vos) in her words.

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• All Amazons Want Hercules: Subverted. She claims to like anyone who's strong, man or woman, but her love interest is easily weaker than she is and it's most likely that by like she meant just that and no more when speaking to Crono and Lucca/Marle.
• Amazonian Beauty: The most muscular woman in the party, and also the most fanservicey.
• Ambiguously Bi: She's quite flirtatious, albeit perhaps unknowingly, regardless of her interlocutor's gender. In the DS translation, depending on how you interpret her use of the word "like":
  Ayla: (to Lucca) You strong, too. Ayla like strong person. Man, woman... both like!
  Marle: Oh dear.
• Animal-Themed Fighting Style: Ayla attacks by running on all fours and clawing her enemies like a cat.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: She's the leader of her tribe because she's the strongest. Kino, the second-strongest, is her mate and second-in-command.
• Badass Normal:
  • Ayla can't use magic since she was born before it existed, so while the rest of the party is casting their nuke spells, she's tearing apart Eldritch Abominations with her bare hands.
  • Even her dual techs utilize this. The animation for Glacier Toss is Marle making a gigantic icicle and Ayla almost effortlessly lobbing it at their target.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Ayla doesn't use any weapons, but still has incredible attack power. Her "weapons" slots are her fists, which are periodically upgraded at level milestones. At level 24, her critical hit chance increases from 20% to 25%. At 48, it increases to 30%. At 72, it changes to "Iron Fist" and the crit rate goes to 35% and randomly inflicts Chaos on enemies. At 96, it changes to "Bronze Fist". The crit rate plummets to 10%, but critical hits always hit by 9999.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite what you would realistically expect for someone of her lifestyle, she's always depicted as being relatively tidy, with clean, non-matted hair and no noticeable scars.
• Big Eater: A lot of her dialogue has her asking if she can eat whatever the party discovers, and she challenges Crono to a soup/skull-smash drinking contest when traveling to prehistoric era for the first time.
• Blow You Away: Her Tail Spin attack can somehow produce a tornado.
• Boisterous Bruiser: She's actually pretty serious when the situation is, but boisterous at other times.
• Book Dumb: While Ayla's not actually stupid, education hasn't been invented in 65,000,000 B.C. and human language is in its infancy. She speaks in Hulk Speak and has limited understanding of technology or abstract philosophy.
• Captain Ersatz: As in, "The protagonist of Earth's Children". She even resembles Daryl Hannah from the series' 1986 film adaptation, The Clan of the Cave Bear.
• Cat Girl: In a sense, Ayla has mannerisms of a wild cat. Her attacks and critical hits resemble a cat scratching, not to mention her Cat Attack move. And she runs on all fours.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: At a sufficiently high level, her fists deal 9999 damage on every critical hit, no matter the enemy's defence. She's also the most physically strong of the party, with her strength surpassing a robot.
• Connected All Along: Turns out she's an ancestor of Marle.
• Crutch Character: During the Blackbird escape scenario, in which the party is captured and relieved of all their possessions. Fortunately, the only weapons Ayla needs are lefty and righty, so if she's in your party, she'll be fully capable of fighting from the get-go with no need to reclaim a weapon for her first.
• A Day in the Limelight: As chief of the Ioka, she serves as the local ally in 65,000,000 B.C., and the plot of that era is largely about her and her tribe's fight with the Reptites.
• Desperation Attack: Her Dino Tail tech deals more damage the lower her HP is.
• Dumb Muscle: Subverted. She's from a time without formal education, can't learn magic, speaks in Hulk Speak, and prefers to solve her problems through physical strength. But none of this makes her dumb. Despite her lack of education, she's able to hold up her end on philosophical conversations about death, implying a certain degree of natural intelligence and observation.
  "When people die, elders say, see whole life pass by!"
• Elemental Punch: Some of her double techs involve getting hit by an elemental spell and then attacking the enemy.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Kiss heals Marle and Lucca just as well as the boys and even Robo. Charm also works on all enemies regardless of gender. Even robots and security systems aren't immune to her charms.
• Evolving Weapon: True, Ayla fights with her fists, but they evolve overtime. She starts off with Fist as her "weapon", but after gaining a few levels, Fist becomes Iron Fist. Having Ayla max out her level will then turn Iron Fist into Bronze Fist, which is capable of doing 9999 damage on a critical.
• Expy: Her overall design while resembling the Earth's Children and The Clan of the Cave Bear (seen above), Ayla also bears a strong resemblance to Bad Launch from Dragon Ball (including having the same face and hairstyle to boot, which doesn't help when you have the creator of Dragon Ball designing your cast), if she lived in the prehistoric age instead of the modern world and was even more prone to violence (while Bad Launch would ultimately be Reformed, but Not Tamed before she disappears, Ayla is no doubt heroic who stays with the group until the game's ending).
• Extreme Omnivore: A good chunk of her lines.
  Ayla: "Big frog present? For Ayla eat?"
  Frog: "P-perish the thought!"
• Fastball Special: She throws Crono in the Falcon Hit attack, while Robo and Crono throw her in the Spin Kick and Drill Kick attacks. Frog is a borderline example with the Bubble Hit attack, as he traps her in a bubble, directs her over the enemy, and pops it so she can land on the monster.
• Fur Bikini: Ayla's outfit. Official artwork shows her with a fur scarf as well, but in-game, it looks more like a tail.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Because her weapon is her fists, she's the only party member who can't be disarmed on the Blackbird, allowing her to fight even before the party locates their equipment. She does, however, lose the rest of her inventory, so she's more susceptible to damage.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Her official artwork and the animated FMVs depict her wielding a club but in-game, she never uses any weapons aside from her bare fists.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Despite holding a club in official artwork and animated cutscenes, she fights using her fists in-game.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: A beautiful blonde cavewoman who is very friendly and kind to everyone.
• Hulk Speak: Depending on the translation and the individual line, could be this or You No Take Candle. Either way, her speech is incredibly primitive.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Japanese supplemental material tends to write her name as "Eira".
• Intimate Healing: Her "Kiss" ability can heal party members. Including herself, somehow.
• Kick Chick: A fair number of her techniques involves her kicking the opponent.
• The Lad-ette: Her primary interests include fighting and drinking. She challenges Crono to a drinking contest to decide whether or not to give Crono some Dreamstone, although she ends up losing. She is also the only other party member to be able to participate in the "Soda drinking" minigame at the Millennial Fair.
• Life of the Party: Ayla loves holding parties, even throwing massive ones for time-travelers she's met that very day.
• Lightning Bruiser: She has the highest base speed, along with very high attack and defense. Her only weaknesses are low magic and magic defense.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Never learns magic as she was born before it existed. She can rip through enemies with her bare hands though. Her Tail Spin attack does run off the magic stat, however.
• Meaningful Name: According to Leah in Chrono Cross, Ayla means "new song of land".
• Ms. Fanservice: Aside from her outfit, several of her abilities openly trade on her sex appeal. An early pre-release version of the game even gave her "Kiss" ability the name "Arousal"!
• Nice Girl: Which isn't to say that the other heroes are "mean" by any stretch, but Ayla is consistently friendly to everyone and only fights to survive and protect her friends and tribe.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Judging by her introduction, her idea of a friendly greeting is to more or less run up and tackle you.
• Nubile Savage: She's beautiful, athletic cavewoman and dressed in little except furs.
• Pregnant Badass: Depending on how some of her lines are read, she does all her world-saving feats of strength while dealing with morning sickness. Or a hangover. Hopefully not both. The ending adds evidence to this; when Marle (Kino and Ayla's direct descendant) tells him to have strong kids, Kino remarks "Don't worry, Ayla strong! Ayla have MUCH energy!", and Ayla drags him away before he can say any more, heavily implying they've done the deed many times. While this isn't confirmation in itself, no contraception existed back then...
• Primitive Clubs: She's depicted with a club in concept and promotional art, although her actual fighting style is that of a Bare-Fisted Monk.
• Running on All Fours: Her running animation has her run on her hands and feet, emphasizing her primitive nature.
• Scarf of Asskicking: The tail of the pelt she's wearing gives this impression.
• Shout-Out: Shares her name with the protagonist of Jean Auel's Earth's Children series, who was also a prehistoric woman. She lived less than a million years ago, however (you know, because there were no humans around in 65,000,000 B.C. in the real world).
• Summon Magic: Dino Tail.
• Supporting Leader: She seems to be the second leader after Crono is killed by Lavos.
• Thanks for the Mammary: Does it unabashedly to Marle during Marle's sidequest. Ayla claims that Marle isn't "ready" to have her own kids yet (of course, Ayla was comparing Marle's chest to her own, so the bar is a little high).
• Third-Person Person: Never refers to herself or anyone with pronouns.
• Video Game Stealing: Accomplished via Ayla's "Charm" technique. Ultimately, this makes her an indispensable character for boss fights if you want to get the unique gear. With Marle, she can use "Dual Charm," which only steals rare items.
• Wife Husbandry: An unusual gender-inverted variant with Ayla and Kino. A random NPC says that Kino was found crying in the Mystic Mountains and Ayla raised him. He is also sort of her boyfriend. When she finds out that he stole Crono and his friends' stuff, she hits him in the face and admonishes him "No do bad thing! Bad thing not good!" in the same tone of voice one would use when scolding a child or a puppy.
• Wild Man: Even wild for the standards of primitive humans. Ayla values strength and Asskicking Leads to Leadership, which several people don't agree with (they'd rather hide and live in peace).
• You No Take Candle: Depending on the translation and the individual line, could be this or Hulk Speak. Either way, her speech is incredibly primitive.

Antagonists

Lavos (SPOILERS UNMARKED)

^{Click here to see its second form}

^{Click here to see its third form}

A Planetary Parasite that ruined many lives and changed the world forever after its eruption in the Day of Lavos, 1999 A.D. It first arrived from space in 65,000,000 B.C.

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• Abusive Precursors: Bring the proper characters to the final battle (Frog, Robo or Lucca), and they'll reveal that Lavos contains the DNA of all living things on the planet. Lucca in particular figures out why: Lavos has guided and directed the evolution of humans on the planet. Why? Sapient life makes for a better meal.
• Aliens Are Bastards: It's an alien that crashed into our planet and at some point will devastate it to the point where life will slowly die out.
• Almighty Idiot: Lavos, despite all its power, is simply a parasite that is draining Earth's energy. It doesn't seem to have any other goal or even the ability to think beyond spreading its spawn across the cosmos. However, it notably does not seem to attack Queen Zeal despite commanding it to kill Crono and using its power to enhance her kingdom, so it may have the ability to form alliances. Chrono Cross confirms this latter point, with Lavos both carrying out plans as well as having dialogue with the player characters.
• The Assimilator: Sneaky about it, though. Rather than going out and violently absorbing biomass and DNA, and zombifying people like the Zerg or the Borg do, it somehow copy-pastes terrestrial DNA into its own genome, and vice-versa.
• Beast of the Apocalypse: Not only did its impact on Earth cause the events that killed the dinosaurs, the times it's emerged end up wrecking whatever civilization is extant at that time. In its final awakening in 2300 AD, it devastates the whole planet to the point where even Earth's ecosystem is dying.
• Bishōnen Line: Lavos gets smaller and more humanoid as you cut through its various layers. There are some hints that it models itself after the dominant life on its chosen planet.
• Came from the Sky: Its method of arrival.
• Colony Drop: The X factor which all but wipes out the Reptites, ushering in an ice age. Thus the reign of man begins. It's like a cooler version of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs in reality.
• The Corruption: Lavos doesn't interact with individuals or take any notice of them, it just makes its power available to be drawn upon, and its power warps those who use it (both humans and entire civilizations) into wickedness (and in one case, physically as well as mentally).
• Cranial Processing Unit: Subverted with Lavos's final form: a humanoid figure with two pods. Turns out Lavos's core is actually located in one of the pods, and the humanoid figure is just a decoy.
• Crater Power: Left an impressive-looking crater in the spot where Azala's castle used to be. The impact completely leveled the surrounding plateau. The crater itself is roughly 20x bigger than Lavos itself; it made quite an entrance. And by the time the party reaches it, within minutes of impact, it's already burrowed underground. Damn thing moves fast.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When it emerges in the Ocean Palace. The party trying to fight him, outside of a New Game Plus or heavy amounts of grinding/preparation, ends with them getting demolished and Crono being flat out killed.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Capable of destroying the world twice in cutscenes. A group of plucky heroes can defeat it in battle and stop the second destruction, though.
• Diabolus ex Nihilo: It fell from the sky in ancient times and no one knows its true origins.
• Duel Boss: Optional. You can fight it with Crono alone, but you can get a Golden Ending, regardless if you have Marle in your party or not when you go to the hidden portal to 1999 A.D. in the present time in the first available chance. If you go just after rescuing Marle in 600 A.D., you get a different ending altogether.
• Eldritch Abomination: An ancient Planetary Parasite from beyond the stars of incomprehensible power that shapes the evolution on Earth just so it could get a better meal in the end, and ultimately doesn't care about anything else than reproducing its own offspring to continue the process. This thing would fit right in the with the Cthulhu Mythos.
• Enfant Terrible: The Lavos Spawn enemies found in 2300 A.D. are heavily implied to be baby members of Lavos' species.
• Eviler than Thou: Indirectly proved this to the Reptites, causing their extinction. More directly pulled this on Queen Zeal when she attempted to use his power, destroying the Ocean Palace, the entire Kingdom of Zeal, and reducing Queen Zeal to a willing servant.
• Evil Is Not a Toy:
  • Humans that mess with Lavos' energy inevitably fall to The Corruption and are warped into wickedness. Furthermore, trying to mind-control or tame Lavos is a sign of unbridled arrogance and Suicidal Overconfidence. If it actually notices or realizes what you're doing (admittedly a tall order), it'll annihilate you with no effort at all.
  • Subverted by Schala's Pendant and the Masamune. Both are empowered by Lavos' energy, yet completely safe to use. Both are made of Dreamstone, which has peculiar properties, and the latter weapon is also inhabited by two magical spirits.
• Female Monster Surprise: Assuming that Lavos' species aren't asexual reproducers, the closest clear gender that Lavos would have is female due to the presence of Lavos Spawn in 2300 A.D. The Time Devourer in Chrono Cross is listed as female when the player targets it, but it is not clear if that is because Lavos itself counts as female or because of its fusion with Schala.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: The final battle against Lavos Core takes place against a backdrop of swirling colors, behind which various moments in history flash in and out of existence.
  • Using its ability, the following enemy techs the Center Bit uses are tied to the game's key moments: Grand Stone/Rock of Ages (prehistory palette/"ultimate physical attack"), Invading Light/Unholy Light (Zeal era/Slow spell), Evil Star/Demon Star (600 A.D./Demi-equivalent spell reduces HP in half), Spell/Diabolic Whisper (1000 A.D./random status ailments) and Dreamless/Dreamreaver (2300 A.D./"ultimate magic attack"). Only one attack is NOT tied in to the Temporal Shift, as Crying Heavens will most likely One-Hit Kill a character getting hit by it.
• Final Boss Preview: Getting pummeled by Lavos in the Ocean Palace. In the first playthrough, you will likely have no chance to attack before it kills you instantly. Or, alternatively, skipping ahead to the Day of Lavos.
  • Somewhat Zig-zagged in that Lavos's shell is not, in fact, the true Final Boss. Additionally, Lavos is beatable the first time, with enough level grinding/preparation or during a New Game Plus.
• Final-Exam Boss: Its outer shell uses tactics from the previous bosses. It's possible to skip this phase if you use the Epoch to travel to the Day of Lavos and fight it there, as you deliberately crash into it and wind up inside it, just before the second phase.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: In Trigger alone, there may not seem to be much to it. Kinda like how there's not much to a slug, only slugs probably have a fear response. Lavos is generally treated at moments more as a thematic force of nature than it is an actual character.
  • However, Chrono Cross reveals what was only heavily implied in the first game: Lavos is a malevolent entity seeking humanity's destruction for its own nefarious purposes, so retroactively, its status as a GDV is Subverted.
• God Guise: The creature is revered as a sort of god by civilizations spanning eons, including the Reptites, Heckran and his brood, and the Queen of Mean herself. In the Middle Ages, the lore surrounding Lavos survives in Magus, a man out of time.
• God of Evil: It's worshipped as a deity and grants power to those who draw on it and, as revealed in Chrono Cross, shown to be malevolent in nature.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The entire time travel plot kicks off because of this thing. Zeal and Magus both have goals centered around it, too. That said, Lavos doesn't have any spoken lines or interactions, and doesn't really advance the plot, with other antagonists like Magus and Queen Zeal doing that.
• Hell Is That Noise: Lavos' scream, a sound that gave an entire generation of gamers nightmares.
• Hero Killer: It kills Crono at the Ocean Palace, after defeating your entire party.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Played with. While it will almost certainly be this way during your first run, especially since during the first fight with it, Lavos is actually much stronger than when fought at the end of the game, it can be beaten at the Ocean Palace. New Game Plus helps a lot.
• Humanoid Abomination: Subverted. Its form in the final battle phase looks like an alien astronaut with combat pods on either side, but the humanoid part isn't its true core body.
• It Can Think: Maybe not to the same degree as actual human beings given its creature state, but it definitely has strategy under its belt with how it can utilize different abilities from the various bosses of the game and certain factors of individual time periods to its advantage. The second and third forms hitting Humanoid Alien territory only raise more questions. If one interprets Lavos to be more intelligent than meets the eye, it may also be duplicitous in manipulating Queen Zeal, seeing as she orders it to attack the party and it grants her the immortality she wishes in exchange for her handling the dirty work. Chrono Cross further showcases Lavos' capacity for scheming and even has it—albeit unintelligible to the player—speak to some characters through the Frozen Flame.
• Knight of Cerebus: Any time Lavos shows up any shape or form, it means something bad is going to happen. The player first being introduced to it reveals it devastated the Earth in the future, already causing a more serious turn of events in the story away from jumping around time. Next two appearances have it impacting the Earth and causing an ice age, then when it appears at the Ocean Palace, it destroys it, the Kingdom of Zeal, and kills Crono.
• Marathon Boss: The first Lavos fight is essentially a Boss Rush of almost every single boss you have faced previously before a final round with Lavos itself. Interestingly, it really does only add bosses you have already fought, so if you go straight to the Lavos fight on NG+, you'll only have to fight "true" Lavos.
• Meaningful Name: In Ayla's language, "La" means "fire", and "Vos" means "big", this makes Lavos: "The Big Fire", or "The Great Fire".
• Mirror Boss: Lavos' final phase consists of it and its Lavos Bits casting buffs and heals on each other, engaging in combination attacks, and setting up decoys—the party's strategy, in an attempt to Beat Them at Their Own Game.
• Monster Is a Mommy: The party encounters several "Lavos Spawn" on Death Mountain. The characters don't talk about it (though Belthasar mentions that it is replicating, in his sparkly-light-diary-thingy), but it is definitely played more for horror than for sympathy: Lavos is planning to hurl its children into space so they can destroy more worlds.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Judging by the ending where Lavos is defeated before the crashing into the Earth, Lavos impacting the planet saved humanity by wiping out the Reptites.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Possibly, as it can be interpreted that Lavos is not sapient...until Chrono Cross, that is, which cements that Lavos is evil.
• Not So Invincible After All: Lavos's invincibility is touted several times throughout the series, with even the wise gurus questioning whether it can truly be defeated. However, our heroes, with the help of virtually every person and thing native to their planet, eventually acquire enough power to defeat it. (Unless you get the bad ending, of course.)
• Omnicidal Maniac: By the time of Chrono Cross, it has become the "Time Devourer" and seeks to annihilate all of space and time out of pure, unbridled hatred for all things that aren't itself.
• Orcus on His Throne: Justified considering that Lavos rarely needs to emerge from the Earth. Beyond that, it's not even clear if it even knew about the protagonists trying to stop it.
• Outside-Context Problem: A giant world-destroying parasite monster with magical powers falls from the sky in a massive fireball that causes an ice age. Not something that anyone on the planet was expecting. Same thing when it emerges in the future to destroy the world.
• Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs: Humans were already waging a war with the Reptites, but it was Lavos impacting the Earth that caused the Reptites' extinction.
• Planetary Parasite: Its defining trait. A Lavos hurls itself or its children into space in search for new worlds, crashes into them with the power of an asteroid (which easily causes an extinction-level event), then buries underground. Once in place, it saps the planet's energy and uses its corruptive abilities to modify existing species, absorbs their DNA to improve itself, and finally eradicates the sapient beings, before starting the cycle anew. Why? Because sapient life is tastier.
• Reality Warper: Capable of warping time and space by its very existence.
• Sequential Boss: Battling Lavos consists of three phases: the outer shell, inside the shell, and the core. The outer shell can be skipped if you go to the Day of Lavos using the Epoch, and if you don't use the Epoch you can still travel to other time periods and do sidequests before triggering the final stages of the battle.
• Skippable Boss: The first battle against Lavos's outer shell can be skipped by going to the Day of Lavos in the Epoch, allowing you to ram it. However, doing this locks you into the endgame and affects the ending.
• The Social Darwinist: Weirdly enough for a gigantic Eldritch Abomination, it is revealed in Chrono Cross to believe that "survival of the fittest" is the true key to evolution, and that it is "instinct" for all living beings to destroy those weaker than themselves.
• Spike Shooter: One of its most powerful attacks consist of its shell launching torrents of spines that damage your entire party, and it's actually able to kill them all when you confront it at the Ocean Palace. When Crono and his friends witness the Day of Lavos on one of the screens in 2300 A.D., the footage shows Lavos emerging from underground, and launching a rain of spines that destroy an entire country.
• Spikes of Villainy: It's a planet-eating monster that's as spiny as a pinecone.
• Starfish Alien: Looks like a giant tick from Hell on the outside, with some more humanoid-looking components on the inside. And the actual piece that must be destroyed in order to defeat it is one of the Lavos Pods, rather than the humanoid thing in the middle that's dealing most of the damage.
• That's No Moon: Comparing the map of 1999 AD to 2300 AD reveals that Death's Peak is actually Lavos itself, which is why you fight the Spawn there.
• Time Abyss: Lavos spent an unknown amount of time on the planet of its birth as a Lavos Spawn, followed by another unknown amount of time floating through space before crashing into the planet, then it spent 65 million years buried beneath the crust before being defeated by the party.
• Time Master: It's capable of creating a time bubble and warping time and space. It seems to mostly do so unconsciously, however.
• Truly Single Parent: To the Lavos Spawn.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: If Crono and the gang decide to confront Lavos directly in 1999 A.D, Lavos will begin the fight by mimicking previous bosses the party fought. Unfortunately, he mimics them a little too well, as said bosses have the exact same HP and attack power as they did when first encountered, meaning each boss phase is likely to go down in only a few turns due to how strong the party is now.

Magus

A mystic warlock from 600 A.D. who is still worshipped by Medina locals in 1000 A.D., and wielder of many forms of arcane magic. He has a connection to Lavos, the being destined to destroy the world. The party initially assumes that Magus created Lavos, but it turns out he was only summoning the creature to personally prevent it from causing even more damage to the planet, using the era's major conflict to achieve his own ends. The party later finds out about his origins as the child prince Janus in 12,000 B.C.

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• Adaptive Ability: The first time you fight him, he changes what he's weak against at times.
• Aloof Ally: The rest of the party holds no animosity towards him if he joins (not even Frog, who has the most reason to), but Magus remains cold and aloof, always hanging back at a distance from the others whenever they gather.
• Anti-Villain: Does many terrible things, sometimes just for his personal satisfaction, but he's not without a Pet the Dog moment or two, and the main goal underlying his villainy is unquestionably a noble one (even if it is unclear how much of his motivation is to save the world and how much is simply revenge). Once Lavos is beaten and he no longer has a reason to be so villainous, he is given a farewell before he embarks on his quest to find Schala, and doesn't cause the party any more trouble.
• Anti Anti Christ: He's seen as the savior of the fiends and their ticket to overthrowing humanity and becoming the dominant force on the planet. In reality, Magus couldn't care less about them; his only goal is to destroy Lavos.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • To Frog. Magus was responsible for the death of his closest friend Cyrus, as well as transforming him into the being he is now thanks to his magic. As such, Frog devoted to taking down Magus at all costs during the Middle Ages arc of the game.
  • He himself treats Lavos this way, as he correctly identifies Lavos as being the one who destroyed his family and his kingdom and ruined his life.
• Arc Villain: Of the Middle-Ages missions. He's one of the leaders of the fiend invasion during that time period, and Frog has a personal vendetta against him for what he did to Cyrus. However, he loses his prominence after you thwart his attempt at summoning Lavos, and if you decline a later opportunity to fight him to the death, he pulls a Heel–Face Turn and joins your party.
• Badass Boast: "If history is to change, let it change! If the world is to be destroyed, so be it! If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh!!"
• Badass Cape: A cool red one (blue in the game sprites), which he can drape himself into as one of his animations.
• Barrier Change Boss: The trope namer. At various times in the battle, Magus will cast a spell that changes what element he's weak against. Crono and Frog are required to fight him, so Light and Water are covered, but the third party member is a crucial bit of strategy to mull over.
• The Battle Didn't Count: The party manages to drain his HP; however, Lavos separates everyone before Frog can land a finishing blow. The second time you beat him on the Cape, it takes.
• Black Mage: He only learns one non-offensive spell; Barrier. Every other spell he learns are multi-target offensive spells.
• Black Magic: His signature spells are mostly Shadow-based, but he also starts off with Lightning II, Fire II and Ice II, making him able to cast any element.
• Calling the Old Man Out: If Magus is in the party when confronting Queen Zeal, he will mock her for her being Lavos' pawn and vows to to put an end to her. The Queen however doesn't realize that he is her now grown-up son.
• Casting a Shadow: He's the only magic-user in the game who's explicitly associated with the Shadow element. His ultimate spell, Dark Matter, is a particularly notable example of this, and his second strongest spell is a Black Hole... which is admittedly more of a Gravity Master sort of ability, but certainly fits the aesthetic.
• Climax Boss: Complete with theme music. The party incorrectly assumes that Magus created Lavos, when all Magus was really doing was summoning Lavos to kill it himself.
• Commonality Connection: As of Radical Dreamers, both he and his sister have gone through a childhood loss, leading to dark-hearted obsessions with revenge. Difference is, he was there for her in her dark times.
• Conqueror from the Future:
  • Inverted in that Magus doesn't hail from the future, but the ancient past. He's a magically-enhanced Precursor.
  • After Lavos dumps him back in 12000 B.C., he assumes the mantle of the "Prophet". Averted in that while he's manipulating the queen, he's just doing it to kill Lavos.
• The Corruption: He's such a powerful dark magician that his looks have developed vampiric features, although this may have been to disassociate from humans and be in the good graces of the fiendkind.
• Cult of Personality: You can find statues of him in 600 A.D., with some demons around praising Magus in song.
• Dark Messiah: The fiends treat him as this, but personally, he couldn't care less about the role, only using it to gather power to use against Lavos.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Defied. He's gained so much knowledge of Black Magic and daemon-summoning that he can't stand the mere sight of the Masamune, but he never forgot why he was doing all that, and pulls a Heel–Face Turn if you decide not to kill him.
• Deadpan Snarker: On the rare occasion he does display humor, it is very dry.
  • His response when Ozzie discovers he was never really loyal to the fiends:
    Ozzie: You used me!
    Magus: Oh, how dreadful.
  • Then there's this smart-aleck quip when the party finds the [huge, multicolored, sparkling] Rainbow Shell:
    "...Rather drab, isn't it?"
• Defeat Means Friendship: Although not immediately. Defeating him will give you the option to recruit him later. And even then, "friendship" is a strong word.
• Determinator: Even after reliving the destruction of his kingdom, losing his family, and being defeated by Lavos twice, he continues going after the monster and his sister.
• Developer's Foresight: In the DS re-release, changing Magus's name affects his Beastiary entries.
• Disappears into Light: If you choose not to spare Magus's life, he'll die in this manner.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Defeating him reveals that Magus didn't create Lavos; he was just summoning the beast to do battle with him. Considering what we see later, it was a good thing he didn't succeed.
• Dub Name Change: Magus was originally "Maoh" (literally "demon king"), and his real name, Janus, was originally Jyaki (homonym of "evil aura").
• Duel Boss: The second time around, if you choose to confront him with Frog in your active party, the battle will be one-on-one between the two of them. If Frog's not in your active party, this will be averted, as the whole party will fight him.
• Easily Forgiven: Magus has done many horrible things, such as starting a war and killing Glenn's best friend, but eventually can join your party. If you choose to let him join, the other characters don't seem to consider his past misdeeds to be a big deal, and he is even given a sincere wish for luck before he departs to find Schala. Pragmatically, the other characters recognize that he is a powerful ally and that ultimately they are all on the same side.
• Enemy Mine: After his plan to kill Lavos in 12000 B.C. falls apart, he can team up with the heroes for one last swing at the beast if you refuse to fight him.
• Enfant Terrible: The moment Janus was deposited in the Middle Ages, he was immediately seized upon by Ozzie and his cronies.... and still came out on top.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": In the SNES translation and Japanese version, "Magus" and "Maoh" are his names, respectively. Averted in the DS translation: "Magus" is a name he gave himself, while his title is "Fiendlord".
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Even when he is now the Lord of Fiends, Magus never stop loving his sister. Everything he did in the Middle Ages is to exact his revenge on Lavos for killing Schala. If he survives the events of the game, he will go on a journey across time to find Schala, still trying to find her.
• Fangs Are Evil: Best seen in the animated cutscenes, but his fangs do add some menace to his already evil appearance.
• Fatal Family Photo: Not a photo, per se, but opt to kill Magus, and you get an amulet. An amulet that, you'll recall, Schala gave to his younger self, which apparently he's kept all this time as the only memento of her that he has left. The amulet she promised would always keep him safe. Ouch.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: He uses these as his barriers, along with a Shadow one he very rarely uses and you probably won't be able to damage. When he joins you, his three starting techs are the level 2 spells of these elements.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When we see him kill Cyrus and turn Glenn into Frog in Frog's flashback, the theme of Zeal Palace plays for the first time in the game. Later on, it's revealed that Magus originally lived in Zeal Palace as the child prince of Queen Zeal.
  • Early on, when the party finds his statue in the cathedral, At the Bottom of the Night plays in the background, which is the game's "Sad" theme. Later on, it's revealed that underneath all the darkness and terror, Magus has an incredibly painful and tragic story.
• Four Is Death: You fight four bosses in his castle before fighting him.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Most bosses have status immunity. Magus has his sister's amulet to explain his.
  • This also applies if Magus joins you. Lavos drained most of his powers in the Ocean Palace, and he starts with only the second level Fire, Ice, Lightning spells. He's lost his most powerful spells like Dark Matter, but he can get them back with enough training.
  • Magus has no double techs and you have to equip somebody with an accessory with no other uses to use a triple tech. Magus is with the party solely for his own benefit and is only helpful because the player is making him help.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Magus can run around the Middle Ages, even in Guardia Castle without comment or Hand Wave despite being the leader of an enemy faction that started a major war.
• Hair Color Spoiler: His Zeal heritage is betrayed by his shiny blue locks.
• He Who Fights Monsters: As a child, he blocked out his magical power because he hated what it was doing to his mother and sister. After he was sent to 600 A.D., he embraced that same power and committed many horrible deeds in order to destroy Lavos, becoming very much like the mother he resented.
• Heel–Face Turn: You get to choose whether or not to let him be after getting the Epoch's wings. Choosing not to settle the score gives him a moment to think and then decide to join up to save Crono. Although this isn't be because he actually "turns good" so much as he realizes Lavos is still out there, and the party is his only shot at getting revenge now. Granted, his quest for revenge was the main reason why he did all the terrible things he did, so he does (sort of) turn for real once Lavos is beaten.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: His whole vendetta against Lavos is revealed much later in the game.
• Ineffectual Loner: He is unable to accomplish his goal of defeating Lavos on his own; every time he faces Lavos one-on-one he's defeated. Only joining with Crono and company gives him a chance for success.
• In the Blood: Lust for power definitely runs in the Zeal family line (or at least those not named Schala).
• In the Hood: As the "Prophet".
• Irony: He cruelly mocks those he deems weak or foolish, and cares only about his own goal, without a thought given to the victims of his actions. In the end, he fails, having neither the power nor wisdom to destroy Lavos, and loses his memory completely, in a way becoming the very last victim of his own bloody quest.
• It's All About Me: He'll massacre countless innocents and backstab the very people who raised him if it means he gets his revenge.
• Jerkass: A quite unpleasant person all-around, even after his apparent Heel–Face Turn. His role goes from outright antagonist to an Aloof Ally if he joins your party.
• Karma Houdini: If you spare him, he doesn't face any repercussions for his actions in the original game. However, Chrono Cross has a crueler fate in store for him. While he did not die, he did lose his memory completely and ultimately fail in everything he was trying to achieve.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Alfador is one of the only beings he genuinely loves, and in turn reminds Magus that he's not wholly evil.
• Knight of Cerebus: He flat out murdered Cyrus in flashbacks and caused Frog to view himself as a failure. Even when Magus joins the party he's largely a serious character.
• Late Character Syndrome: Zig-zagged. He does join you at a likely much lower level than your party's average, which will require some training to have him catch up with the others, and that's not to mention his techs all still being at lower levels. However, by the time he joins you, his personality and story have been clearly defined, allowing the player to still invest into the character, and his techs are very versatile, giving you reason not to abandon him at the End of Time.
• Magic Knight: He leans more toward the "Magic" part than the "Knight" part. He has the strongest magic attacks in the party, and his basic physical attacks are easily on par with your heavy hitters like Crono, Robo, and Ayla, but his durability is pretty low and he lacks non-magical Techs.
• Magikarp Power:
  • A storyline example. He initially starts off as the only person in the Kingdom of Zeal who cannot use magic, but after winding up in 600 A.D. and being raised by fiends he gradually becomes the most powerful sorcerer of that era, and among the most powerful of all ages. Subverted, however, in that as a child he was Willfully Weak, and in actuality had power greater than most of Zeal.
  • Magus is a downplayed example after he joins the party. He's lost his most powerful spells and "only" knows the second level Fire, Ice, Lightning spells. He becomes incredibly powerful if you train him enough to relearn his best techs, but his initial spells are still good enough to make him worth using. If you go straight to Death's Peak after recruiting Magus, he could solo most of the regular monsters with his initial magic.
• The Man Behind the Monsters: His title of the Fiendlord in 600 A.D. has him control the most brutal monsters.
• Maou the Demon King: A classic example (right down to the optional redemption). In the Japanese version, his name is actually Maou, which plays up the idea of him as the Disc-One Final Boss by making the entire 600 A.D. plotline feel like a standard fantasy RPG. In the English version this aspect was unfortunately Lost in Translation.
• Meaningful Name: His real name, Janus, was the Roman deity of gates and doorways; and Magus is a powerful summoner. Janus' idols also had two faces, which hints at his dual nature; Janus the Creepy Good prince of Zeal and Magus the Evil Sorceror. His title Magus means "sorcerer".
• Mechanically Unusual Class: He's the most powerful member of the party individually, with a very broad spread of magics, but is unable to use Dual Techs. He does have 2 Triple Techs, though.
• Muggle Born of Mages: He couldn't use magic back as a child, unlike his mother and sister. He would only learn magic ages later, in 600 A.D. Or at least, that's what the people of Zeal think; in reality, he had magic exceeding even that of his sister, which he had been hiding as a protest against his mother's actions.
• Nominal Hero: He only aids the heroes to get revenge on Lavos.
• Not in This for Your Revolution:
  • He leads the fiend army in a war against Guardia, but reveals he only used the fiends to grow stronger so that he could summon and kill Lavos.
  • Played with to some extent with his stint in the party. He fights Lavos for revenge because it ruined his life twice over and he wants to stop the world from being destroyed because he lives on it. Otherwise he's not fighting for justice or to save humanity or any of that and spends most of his time standing in the corner wishing the party would just get on with the Lavos fighting already. On the other hand, should the player take him for some dashing sidequest heroics, Magus has no objections and will give it his all, as he at least sees the pragmatism of honing their skills and acquiring rare and useful items from across history.
• Not So Above It All:
  • If you take him to the prehistoric dance in Leene Square, he'll dance the day away same as any other party member.
  • Also, for all the buildup he gets, your first few interactions with him paint him as surprisingly human.
    Frog: Magus!!
    Magus: (...it's that stupid frog...)
  • Also this gem just after he's been defeated.
    [as Lavos wakes up at his castle]
    Magus: Bad timing!!! Don't wake up on me now!!
  • If you bring him to the Reptite's castle in 600 A.D. and have him sit on the throne there, he'll get a good chuckle out of it before getting back up.
• Number of the Beast: His HP (as a boss) is 6666.
• One-Hit Kill: Black Hole. Like most spells of this type, it only works on regular enemies.
• Optional Party Member: After Zeal is destroyed, you have the option of fighting him a second time. Refuse, and the active party leader says that fighting him would be pointless, since it won't bring back Crono (or if Frog is there, Cyrus). Seeing the party as the only way for him to get his revenge now, Magus joins them.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: As the Prophet. An observant player can clearly see Magus's outfit under his cloak.
• Pet the Dog:
  • After he joins your party, Alfador recognizes him, indicating that he hasn't changed so much that he'd seem like a different person to his cat. Even before that, in his prophet guise, Alfador's plaintive meow combined with his past self's protests are enough for him to refrain from executing the party.
  • He leads in with his offer to join you by suggesting a means to bring Crono back to life. What makes it an act of authentic decency rather than simple pragmatism is that even if you choose to fight and kill him, Magus will still point out that Crono can be saved before he expires.
• Pointy Ears: Has Piccolo-style ears, which accentuate his sinister attitude. Strangely, he didn't have these as a child
• Power Floats: His running animation has him float above the ground.
• Precision F-Strike: In the original Japanese script, Janus has some choice words to describe Queen Zeal:
  Janus: That bitch is not our mother!! Outside she looks like it, but on the inside...
• Precursors: In 600 A.D., he's a survivor from Zeal with magical powers far beyond any surviving beings, be they human or Mystic.
• Promoted to Playable: Set up one of the game's main antagonists, and a good portion of the game its dedicated to preparing for a confrontation with him where he is a major boss. However, after the events in the Kingdom of Zeal, he can be recruited as a party member.
• Prophetic Name: "Janus" is named for the two-faced Roman god, implying dual identities.
• Raised by Orcs: Raised by Ozzie and the fiends after being thrown through time to 600 A.D. as a child. Downplayed in that Magus shows no real affection or affiliation with his adopted tribe, and was using them just as much as they were using him.
• Redemption Demotion: Magus is still very powerful all around, especially compared to Lucca and Marle, your other two dedicated mages, but he's weaker when compared to his boss fight. Justified in that Lavos drains his power when he tries fighting it at the Ocean Palace.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Best seen in official artworks and animated cutscenes, as well. Part of his menacing look comes from these.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: He's still a bit of a dick even after joining your side. When the party welcomes Crono back, Magus will say that Crono died because he was weak.
• Retroactive Precognition: Magus is able to disguise himself as a great prophet after some accidental time travel knocks him over twelve thousand years into the past. It also helps that he landed in his home time period.
• Royal Blood: His real name is Janus and he was once the prince of Zeal.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: To his sister, Schala.
• Sinister Scythe: His weapon of choice. He seems to keep it hidden under his cloak, since we never actually see him hold it outside of his official artwork.
• Sixth Ranger: Only joins the party long after the player is led to believe the party is full.
• Skippable Boss: Only the second time around. When he asks if you want to fight him, just say "No". The party leader will conclude that fighting Magus will accomplish nothing.
• Squishy Wizard: Definitely averted when you fight him as a boss. His HP is much, much higher than any boss before him. Downplayed when he joins your party. His stamina is pretty low (only slightly higher than Marle and Lucca) but his HP is pretty high.
• The Stoic: Normally very dry and unflappable. Even his "surprised" look is simply an angry glower instead of the Wild Take everyone else has.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: Toriyama's design notwithstanding, later material establishes him as having good looks to match his royal heritage. In Radical Dreamers, when Magil (secretly Magus, at least in the main storyline) accidentally has his disguise knocked off, even male lead Serge comments that he is quite handsome.
• That Man Is Dead: In the DS translation, it seems "Magus" is name he gave himself, showing that he wants to distance himself from his former life as the prince of Zeal.
• Theme Music Power-Up: If he is in the party during the fight with Queen Zeal, his theme begins to play and overrides the default boss music.
• Token Evil Teammate: His motives don't align with those of the other heroes beside "kill Lavos". He only joins up with them because, at the time, he had no other option.
• Tragic Keepsake: A silver amulet given to him by Schala as a child. In official artwork it can be seen hanging from his left hip at all times, but appears in-game with the same sprites as Marle/Schala's pendant.
• The Unfettered: There's no one he won't fight or sacrifice to achieve his goals. Even though he can join the heroes, it seems largely for his own purposes.
• Villainous Widow's Peak: Toriyama has drawn him with a widow's peak not unlike that of Vegeta. Quite fitting, as Magus's personality is similar to Vegeta's, and he is one of the antagonists of the game, and can join the heroes if you choose that route.
• Villain's Dying Grace: If you choose to kill him in 12000 B.C., his last words set you on the path to resurrecting Crono.
• Walking Spoiler: Almost everything about Magus, from his origins, to his role in the plot, to his lineage, are spoileriffic.
• Warrior Prince: By the time he became a powerful sorcerer and scythe wielder, the Kingdom of Zeal and its Queen were still around, so he was still the prince.
• Willfully Weak: As a child, he had incredible magical talent far exceeding most of Zeal, but as the Queen became more and more deranged, he hid his talent, thus giving off the impression that he lacked even a speck of magic.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Even though Janus was kind of a Royal Brat, it's hard not to feel sorry for a child thrown tens of thousands of years into the future and adopted by literal monsters.
• The Worf Effect: Gets rather thoroughly defeated every time he takes on Lavos solo: implied in the original timeline in the Middle Ages, on-screen in the Ocean Palace, and on-screen in the DS version's bonus ending against the "Dream Devourer".

Azala

Leader of the Reptites of 65,000,000 B.C., a race of lizard creatures that consider themselves the natural enemies of the early humans.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: Invoked when Ayla promises not to forget her, since the entire Reptite species is going to die out.
• Ambiguous Gender: In the original SNES version, Azala's gender is never brought up (mostly since all Reptites look the same). Nizbel II identifies Azala as female in the DS port.
• Arch-Enemy: For Ayla. She's the leader of the Reptites, who want to exterminate all of humanity so they can rule over Earth. In turn, Ayla has spent much of her life defending her tribe from Azala's forces, making the hatred between them very mutual.
• Arc Villainess: Of the Prehistory missions. She's the one leading the Reptites against the prehistoric era humans, and defeating her is necessary for finishing Ayla's story arc.
• The Bad Guy Wins: If Lavos is destroyed before it crashes into the earth and causes the extinction of the Reptites, the Reptites kill all of the humans (Or at least outcompetes them in evolution) and take over as the dominant species in one ending since Crono and possibly Marle and Lucca are temporally reincarnated as Reptites during that timeline.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Is out to exterminate humanity. Judging by Lavos impacting the planet, Azala would have failed even without the heroes' time traveling.
• Face Death with Dignity: After defeating her and the Black Tyranno, Azala notices the "Red Comet" about to hit the Reptite Lair. She couldn't understand how the Reptites lost to the "filthy apes" but accepts her fate. Azala even refused Ayla's rescue attempt.
• Fantastic Racism: She really can't stand humans, viewing them as inferior to the Reptites. Considering the primitive nature of the humans, she might be right about their intelligence, but it doesn't justify a mass extinction/genocide.
• Kick the Dog: Attacking and burning down Laruba Village, which was the hiding place for the humans who didn't want to fight the Reptites, was a needlessly petty move.
• Lizard Folk: Which she believes are superior to humans. She's right, at least in terms of intelligence (compared to prehistoric humans), but humans are still stronger.
• Master Race: She absolutely hates humans, calling them "apes".
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: In the SNES version, Azala declares that the coming ice age will make the "apes" wish they had perished along with the Reptites.
• Noble Demon: Implied when she tells Ayla to take good care of Earth before passing.
• Parrot Pet Position: Inverted with the Black Tyranno fight. Azala leaps up on her pet's shoulder and commands its attacks.
• Psychic Powers: A mighty brain for her time. She uses Telekinesis during the battle at the Tyrano Lair to throw your characters around and is able to teleport huge rocks to drop on them.
• Right-Hand Attack Dog: Black Tyranno, which is several times larger than she is.
• Save the Villain: As Azala dies, it is clear she was only trying to do what was best for her people. Ayla takes pity on her and even offers a means of escape, but Azala is resigned to her (and the Reptites') fate.
• The Social Darwinist: She ultimately decides that if Reptites are doomed to die, so be it.
• Taking You with Me: Is aware that Reptites will die when Lavos impacts the planet, but opts to use her Black Tyranno to take all humans down with the Reptites. Though after losing, she tells the humans to take care of the planet.
• Vagueness Is Coming: In the Japanese version, her last words are "the future..." So naturally this was translated in polar-opposite ways depending if you go by the SNES or DS translation. In the SNES version, she hauntingly echoes that "We... have no future...", but in the DS version, she instead requests Ayla to "take" something, and then finishes her thought with "take care... of this world". The latter may fuel the idea that the Reptites opposed humans because they thought that the humans' primitive mannerisms made them unsuitable as the dominant species. Ironically, Lavos, who may be the most primitive-minded character of all, compensates for this by placing humanity on the evolutionary fast-track.

Queen Zeal

Leader of the magical civilization that thrived (and was eventually destroyed) in 12,000 B.C. She used the Mammon Machine to draw upon Lavos's power to keep the floating city alive. Has two children, Janus and Schala.

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• Abusive Mom: Extremely abusive and neglectful to her children Janus and Schala, thanks entirely to Lavos's influence. As Janus says, "She's not our mother," indicating that she may have been less of a bitch before.
• Alliance with an Abomination: Somehow managed to get herself allied with Lavos and be granted her wish of immortality, though how she even communicates with it is unexplained.
• The Antichrist: She's Lavos's herald.
• Archnemesis Mom: For Magus. Having let herself be corrupted by Lavos's power and abused both Schala and Janus in their childhood before stranding them in different time periods, Magus lets his hatred of Queen Zeal known if he confronts her himself in the Black Omen.
• Arc Villainess: Initially serves as this for 12,000 B.C., leading an effort to siphon Lavos's power that ultimately destroys her kingdom. Uniquely among the other Arc Villains, she remains prominent after the main plot thread of her era is resolved, essentially becoming The Dragon to Lavos.
• Climax Boss: She's the last boss you have the option of facing before the Final Boss. In fact, beating her in the Black Omen makes the player go straight to the final battle with Lavos.
• Dark Action Girl: She's a power-hungry, cruel, abusive queen who isn't above getting her hands dirty plus fighting you herself, and she's no pushover either.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Whatever reasons she originally had for drawing on Lavos's power, she's completely forgotten them by the time the party confronts her on the Black Omen, having committed herself single-mindedly to wanton destruction For the Evulz.
• The Dragon: After the defeat and possible Heel–Face Turn of Magus, she becomes the primary human enemy and Lavos's main servant. Interestingly, Lavos allows her to command him and siphon his energy without repercussions. For Queen Zeal personally, at least. Her kingdom gets utterly destroyed.
• Evil Matriarch: To Magus/Janus and Schala.
• Giant Hands of Doom: Queen Zeal, phase two. One of her 'hands' is particularly nasty and whittles a character's HP to 1, regardless of defenses.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: The nation of Zeal is an oppressive government towards all non-magic users that's focused solely on acquiring as much power from Lavos and delivering it to the hands of Queen Zeal. While it's hinted that she wasn't always like this, her lust for power has driven her to be antagonistic towards anyone who'd try to stop the Mammon Machine. Unfortunately for you, that's exactly what you need to do.
• The Heavy: She's essentially the main human villain of the game (replacing her son), with Lavos as the Big Bad.
• HP to One: Queen Zeal is fond of casting her Halation spell on your party, which makes this happen to everyone. Less commonly used when she transforms.
• Immortality Immorality: She manages to achieve her desire for eternal life, at the cost of her own sanity, and the lives of her children and most of her subjects. And the magic powers of the ones who survived. Basically, everything but her body and her powers are worth losing to the queen.
• Jerkass: A cruel, rude, selfish, thoroughly unpleasant person, even to her own children.
• Laughing Mad: Half the time you see the Queen, she's got a Noblewoman's Laugh going.
• Mercy Kill: Defeating her is implied to be giving her this, as she fades away after being defeated onboard the Black Omen, isn't seen again afterwards, and the Old Man at the End of Time mentions her being "free from Lavos's influence" after her defeat.
• Not Herself: All her immoral actions are explained as Lavos-induced insanity applied to a previously nice queen.
• One-Winged Angel: After you destroy the Mammon Machine, she transforms into a disembodied head with Cognizant Limbs.
• Orcus on His Throne: One might expect her to take over the world with the Black Omen, but she's content sitting inside and admiring Lavos. Justified since she knows Lavos wants to destroy the world anyway, and will when it's ready.
• Pre-Final Boss: While most bosses from the R Series onwards can technically be this thanks to you being allowed to access 1999 AD as soon as you first reach the End of Time, Queen Zeal is the most overt case of this trope in-game. Choosing to trek through the Black Omen results in you facing off against her immediately before confronting Lavos himself.
• Really 700 Years Old: Thanks to Lavos, she's able to live into the far future.
• Sequential Boss: Your first fight with her is inside the Black Omen. Then she goes One-Winged Angel, and you teleport up to the roof for the final confrontation.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: She is the same strength regardless of what time period you fight her in. Further, despite Lavos's access to Time Gates and other means of traveling through time, she never bothers using them to acquire more power. This is explained, though, because of her arrogant and zealous faith in Lavos's undefeatable power.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Following her defeat and the destruction of the Black Omen, the Old Man mentions that she's been freed of Lavos's influence. We never see her again after that point, and it's anyone's guess where (or when) she ended up, though it's possible she died.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Naturally, given the power source.
• You Are Too Late: If you try to enter the Black Omen in 2300 A.D., Queen Zeal appears and denies you entry while mocking you, saying that Lavos has already won.

Dalton

Queen Zeal's right-hand man. Capable of summoning Golems.

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• Bad Boss: After his defeat, two of his soldiers can be found along with the survivors, and when talked to they will mention that Dalton was a "terrible master" and "stingy with the coin too".
• Big Bad Wannabe: As a Dragon Ascendant, he is fairly easily disposed of by the heroes. In this timeline, at least, he is simply not Big Bad material.
• Contrived Coincidence: He installs actual wings on the Epoch despite not knowing that it is already known as the "Wings of Time", thus inadvertently making its name much more fitting.
• Cool Airship: The Blackbird, a gigantic flying fortress that the heroes have to sneak through to find him.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: He is quite possibly the easiest boss in the game in regards to gameplay. In cutscenes? He's able to effortlessly stomp your party (albeit underhandedly).
• Dragon Their Feet: Abandons the Ocean Palace and Zeal itself aboard the Blackbird when the power of Lavos proves more than he expected. Turns out doing this was a very good call on his part.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Attempts to become king after the Fall of Zeal, then vows to raise an army in vengeance. As Chrono Cross shows, he succeeded.
• Egopolis: His first action as king? Renaming Zeal to the Kingdom of Dalton. He also modified the Epoch and turned it into the Aero-Dalton Imperial.
• Emperor Scientist: He's ruler of the world, however briefly, and has enough engineering smarts to overhaul the Epoch into a flying machine.
• Evil Learns of Outside Context: The events in the Zeal Kingdom allow him to rise up and take control with the Blackbird. In addition to this, he also takes control of the Epoch and outfits it with wings so that he can use it as his personal fighter jet. The party fights him to take it back, and Dalton winds up accidentally sealing himself inside of a portal. In the Updated Re-release of the game, a new section is later added where the party fight Dalton in a Dimensional Vortex, where it's implied that he has learned of (and possibly mastered) Time Travel, which he now plans to use to personally raise an army and take revenge on the three protagonists. Based on the events of Chrono Cross, he appears to be successful.
• Eyepatch of Power: Somewhat—he has an eyepatch, but he's not particularly difficult in boss fights. Though he does end up ruling an army that conquers Guardia.
• Fartillery: Belching, actually, though it's farting in the Japanese script. In either case, it's a poison gas attack that hits everyone.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The second fight with him. After taking damage, he tries to summon a Golem, but since the party already killed it (or it fled due to its fear of heights), he'll get sucked into the portal.
• Laughably Evil: He's the sole human villain without any redeeming characteristics. Still, he's an Ensemble Dark Horse because of just how humorous he is while doing it.
• Left the Background Music On: When he first pilots the Epoch with its wing attachments, the game's main theme starts playing. Dalton calls out "No, no, no, and no! Stop the music!!" at which time the game switches to a "danger" theme.
• Meta Guy: He is one of the few characters in the game that continuously breaks the fourth wall.
• Middle-Management Mook: So much that the page might as well be called The Dalton.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Epoch wouldn't have its wings if he hadn't put them on. Thanks, Dalton!
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: He himself isn't too dangerous, but he does have his unique Summon Magic. He also utterly destroys Guardia and possibly kills the protagonists between Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, according to the DS port.
• Recurring Boss: He's fought once in Zeal Palace and then later on top of the Epoch as it's flying through the sky. In the DS version he can optionally be fought a third time, in the Dimensional Vortex.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: In the Ocean Palace. After his Golem Twins are defeated, he prepares to summon his strongest Golem (a Hopeless Boss Fight from earlier), but then notices Lavos emerging and is out of control, and wisely decides to make a run for it.
• Signature Move: Iron Orb/Sphere, a move which halves the HP of a party member. The Golems he summons share this attack, which suggests that he taught them a thing or two. The fact that it's the only attack he uses is why he's so easy. He does have a final attack which is a strong belching attack which hits all party members for some regular damage (this is also used by the Golems). Presumably this is a last-ditch effort to finish off your party after a battle of using the Iron Sphere.
• Smug Snake: He gives off a rather pompous attitude to those he meets.
• Summon Magic: Has the ability to summon his Golems. Unlike him, these things are powerful.
• The Starscream: When the Queen is believed to be dead after the Floating Continent crashes and floods the world, Dalton quickly establishes himself as "King Dalton". It doesn't last very long.
  • However, he does end up being The Starscream to Crono and Marle in the present day by instigating Porre to rebel and become an imperialistic nation, ending the Kingdom of Guardia.
• Time-Traveling Jerkass: Subverted. He's a villain and he captures the party's time machine, but fortunately he doesn't seem to know that it's a time machine and instead installs wings on it to turn it into a Cool Airship instead before the heroes defeat him and reclaim it from him, thus averting this scenario. Double Subverted in the DS updated re-release (which was previously implied in the backstory for Chrono Cross), where even without the Epoch he has now somehow mastered time travel and indeed uses it to take revenge on Crono and friends by turning Porre into a military superpower in 1000 AD to destroy Guardia.
• Uncertain Doom: In the original SNES version, when he tries to summon the Golem Boss/Overlord at the end of his second boss fight, he instead is sucked into the portal he used to summon it, never to be seen again... until the Dimensional Vortex in the DS version, where it's revealed he very much survived. He fights the party a third time and definitely survives this battle, where he mentions he'll set up the events in Chrono Cross. Nonetheless, this trope may still be in play in Chrono Cross, as he's neither seen nor mentioned despite the fact that the Porre army he raised is very much quite active.
• Villainous Legacy: While he neither appears nor is even mentioned in Chrono Cross, it is known in that game that Porre appears to be a serious military power and an often antagonistic force for the heroes, a far cry from the small peaceful town it's seen to be in Chrono Trigger. The DS version of Chrono Trigger reveals that Dalton was the one that caused this transformation of Porre, in order to take revenge on Crono and friends—and despite Dalton's absence in Cross, the heroes of that game have Dalton to thank for Porre causing them trouble.

Yakra

A monster from 600 A.D. whose forces kidnapped Queen Leene and attempted to assassinate her. Thanks to meddling with time travel, he is only one of a long line of monsters that has opposed the Guardia royal family since 600 A.D.

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• 13 Is Unlucky: The Yakra from 1000 A.D. that is disguised as that era's Guardia chancellor is Yakra XIII.
• Arch-Enemy: Yakra XIII is this for Marle. Throughout the game, he attempts to put both Crono and her father to death, and manipulates the frosty relationship Marle has with the latter to attempt to do so. After Marle stops his plan to overthrow King Guardia, Yakra XIII finally gives up and states his intentions to murder Marle and her friends for their involvement in killing his ancestor.
• Arc Villain: The first Yakra serves as this for the initial visit to 600 A.D., as he has kidnapped Queen Leene and causes Marle to be Ret-Gone until his defeat. Yakra XIII, on the other hand, turns out to be this for Marle's arc, since his revenge plot deliberately exacerbates tensions between Marle and her father.
• Capture and Replicate: Each Yakra's M.O. is to tie up the Guardia royal chancellor and stuff them into a treasure chest, while then assuming their form.
• Chekhov's Gunman: After you defeat him in 600 A.D., odds are you'll forget all about him. His descendants won't, though, and the thirteenth member of his lineage attempts to frame the King in 1000 A.D.
• Connected All Along: It isn't until an optional sidequest in the late-game that you learn that the game's second main story scenario (i.e. returning to the present and getting captured and put on trial by the chancellor) is actually a direct consequence of the first (i.e. killing Yakra in 600 A.D.).
• Evil Chancellor: He becomes one by impersonating the real chancellor. His descendant in 1000 A.D. does the same thing.
• Evil Learns of Outside Context: Given that Yakra XIII seeks revenge on a character who killed his ancestor over four hundred years ago, it's implied he's figured out that Crono is a time traveler (or else figures he just has an absurdly long lifespan for a human for some reason).
• Flechette Storm: His "Needlespin" technique.
• Generation Xerox: His descendant that appears in 1000 A.D. is a mere Palette Swap. This even extends to their respective Evil Plans (i.e. impersonate Guardia chancellor, destroy royal family from within).
• Hate Sink: Averted with the original Yakra, who, apart from his subterfuge and willingness to kill a defenseless Queen Leene, is about as much of an A-hole as any other monsters you've dealt with so far, but most definitely played straight with his descendant. He orders Crono to be arrested and put on trial for seemingly no reason, manipulates the warden to believe he’s been put to death even if he’s found innocent, intentionally and directly strains the relationship between Marle and her father, and tries to put said father on trial (and manipulating witnesses so that he will be found guilty regardless) for supposedly selling a Guardia heirloom. Ending his scheme is considered by many players to be one of the most satisfying sidequests in the whole game.
• Manipulative Bastard: Yakra XIII figures out that King Guardia XXXIII cannot eat jerky due to health concerns, but lies to Marle that it's his favourite food in order to intentionally cause further strain between the two (this scene is actually optional, even within the context of the optional sidequest).
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: In spite of Crono's unjust treatment when he is accused of abducting Marle, one can make the argument that the fake Chancellor is taking his duty to protect Marle way too seriously. However, when he deliberately strains the relationship between Marle and her father by lying to the former about how her mother died, it becomes clear that he has no good intentions.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Yakra XIII plots against the Guardia royal family and Crono as revenge for the death of his ancestor.
• Skippable Boss: Though not the case with the first Yakra, who is the first boss faced in the game, Yakra XIII is only fought in Marle's sidequest and is not required to be beaten in order to beat the game.
• Small Role, Big Impact: All things considered, Yakra XIII is a pretty minor villain, but not only is he considered one of the game's most despicable ones for deliberately straining the relationship between Marle and her father by lying to the former about how her mother died, but his attempts to kill/execute Crono after his return from the first time travel is what leads to Crono, Marle and Lucca taking the Gate to the Bad Future and finding out about Lavos, so he's more important to the plot than at first glance. This applies to the original Yakra as well, because his defeat is what sets Yakra XIII's plot into motion in the first place.
• Starter Villain: He's the first major threat the heroes face, as defeating him is necessary for saving Marle and Queen Leene. He even goes down well before they learn about Lavos.
• Unknown Rival: His family apparently spent thirteen generations preparing for a second encounter with the party. Crono and friends, however, consider him an afterthought. Ending his revenge scheme is even completely optional.
• Villainous Breakdown: The Yakra of the present spends much of his screentime disguised as the modern-day Chancellor, and tries to use subterfuge and manipulation to get everything he wants. Once Marle and the party foil his chances of putting King Guardia XXXIII behind bars however, Yakra loses all patience and transforms into his true form with the intention of killing everyone in the courtroom.
• Warm-Up Boss: The first Yakra's battle is relatively simple, and the only thing that separates him from the normal enemies is a much larger health pool and attacks that hit the entire party. Unlike most subsequent bosses, there are no special tactics required to defeat him or his descendant.

The 3 Mystical Knights

Ozzie, Slash and Flea, three of Magus's subordinates commanding his army.

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• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Ozzie is heavily implied to be one. He uses Magus as a messianic figure to rally the fiends to try and kill humanity, and then makes himself the figure after the heroes defeat Magus. If he's finally killed in a sidequest, the fiends in Medina Village will be friendly and good-natured, with the upbeat comedy music playing in the background. That suggests the fiends were only turned to mass evil by Ozzie's poisonous influence.
• Barrier Warrior: When you fight him one-on-one, Ozzie never attacks you directly, but if you hit his ice barrier, the magical counterattack will dish out a surprising amount of damage to your entire party. See Puzzle Boss.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: Committed by Ozzie. You'd think he would remember exactly where those trap doors were placed, but...
• The Brute: Slash, the physical fighter of the trio.
• Cool Sword: Slash's weapon. You get to keep it after beating him the first time (odds are it's more powerful than what Crono is already using), and you can steal an upgrade during the rematch.
• Dark Messiah: Ozzie portrays Magus as this to inspire the fiends to try and kill humanity. After Magus's defeat, Ozzie then portrays himself as this.
• Didn't Think This Through: Ozzie tries imprisoning Crono, Frog and co. in a cell within the Fiendlord's Keep by digging several pit-traps, but it quickly becomes obvious that he really did not put much thought into his plan. The "prison cell" he sends Crono and co. into via pit-trap contains harmless enemies that yield high amounts of EXP. and money, chests with helpful items, and one of the four fake Save Points is actually a teleport to freedom. Long story short: Ozzie, check that the selected cell has no easy escape route before digging your pit-traps!
• Dirty Coward: Ozzie. Always runs away when approached, and encases himself in an unbreakable armor when finally cornered. If it weren't for those chains of his, he'd be unbeatable.
• The Dragon: Ozzie, to Magus.
• Dragon Ascendant: After defeating Magus, Ozzie becomes the new leader of the fiends. He sets up his own fortress similar to Magus's, and if you travel to Medina Village in 1000 A.D., you'll find them worshipping his statue instead of Magus's.
• Dub Name Change: In the Japanese version, all three of them are named after condiments, which may be based on Akira Toriyama's Edible Theme Naming in Dragon Ball. Slash and Flea had one character cut off from Soy Sauce and Mayonnaise, making them "Soysaw" and "Mayonnay" respectively. Ozzie is simply "Vinegar" in contrast.
  • Even their group name, which comes from Chrono Cross, was originally closer to the Three Fiend Knights.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Flea.
• Edible Theme Naming: As stated above, they're named after condiments in the original Japanese.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: Mostly Ozzie.
• Harmless Villain: Ozzie. He never attacks the party directly; instead using traps, counterattacks and other fiends. Even when fought in Ozzie's Fort, he doesn't attack beyond using a technique that requires both Slash and Flea to be active in order to pull it off.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Ozzie's always a joke, but Slash and Flea are respectable enemies when you first meet them in Magus's Castle. It doesn't last, however.
• Hypocrite: Ozzie gets cheesed off at Magus, accusing the latter of using him for his own ends, despite the fact that Magus was a child when Ozzie and his cronies first stumbled across him and raised him to destroy humanity. Magus's snarky response just oozes mockery at Ozzie's hypocrisy.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: During the solo fight with Slash, he initially fights unarmed. After he takes enough damage, he jumps onto his chair, retrieves his sword from its holding place on the wall, and becomes significantly more dangerous.
• Musical Theme Naming: Ozzie, Slash, and Flea are named respectively after the Black Sabbath vocalist, the Guns N' Roses/Velvet Revolver lead guitarist (now gone solo), and the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist. Now if only they had a drummer...
• Necromancer: Ozzie turns the corpses of fallen knights into skeletons, not that it helps against Crono & co..
• Noblewoman's Laugh: Flea quite enjoys this, though he's not a woman.
• Perky Female Minion: Flea at least acts and dresses like one, despite his actual gender.
• Physical, Mystical, Technological: The trio fits into these archetypes:
  • Slash is the Physical, being a swordsman.
  • Flea's magical abilities make his Mystical.
  • Ozzie uses complex (by medieval standards) mechanical traps, making him the Technological member.
• Power Floats: Ozzie and Slash. Probably Flea, but it's not clear if he's touching the ground when his dress spins.
• Punny Name: In the straight Japanese translation, the three generals' names were as follows: Ozzie is Vinnegar, Slash is Soysaw, and Flea is Mayonay.
• Puzzle Boss: Surprisingly, Ozzie will kill you if you don't realize he's not the only target on the room.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Though the first time you fight them, they're rather tough. The second and third times? They're a joke.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: It's possible for Flea to run from the battle in Ozzie's Fort (via the "hop, hop, hop, then vanish in a puff of smoke" method some enemies use). Which would beg the question, where is he?
• Skippable Boss: The fights with them in Ozzie's Fort are completely optional.
• Slasher Smile: Slash, rather appropriately.
• Superboss: All three of them appear as this in Chrono Cross, where they can be fought in a New Game Plus.
• Take That!: In-Universe, an NPC in 600 A.D. mentions them, espousing their fearsome nature as Magus's top minions, and insulting their musical abilities.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Despite dressing in feminine clothing, having a Noblewoman's Laugh and even having breasts, Flea is actually a guy and objects to being referred to as 'she'.
• Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Ozzie acts the bumbling sidekick to the more threatening Magus. Inverted when the trio acts on their own, with Ozzie being the idiotic boss while Slash and Flea are the dangerous ones.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Flea can turn into a bat.
  • It's implied that the female form we see is just an illusion as well.
    Flea: Man or woman, it's all the same. Power is beauty, and I'm deliciously strong!

Mother Brain

Mother Brain was the central computer that linked the domes and factories together. After the planet is ruined by Lavos, Mother Brain becomes responsible for the uprising of robots over humans.

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: A computer built by humans, that after the apocalypse decides the planet can only survive if humanity is wiped out.
• Fantastic Racism: Hates humans and intends to exterminate them under the belief that Earth can only sustain life if humanity is rendered extinct.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Mother Brain in the new timeline of Chrono Cross ends up becoming the base for what would eventually become FATE.
• Kill All Humans: Her ultimate agenda. Not that there are many left, but...
• The Man Behind the Man: She is presumably the reason why nearly all robots and mechanical lifeforms in 2300 AD want to Kill All Humans.
• One Bad Mother: She wants to kill Robo after he refuses to help her.
• Skippable Boss: She's totally optional, with her as the last boss of Robo's arc.
• Wasteland Warlord: She effectively serves as this, ruling over the post-apocalyptic world that Lavos wrought in commanding the world's robotic beings to wage war against the surviving humans.

NPCs

Schala

The princess of Zeal, the older sister of Janus (later known as Magus), and original owner of Marle's pendant. A kind and gentle young woman who played a rather unwilling part in the Ocean Palace incident.

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• Ascended Extra: Goes from a pivotal supporting character in Trigger to the entire lynchpin of Cross' plot
• Blessed with Suck: Congratulations, Schala! You're in possession of incredible magic powers, far better than your Muggle of a brother (except not really)! Now you're the one who'll have to control the machine that draws from the Eldritch Abomination that powers your home (and eventually destroys it)!
• Break the Cutie: The poor girl goes through a lot, what with a mother who grows madder and madder in her lust for immortality, being forced by said mother to further provoke the giant all-powerful space parasite living Beneath the Earth, watching as said parasite kills someone, destroys her home and kills several people, being sent to a dark place beyond time and then fusing with the defeated parasite to such an extent that she becomes willing to destroy reality.
• Crystal Prison: She's able to do this to Gates, sealing the only one leading to 12,000 B.C. in a red triangle. She later ends up trapped inside one as part of the Time Devourer.
• Damsel in Distress: She ends up being kidnapped and forced to power up the Mammon Machine. After that, she winds up being trapped in an alternate world as part of a Fusion Dance with Lavos.
• Divergent Character Evolution: The original Toriyama art of Schala depicts her essentially as a taller, older, female Janus. As early as Radical Dreamers, though, it is established that whereas Janus has green eyes, hers are actually bright blue.
  • Furthermore, both sequels strongly imply that Schala's hair is not naturally blue. Whether or not this applies to Janus and Queen Zeal is unclear.
• Dub Name Change: Her Japanese name is Sarah. Ted Woolsey presumably named Schala in a similar fashion as Terra from Final Fantasy VI (as in, a character with a name exotic by Japanese standards but ordinary by English ones has their name changed accordingly).
• Fighting from the Inside: After she was absorbed by Lavos, she tried her darnedest to fight his influence, to little avail. She did manage to create a clone of herself and send her to Lucca's timeline, though.
• Fountain of Youth: In Radical Dreamers, she is transformed into a baby by the power of the Frozen Flame, and sent to another timeline where Lucca found and raised her as Kid.
• Fusion Dance: Unwillingly becomes part of one with Lavos after the latter's defeat, creating the Dream Devourer and eventually the Time Devourer.
• Generation Xerox: Aside from an obvious age gap, she and Janus look nearly identical, right down to the clothes. Subverted in the sequel, when she now resembles Kid as a plot point.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Then again, so does everyone else in Zeal.
• Happily Ever After: If you subscribe to the theory that Schala merged with Kid at the end of Chrono Cross, a picture can be seen during the Golden Ending of her and Serge in "wedding attire"^note the captions for the concept art read (Character) Wedding/Ceremonial Dress.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Uses the last of her power to teleport Magus and the party out of the Ocean Palace as it collapses around them.
  • Later shown to be subverted, as the pendant-charging Mammon Machine remained in working order. Sequel materials establish that Schala didn't stay behind because she had to, but because she desired it.
• Leitmotif: Somewhat unusually for a non-antagonist NPC, she has her own theme. The beginning of it also contains Magus's theme, foreshadowing the fact they are related.
• Meaningful Name: In the Japanese version, her name is "Sarah" which means "princess" in Hebrew.
• Nice Girl: Schala is a kindhearted and gentle young woman who’s beloved by everyone around her and is the only person able to open Janus’s heart up to her.
• Nice to the Waiter: She treats everyone she meets kindly and as equals, unlike her fellow Enlightened Ones who merely see the Earthbound Ones as slave labor.
• Princess Classic: Elegant clothes, cute look, touch of innocence, no vices...yeah, she checks off quite a few boxes.
• Proper Lady: It comes with being a princess, after all.
• Purple Is Powerful: As a child of Zeal, she has better-than-average magical talent, and she has an affinity for purple.
• Royal Blood: As the princess of Zeal, she has immense magic power, and is seen as better than her non-magic brother Janus by the populace. Of course, he's merely hiding his power, which actually surpasses Schala's.
• Save the Princess: After she's abducted to the Ocean Palace, this is the party's goal. She's doomed anyway, especially in the DS port with the Dream Devourer boss fight. This is the ultimate goal of Chrono Cross, however, where you actually do succeed.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: She and her brother Janus/Magus are opposites in terms of personality, though they get along quite well. She is obedient, compassionate and kind, while Janus is aloof, headstrong and vindictive.
• Suddenly Blonde: Originally portrayed as a tall woman with blue hair and purple robes, in Chrono Cross she appears as a shorter girl with blonde hair and a white dress, making her resemble her daughter/clone, Kid. No official explanation for her dramatic change in appearance has ever been given.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: As the Dream Devourer, and later the Time Devourer.
• Truly Single Parent: She created Kid, a daughter-clone.
• Tsurime Eyes: Inverted. Despite Schala's temperament, official artwork gives her quite possibly the most sharply defined Tsurimes of the whole game, which do nothing to subtract from her appearance as a gentle figure. Particularly bizarre considering that Kid does not have eyes like this at all, despite her personality.
• Uncertain Doom: In the original SNES game we last see her in the collapsing Ocean Palace, and know nothing about what happens later.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: It's never really explained what happened to her in this game, with Magus last seen apparently searching for her in his original time. Her survival was later confirmed in Radical Dreamers and eventually Chrono Cross.

Spekkio

Spekkio in his frog form. He also appears as a Kilwala, an Ogan, a Gaoler, an alternate version of Masa & Mune and his final form, a pink Nu.

A strange magical being hidden at the End of Time and the "master of war". He gives Crono, Lucca, Marle, and Frog their magic abilities.

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• Blood Knight: Spekkio loves to fight, and is thrilled whenever the party challenges him.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: If Spekkio defeats the party, he'll immediately revive them. All you suffer if you lose against him is embarrassment.
• Dub Name Change: He's not only the "God of War" in the Japanese version, but his name is undoubtedly meant to be "Specchio" (pronounced identically) — the Italian word for "mirror".
• Inexplicably Awesome: It's never explained what he is or where he came from, but he can unlock the magical potential of humans and shapeshifts into different forms depending on how strong the party is. Depending on how strong they are, he can be more powerful than Lavos.
• Leitmotif: This.
• Superboss: His last form (a pink Nu) can only be fought if at least one member of the party is level 99, and is the hardest enemy in the game (at least in the SNES version).
• Super-Empowering: He's able to unlock the latent magical abilities of humans descended from an ancient magic kingdom. He can't give magic to Ayla (who was born before said kingdom), Robo (who is not human, although his abilities are able to deal elemental damage), and Magus (who is already capable of using said magic).
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: His appearance and power changes as your party levels up.

The Gurus of Life, Time, and Reason

The Guru of Life (Melchior), the Guru of Time (Gaspar), and the Guru of Reason (Belthasar) who originally lived in 12,000 B.C. They try to stop Queen Zeal from harnessing the energy of Lavos. When Lavos is summoned, it sends the three of them along with Janus to different periods in time.

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Tropes that apply to all of them:

• The Archmage: All three of them. While they may not have the raw genetic potential of the Zealian royal family, the three Gurus appear to know more about the nature of magic and physics than anybody else in the kingdom, and apply such knowledge to devastating scientific and infrastructural effect. While humbled figures, the wisdom of the Gurus was abused, and many of the most pivotal and story-impacting events in the timeline can be traced back to their unfortunate involvement or responsibility in some way.
• Chekhov's Gunman: All three of them, if you traversed the Abandoned Sewers and entered Keeper Dome before you needed to. Twice for Melchior, though the second time it's already become clear that he's not ordinary.
• Dub Name Change: Their Japanese names are Bosch, Hasch, and Gasch (respectively).
• Fish out of Temporal Water: All of them hail from 12,000 B.C., but each are sent to different eras when Lavos awakened.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: You'll have seen at least two of them and not thought much of them before you realize who they really are.
• Irony: All three of them are in ironic predicaments after the fall of Zeal. Melchior, the Guru of Life, lives out his days as a smith making weapons for taking lives. Gaspar, Guru of Time, is banished to the End of Time where time as a concept doesn't exist either forward or backwards. And Belthasar, the Guru of Reason, slowly went insane (possibly senile) until he passed away.
• Mr. Exposition: All three give quite a lot of information on backstory and/or mechanics.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: At least in the English translation—their names are based on the three wise men who travelled to see the newborn Christ.
• Rule of Three: Three Gurus in total.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to describe them without giving away their identities.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Melchior's timeline duplicate figures prominently into the 12,000 B.C. portion of the game, but nothing is ever said of where Belthasar and Gaspar's doubles are, save for that the Queen has dealt with them somehow.

The Guru of Life, Melchior

• Cool Shades: He sports a pair.
• Crystal Prison: When imprisoned on Mt. Woe.
• Distressed Dude: After attempting to stop Queen Zeal from finishing the Ocean Palace, she had him locked up on Mt. Woe, which the party goes to at Schala's request.
• Intrepid Merchant: You meet him early on at the Millennial Fair as a sword merchant, and you can buy swords from him at his home too.
• Irony: The Guru of Life becomes a weapons merchant—weapons, which are designed to take lives. As he puts it himself:
  "If there weren't evil in this world, there would be no need for weapons. What a sad state of affairs..."
• Ultimate Blacksmith: He's an expert at crafting swords, having created powerful weapons for Zeal and the Masamune (which he is called upon to reforge in 1000 A.D.). He is even the one to provide Crono with his Infinity +1 Sword.

The Guru of Time, Gaspar

• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: The only character in the game that wears one.
• Irony: The Guru of Time was flung to the End of Time by Lavos—a place where time does not flow.
• Mission Control: Provides hints and exposition to the party.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Revealed to be the Old Man at the End of Time exactly once, when asked about the Time Egg (although he doesn't seem too attached to his old name, so he's still referred to as the Old Man).
• Snot Bubble: He's asleep whenever you enter the End of Time; when you speak with him, his Snot Bubble pops and he wakes up.
• The Watcher: He can see events happening in other ages from the End of Time.

The Guru of Reason, Belthasar

.

• The Archmage: A remarkably successful example, having built an arcane god-machine powered by the Living Flame, as well as orchestrated an entire new system of magic (Elements) through its functioning, all to bring about a necessary confrontation to end the Time Devourer and save Schala, and succeeded in the end.
• Ascended Extra: Belthasar is a relatively minor character in Chrono Trigger, but is the driving force behind the plot of Chrono Cross.
• Big Good: His overall goal is ultimately noble, and he guides the heroes in saving Schala and destroying Lavos for good.
• Brain Uploading: To a Nu-like construct in the bad future.
• The Chessmaster: Behind all the events of Chrono Cross, all designed to free Schala and destroy Lavos.
• Clothes Make the Legend: Between stories, his outfit remains unchanged.
• A God Am I: In Chrono Cross, he creates an entirely new dimension (Home World) just to save Schala and manipulates an untold amount of universes for Project Kid
• Go Mad from the Isolation: In the original future. He understood that the loneliness would eventually drive him insane, and so recorded his personality into a Nu before that could happen.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: "This creature has executed its program. Please let him sleep. The switch is on his stomach".
• Irony: In the bad future, the Guru of Reason goes insane; that is to say, he loses his ability to reason.
• Mad Scientist: Quite literally mad, at least in the original future. He also manipulates time and existence for his own ends, though ultimately for a noble goal.
• Omniscient Morality License: His overall goal is good (freeing Schala and destroying Lavos once and for all), but in order to do this he had to manipulate history itself, erasing an infinite number of alternate timelines and lives in the process.
  • As an example, he effectively kills off the Reptite race a second time by merging a dimension where they were the dominant species with the Chrono Cross dimension, causing a war between Chronopolis and Dinopolis that Chronopolis wins.
• Sole Surviving Scientist: The one who built the Epoch and Neo-Epoch, which allows anyone to travel back in time and avoid the Earth's destruction by Lavos.
• Talkative Loon: If the party meets him the first time they travel to 2300 A.D.:
  Belthasar: Wouldn't make it very far, anyway... It has to be the right time, and... and it has to be them, or... or the way is shut! Yes, yes...
• Time Machine: He built the Wings of Time (which the party names "Epoch").
• Wizard Beard
• You Didn't Ask

Tata

A young boy living in Porre in the year 600 AD. Midway through the game, he is confused for Guardia's foretold hero, and decides to roll with it.

• Accidental Hero: Even more accidental than usual - All he does to earn the title is pick up a badge Frog left behind.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: By his own admission, he didn't intend to act the part at first. It was when people kept mistaking him for the hero that he started letting it go to his head.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Several other Porre residents allude to him being a naughty brat.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Tata's father may have jumped the gun telling everyone about his amazing son. Apparently, Tata himself wasn't too fond of it.
  Tata: Listen to you!! Who went around telling everyone they raised a hero, huh?
• Expy: He's a walking reference to the Dragon Quest games, between his short Hyperactive Sprite with a different art style from the core game, being seen as The Chosen One by his village (complete with a medal as "proof"), and his name being reminiscent of "Loto". Played for Laughs because this isn't his story and he's much younger than your average DQ protagonist, meaning he's out of his depths.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Apparently charismatic enough to fool even the King, but when the party first encounters him, he's seen running away from ogres, and trying to "heroically" steer the party away.
• Kid Hero: Deconstructed—Tata certainly looks the part, and he even tries to do it, but he's in way over his head. He goes to the Denadoro Mountains to try and get the Masamune, but is chased away by the goblins Crono and company easily destroy.
• Took a Level in Badass: In one particularly strange ending, Tata actually develops into the Hero. He travels to the Fiendlord's Keep to fight the greatest villains of his age...who just happen to be Crono, Marle and Lucca. Go figure.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: When Tata's father figure out the ruse, he shockedly expresses his disappointment. Tata in turn berates him for buying into it.

Masa & Mune

Mischievous twins that compose the spiritual side of the sword Masamune, forged by Melchior. Mune wishes to be the wind, while Masa is slightly more mature. While their exact nature is unknown, they are said to be Melchior's dreams residual in the sword. They have the ability to teleport at will, and, when inside the Masamune, can make it levitate and move on its own. They also have a sister, Doreen, who's less mischievous than either of them.

In Chrono Cross, the Masamune has turned into a blade of pure evil. Stolen in the Fall of Guardia and presumably used to kill many, it drives those who wield it insane for as long as they hold it.

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• Acrofatic: Their combined form is a large, obese (but muscular) being.
• Blow You Away: In keeping with Mune wanting to be the wind, their combined form can cast deadly wind storms at their enemies.
• Cool Big Sis: Not Masa & Mune themselves, but they have a sister named Doreen that snaps them out of their "madness" in Chrono Cross.
• The Corruption: Since the Fall of Guardia in 1005 A.D., the sword has become evil due to the many evil deeds committed with it. The sword itself also corrupts those who attempt to use it, as Dario, Garai, Karsh, and Radius found out the hard way.
• Dismantled MacGuffin: Magus broke the Masamune when Cyrus tried to fight him. When Crono and company defeat Masa and Mune, all that's left of them is the broken blade. Frog still has the broken hilt, which Crono and company find when they visit him. Once Crono and his friends find some Dreamstone, the only material that can repair the sword, they help Melchior restore it.
• Evil Weapon: By the time of Chrono Cross.
• Fusion Dance: As their names imply, they fuse to become the Masamune. Doreen fuses with them in Cross to become the Mastermune, Serge's ultimate weapon.
• Legendary Weapon: The Masamune is fabled as an incredibly powerful weapon. Masa and Mune imply that many people have tried to gain the Masamune only to be killed when Masa and Mune fight them. Only Cyrus and Glenn, and later Crono and his friends, have ever beaten them.
• Old Friend: Masa immediately recognizes Kid as Schala upon regaining lucidity.
• Only the Pure of Heart: Only those deemed worthy may wield the Masamune, such as Cyrus and Frog. Unfortunately, this has become horribly twisted come Chrono Cross.
• Only the Worthy May Pass: Masa and Mune require anyone who tries to claim the Masamune to fight them. Cyrus and Glenn were the first people to succeed, while Crono and his friends were the second group.
• Only Sane Woman: Doreen, who seems to not inhabit the sword most of the time. She finally does in Cross to make sure the two of them don't go astray again.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Mune's red to Masa's blue.
• Slept Through the Apocalypse: Maybe. During the 20 years between Trigger and Cross, they claim to have been asleep and unable to remember a thing, hence why the sword turned evil.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: They have several different forms, include the elf-like versions in this page's illustration, small human boys, their combined giant form and the sword.

Alfador

Janus's adorable purple cat. Constantly following his owner, Alfador acts as a playful, amusing break from the darker plotlines surrounding Janus and his sister.

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• Adaptation Dye-Job: Alfador appears merely as a purple variant of the normal cat sprite in-game, with what appears to be a yellow collar. Canonically, he is white but with purple spots.
• Cute Kitten: This is pretty much Alfador's job, providing a minor, light-hearted element to an otherwise dramatic story arc.
• Only Friend: Janus claims that Alfador only likes him. However, Alfador maintains a very playful and charming temperment to all that he encounters, and is later seen playing with an Earthbound village boy. To say that Alfador likes Janus the most would be more accurate.
• Pet The Cat: Taking Magus with you to the Last Village will result in Alfador recognizing him and meowing incessantly for attention.
  • Additionally, Alfador's improbable survival and arrival at the Last Village.
• Right-Hand Cat: Subverted. Even when running into his owner as an adult, he appears blissfully unaware of his allegiances and has no evil intentions.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Averted. Following Zeal's fall, Alfador is shown to be alive and perfectly healthy.

Cyrus

Glenn's mentor and friend. A valiant knight who was felled by Magus ten years prior.

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• The Champion: He was Queen Leene's, prior to his death and Frog taking up the mantle.
• Posthumous Character: Died long before the events of the game, courtesy of Magus.

Johnny

A robot obsessed with speed, capable of switching between a four-wheel mounted form and a humanoid form. He rules over a scrapyard in 2300 A.D. with a gang of less-advanced robots, and anyone who wants to cross his territory has to beat him in a race.

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• Cool Shades: Since he's a robot, those are presumably his actual eyes.
• Leitmotif: "Robo Gang Johnny".
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Inverted—Crono is the only one allowed to defeat him. If Crono isn't in the party (either because he's dead or because you didn't take him with after bringing him back), he refuses to race anyone else.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: Shows significantly more of a human personality than the majority of the other robots in 2300 A.D.
• Serious Business: Takes his races very seriously.
• Token Good Teammate: Of the robots that roam the timeline, he and his gang are the only group (aside from Robo) who doesn't want to wipe out the remaining humans. He even told the rest of his gang to stand down just as Crono, Lucca, and Marle are about to throw down.
• Transforming Mecha: Can shift between his humanoid form and a wheeled form. His wheels and exhaust pipes make up his shoulders and back in humanoid form.

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