Fridge Logic in Chrono Cross.
Fridge Brilliance
- The revelation that the people of El Nido are all descended from inhabitants of an enlightened city of the future - a city that may well have brought together people from around the world might actually address some of the game's conspicuous cases of Unexplained Accent. Such mixing typically results in dialect homogenization
and the creation of a common koiné, but FATE was trying to keep things stable. Perhaps it did some mental-language modifying when they consulted the Records of Fate. - The popular courting gift in Arni seems like a weird thing to have changed between worlds, until you realize that with Serge dead the only ones chasing after silly dating fads were little kids so it makes sense that they'd come up with something that doesn't involve fighting monsters.
- It's pretty bugging when you go to the final boss, the Time Devourer and see there's no music. This game was made by Squaresoft, y'know. A company known for making games with Awesome Music, especially the final boss themes. Then Fridge Brilliance kicked in from an extremely trivial detail: it's from the way to defeat him. There's a little sound heard everytime you cast an Element - the sound differs in pitch for each color. If you happen to cast the Elements in the right color sequence, the sounds make the melody for Radical Dreamers ~Unstolen Jewel~. So there IS a final boss theme - it just doesn't play directly.
- At first, it is infuriating to think that Chrono Cross kills off both Lucca and Robo. Then you remembered that they were killed by the actions of FATE, who was after the Frozen Flame. By getting the Golden Ending and performing a Ret-Gone on the Time Devourer, you've essentially made the Frozen Flame powerless from the very beginning, meaning that, in the newly repaired timeline, Lucca and Robo are alive.
- The "Kid takes over the world" alternate ending seems silly until you realize that the only way to access it is in a New Game Plus, where all the playable characters have superpowered stats from the last playthrough. Given that, it makes sense that she'd be able to singlehandedly shank Lynx to death at their first meeting; Lynx at that point is still a relatively weak midboss, and Kid would be strong enough to shrug off poison.
- Guile's obsession with enigmas makes a lot of sense when you take the game's element system into account. Consider that he is one of those few people Spekkio mentioned in Chrono Trigger, who learned to cast actual magic after Zeal fell. In a world where people can now cast artificial magic via the use of element grids, Guile seeks constant evidence that there is still actual magic in the world, not explained or replaced by science. This also likely explains why his element grid starts off so narrow.
- In Kid's flashback, the Orphanage is on fire while Lava Boys are roaming around. Lava Boys are not only immune to fire but healed by it, while Lucca despite fire being her element is not unless she was fortunate enough to be wearing one of the Red Armors at the time. That would leave Lucca with likely no other options on hand but whatever guns and other weapons she could have, which she's terrible at if Chrono Trigger is any indication. Lynx and Harle throwing such monsters at her is the only way they could have conceivably have beaten a woman that could take on a planet devouring Eldrich Abomination in her own home in a straight fight.
- It might seem odd that Serge has so many options early game to not join up with Kid to the point of him having to refuse her multiple times in their first meeting, until you remember Serge starts out the game dreaming about adventuring with her that seeming ends with him stabbing her and smirking evilly about it which ends up being because Lynx hijacks his body and he's the one who does it, but Serge doesn't have the context for that until it's too late. Of course he's not gonna want to travel with the girl he seemingly had a premonition about murdering, he's gonna want to keep her far away from him.
Fridge Horror
- Some players on subsequent playthroughs never visit Water Dragon Isle until it is time to get the Blue Relic. There they find no dwarfs or fairies, just Lagoonites. After thinking about it the player realizes that the dwarfs killed all the fairies, then the Water Dragon killed the dwarfs in rage, using Lagoonites to do the deed.
- Sky Dragon isle after visiting its alternate world counterpart, Terra Tower. Those statues were there the whole time...
- The FATE Terminals (or whatever the save points were called) are stated late in the game as to manipulate people's brain chemicals and therefore influence their actions. Guess who's been using them more than anybody else.
- The diverging point where you had to choose to save Kid or not. If you decide to, you will meet Razzly in the swamp trapped in a cage ready to be eaten by the resident monster there. If you choose not to save Kid and revisit the same area and the same dimension, the cage is empty...
- The revelation that Lynx was actually Wazuki, warped by FATE into Serge's literal worst nightmare comes so late in the game (during an Exposition Dump, no less), that many dismiss it as a simple Ass Pull. However, it does bring a new level of horror when you think about everything Lynx did to Serge over the course of the game. And by that point, Wazuki was too far gone to stop himself...
- Kid's flashback. At first it seems like killing Lucca would have run contrary to Lynx's goals, as he needed them to undo the Prometheus lock, and to do that, he would need to bring them to Chronopolis alive. But consider that the orphanage was on fire, which is Lucca's element, not Lynx's. It actually seems more likely that Lucca immolated herself so that her knowledge of Prometheus would die with her, and the resulting fire spread to the orphanage by sheer accident.
