Chrono Trigger

It occurs to me that both Chrono Cross and MGS 4 feature A.I.s who are responsible for much of the setting and the games' events.

So does MGS 2 and that game was awesome. I would sooner compare CC and SOL anyway.

So aside from Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy XIII 2 there are not really any other episodic time travel RP Gs is there?

Radiant Historia? I am Setsuna? Note that I haven't played either of them, but I'm a sucker for time travel (going hand in hand as it does with parallel worlds), so I probably should. And not a jRPG, but maybe Legacy of Kain? You Might Also Like: Shadow of Destiny, Ghost Trick.

edited 9th Jul '17 11:44:13 PM by Unsung

There's time travel in I Am Setsuna?

I must not be that far through it yet.

Radiant Historia has time travel, but it doesn't have that episodic multiple time period thing going, like Chrono Trigger or FFXIII-2. It's more about a multitude of choices within a relatively short time-frame, largely centering around an initial choice of where the main character chooses to go with his career in the military.

edited 10th Jul '17 12:09:38 AM by Enlong

I have a message from another time...

Radiant Historia is more a Butterfly Effect and Ground Hog Day Loop game akin to Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls and The Legend Of Zelda Majoras Mask. Those are equally as rare but different.

EDIT: oh and Lightning Returns Final Fantasy XIII to a degree.

edited 10th Jul '17 1:01:49 AM by Memers

What about Radical Dreamers?

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

That's another exception to the general rule, though.

Chrono Cross's plot wasn't that out there. I honestly think most of the hate it gets comes from the fact that it's terrible as "Chrono Trigger 2" — because it's not Chrono Trigger 2 and was never intended to be. The plot is can be a bit confusing at times, certainly, but given that it involves time travel and parallel timelines, that's sort of inevitable.

The only major problem with Chrono Cross, in my opinion, was the fact that it went for quantity over quality with its recruitable party members. Only a few of them have any plot relevance whatsoever, and most of those cease to contribute to the plot once they're recruited. I'd have rather seen a more traditional party structure, with ten or so members that actually have real roles in the plot, and the double/triple techs to match. (Short list for that: Serge/Lynx, Kid, Harle, Another Leena, Glenn, Radius, Norris, Fargo, Guile with his intended subplot intact.)

The 40-odd characters thing was an interesting experiment, but not one that paid off. They could have accomplished mostly the same thing by keeping all the recruitment quests intact, just giving you a different reward than "you recruited another character you'll never actually use".

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

It's the classic story of two timelines that don't exist traveling back in time to have a slug match leading the advanced computer from one of said timeline to do a bunch of random crap in non-service to it's poorly explained purpose (And sometimes in clear violation of its own purpose) coz it wants the Mcguffin that powers it which it can't access anymore because some toddler touched it and its creator installed a thing to prevent the super computer from using the doomsday artifact if the doomsday artifact randomly picked someone to do something for reasons. Despite not having access to its own power source said computer remains functional coz power sources don't actually do what the name they have imply.

The full plot is so labyrinthine that trying to write an entire summary is basically impossible. Each new twist raising a million questions, many of them "WTF" and "WHY"

The plot is gibberish even without the connection to CT. The connection to CT does make it so much worst.

edited 10th Jul '17 7:17:34 AM by Ghilz

Explaining something poorly in order to "prove" that it's confusing is silly.

Chrono Cross is about a pair of Alternate Timelines where the branching point between the two is the main character's death in one and survival in another, which has considerable knock-on effects in both timelines. The plot is about figuring out why they split and trying to resolve it with a Merged Reality that is, quite literally, the best of both worlds.

I can go into specific details if you really want me to, but just writing the whole thing off as nonsense is just wrong. You don't have to like it, but it wasn't nonsense.

edited 10th Jul '17 7:25:18 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Why do both worlds have differences that don't stem from Serge?

How do timelines that don't exist travel back in time to a past that isn't their past?

How do timelines that don't exist do anything?

Butterfly Effect, his existence and thus split indirectly caused all differences.

Butterfly effect / For Want Of A Nail implies a tangible series of events from cause to effect.

Only our trope does. The Butterfly Effect goes down to even a single person breathing differently will change the entire world via a domino effect.

Also the dragons were exempt from the dimensional shift and were just as unique as Serge which also helped the differences snowball.

edited 10th Jul '17 7:59:27 AM by Memers

If you're going to ask questions, then ask specific questions. You're clearly thinking of explicit examples, so do me the favor of spelling out what you're actually talking about so I can actually address the correct thing.

In general terms, though...

It's not actually Serge's death that caused the split; it's Schala's influence from the Darkness Beyond Time (Serge's survival being the most obvious effect, but not the root source of the change). The fact that it's Schala reaching in from outside of time, rather than simple time travel within the timeline, is why it spawns a parallel dimension rather than simply overwriting events, as it did in Chrono Trigger.

Schala's meddling also interacted with the Time Crash caused by Chronopolis (also linked to Serge because of his being made Arbiter of the Frozen Flame), which had effects as well.

I'm not really sure what you're referring to, here. Which "timelines that don't exist" do you mean? But in any case, the short answer is "paradox". In a paradox situation, a timeline both exists and doesn't exist simultaneously, because it destroys itself as part of its history — but once it's been destroyed, it can't destroy itself, so it exists again. According to Chrono Cross (building on what Marle says about the experience in Chrono Trigger), things that get paradox'd end up in the Darkness Beyond Time until the paradox is resolved one way or the other. However, if they're strong enough (like Schala, Lavos, Chronopolis, and Dinopolis all are), they can influence events in the timeline even while they're trapped in the Darkness Beyond Time.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Yeah, none of that is gibberish

It makes sense to me. If you actually want to understand, then like I said, I'm willing to explain to the best of my ability. But if you're just going to go "lolnope, it's nonsense" then there's no point in continuing this line of conversation.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

You are jumping around a bit on the explanations, it makes lot of sense in game though.

And honestly the overall plot isn't too complex, when you focus on the little things and shoehorned Chrono Trigger cameos though that's when things start getting confusing with how they explain they are there and such.

Re: Radical Dreamers

The game's main "canon" scenario doesn't incorporate any time or dimensional travel elements until near the very end, and while it has a bunch of alternate scenarios that are ostensibly in their own time lines or realities , it's not really clear just how they come about or why they are what they are.

So random thought:

Where did Marle learn to use a crossbow?

I mean, I find it unlikely the king had her trained, because I got the feeling he kept her on a short leash beforehand.

What else can she do? Maybe she secretly knows Kung Fu as well.

One Strip! One Strip!

Probably browbeat a guard into teaching her, maybe bribed or cowed him into keeping it a secret. That seems like something she would do.

I always liked the crossbow butt/swat melee attack she does when enemies get too close. Marle and Lucca having melee animations at all was a great little detail that a lot of games wouldn't have bothered with.

Characters have a lot of animations period. Small touches like how both Chrono and Frog both draw and sheathe their weapons. Characters have running, dancing, sitting, kneeling, drinking sprites!

Compare Crono's Sprite Sheet to one from say, FF6, just a year earlier.

edited 10th Jul '17 1:45:43 PM by Ghilz

Another random thought on Marle.

I finally realized she's supposed to be a redhead and not a blonde.

I guess it's maybe more strawberry blonde though.

One Strip! One Strip!

Whaaat? Was this a development thing? Or just a limitation of the display?

I also always thought she was blonde.

My DA account... I draw stuff sometimes!

It's kind of a light orange to reddish-blonde, brighter than most strawberry blondes. Limited colours to work with in 16-bit, plus bear in mind this is Anime Hair: Lucca's hair is purple. Chrono's hair is fire-engine red. Most of the Enlightened Ones (...Zealots?) have bright blue hair.

Look at the difference between Marle's hair and Ayla's— Ayla is blonde.

And yeah, if you're going to get Akira Toriyama to do the character designs and have a positional combat system that works like a slow-motion beatemup crossed with some light RTS elements, you better take advantage of the SNES's larger sprite library. But even games that are extensively animated wouldn't necessarily add in little details like melee attacks with ranged weapons. It's an indulgence which I definitely appreciate. Square on the SNES and PS 1 was a real golden age for 2D art in games.

edited 10th Jul '17 8:45:10 PM by Unsung