Chrono Trigger

It makes it worse. Coz it's Dalton. It's like saying Vatican City is about to conquer Germany, coz the 3 stooges are marshaling their forces.

He does, the Blackbird. But he didn't build it. And it gets destroyed.

edited 16th Mar '18 4:52:22 PM by Ghilz

You forget the kind of chaos those three can cause.

I think they could pull it off.

This thread being active again is both reminding me of the fact I haven't completed my Chrono Cross playthrough, and also why I'm not super keen on doing so. The entire "Oh all those characters you know and loved that you saved the world with? They are all FUCKING DEAD now for no good reason."

And like sure Aayla and Frog would be dead of old age and stuff, but Crono Lucca and Marle are like each a One person army. How Porre did anything to Guardia when they were around is baffling.

Which is a shame because I do think Chrono Cross is great looking game with amazing music and the gameplay is pretty good too. Like there's a lot of good things about this game. That's kind of ruined with the "Yeah this is a sequel to one of your favorite RPGs but apparently everyone on this team hates everything about the first game and want to make you SUFFER for liking it."

...I mean yeah ok I'm exaggerating more then a little there.

Edit: Of course I also just have problems with finishing RPGs in general, which might be part of why Chrono Trigger is my favorite because its also pretty short by RPG standards.

edited 16th Mar '18 5:02:51 PM by Kosjurake

Dalton is actually quite strong (especially in the Once-King Dalton bonus fight). But he's also kind of an arrogant dumbass. IIRC, he leaves the orignal game because he accidentally opens a Gate on himself.

And yeah, he's out of any tech by the time he would have come back around to the present day. He's a powerful sorcerer, but so are Marle, Crono, and Lucca, who he told his plans to. He really only would've been able to pull anything off in the present day with the element of surprise, I think.

My headcanon is that all the dumbassery involved in Dalton empowering Porre is due to Belthasar's manipulations. So when the timeline resets everything's fine. Guardia never fell, Lucca raises Kid (and that's why we see her sailing in a dress in the ending) and Robo never got deleted.

For whatever it's worth, I never thought that Chrono et al were actually dead, and was surprised when I found out other people thought that. I always figured they escaped into the hills when Porre sucker punched Guardia, and were off somewhere setting up a Rightful King Returns plot. So, basically, Chrono Trigger 2 is happening somewhere off screen during Chrono Cross.

That could be although I'm pretty sure Lucca is super dead.

Also I wonder if there were Chrono shipping wars back in the day who got mad that Crono canonically ended up with Marle even though Marle was the best.

I mean, I can see the appeal of Crono and Lucca getting together.

edited 16th Mar '18 7:03:03 PM by lycropath

x2 I figure the reason Lucca is alive in the true ending is that undoing the time travel tomfoolery of Cross caused Lynx to not be created, thus sparing Lucca and allowing her to raise Kid (she makes a big deal out of her being a "proper lady" in her letter and Kid's in a dress and bow in the ending).

Incidentally that should also mean Wazuki and Miguel are alive in Arni.

Well yeah, that's my understanding of it, too. But we were talking about the re-ending timeline.

Although I suppose resetting everything Lynx does wouldn't change Porre invading? But Porre did have help from Lynx at some point down the line.... I dunno. I'd be a filthy liar if I said I understood everything about this game, no matter how much I like it.

The Porre situation is ambiguous, but I'm pretty sure there's no Lynx in the restored timeline.

Seeing this thread come back made me go and re-read the Chrono Cross LP for the first time in years!

And oh my fucking god it's so dumb. Why does it get so stupid as the CT references start piling up? The opening words NAIL it: "Hey guys, check out my Chrono Trigger fanfiction I posted. I think it turned out pretty good..." - Masato Kato 1999... The Day of Lavos

Just... ugh.

Sorry to send the conversation to the place where you started (time travel joke lol) but I can't get over how much of a travesty the CT connection is.

I have attained victory at last. I just want to give myself a little pat on the back for figuring out the "Elemental Code." When I first played CC I just looked it up but this time I paid very close attention. The order of the guardian bosses in Terra Tower, the order in which the Dragon God attacks and the order of its forms all go: Yellow > Red > Green > Blue > Black > White

And this was it. So I'm happy I figured that out, although I won't disagree with people when they say this is all pretty BS and first time players won't have a clue.

But man...the Time Devourer in this mod. My dream team was Serge, Irenes and Leah. If the Time Devourer starts with Tornado or Carnivore, you die. End of story. Even with Diminish its Omega attacks do 700+ damage. Omega Green hitting Leah without Diminish does over a 1000 damage. You have to pray it uses weaker single attacks. It's also obscenely fast.

After a lot of trial and error, I figured out the strategy to victory. As i said, Blue Innate is Best Innate. Put two Dreamer Scarves on Serge, use two Level 3 Attacks to build up to Elemental Level 8. Then Irenes puts Vigora on him. Immediately after the Time Devourer kills poor Leah, have Serge use Level 1 Elements of every type. And boom! Cue the music.

Fuck me if I know how you're supposed to win this fight any other way. Do you still gain Star Ranks in New Game Plus? Like I can just keep building Serge's stats and stuff in the next playthrough until he has 999 HP and whatnot? That's about the only way I can think of beating this monster.

But yeah...it's over! Nearly 80 hours and all of it thoroughly enjoyable. I gotta tell you, this game's battle system is probably my favorite in any JRPG. After playing Xenogears, it's really night-and-day in terms of enjoying the combat. The dungeons are also of course way better(and have actual music).

CC's ending is as rushed as ever but I still find the part with the Chrono Cross freeing Schala to be quite beautiful. I just wish the game had built up to this more. The reason a lot of people say you can play Cross with zero knowledge of Trigger is because the Schala stuff is just so last minute. A lot of the CT connections are sparse or last minute. A lot - maybe even the majority - of CC's plot functions perfectly well with not having played Trigger. Bringing it back to Xenogears for a second, the ending with Schala really has the "timeless romance" idea of Fei and Elly but now with Serge and Schala. But it wasn't really built up over the entire game so as sweet as it is, and as much as I love Serge/Kid, it could have been done better.

But, in spite of my second run having me discover new gripes, I still love this game. It's nowhere near perfect but the foaming hatred for it will never make sense to me.

Now to begin my second run of Chrono Trigger. I'll be playing the SNES version this time because there's a difficulty mod for it.

In conclusion: Serge and Crono are Bros

Don't quote me on this, but I think you can get extra Stars by fighting bosses you missed out on in an initial playthrough.

Like if you avoided the giant parrot fight or the Water Dragon Isle, you'd get stars for those.

Hm, that's interesting. There's also apparently an optional boss fight with Harle at Hermit's Hideaway that I totally missed.

There are also apparently superbosses somewhere but I never found them in either playthrough. I'll probably leave them be for now. 80 hours is about my limit for a game, even ones I like a lot.

edited 17th Mar '18 11:42:59 AM by Nikkolas

I'm pretty sure you just keep stacking new stars on old stars like normal. Which, yes, makes you obscenely overpowered, but that's basically the point of New Game Plus.

I should probably look into difficulty mods for Cross at some point. I played it again a while ago, and I had apparently forgotten how... pointless it was to use anyone other than Serge. He could just naturally poke things lightly for tons of damage, while the massive brutes you get for allies do single digit damage with their strongest hits. I swear that was not an issue before, outside of characters I'd expect to be mage-builds.

There's only the one mod at present for CC. http://ngplus.net/InsaneDifficultyArchive/www.insanedifficulty.com/board/index06f5.html?/files/file/22-chrono-cross-times-anguish/

This is the one I just played and with the exception of a few minor hiccups, I thought it was challenging but fair. Proceed at your own risk though with fights like the Hi Ho Tank which took me hours to beat, even after I figured out what I should be doing.

But yeah, Serge is unquestionably the best character in the game which I guess makes sense. You don't want your MC to be worthless.

edited 17th Mar '18 12:10:38 PM by Nikkolas

The only optional bosses as far as I'm aware are the trio in the Bend of Time and the Sphinx in the Earth Dragon Isle (it's in the world opposite to the one you actually fought the dragon).

Fun fact, if you do the puzzle it presents you with, you get jack shit. Just kick the thing's ass.

It does function as another place to see the Chrono Cross element pattern, though.

I'll tell you the single weirdest part of Chrono Cross though... changing Schala's design.

There's Dario, too, the last step in the Mastermune side quest. He's the game's only real "super"boss in that he's much tougher than anything else provided you didn't steal a Black Plate.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I beat him. The mod I have nerfed the Mastermune hard though so not even really worth it.

Also remembered why I hate Riddel. She is forced into your party for that fight and Dario will kill her in a split second. "Best mage in the whole game!" Maybe if I used her more but fuck it, I don't like her. and it's stupid they force her on you for one of the hardest fights in the game.

Of course once you understand the trick to Dario, he's not that hard. I didn't utterly break him, I just used Bat Eye on him because that's a normal part of my arsenal. And if he only counters with shit like Lo Res, so much the better for me.

I don't know how true this is or not but apparently the blue hair is not natural. Magus and Schala actually dye their hair. I heard this is said by an NPC or something. Maybe it's false but ya know, CT is kinda whacky. I could see it being a thing. I guess I'll try and see if I come across this line somewhere during my playthrough.

But ya know, Crono is the worst boyfriend ever. His first meeting with Marle and what does he do? Drag her off to fight a robot a billion times so he can bo buya nice new sword and armor for himself!

At least I looked t up and found the $4000 isn't worth it and you can go get a much cheaper but still good sword and armor from...Porre?! Well fuck, burn the place down, Crono! Save the future!

But yeah I got my nice new Steel Saber and Bronze Mail so hopefully that will help me on my hard mod journey. I'm also playing on Wait because I'm not that good.

The hair dye thing isn't true. I've heard that before somewhere, but there's nothing in the game about it, it's just some theory for why Schala's hair changed that a lot of people took as fact for some reason.

I thought it was mentioned in a guidebook or something?

An extremely rare guidebook, but still. That's what I've heard.