Time Devourer - WTF?

Did anyone else feel like the whole Time Devourer/Schala plot in Chrono Cross really felt like it was just layered on at the last minute to give more of a connection to CT and make Kid more important in the grand scheme of things?

I though the game was getting interesting with the whole FATE/Dinopolis no absolute morality theme. Then they just kind of added a 'oh by the way there is a pure evil bad guy that you have to destroy' at the end and cheapened all the themes of the game. I can't really see what it adds to the game at all.

Square does this for a lot of games. See: Zeromus, Necron, Ultimecia, Cloud of Darkness, etc.

I thought that they hinted towards Lavos throughout the second half of the game?

I only count two of those as bad. IMO Zeromus fit it perfectly with the plot, even though he was arrived at late. The entity 'Cloud of Darkness' only appeared at the last minute, but it was a physical manifestation of the darkness you had been fighting the whole game.

And necron gets a half pass because he is revealed and forgotten so quickly that I don't even think of him past another last boss form. :roll2

The difference with all of those (sans Necron) is that they were revealed while the game was still in motion. If they had just omitted the Time Devourer the game would have had a natural, if unsatisfying, end.

It's been so long since I've played the game, but I'm pretty sure you learn about Lavos / Time Devourer during your time at the Dead Sea or the Sea of Eden.

I'm just playing through again and haven't gotten to that point. I remember learning about Lavos, but I don't recall anything about the Time Devourer. I will have to keep my head up when I go through.

I do hate the Time Devourer. In fact, I hate pretty much everything that Chrono Cross did to Chrono Trigger. Ever single little bit of that game that ties back to Trigger seems to be designed solely to make the entire adventure in Chrono Trigger pointless.

Honestly, the universe probably would have been better off if Crono had just stayed asleep.

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

I'm just playing through again and haven't gotten to that point. I remember learning about Lavos, but I don't recall anything about the Time Devourer. I will have to keep my head up when I go through.

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Hmm. Maybe I got Lavos mixed up with the Time Devourer, along with reading material outside of the game. I hope it comes to PSN for Australia so I can have an excuse to play through it again for the first time in 8 years.

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

Did anyone else feel like the whole Time Devourer/Schala plot in Chrono Cross really felt like it was just layered on at the last minute to give more of a connection to CT and make Kid more important in the grand scheme of things?

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Well, most of it was there in Radical Dreamers, which is sort of a proto-Chrono Cross, so I guess it wasn't just thrown in at the last minute.

Actually the Time Devourer is incredibly important to the plot because it's his fusion with Schala that makes Balthazar enact his plan to cause the Time Crash and send Chronopolis to 12,000 B.C.E so it would cause the Entity to pull Dinopolis from a parallel time and cause the events that would lead to the creation of the archipelago, Serge's birth, him becoming the arbiter, and FATE dragging him into the real timeline, and all the other events needed to free Schala. The entire plot of Chrono Cross is basically one giant Batman Gambit, who was only able to pull it off because he built a freaking city that could detect all parallel time lines. To say this game is convulated is an understatement. The entire point of the Time Crash and Serge becoming the arbiter was just so they could create the Chrono Cross and finally free Schala.

Yes, Lavos is the Time Devourer, its just a future evolution it takes after merging with Schala and being thrown into the Darkness Beyond Time., in between the events of Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. Sadly, the original Lavos is much more menacing, both visually and gameplay wise.