If you pick Magus, you are a loser

[RedPouch]

He wants to kill Lavos because, if unmolested, will result in the destruction of humanity. I'd say that's a rather large selfless desire. I always interpreted his apparent disregard for the lives of others as a façade maintained to win the trust of the Mystics; whether the fact that he is willing to go to such extents to destroy Lavos makes him evil is a philosophical question raised but ultimately unanswered by the game.

I haven't been around lately, so I'm late to respond. But this pretty much sums up why Magus is really "good underneath it all". He's puts on a selfish/cold façade, mostly for the reasons you specified, but probably also because of how he grew up as well [dealing with Queen Zeal after she was corrupted and their abuse of his sister and her powers].

Yes he wants to kill Lavos for revenge, but the basis for that revenge is more-or-less based on his compassion for others. It's also quite clear that he cared/still cares for Schala very much as Kawaii Ryûkishi pointed out.

[Siegfried]

Just to remind everyone...
Picking Magus instead of fighting him=loserdom



PS. The attention to detail by Squaresoft at this point in the company's career is astounding considering both this game and FFVI.

[Marky Tee]

go magus!
tho i renamed him janus
hehe anus

[ReloadPsi]

First time I played the game I took Magus along and was disappointed to note that he had little character development beyond what had already happened and generally stood around doing and saying nothing, to which I said to myself "What a crock. I'm killing him next time."

And from then on, that is what I did. Every time.

[Vice Nebulosa]

If you pick Magus, you are a loser

What you say? :Eek:

In all honesty, I do have a rather prolonged rant on the subject of Magus as one of the most unique and stylistically intriguing characters ever conceived in a video game series, but it was written for a considerably less formal setting than this (which gives you an indication of how just informal it had to necessarily be <_< >_>), and it will take a moment or two to "clean up". That, and I will need to wait for at least one additional post, to avert double-posting scorn. In the meantime, I believe Wolf Kanno said it best in page one of this thread:

Considering he's so badass that the creators of Chrono Cross chose not to put him in the sequel in fear of being the only character to receive attention and have a permanent fixture on your team is more than a monument to his fame and prestige.

Yeah, mate.

[Turkish Delight]

Although I don't use Magus very often after he joins the party, I let him live just because the Frog vs Magus fight is very anti-climactic in the grand scheme of things.

[Avarice-ness]

Magus is one of my favorite characters, not because of the bad ass appeal but because he has a very straight forward want.

While I would have to say all the other characters did ring strong to me, magus hit me the most.

He'd to anything to destroy the thing that destroyed the only thing that meant the world to him, even if it means destroying the actual world.

For some reason, even if the loves for family, wanting to kill the thing that destroys the world, not for the world, but for your love, is one of the most powerful scenerioes that could exist in my mind.

[TurkSlayer]

Magus is one of my favorite characters, not because of the bad ass appeal but because he has a very straight forward want.

While I would have to say all the other characters did ring strong to me, magus hit me the most.

He'd to anything to destroy the thing that destroyed the only thing that meant the world to him, even if it means destroying the actual world.

For some reason, even if the loves for family, wanting to kill the thing that destroys the world, not for the world, but for your love, is one of the most powerful scenerioes that could exist in my mind.

I can agree with this. This is an approach I haven't seen much in video game characters. A villain who seeks power not for the power's sake, but out of love (Not even romantic love, which I find pretty interesting). Sure, vengeance is a pretty common theme in both heroes and villains, but to me the methods he was willing to take just for the sake of his sister were touching in a somewhat dark way.

[Crimson]

I cant honestly understand how anyone could pick a Frog over Magus.



Ok the Frog might have awesome theme music but come on.

[SomethingBig]

He was a mediocre unit overall, but I'll be damned if he wasn't the coolest, most badass video-game character back then.

[ReloadPsi]

Although I don't use Magus very often after he joins the party, I let him live just because the Frog vs Magus fight is very anti-climactic in the grand scheme of things.

There's something a bit "ho-hum" about watching Leap Slash be executed eleven times.

[theundeadhero]

I generally make an alternate saved game at that point and then continue on with him joining up. Then later I'll come back and slay him in the other save file. With two save files it's possible to easily get all the non new-game+ endings.

[IXVI]

I love Magus and Frog, despite being a loser I guess ;|..

[Zeromus]

I love Magus, he is my favorite character in Chrono Trigger!
And someone who think people is loser just because of the kind of characters they use in a game, is more loser

Considering he's so badass that the creators of Chrono Cross chose not to put him in the sequel in fear of being the only character to receive attention and have a permanent fixture on your team is more than a monument to his fame and prestige.

Tottaly true!

His lack of double and triple techs makes him one of my less used characters.

Actually, as some other has said in the thread, he does have group techniques, and they are really good!

He is very good in battle, and that is a reason why if you use him you are not a loser ;D ...You can kick asses with him!

Frog doesn't even care about his form. He said it himself in one of the endings, iirc. I consider that a pretty poor reasoning for killing someone whose only crimes were all committed during an attempt to acquire enough power to save the human race from utter devastation.

Yeah you're right!
You just took the words from my mouth!

And for all those saying that Magus is bad and some proof is that he wants revenge instead of saving the world, I can say... Is there something wrong in revenge? I think the motives really don't matter when someone is taking revenge killing some beast that has caused, can cause, and will cause so much suffering to so much people in the world!
In a case like that, you don't need to mind about the motives but just joining forces with those who really want to settle things and have the power to do it !

[RedPouch]

I just played this game a few days ago, and I feel like ranting about Magus [yet again, look out].

So here we go: Even though I can be shallow when it comes to character design, I won't let the fact that he's ugly as hell taint my opinion of Magus since there are plenty of ugly characters out there which are awesome. I'll just consider the fact that he's yet another cliche "badass" type character archetype which many audiences [especially western ones] seem to easily fall for. I have never liked the apathetic/quiet/I'm-too-cool-for-you/I'm-a-loner types, and I hate them more and more every time I see them repeated in 95% of JRPG's and anime out there.

But first, let's go to his intellect: That pittance stupidly thinks he can solo lavos when he has no healing magic of any kind, and has poor offense. Great logic Magus. It's a good thing you were interrupted before properly completing that summon, eh? It's also a good thing that he realized he had to join your party, so he could get access to all of your hard-earned mystical weapons and omnipotent artifacts. This way, he could actually be able to at least have a chance at his revenge goal. Thank goodness you guys are there to save him.

Now we'll go to his uselessness in battle: Many people are willing to zealously defend him to the death because they think he's that cool. Generally, the first thing I hear from someone is how his stats are very high in the game without tabs, especially his magic [which he easily out-does everyone else in stat-wise]. While this may be true, let's think practically:

-Unless you're one of the three gamers I've talked to that actually felt like never using tabs during your first play-through before completing the game for the first time, I consider this fact to be irrelevant since 95% of save files you come across [if not more] will have tabs that were used.

-Who cares if his magic stat is the highest in the game? Dark Matter's damage multiplier sucks to hell and beyond, and is easily out-damaged by Luminaire and is also out-damaged by Flare, making his high magic stat very useless. You'd need Prism Specs in order to have Dark Matter's damage compare to Luminaire's, to which end, if you're going to use Prism Specs then they might as well be on Crono, where they'd really be put to better use [this is only hypothetical, in the case of those that don't want to use a Gold Stud or any other accessory].

-None of his attacks are single target [unless you count Dark Bomb on the occasions that no other monster will be near it, though as you'd guess, it deals trash for damage, and Black Hole which I find to be useless since for whatever reason monsters rarely get close enough to be caught in it, and it's useless for boss monsters]. This can be extremely annoying and draining during the later game when you're fighting groups of enemies or bosses that are in parts, which will give you nasty counterattacks if you hit certain parts under certain conditions. Just as an example, if you hit the Lavos Spawn shell with anything, it'll retaliate by spamming that needle attack on you. If you hit Queen Zeal's hands, she'll use MP Buster and Life Shaver every single time. In situations like this where single target is more preferred, Magus can either use Magic Barrier [which in all honesty doesn't seem to do a whole lot], or use a normal attack.

-Speaking of normal attacks, his sucks, like almost everyone else's does late-game [by the time you get him and forward], and pretty much every turn you get on every character, you'll be using a tech of some kind. Does he have a nice physical tech? No, he only has all-target magic that has low damage multipliers [but hey, at least his Ice 2 is better than Marle's Ice 2!].

This is why Magus not only seriously lacks versatility in his setup, but also has little to no cohesion with any party combination you can think of. Triple techs usually aren't useful since you end up dealing more damage by having everyone use single techs or by using one single and one double. Even then, the only kind of triple tech that involves him requires a rock [to refresh anyone's memory, this means you need to give up an accessory just to be able to use it], which is all aside from the fact that he has no double techs with anyone.

I keep Magus alive because it's fun to hear his battle music while fighting Queen Zeal on top of the Black Omen, and nothing more. Though as you'd imagine, he's nearly useless in that fight.




For the record, I'm not really a fan of Frog either. And I apologize if I offended the Magus fans, but I felt like I had to blow off some steam here. As some people here already know, I get pretty sick of these types of characters.