Chrono Cross - favorite character?

[Wolf Kanno]

Well, I mean, the Chrono-verse is pretty eclectic. The first game had a robot, a princess, a cavewoman, some village kids, a frog-man and an ancient wizard.

I'm not saying I like them but how does FunGuy or NeoFio not fit in with that?

Poshul though, smurf Poshul.

I'd probably point out that half those characters are from different time periods that the party willfully or sometimes not so willfully ripped from their worlds to join them on their adventure. The point is that most of them only stand out in other time periods but their own, whereas Cross is crawling with things from the whole fantasy/sci-fi spectrum within a small country.

Anyway, I just got to Fort Dragonia. You must get most of the characters in the second half of the game. Razzly died fighting the Hiho Tank and I spent literal hours on that boss fight so I'm not redoing it. Those stat gains are gone forever and I had no real interest in her being an endgame party member anyway. But my point is, I have:
Serge, Kid, NeoFio, Guile, Luccia, Mojo,Skelly, Leena, Poshul, Greco, Razzly

That makes 11 when I know this game has a cast of 40-something. You must get most of the cast in the second half. I know I remember very distinctly a hilarious moment when everyone from the "Viper Manor Crew" joins up. You know how each time somebody joins there's the victory music and a witty character-specific line? I remember how the victory music just went crazy and wouldn't stop when Viper, the Dragoons and Riddel all join up.At least I think they all joined at the same time...

Yeah, several characters can only be obtained once you're Lynx, like Irenes who is needed for the Marbule Quest. They pretty much won't listen to a kid, and if you've been exploring the towns thoroughly, you've met a good chunk of them as most of the named NPCs/characters with portraits, are obtainable as party members except for the bad guys and Dario. I think there are some characters who will only join after you obtain the Chrono Cross as well.

Also, while all characters, even those who haven't joined yet get stat upgrades from obtaining a Star Level, the mini-upgrades for the few battles afterwards only affect your active party, so in order to keep characters viable, you should switch out people after a major battle that grants a star so everyone can get a minor stat boost.

I ignored the characters I didn't find interesting so I forgot a lot about pretty much everyone. There are a ton of Black Innates in this first half though between Guile, Mojo, Luccia and Skelly. Almost no Yellows though except Poshul and it's smurfin' Poshul so they don't even really count.

They probably gave a huge cast because they have 6 Elements to work with and want to make sure you find somebody you like who represents each of them. But that still probably would make a cast of...18 maybe? 3 characters per Element seems fair.

Norris is the best Yellow Option in the midpoint of the game. Though I think some of the Viper Manor crew have a few good options as well. There are a lot of Black Innate in the first half, but none I would consider as powerful as Guile, Lynx or even Harle. Even then, I always forget about Luccia because I tend to recruit her towards the end.

As for why there is a large cast, this is likely just Kato's taste. Pre-production material from Chrono Trigger showed that he originally wanted something like nine to eleven playable characters, all of whom were radically weird things with the proto-Crono and Lucca, being the only humans. Frog was an actual monster, Magus was an elf, Marle was a fairy, Ayla was more like a Tarzan expy, there was a dwarf and another character. Eventually Sakaguchi and Hori went through and merged some character concepts together and radically altered some others until we got the Chrono Team we know. So Kato imagined Trigger having a more fanciful world than we got, and he went for it with Cross and Radical Dreamers. This is one of the arguments the Cross haters use as to why Cross has so many "Take That!" potshots to Trigger within the plot.

Chrono_Trigger_original_characters.jpg

Personally, I think when he had a chance to control the franchise, he simply chose to stick to his own personal tastes on what the series should be like, which is why we got the massive cast.

So was I wrong to think the Big Egg was Draggy ad you just put it in the "device" at the bottom of Fort Dragonia?

I wanted to get Draggy this playthrough... You don't have to tell me how to get him exactly - I like figuring things out myself - but maybe I just have to wait to do this or something?

You did everything right, you're just not in the right "time". You can still get him though. Generally, the more "story-centric" characters are the only ones that can be permanently missed. Hence why it takes at least three playthroughs to obtain a file with everyone on it.