I didn't feel like I got too much done last night.

So I went to El Nido Triangle and picked up the Star Fragment for the purpose of recruiting the alien dude. Damn does he have some serious health, took forever to kill him and I'm now realizing this evening that I will need to acquire some Trap Elements cause my current repertoire of spells are incredibly inadequate at this point outside of improved healing.

I actually died to Garai, against my better judgement I put Zappa into my party instead of Harle, and while he's pretty decent against the normal enemies, his large amount of HP is about the only thing he had going for him in the battle. Been ages since I saw the Game Over screen in this game, which is actually kind of cool. My second round had Harle back in and the extra damage and use of Diminish to keep his really powerful Holy attack from one-shotting Lynx and Harle proved the deciding factor for this fight.

Two things came up from this scenario:

1) It's incredibly disappointing how underutilized the cast is in terms of extra dialogue or content when present. Zappa was a fellow Deva with Garia and Radius and yet he gets no extra dialogue or anything concerning the fate of one of his fellow comrades. It just feels like a serious wasted opportunity. This reminded me about how much Luccia pops up in the background of several character stories like Grobyc and her involvement with Fargo and his family trouble, and yet she feels like more of a background character than a lot of the cast when it's obvious she should have been playing a larger role cause she's personally involved in so many people's stories.

2) While the ambiguity of Guardia's fall and the fate of the old cast is interesting for me for speculative purposes, I still really wish CC had addressed how the Masemune became an evil sword and how the hell it came to El Nido, cause both aspects are either never touched upon or have flimsy reasoning behind it. I do find it interesting that the Einlanzer is basically the Dragonian Timeline counterpart to the Masemune which would explain why they are opposing weapons, but I still wish that sword had a bit more history to it like the Masemune does. With all that said, the Masemune's role in CC is still pretty cool and sort of just exemplifies how CC does an interesting job of making you want to know more about what happened in the Chrono-verse.

I've been thinking about the prospect of what I would want out of a third Chrono entry if it somehow ever saw the light of day, and I may do a short write up once I finish this playthrough along with some changes I wish I could see in CC if it ever got the remake treatment.

Anyway, I'll be doing the Dead Sea tonight, which I've been super excited for cause it's one of my favorite parts of the game. I can honestly say that as a narrative, CC really starts to pick up once you become Lynx. The events after Viper Manor up to that point are not quite as interesting as the stuff that follows.

I think one of the most clever things CC does with its story is how it subverts the usual alternate dimension/timeline shenanigans by reversing the reveal. In most stories that deal with these topics, the story let's you follow the perspective characters daily life and see their world in order to build up a baseline so you can see the serious contrast once they leap to the other verse. In CC, Alternate World is explored first and becomes the baseline so when you finally do get a chance to return home and explore it, you get the contrast from the opposite end. Made even more delicious because CC will eventually reveal that Serge's world is the abnormal timeline and the world he stepped into is the actual main timeline. Something really fascinating I noticed while replaying. I may add this observation and few more into the CC entry on my Top 100 list.