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Thread: Replaying Chrono Cross

  1. #16

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    Razzly is a decent party member! And apparently she has a Triple Tech with Serge and Kid.

    But yeah, sucks to hear about Nikki. I was never much interested in Michael Jackson either. He gets extra dialogue with Marcy though from what i recall.

    I remember my first playthrough you spoiled me on who the Prophet was right away. You don't learn about that trout for SO LONG after that first meeting and you told me like 30 hours early. I might have said it was okay but, in retrospect, it's one helluva spoiler.


    Ya know, it is kinda easy to see why people think the characters of Cross have no character when such pivotal moments as Serge getting his body back just kinda...come and go. Sure Steena comments on the plot importance of it but what about the characters?

    Guile, Leena, Greco and so many more are suddenly "back" and there is no cutscene or real comment or anything. They're just selectable once again. It's really disappointing.

    This game could really benefit from some "minor" fanfiction. Nothing to really tweak the plot or whatever, just add in the character moments and development that would really help inject some life into the group.

    One thing I've become really interested in is where everybody hangs out when they aren't in your party. Like, Razzly, Starrky and Draggy are at Home Hermit's Hideaway, just frolicking and being adorable. That's nice. Them hanging out together makes sense.

    Marcy and Riddel are in a room on the Invincible. That's...random. I didn't expect that.

    I'm still trying to figure out where everyone else is. Guile and Greco are in the same place they always were.

  2. #17
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    I think only a few characters go to unique places and the rest simply return to where you recruited them. Yeah, Cross' cast feel very detached from the plot overall, with only a few exceptions. If Cross ever got a remake treatment, and it should, I would like Kato and the team to come back in and probably relegate half the cast to NPC status and then add some scenarios to make the other half feel more prominent in the plot. Adding some more Dual and Triple Techs would be a must as well cause there is so much potential for pairings.

    I think it would also be cool if a remake added two new dungeons that involve entering some other alternate realities. Like one based closer onto Radical Dreamers and then maybe the Reptite dimension would be cool as well. I mean the DS version of Trigger added two new dungeons so why not Cross?

    As for Balthazar, it's only really a plot twist if you have never played Trigger. I remember spotting him on my first playthrough and after getting over the shock of him being alive, realized that trout was about to go down.

  3. #18

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    Well I got utterly annihilated by FATE. On the bright side, I have access to Rainbow equipment!

    ...or I would if i: A) had any clue how to get Shiny materials besides Disassembling unique equipment (I have plenty of Shiny Dew but I haven't come across any of the others at all.) and B) If I chad the 72,000 Gold needed to outfit everyone with the requisite armor(Getting even half the Gold needed for one piece of equipment is a chore in and of itself. The mod I'm playing seriously nerfed money drops. The most you get is 200-300 Gold per battle, and that's with Profiteer Purse.).


    Rainbow weapons be nice but the armor to survive FATE'S countdown move is probably the more important thing to focus on.

    I also need to re-explore Chronopolis because I think I missed some information. None of the stuff I read talked about Lavos for example. I'm positive there is some exposition on that matter somewhere. Also I really feel like there's something for Grobyc.
    Last edited by Forsaken Lover; 03-16-2018 at 01:00 AM.

  4. #19
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
    Well I got utterly annihilated by FATE. On the bright side, I have access to Rainbow equipment!

    ...or I would if i: A) had any clue how to get Shiny materials besides Disassembling unique equipment (I have plenty of Shiny Dew but I haven't come across any of the others at all.) and B) If I chad the 72,000 Gold needed to outfit everyone with the requisite armor(Getting even half the Gold needed for one piece of equipment is a chore in and of itself. The mod I'm playing seriously nerfed money drops. The most you get is 200-300 Gold per battle, and that's with Profiteer Purse.).

    Rainbow weapons be nice but the armor to survive FATE'S countdown move is probably the more important thing to focus on.
    I looked it up for you, and I'll be damned, Summons actually have a purpose. The Shiny Materials only drop from enemies defeated with a summon. Farming them is easier in NG+ due to a certain item becoming available by that point, but Shiny Salt and Soot will be difficult to farm since there are no Field spells for those two elements.

    I also need to re-explore Chronopolis because I think I missed some information. None of the stuff I read talked about Lavos for example. I'm positive there is some exposition on that matter somewhere. Also I really feel like there's something for Grobyc.
    There should be a terminal somewhere that discusses Lavos, though the first terminal about him is actually in the Dead Sea in Home World. Grobyc's Lv. 7 Tech is in Chronopolis but you need him in your active party to get it.

  5. #20

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    So I need to buy summons to get the Shiny Materials? Hm...that's not too much of a problem. Thank you.

    And my money woes are (temporarily) cured. Somebody else played the mod besides me and they said there are two of this otherwise worthless accessory named Golden Tiara. You find one and another is a rare drop from one of the Vita bosses you fight before going into Chronopolis. I actually looked that up, too whilst playing the game. I wanted to see if the different Vitas were harder and what they gave as rewards. I ended up going with Unus because it dropped Vigora which, judging from how Grobyc and Dark Serge annihilated me with it, seemed very useful.

    So I missed out on one Tiara but I got the other one you find in Home Isle of the Damned by having a Wisp blow up near a suit of armor. Very interesting, I never would have thought of that on my own. Anyway, Golden Tiara sells for for 75,000, at least in this! So that's one set of Rainbow armor taken care of once I have the materials. And Serge gets the Mastermune so there's really no point even buying him a Rainbow weapon so that saves me some cash.

    And I've never used Grobyc but I think if you find it the game will just say "this looks likeit's for Grobyc" so I just didn't even find it this time around.

    Anyway, with my gameplay woes solved, back to the plot. In both my playtrhoughs I don't think I ever found the Lavos stuff in the Dead Sea. That's interesting but sucks I missed it.

  6. #21

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    Well I'm sure my two Prism Mails and my Prism Vest helped but the real key to beating FATE is making sure the field is White when she does her ultimate move. Makes sense. Load up everyone with 3 Recovery Alls at Level 1 and just have them spam those before teh Countdown hits 0. I suppose you could also throw in an offensive White Element but eh.

    Vigora is awesome, Serge only got one crit in his attack spam but I still did about 2000 damage to FATE right at the start of the fight. What's also awesome is CureAll, which an be dropped and stolen from enemies at the Chronopolis Bend of Time. Both of these are specific to Blue Innates.

    Basically, Blue is the best Element and I love Irenes.

  7. #22
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Good job taking down FATE. I will say that making the Spectra Swallow is still in your best interest due to the Mastermune being one of the things that doesn't carry over into NG+, so you're only making poor Serge deal with second tier nonsense. Same reason why your should make the Prism equivalent of the sword for Glenn if you choose to since the Einlanzer also doesn't carry over.

    As for my game, I decided to suck it up and and Save Kid. I mean, I'm probably going to wait another ten years to do that scenario again anyway, might as well remind myself why I don't do it very often anyway. The Hydra Marshes might be one of the few parts of the game outside of the Dragon God Relic quest that I actively dread in this game. The enemies are tanky even in NG+, you have to battle several boss like fights but only one counts towards your stars, and this is the part of the game where status effects come into full force and you discover that the priority of Allocating Elements on your grid usually forsakes the status healing elements. None of this is helped by the poor choice in playable party members in the early game if you don't grab Guile. I think the surprise member of this whole mess was finally using Greco so I can have another decent offense character who doesn't have to rely purely on elements.

    I was able to rescue Razzly, and I was mean and made sure not to bring her along for the Hydra battle in order to gain her Lv.7 Tech later on. Razzly is a pretty potent member actually and she might become a new active member until the second Tech skills become available which will make Leena more useful. Once you gain a few Star Levels, Nikki does start to pull his weight, but he's obviously a mage character and not nearly as good at his job like Guile is. Not helped by the fact that his Tech skills seem to be physical base. Korcha is more physical minded, but still a lukewarm character compared to powerhouse Glenn who has better defense and can pack a bit more punch with a good enough weapon. Of anything my real issue is that all of my story-centric party members during this time are Blue Innate and as we all know, it's not a good idea to fill your party up with too many of the same elemental innate unless dealing with a boss. My other issue is the sheer lack of decent Green or Yellow innates in the early game. Razzly is going to fix Green for me, but that still means I'm stuck with Poshul as my only Yellow, and the early game is filled with Yellow and Green innate enemies.

    Speaking of these two elements, am I the only person confused by their elemental properties? I mean why is Yellow both Earth and Lightning, and then Green is Wind and Plants? This is something that has always bugged me about this game. The other issue is that despite how powerful Yellow's spells are, I don't remember the game ever giving you a decent mage with this element, whereas every other element has usually one character specialized for magic in their element.

    I also dropped into Another World's poisoned Hydra Marches in order to retrieve another piece of Skelly and collect the Life Sparkle in order to recruit Neo Fio. The best thing about this venture was actually getting Kid to steal an Earthquake Element from one of those tanky centipede monsters. This spell is pretty overpowered by this point. I only wish she was able to steal the rare accessory from Harle during her boss battle but I will have to settle for the upgraded PhotonBeam spells instead.

    Anyway, I'm on the S.S. Zelbess helping Fargo deal with the Ghost Ship, it will be nice to finally have a decent melee Blue innate with Fargo. I also wish I had access to a Blacksmith cause I've been stealing Iron from the Skeleton enemies and can finally upgrade some gear.

  8. #23

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    Yeah I just realized I'll have to make his Rainbow Swallow because the mod I'm playing nerfed the Mastermune hard. It's not even as strong as the Stone Swallow now.

    Didn't the Mastermune have an insane Crit Rate though? I can't remember.

    And yeah, the total lack of Yellows for dozens of hours is really frustrating. And I also was confused by what "element" Yellow was supposed to be. It's really inconsistent compared to Blue or Red. And i also was realizing there's no Yellow Mages at all in this game and that's also something which has been bugging me as I head for Terra Tower.

    Is the boss fight with Harle a Nikki route thing? I don't remember that at all. I thought you just fought ZOAH and Marcy like usual.





    I remember back when I was first playing CC there was a poster elsewhere who challenged that that Serge just had no motivation to do anything. Like, why is he going after Lynx? What is driving him? My answer then is the same as the one I have now; Serge clearly has feelings for Kid (even if you refuse her at all opportunities, which is a strange design decision and maybe even a bad one but whatever) and he's also probably just curious about why this evil cat-man knows him and what all that stuff he said meant. Plus, lynx had already sent goons after him so Serge probably figured he had to go on the offensive.

    I still found more personality in Serge than Crono but that's because I largely just find the Twerp Trio of CT to be the worst part of teh game. Magus and Frog are the best characters because they have the strongest motivations, personality, backstory, etc.. And I think I might replay CT after I'm done with CC, dunno yet.

    I beat Dario. I remembered the trick of how he counters certain Elements with Debuffs so he could potentially never even attack you. I made some use of it but I didn't break the whole fight that way. I mainly just used BatEye on him and he counters with LoRes.
    But I remembered why I hate Riddel and think she's overrated. You have to use her for this fight and she can't take a single damned hit.

    Oh and I found the terminal on Lavos in Chronopolis. It's on 3F which is optional and I missed my first time. I love Chronopolis because it feels appropriately climactic and important, ya know? Good music and design, too. But the showdown with FATE is very unsatisfying. Especially when you learn the identify of Lynx later on. This is teh Goddess who has been controlling everyone, ruining innumerable lives, and it just becomes a big...dinosaur thing and then dies and we move onto the Dragons.

    Also more Kato loves Xenogears: Evil entity possesses Hero's Father who possesses his own son's body.

  9. #24

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    Long before I played either Chrono game I heard a debate about whether or not you even needed to play Trigger before Cross. Many people played Cross with little or no knowledge of Trigger.

    Well, I've settled the dispute of whether or not you need to play Trigger before Cross in order to appreciate it.

    I played CT a few years ago but holy smurfing trout, I did not rememberLucca's mother's name. And if you don't remember her name, you cannot do the Code to get Kid's Level 7 Tech. The game helpfully reminds you that Lucca's dad's name is Taban but WHO smurfING CARES.

    It drove me mad, I ran around the orpahange, ruining the otherwise perfect atmosphere and storytelling, all because I was madly searching for some clue about what the smurf her mom's name was. I eventually gave upt and just looked it up.

    But there you have it. If you like Kid and want her to be at her best, I hope you played Chrono Trigger. And recently so you remember the name of a minor NPC. The scene with rescuing Lucca's mother is like the best moment in the whole game in terms of writing but hell ifI could remember the name. I don't think that's my fault and it certainly wouldn't be the fault of anyone who didn't even play Chrono Trigger.

    I'm being mostly facetious here, I'm just really irritated. I hate when games do strout like this

    EDIT:

    I do have to wonder a couple things though.

    1. What happens if you leave Kid in a coma? I suppose it's sort of like the Hydra poison and she'd just get better anyway so the ending still works? Although if you did leave Kid alone it totally saps the ending of any emotion in my view.

    2. I wonder if there were Shipping Wars back in the day where people got mad Crono ended up with the superior option Marle?

    But, overall, the Burning Orphanage is possibly the best storytelling in this whole game. It is a piece of true art and I wanna hug Kid forever and ever.
    Last edited by Forsaken Lover; 03-17-2018 at 03:06 AM.

  10. #25
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
    Yeah I just realized I'll have to make his Rainbow Swallow because the mod I'm playing nerfed the Mastermune hard. It's not even as strong as the Stone Swallow now.

    Didn't the Mastermune have an insane Crit Rate though? I can't remember.
    Yes it does, which is why it was considered a superior weapon over the Prism Swallow despite being weaker stat wise.

    And yeah, the total lack of Yellows for dozens of hours is really frustrating. And I also was confused by what "element" Yellow was supposed to be. It's really inconsistent compared to Blue or Red. And i also was realizing there's no Yellow Mages at all in this game and that's also something which has been bugging me as I head for Terra Tower.
    After a little research, it looks like Mel is the best Mage option for Yellow innates, bust sadly her overall stats are poor and she is one of the late game characters you recruit and she can only be gained by doing an optional quest during the Save Kid path. So yeah... On the brightside, she's the third character that actually has a steal ability and she even gets a special dual tech with Kid.

    Is the boss fight with Harle a Nikki route thing? I don't remember that at all. I thought you just fought ZOAH and Marcy like usual.
    I don't believe so, you don't fight her at Viper Manor, you deal with her at the Burned Down Hermit's Hideaway. If you go there first as Glenn tells you to do before heading towards Ft. Dragonia and dealing with Fargo and the Ghost ship, you'll meet her at the place where she tells you she was ordered to delay your pursuit of Lynx. She's pretty easy, but she has some really good loot, namely the upgraded White spell Photon Beam or very rarely, she drops an accessory called Moon Glasses which reduces all damage by 25%.

    I remember back when I was first playing CC there was a poster elsewhere who challenged that that Serge just had no motivation to do anything. Like, why is he going after Lynx? What is driving him? My answer then is the same as the one I have now; Serge clearly has feelings for Kid (even if you refuse her at all opportunities, which is a strange design decision and maybe even a bad one but whatever) and he's also probably just curious about why this evil cat-man knows him and what all that stuff he said meant. Plus, lynx had already sent goons after him so Serge probably figured he had to go on the offensive.
    I partially disagree, from where I am at the beginning, it seems to me that Serge is trying to figure out the vision he was given when he touched the Dragon Tear at Viper's Manor which showed him his memories of Chronopolis transforming into the Dead Sea in his timeline after he became the arbiter. Not to mention Lynx's words about him being the Chrono Trigger. I say this because Serge will show both memories again after you save Kid and she asks you whether you wanted to stick around or head back to your home dimension.

    The partial part comes in the fact that if you do keep Kid around, it's obvious she has a thing for him, and the game's true ending shows that the two of them did wind up together based on the picture on the mantle where Kid's diary is. So I would assume Serge's feelings were mutual.

    Funny enough, one of the few optional endings I remember from this game which I enjoyed is the one where Serge decides that it doesn't matter that he's in a dimension he died in, blows off Kid, and ends up hooking up with Another World's Leena and running a shop with her in Termina. It was a pretty funny ending. The other ending he has involves him kind of hooking up with Harle in his Lynx form cause he gives up on trying to get his original body back. So funny enough, Serge is a bit more of a player than one would think.

    I still found more personality in Serge than Crono but that's because I largely just find the Twerp Trio of CT to be the worst part of teh game. Magus and Frog are the best characters because they have the strongest motivations, personality, backstory, etc.. And I think I might replay CT after I'm done with CC, dunno yet.
    You should play it again, cause well I love the game. Honestly, I find Crono and companies motivation to be pretty iron clad as well since I would imagine that if I stumbled upon time travel and then saw a post-apocalyptic future the world would eventually become, I would likely imagine I would see if I could prevent it as well. I mean even though none of them would live to see it, I imagine it would be hard to go back to living a normal life, knowing a future you were physically at is inevitable.

    I beat Dario. I remembered the trick of how he counters certain Elements with Debuffs so he could potentially never even attack you. I made some use of it but I didn't break the whole fight that way. I mainly just used BatEye on him and he counters with LoRes.
    But I remembered why I hate Riddel and think she's overrated. You have to use her for this fight and she can't take a single damned hit.
    She can take more punishment if you use her a lot once she's recruited to get the extra HP boosts after Star Levels, and due to being a White innate as well as a squishy mage, it's not hard to see how even Dario's weakest attacks can one-shot her seeing how he's the strongest Black Innate Boss in the game who can easily finish off most of your party.

    Oh and I found the terminal on Lavos in Chronopolis. It's on 3F which is optional and I missed my first time. I love Chronopolis because it feels appropriately climactic and important, ya know? Good music and design, too. But the showdown with FATE is very unsatisfying. Especially when you learn the identify of Lynx later on. This is teh Goddess who has been controlling everyone, ruining innumerable lives, and it just becomes a big...dinosaur thing and then dies and we move onto the Dragons.
    Yeah, the plot twist concerning the Reptite equivalent of Chronopolis showing up is neat at first, but it fails to feel like the pen-ultimate final dungeon like Chronopolis did. I honestly feel like both scenarios should have been switched since I feel like more plot relevant things happen in Chronopolis and Terra Tower feels more like tying up loose ends in the plot before the info dump true ending. I feel like CC was rushed as the second half of the game doesn't feel quite as solid as the first half. Maybe another sign of the Xenogears spirit attaching itself to the project.

    Also more Kato loves Xenogears: Evil entity possesses Hero's Father who possesses his own son's body.
    I honestly think Xenogears broke Kato. It's influence on CC is very strong.

    Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
    Long before I played either Chrono game I heard a debate about whether or not you even needed to play Trigger before Cross. Many people played Cross with little or no knowledge of Trigger.

    Well, I've settled the dispute of whether or not you need to play Trigger before Cross in order to appreciate it.

    I played CT a few years ago but holy smurfing trout, I did not rememberLucca's mother's name. And if you don't remember her name, you cannot do the Code to get Kid's Level 7 Tech. The game helpfully reminds you that Lucca's dad's name is Taban but WHO smurfING CARES.

    It drove me mad, I ran around the orpahange, ruining the otherwise perfect atmosphere and storytelling, all because I was madly searching for some clue about what the smurf her mom's name was. I eventually gave upt and just looked it up.

    But there you have it. If you like Kid and want her to be at her best, I hope you played Chrono Trigger. And recently so you remember the name of a minor NPC. The scene with rescuing Lucca's mother is like the best moment in the whole game in terms of writing but hell ifI could remember the name. I don't think that's my fault and it certainly wouldn't be the fault of anyone who didn't even play Chrono Trigger.

    I'm being mostly facetious here, I'm just really irritated. I hate when games do strout like this
    It helps to remember that it's the only normal girls name you can spell with an SNES controller since the big issue when the first game did this puzzle was realizing how to input the password into the computer since no menu prompt appears to input a name. Not helped by the only other puzzle like this was all the way back in the beginning to the game the first time through 2300 A.D.

    Honestly, there are so many callbacks to CT that's its hard to argue that CC is a much richer game for having knowledge of CT in it. Not to mention that the whole Reptite versus Human's shenanigans, and who Kid really is and why that's significant, is all lost on you if you never played CT.

    EDIT:

    I do have to wonder a couple things though.

    1. What happens if you leave Kid in a coma? I suppose it's sort of like the Hydra poison and she'd just get better anyway so the ending still works? Although if you did leave Kid alone it totally saps the ending of any emotion in my view.
    I don't think it's possibly to not help Kid. I'm pretty sure it's one of the game's few But Thou Must moments in the game where even if you try to not do it, someone tells you you have to.

    2. I wonder if there were Shipping Wars back in the day where people got mad Crono ended up with the superior option Marle?
    I generally preferred Lucca over Marle since Marle is a bit too pushy for my taste and Lucca is basically Washu from Tenchi Muyo! without the lolicon aspect. Still, I don't think there was any real shipping issues because CT makes it damn clear Marle is Crono's companion, even before the animated Wedding ending in the PS1 version. Partly because the person who does the most talking during the Resurrection scene is based on an algortithm of most important, with Marle getting priority over Lucca and neither Ayla or Magus are even in the algortithm. The other evidence is the balloon ending, where if you crash the Epoch into Lavos and lose it during the final battle, the ending that plays out is one where Crono and Marle foat through the night sky together with the help of some balloons, and the final nail in the coffin is that Marle's Theme is actually titled "Crono and Marle ~ A Distant Promise" which is reprised at the end of the game's ending theme, the underrated "To Far Away Times (The Outskirts of Time)".

    So I don't think there are too many shipping issues in CT as there could be in CC. I think even Lucca realizes she's the unlucky childhood friend pretty early in the game sometime around the time they rescue Marle in 600 A.D. The more squicky fanfiction takes to heart the mistranslation in the original english text about Magus and Schala's not being related by blood (they are) and tend to ship them together.

  11. #26

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    That pic is pretty adorable, gonna steal it.

    And I remember some of CC's optional endings pretty vividly. I didn't get all of them myself but I watched t hem on YT. I remember being really frustrated at almost getting the ending where you solo the Time Devourer with Serge. It's mostly easy but it takes forever and eventually something happened and killed me. I wasn't that great at the game, I like to think Ive improved and could do it now (in the regular game, the mod probably wouldn't allow it).

    But anyway, the endings are pretty great, We were talking about Serge's motivations. Well, one ending has Serge, Kid and Razzly joining the Magical Dreamers to rock out and a bewildered Lynx standing at the top of Fort Dragonia wondering where everybody is. Another ending has Kid taking over Acacia and the world. I think that's the one where Serge works at the Termina shop.

    Overall, both pretty happy endings, I think.


    I just beat the Dragon God mystifyingly named the Time Devourer. First run went very smoothly until the Black phase where it combo'ed Genius + Imbecile + Imbecile and finishing it off with BlackHole. Whole party wiped in an instant. For Round 2 my strategy was to get through the phase as fast as possible so I put Vigora and EagleEye on Serge and had him go crazy. Even got one crit for 900 damage in one attack. Once I got through that it was smooth sailing.

    I save stated right after the boss because I'm very tired and want to be alert for the info dumps to come. I love this game but I recall the ending being...not very good. It makes you long for Xenogears which had the infamous Second Disk but still wrapped things up far more satisfyingly to my mind.

    Oh and I totally skipped that Harle boss fight. I didn't know it existed.

  12. #27
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Yeah there is a ton of easily missed things in this game.

    Okay one of the few places where I'm going to honestly say CT was better than CC is how static the NPCs can often be. Specifically the MC's mothers. Serge's mom is still scolding me about sleeping in late and how my relationship with Leena is, despite having Leena in my party... I'm like halfway through the fist disc at this point and I kind of remember her being a really flat character overall despite there being enough family drama in the background to make you feel like they would do more. Contrast this with Crono's mom who scolds you for sleeping in late, just about has a heart attack when you finally come home after being trialed as an enemy of the state, and even talks about the Black Omen when it shows up. She then gets unique dialogue the first time you bring in any party member who just joined you. Despite having no real backstory beyond being Crono's mom, she has a bit more personality and presence in the story, so far as being rather prominent in one of the game's final endings.

    Serge's Mom isn't the only problem, I also find it weird having Leena's sister ask Serge to help make her sister not so much of a selfish bitch and you get nothing new from her or AW Leena if she's in your active party. Seems like some lost potential there. I know it's asking a lot especially when you think about the sheer amount of optional content and scenarios this game gives you which gives this game way more replay value than CT, but it still would have been nice to just add one or two lines of dialogue.

    As for my file, I finished the Ghost ship scenario, got my two extra pieces of dialogue with Fargo since Nikki was in my party, and was told to seek the Water Dragon God's help. WDG no longer exists in Another World, so off to Home World to see how all my actions in the Hydra Marshes were not going to have any long term repercussions against me or innocent bystanders. So I stopped off at Termina first and decided to use all this damn Iron I farmed from the Skeletons to finally upgrade a good chunk of my team into some modern equipment. This very likely helped me a lot considering I was going to use Razzly for this part.

    Genocided the genocidal dwarves and even blew up their tank that is always surprisingly more dangerous than you would think depsite how goofy the whole fight feels. This whole scenario easily stands out in the game due to just how surreal the whole scenario is with juxtaposition due to the cutesy graphics and critters, versus the heavy handed ethical scenario.

    Due to not bringing Razzly into the Hydra battle, I ensured her sister would die for maximum drama and in order to unlock Razzly's Lv. 7 Tech when the time comes. Again, altruism gets you nowhere in this game. I also was able to collect the last of Skelly's parts after taking a quick jump over to the Island of the Damned to grab the last pieces, did his scenario in Termina and now I have a slightly better melee option for Black Innate. Oh and I got Pip as well, but I'm probably going to ignore him until NG+.

    For now, I feel my team is going to be Serge, Kid, and either Leena or Razzly. as a mage character. Sadly, if Kid didn't have Pilfer, I would probably drop her for Greco since I prefer having two heavy fighters on my team. While I'm pretty cool with these four, it's kind of making me realize how many of the better characters there are in some of the other scenarios. My selection of characters is hardly ideal at the moment. I have no decent Red or Yellow Innate Mages, and frankly I have no real options for Yellow innate overall. I have one decent melee fighter that isn't Serge, no good Black Innate with the slight exception of Luccia but even she's kind of mediocre compared to the power trio of Lynx, Harle, and Grobyc. I have way too many Blue Innate and most of them are average at best compared to heavy hitters Fargo and Irenes who are still away off from joining. I finally have a Green Innate and they are pretty awesome, but she's hardly the best of her class sadly. It's like the game front-loaded most of the average novelty characters into the first half. I'm getting excited to become Lynx so I can finally start recruiting characters I like and are actually relevant to the plot.

  13. #28

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    I'm curious WK, who is your favorite character in this game in terms of character(Not gameplay or whatever)


    In any event, I have attained victory at last. I just want to give myself a little pat on he 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. OmegaGreen 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. smurf me if I know how you're supposed to win this fight any other way. Do you still gain Star Ranks in New GamePlus? 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 XDenogears, 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.

    EDIT:

    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.


    Edit:

    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 smurf, 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.
    Last edited by Forsaken Lover; 03-18-2018 at 01:50 AM.

  14. #29
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
    I'm curious WK, who is your favorite character in this game in terms of character(Not gameplay or whatever)
    If I'm going to be honest, no one really. CC's cast has never grabbed me like other RPGs and I'm fairly indifferent to most of the cast. With a bit of reflection, I like Harle cause I find her fun and she's got a cute personality. I like Glenn, Karsh, and Raidan for their parts in the Masemune story, but I'm not exactly invested in them as people, it's just my favorite scenario in the game. Pierre makes me laugh, and I have a soft spot for Lenna since I like the fact her Another World version is a bit softer compared to Serge's version. I also have a soft spot for Guile since he used to be Magus and I love the to still pretend Magus did end up being some stage magician. I like Skelly's quest, even if he's a lousy party member, and I like Norris.

    With that said, I'm largely indifferent to the cast outside of gameplay parameters. None of them really made me care for them, and it's honestly trying to unravel the mystery of the island and why Serge is important that keeps me invested in the plot. Despite playing the game several times, I only ever remember the parts that deal with the main plot concerning Serge, Kid, and Lynx; as well as the Masemune. The rest of the story which usually involves the other characters, never retains in my memory cause I simply don't care enough.

    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 XDenogears, it's really night-and-day in terms of enjoying the combat. The dungeons are also of course way better(and have actual music).
    I don't think I will ever understand your love for this battle system. Combat is such a drag for me in this game and I would probably be farther into the game if I didn't keep distracting myself with the manga/graphic novels I'm reading during the gameplay portions. With that said, I will agree that the dungeons are fun when combat isn't excessive.

    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.
    CC still has a pretty good ending, I think my issue with Serge and Kid's relationship is that it does feel forced and since you have the option to ignore her, it feels out of place due to choices. Strangled by the Red String indeed.

    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.
    Dario is considered one of them, but the more traditional, one is the weird boss you can fight on the Yellow Dragon's isle. He's interesting cause his fight involves answering questions and there is no story justification for him whatsoever.

  15. #30
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Finished Mt. Pyre, which is a weird and annoying dungeon. The annoying part is the treasure chests in the lava that you have to open before using the Water Dragon's Ice Breath or they can't be reached anymore. Had to reset the game to fix that issue and I'm pretty sure I do this every freaking playthrough.

    The weird part is just the odd boss gauntlets in this place. I mean Solt and Peppor are understandable since they're a tutorial, and I must say they are some of the game's more fun characters. The awkward part was getting challenged by the Fire/Red Dragon out of nowhere and then being immediately attacked by the three Devas. I just kind of feel like this could have been spaced out a bit better, especially since this place is kind of small.

    On the flip side, I've been playing around with my token summon to retrieve materials for Rainbow weapons. I'm going to try to be a bit more open minded about them and trap elements. I also reached Star Level 15, meaning I've gained most of my party's Lv. 2 Techs! Except for Nikki, cause he's a smurfing prima donna and doesn't get his for another four Star Levels apparently...

    Next up is Ft. Dragonia and some serious gaming and story shenanigans.

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