Diary of a Mute Hero (Chrono Cross)

Huh. I've never thought of it as an FF. I.. don't think I quite agree with that. I think I see where you're coming from, though. Maybe as a CT/FF hybrid, neither one nor t'other.

I think most of the complaints (is that too strong a word?) I've heard about the game is, "Not Chrono Trigger 2."

I dunno. Part of me wants to start digging into essential "Chrono-ness", completely seperate from anything like a sequel, almost in the way you'd look at.. I don't know.. Indiana Jones or some other movie serial. Yes, there's some sequence to them, but it is entirely inconsequential to the viewer.

But that strikes me as pretty juvenile and I would "bet all the dollars in my pocket, against all the dollars in your pocket," that no such thought went into it at the development level. And with a sample size of two it's not exactly a definitive study. Too bad that reality doesn't cooperate analagous to the amount of effort we put into it.

Also: 5 pages now and we haven't even hit Viper Manor yet. Who wants to take odds on whether or not this makes "most-posted thread"?

Chrono Cross is about one of two games I have not ever replayed, and have immensely regretted doing so - I bought a second copy having lost one of the discs of my first copy. It was sealed, and one of my friends expressed interest in acquiring it, so I gave it to him as a birthday present.

Time to find me yet another copy of Chrono Cross, me thinks. I remember liking everything about this game.

Serge's Diary - Fifth Entry

Into the woods we go. Mojo pranced merrily along the way, but Leena and I weren't really into it.

Enemies attacked in greater numbers here, but luckily I had purchased some Magmabomb spells that could target enemy groups. I also got some Cure spells. Leena was quite adept at using Cure, as it matched her innate element of blue. These magics came in handy when we found Nikki, because he was being attacked by some bird-like warriors. He tried to fight back by playing his guitar... And it didn't really impress me that much. I must be getting desensitized to insane weirdos.


Nikki mentioned something about looking for his sister at Viper Manor. I wondered if he meant Miki, but that didn't really make sense.


Nikki showed us some notes that had been left by some unseen mycologist, explaining the eating habits of the local creatures. This came in handy, because we had to get the attention of a plant monster. We lured one of these weird blob creatures toward it, and when it made a lunch of the creature, we attacked.


Take that!


Nikki offered to sing us a song, but considering that he had earlier used his music to inflict physical harm upon his enemies, we declined. I let him tag along because he might come in handy, although I put him on the reserve list because I didn't want him hanging out with my real friends.

We were attacked yet again by Solt and Peppor. They were accompanied by a shouty man called ZOAH.


Solt and Peppor behaved like idiots, as always, but this time they had at least brought some decent magic. They even knocked Leena out with an Upheaval spell. Mojo and I finished off the fight, but I got a sprain. This really sucked. I had forgotten to buy medicine, so I was stuck walking slowly for the foreseeable future. Further proof that God hates me.

I don't know how Mojo stays so cheerful all the time.

Fifth Entry, continued

Before getting out of the cave, we had to clear a bunch of insects from the path. A simple rock could block them, but a ghost was preventing us from reaching it. Leena slapped the ghost into submission, and we got on our way.



Ahead - Viper Manor.


Ooh, forboding.

We had to sneak past some guards, which was difficult with my sprain. I felt like an idiot. And in front of my parallel universe girlfriend and my life-size voodoo doll! How embarrassing. We helped a dragon tamer feed his animals in exchange for the key to the manor. Once inside, we immediately failed to supply an entry code and fell into a trap. This has been a crappy day.


Kid got us out of the cage, and we took the guards' uniforms as disguise. Except Mojo. But I figured if he acted casual no one would notice him.


This Viper manor was a weird place. A French clown told me to shut up, a treasure chest opened itself and gave us an Icelance spell, and there were doors with eyeballs. We had to be careful to go through the doors when the eyes blinked, or we'd get attacked. Kid kept passing by and muttering weird nonsense about a "frozen flame." Though on the plus side, we found a Revive spell and we learned the secret code by sneaking a peek at Glenn's note.

And then we fell into a trap - again - and a strange woman sicced her experimental plant monsters on us.


They were a bit tougher than the creatures we fought in the forest, but still not too bad.


Then we went upstairs and I put in the code backwards and we fell into the basement again.

Fifth entry, continued

I almost forgot to mention - I set one of the mad scientist's creatures free, because it was cute.


And I pestered Karsh until he let me take his treasure, a Dragoon Gauntlet. Snazzy.


I got impatient to get back up to the ground floor, so I tried to knock over these security robots. They looked kind of familiar... But more importantly, they beat up Leena.

Mean! Good thing I gave myself that Revive spell. I always set spells like that to my lowest magic ranks so that I can access them easily. I reserve the higher ranks for damage spells in order to get the most power out of them.

We couldn't get up the main tower, so we headed west to a library area. Here, we found a creepy girl who took an immediate dislike to us. The feeling was mutual.


The old guy gave us a trippy lecture about parallel worlds that nevertheless failed to really explain the reason any of this was happening to me.



Then, it was time to beat up the creepy girl. SPOOOOON!!




I'm not dead. I think I'll go for a walk. I feel happy.

Fifth entry - continued

Getting knocked out and revived cured my sprain. If I'd known unconsciousness had such great healing properties, I'd have beat my head against the wall. It would've been preferable to walking this whole way.


The old guy told us about a secret switch to get up to the tower, so we headed back that way, and ran into the French clown again.


She may look a little funny, but she has good taste in men.



Cat fight! My money's on the clown.

Actually, Harle refused to fight us, saying she would get in trouble. I guess she's one of the bad guys. We went up to the tower, and since there was a nice quiet room there, we took a little rest. I had a feeling things were about to take a turn for the worse.

Nikki's Song is fucking great.

What's up with that Sprain effect? I've never heard of that before? Or am I just forgetting about it? I can't remember...

Theres a map effect for most colors. Sprain was a yellow color effect and I think it slows you down on the map.
The one I hated was where it made your character wobbly to control.

If I remember it right, sprain is a yellow status effect that comes from Earth magic, I think. You can't dash on the field map, and your stamina recovers more slowly in battle.

e: CURSE YOU SLIMJIMM. You can't see me, but I'm shaking my fist at you SO HARD.

Interestingly enough, there's even a place or two where you can get a Sprain while exploring an area (I want to say there's a place in the swamp where you can jump down and wind up with a Sprain, but its been awhile).

Red: Burn: Take more damage both in and out of battle
Blue: Flu: Unsteady walking in field, stamina recovery is slow in battle
Green: Poison: Standard RPG poison effect both in and out of battle
Yellow: Sprain: Can't run in field, speed decreases in battle

Obviously there are more effects, but those are the 4 that can affect you outside of battle and must be manually cured.

Serge's Journal - Sixth Entry

We found General Viper's study. Kid was still rambling about the frozen flame. And booty.

I have all the booty I need just at the moment. I might even have access to clown booty. Not that I want it.


In true evil fashion, Viper and Lynx made a dramatic entrance through a back door.




Lynx and Kid seemed to know each other. Which didn't help me much. I wish these guys could stop being enigmatic for a second and give me a clue.

In any case, it was time for a fight. Cryptic conversations always seem to come down to that.

Sixth entry, continued

Lynx was a tougher opponent than anything we'd faced so far. He was both strong and nimble, and he used spells to attack our minds, weakening our own magic.


He had one particularly nasty trick, a spell called Antiwhite that prevented us from using white spells. My innate element is white, and some of our best healing magic is white, so obviously this caused problems. Green and blue healing spells helped to fill the gap.


Things were looking bad for a minute when Lynx KOd Leena and I couldn't use Revive. Mojo and I managed to keep going until the Antiwhite spell wore off.



With our team back up to full strength, we beat Lynx. Or so we thought.





What a bastard.

One thing I've always wondered: if Kid was part of a band of thieves (the Radical Dreamers), where are the other members? Why aren't they helping her?

Sixth entry - continued



Lynx started talking directly to me, as if I had any idea what was going on. But before I could collect my thoughts, I picked up some weird vibes from the shiny thing on the table... The thing Kid said wasn't the frozen flame.



I had a vision of an island, and of some object that I'm guessing really was the frozen flame. Although what do I know?



Lynx had more weird crap to tell me, but Kid interrupted by taking Viper's daughter hostage. I'm pretty sure that's a faux pas.

It's a good thing I can mask the laffs as a bout of coughing while at work, but now people think I have tuberculosis or something.

I don't think I ever had much trouble with the Anti-color Elements. Lynx's specialty is support/status spells, but even so Serge hits hard enough that Imbecile status on him (*cough*) is useless. Still, if Anti-White locks you out of your stronger healing Elements, it's a simple matter to run away, shift your White healing onto another character (since Lynx usually focuses on Serge) and return to combat.

(OTOH, the only boss I ever ran away from was the giant gnat in the Hydra Marsh. Naturally, I was locked in the area till I finished the fight, despite being able to access the menu screen. What happens if you run from Lynx? Does he taunt you some more?)

I always wondered what was up with the "fearsome" band of Radical Dreamers in this game, especially we only ever see one member of that band. Hell, even in the real Radical Dreamers game, it was just the three of them, and only Gil was any use. Either Kid is bloodthirsty enough on her lonesome to earn such a reputation, or she has an excellent marketing agent.

And, man, with Harle talking about "laying down wit' ze dogs and catching ze fleaz," and Lynx outright calling her a rabid dog, Kid just miiiiiight develop some issues. Jus' sayin'.

Just in case of spoiler: I find it interesting, now, that Lynx's head-trip includes a vision of Chronopolis. I wonder if it's meant to show "where it all started" or "this is where the real me is taunting you from." Regardless, FATE was pretty far gone to spout nonsensical threats like those: so the human world is about to end, great. Because of FATE? Or because FATE is unable to stop it?

Sixth entry, continued


Viper seemed less villainous, maybe even trustworthy... But Lynx struck so fast, I hardly even saw it.


Oops.


And that's the last thing I remember before blacking out...

Say, Chrono Trigger. That's kinda catchy.

I want to say that you can't run from that battle, but I don't remember for sure.

Yeah, these are a few of the obvious plotholes in the game. All the talk about Radical Dreamers seems pointless, and the behavior of Lynx/FATE never makes much sense. Though considering how little explanation you get for the parallel worlds coming into existence in the first place, the whole game is pretty much one big plothole.

In Another-Another World, Kid becomes a Furry.

I'm pretty sure you can run from every battle, and you'll get a brief moment to check the menu before being sucked back into combat.

As for the Radical Dreamers, they mention it somewhere that they're mainly on the Porre Continent.

Hmmm. We have a Chrono Cross thread and a Legend of Mana thread. All we need now is a Threads of Fate er... thread, and we can experience Square's "Summer Of Adventure" all over again!

I think I might just have to replay this one myself...I only played it once back in the day, but this Let's Play reminds me how trippy and kind of cool the story (un-story?) was.

Also, the Dead Sea remains one of my favorite places in any game, even though I have almost entirely forgotten the rest of CC.

I vote for Glenn too!

I agree, besides, there's a certain battle in Hydra Marsh so annoying, I could not, In good conscience, tell you to put yourself through it.
So yes, you must beeba getting Glenn.

Which is pretty ironic. Wasn't part of the point of Chrono Cross to help fill in a plot hole from Chrono Trigger?

Sorry I haven't updated for a while. I've been preoccupied with a recording project with my band.

...And now it seems I've lost interest in continuing this thread. Sorry about that.

Too bad. It was shaping up nicely.

I may come back to it after a little more time, but I thought I should let everyone know they could stop holding their breath.

You've grown afraid to desire. Your heart has been filled with empty emotions because you have become estranged from Mojo's hands. You have turned your eyes from his infinite power. Remember him! Need him! He can provide you with everything! He is love. Find him and walk beside him once more!

Aw, dang! Just read through this only to discover it's been abandoned. A shame, as I was looking forward to seeing how the rest of Chrono Cross played out.

Aw, dang! I saw it pop back up to the front page and thought maybe it was resumed.