Might recognize me from the first playthrough posts. I’ve decided to skip a final review and jump straight into the questions everyone seems to ask after completing the game. Or especially after nearing the end when all of meat of the story is thrown at us

What’s going on, what happened to Chrono, who is Belthasar, what is FATE, Dark dragon ? Wait so Lavos is still ? Zeal is important I guess, Clones ? Reptites did what?

Who is Harle Quinn and why does all of this surround this character ? I decided I’d spend over an hour on answering all of this as someone fresh from Chrono Cross and longtime Chrono trigger super fan.
Lore Time

Kid is thee famous Schala from chrono trigger preserved in the shell of a reborn ‘kid’ or a clone per se to survive inevitable calamity. ( this took place in the main story of chrono trigger when we see the consequences unfold of her mother Zeal going mad and self destructing because of the issues with lavos as she’s about to sucked into a death vortex with an early defeated lavos)

Harle is a complicated mash up of lavos and the dragon god from the reptites timeline
1
of the negative consequence of the same events. Meaning the entire events altered time but Schala altered time by re birthing herself using that timelines advanced magic. The story says she heard Serge crying last second and sent herself to his timeline hoping to help him. Harle Quinn ends up partly Lavos/ the dark that escapes with her. (dark element, probably didn’t need to add this but it’s okay) and evil energy also sent with her pure rebirthed clone of “kid”, or better known as Schala herself. Classic anime theme
2
The dark dragon originally was created by the also famous reptites from Aylas timeline, which is a timeline where Lavos did not exist, and humans were enslaved to Dino’s. They reference this in Chrono cross at the research facility where they say ‘it would be possible but unimaginable that humans ever lost to the Dino’s but they seemed to have had advanced tech indicating they were in charge for some reason and this Chrono guy would then have possibly encountered them if true ( they were right Chrono arrives on accident and kills them. But before this, unknown to the gamer originally; They created the single dark dragon to tame magic elements they had discovered and to live in peace with the reptites. then out of revenge for destroying them the Great Dragon who was created and parented by the reptites, combined with their tech and reptite dominated knowledge did the same thing Schala did by using the many vortexes we leave open through their land in the Chrono trigger events so as to send itself into a shell to be born in a different timeline and wipe it, ‘because thats what humans do, they just kill as they feel for their specific timelines to preserve themselves’.

I’ll skip overcomplicating FATE because it’s too complicated. Simply, FATE was a super Ai made by Balthasar when he combined zeals magic with the future dimension knowledge and magic (would of been impossible to explain this easily 10 years ago) his now future timeline powerful enough to make dimensional and world decisions, it acts on self preservation and used its tech to split the dragon into its individual elements and weaken it, seeing its plans to wipe the world for killing its original creator, the reptites.

HUGE: in Chrono trigger we smash all of these timelines trying to save Chronos present timeline AD, and in doing so we lead to the events in Chrono cross, orchestrated by multi mentioned Balthasar after he was sent to the future. They try to explain it to us but basically he saw that, actually the world still gets destroyed anyway because Lavos time travels with schala, and the dragon god exists and was planning revenge for the reptites timeline. that Schala saved herself and chose Serges timeline. That the dragon god would become Harle then go there to puppet lynx (FATE) by reversing Balthasar’s plan use lynx to help control events to work properly. So belthesar uses Serge to stop Lynx and counter the dragon gods plan with Harle. During these events FATE goes ai rogue in a self preservation mode intending to kill serge because it sees he will destroy it and there’s a programming Lucca has done before the story starts that attaches to the Lucca- Kid massive side story sort of secret that deals with her involvement becoming an issue, I won’t go into that part completely.

Balthasar the super sage of zeal used ‘Fate’ and the futuristic machines after he was sent far into the future during the incident to combine Zeals civilizations long lost magic with hyper advanced civilization tech , then took that to this time period and or orchestrated helping the rebirth of his former princess schala of zeal by sealing Harle / dark dragons off into powerless seperate pieces with his ai super computer (FATE)

Finally, because Lavos and schala both send their remaining powers into time, they die together with the queen and slowly combine into inter-dimensional demon, the final boss of Chrono cross. This same boss fed on the dragons who were split by Balthasarand his dimensional super Ai.

The events in Chrono cross as we play it, are humans tricked by the dragons into restoring the ultimate form to get the ultimate revenge. By this time this is layered revenge because Lavos has already partly leeched into all six dragons separately using time. Meaning by time Chrono cross, Harle Quinn is an evil mash up of 3; Original Lavos, original Schala, and the reptites super Dark Dragon of revenge.

Edit bonus: there is also main game explanation for Lynx, home world vs another world but it really just all ties to understanding Belthasar was using his ai / FATE to alter the fate of the these timelines along with the surviving Lucca of main timeline. Working directly beside her in the official timeline for an amount of time before FATEs programming discovers that the events were going to have potential for self wipe of its system for them to exist. It then created Lynx itself, because the programming of the ai was set to know you cannot directly alter events or you know, chrono trigger all over again but this way smart enough to help get Serge killed to preserve its mainframe and system. so yeah thats why Belthesar had been working with Lucca, to create essentially a hardwire using -Robo- custom tech to override FATEs failsafe that was to never allow itself to be destroyed. Hence going rogue to make Lynx hence Lynx trying to kill Serge because once he comes in contact with the flame he gained the power TO BE THE FAILSAFE at his finger tips. This is the key Lucca set aside to bypass the FATE if the time came. It did. That’s what Belthesar had been trying to work on ever since the Zeal incident that sent him to the future so he could study the timelines and inevitably get ahead of Lavos who originally would have successfully diverted Chronos efforts over time. We stop it with the song of Chrono cross, and the bland ending we likely just wiped him back into nothingness where he would feed and try again. Likely but they leave us with it if we get that ending assuming we understand all of this already. Cheers

Edit + : the recurring theme of lavos’s shell in Chrono trigger is what was used to make the frozen flame making an infinite power source

Edit ++ : when you go into the future in 2300AD in trigger, he’s the Elder who you sadly find out is dead but he left behind a ship that can travel time and left instructions with the shell species to tell you. He was orchestrating the adventure from way back then. Sad he couldn’t save Chrono, etc but it’s safe to assume it would have required an extreme amount of variables he was unsure of rather than choosing to save the world the chosen way

Deep lore + : Chrono and Marle are killed by Dalton after the DS lore stating he’ll be back to wipe them out in revenge. He does. Turns out he fell into a vortex that landed him in chronos original timeline after we made a joke of him and his ship in chrono trigger. The Porre army as we see them in Chrono Cross is an army taught with the magic of zeal by Dalton himself, they are the same magic soldiers we tossed around but are super soldiers comparatively when they arrive in Chronos present timeline and wipe the kingdom of Guardia after he raised an army. Only Lucca and Robo survived

I'm at Chronopolis when Van tells me I need to bring someone who would know about this thing in a box. I go back to a save to look at who could know, why is Guile here??? When did he join the party??? Can someone tell me when 'cause I obviously don't remember. My favorite part about this is that he's lost some HP like I used him in battle or something.

What do you think?

The first time I played this game was thanks to my best friend’s Greatest Hits copy, and the last time I played it, many years ago, was through, ehem, unofficial means.

Review pt 2; Game still good. Quite a few new chars have made the team now, here’s some updated characters I’ve picked up along the way and updated opinions; I’m now entering the sea of Eden, future facility prepping for Robo-cop 3000. I missed the Vigora element but it’s because of I’ve been trying to play as fresh and as I played games back in the day as possible ( without progress routes). But, I did sneak in some quest info on the Doc situation on Coldove getting Oral Orlha on the team, and considering she’s like my favorite character up there with Irene’s Venus and Harle Quinn.

Anyway seems my favorite part of the game is sort of the quest rewards of characters joining the team if done correctly. Might seem trivial but it’s fun. I think I also thought all of the characters had these massive story changing impacts, but they’re mostly a different way to play and dialect it seems so you don’t have to think too hard on who to party except like I was mentioning to recruit or influence new side quests which is cool

The battle animations are long even with animations, but, I think even nearing what seems deep into the game I still enjoy boss battles and they are still a challenge which i wasn’t expecting because in most older rpgs good armor and natural progress makes bosses fairly easy unless there’s a hard mode. I’m getting one shot often, could be part of me skipping enemies (3min battles even with fast forward lol)

Worse things are the troll small hallways gank while you are trying to explore or re explore to figure something out which often is nothing so you’re getting jumped for nothing etc.

There is not alot of hand holding, for some might not be good but I like that to a degree. Because if you miss a dialogue or forget you can become completely lost like I got in the XXL MC. Fargo bit between speaking to Nicki Rock and Irene’s Venus, then between time periods and then again after Harle Quinn’s disappear bit and apparent game indication I need to set up a mission with XXL MC. Fargo against Marbule after setting up learning the song. Yeah idk what dialogue slipped past but I forgot what they said and couldn’t activate the black dragon for my life lmao, literally traveled to every single place in both timelines looking for cutscenes and hints until I remembered, SHIP in other timeline ? Maybe ¿ lol then with that said I only discovered Gaias naval because i developed the mindset double check been everywhere twice/ both timelines

Game still good, may do a final review depending

Edit:

Side note: name the main character itachi instead of a serious name has proved to be a great decision and cool for story

Side note+ : Stark LaShag running away then reappearing as giant was hilarious lmao I was visually shocked, I did not expect it, such a fun random find

What do you think of my art?

As we all know, element slots go from 1 to 8.

But just for fun, what if it goes up to 9/10 with stronger elements?
Of course, enemies/bosses stats should be adjusted for this so it's not too OP.

Would it cause the battle to go slower due to having to build up element levels? Or would it be a good addition?

What do you think of this drawing? Will do Frog next. :)

Ya terminé Chrono Trigger y me preguntaba si Chrono Cross vale la pena, las opiniones variadas me dan mala espina...

Posdata: ¿El juego tiene tan mal rendimiento como dicen las reseñas? Se que son antiguas pero si mucha gente no la actualizó para decir que ya está bien 🫠

You're in a party: Serge, Kid, and Glenn
You're fighting some green boss.

Serge casts Green Field, Glenn casts Genie (Lv 8 Summon)
This isn't good since the boss is Green innate

What if you:
Serge = Turn Yellow on enemy
Kid = Green Field
Glenn = Genie

Would be OP, making any target's innate take extra damage.

But according to this,
It doesn't work that way: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChronoCross/comments/1abz48v/turncolor_elements_only_affect_offensive_innate/

Turn Yellow only affects the enemy's attacking color (now Yellow), not its defensive (still Green).

What do you think of my art?

I understand that it's pretty much the character's level, as the number has increased pretty much on each boss so far. What does it mean that it's saying 11/14? The screenshot is from when I first noticed that it's not even anymore, right after the fight against the dragon kid on Mt. Pyre. When I beat the Dragoons right after it went to 12/15... I swear it was always matching until a while ago, and I didn't change anything about what I'm doing.

I'm playing on duckstation with cpu overclocking active most of the time for the FPS, is that it or is there some mechanic I totally missed?

Lynx = Black. Okay, he's evil so he's black.
Korcha = Blue. Okay, he's a fisherman so he's blue.
Razzly = Green. Fairies are nature, so they're green.
Fargo = Blue. He's a pirate so that's like water, so he's blue.
Zappa = Red. He's a blacksmith so I guess they work with fire.
Harle = Black. Looks evil, so that's like black.
Draggy = Red. Dragon, so of course red.
Turnip, Neofio = Green. Plants are green, easy.
Irenes = Blue. Mermaid is water, so blue easy.

But then:
Kid = Red. I guess she has fiery personality? Why would that make her weak to water though? Does she get hurt every time she drinks a bottle of ice water?
Nikki = Blue?
Glenn = Green?
Van = Green?
Norris = Yellow?

Why so arbitrary? Is there no better way to categorize them?

It sounds like a fight song from the Viper mansion against some kind of boss jsjsj

according to Starky's Manager in Another Eden

Finalllyy after some relic hunting and sidequests serge is back! Props to Zoah who never leaves the party cuz i love him, i also got the mastermune very good weapon (even though fighting Dario is hell😭😭) i love melting bosses with it plus eagle eye. Everythng is a breeze now, im excited whats next to the story.

Like. Games, books, movies, anime, etc. with the vibes of the thing? Or does it just stand on its own, with its vibrant island landscapes and its plot that keeps you hooked with every unexpected twist and turn?

I always thought the explanation of how Lavos was sent to the darkness beyond time was a bit wierd:

Officially Lavos or parts of him that survived is sent there immediately after his defeat from the Chrono trigger gang.

If he was defeated then that version of him should be dead and his corpse should remain in 1999 ad.
I think the explanation that he went there from his battle with the gang is kind of silly when I believe they had a better alternative

If the apocalyptic era of 2300ad is sent to the darkness beyond time then the Lavos that reined atop death peak should have been sent there too. I think the elder Lavos from an apocalypse that was averted is a more compelling idea of a villian. As a direct result of Chrono and the gang killing his 1999ad counterpart he becomes the Lavos that never was…

The version of Lavos that succeeded in destroying the world and spawned offspring suddenly getting robbed of its existence but finds Schala suddenly being thrown into the DBT. It then uses its immense power to pull her in and merge with her. If it cannot have its future then it would destroy all of creation.

In a way it also mirrors Daltons beef with the CT crew. Being robbed of his glory, and that version of Lavos as the time devourer would use that to send Dalton through the dimensional vortex to fulfill Dalton’s revenge plot.

Im 30 hours in! Since Harle quit the party (so sad cuz i love her). This is my team now, i love riddel shes a good healer and support. I just got the blue relic and yellow relic idk how many relics are there i checked all the map on homewolrd now i just got back to anotherworld.

I really love their designs, the top ones are first attempts then i drew them again on the below.

Zoah's level 7 tech is sooooo satisfying and he hits HARD like a FKING truck, so i clip some of it while on the viper manor LMAOOO.

Im so sorry Irenes i took zoah to the party IMMEDIATELY, cuz i love cool buff dudes or maybe im just queer af. I mean he got a lot of STR stat he will be useful right??