Chrono Cross: Difference between revisions

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The story revolves around Serge, a village boy who accidentally blunders into an [[Alternate Dimension]] while trying to get a gift for his sweetheart. This other world is mostly similar to his own, but has a number of very important differences. For starters, in the other world, [[It's a Wonderful Plot|he's dead]]. This scenario leads to Serge trying to learn why he's so important to both timelines, getting dragged along on an adventure by a certain pugnacious Aussie girl, mastering the art of dimension-hopping between his Home World and Another World, and, just maybe, saving all of space and time.

* [[Aborted Arc]]: There is [http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Arbiter.html speculation] that the game was originally intended to contain a subplot going into greater depth about Serge's role as the Arbiter of the Frozen Flame. More generally, the game itself is widely suspected to have been rushed and incomplete in its later stages of development, which would why many major plot threads are resolved only in the form of a [[Info Dump]] right before the final battle that was added for the North American version of the game.

* [[Actually a Doombot]]: The first battle with Lynx.

** Somewhat Justified {{spoiler|in that the Second Moon came into existence when Dinopolis was pulled into the world during the Time Crash.}}

* [[Always Check Behind the Chair]]: All over the place.

* [[Angst Coma]]: {{spoiler|Kid}} enters one after dicking about with the Frozen Flame.

* [[Another Dimension]]: The beginning of the game revolves around the main character being pulled from his "Home World" to "Another World", an alternate timeline where he's been ''dead'' for ten years.

* [[Armor-Piercing Slap]]: [[Girl Next Door|Leena]] and [[Mama Bear|Macha]] both have one as a Tech. So does ''[[Miles Gloriosus|Pierre]]''.

* [[Artifact of Doom]]: The Frozen Flame is the main one, but the Masamune also counts.

* [[Ass Kicks You]]: One of Macha's Techs.

* [[Attract Mode]]: Featuring ''[[Wasted Song|The Dream That Time Dreams]]''.

* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: Summon Elements require you to convert the entire field to their alignment color before use, making them an more trouble than they're worth if you're just trying to kill things. The various "field" spells (which turn the entire field the appropriate color instantly) make casting summons a lot easier, but neither black nor white have one. What they ''are'' useful for is turning enemies into "shiny" items needed to create the best equipment in the game... even if that's not anything like necessary to actually beat the game.

* [[Badass Family]]: Fargo's family (consisting of the man himself, his children {{spoiler|Nikki and Marcy}}, and his sister-in-law {{spoiler|Irenes}}) make up one very badass family.

* [[Badass Normal]]: Miguel, and arguably anyone on your party who was just a peasant before joining you.

* [[Baleful Polymorph]]: Sneff turns Serge and co. into cats during a magic trick.

* [[BGM Override]]: Several times.

** The song "Prisoners of Fate" plays during Miguel's [[Exposition Break]] in the Dead Sea, and then continues during the [[Boss Battle]] with him.

** The Marbule sequence has the song "Magical Dreamers ~ The Wind, Stars, and Waves" overriding the normal music. Makes sense, as it's [[Source Music]] being played by Nikki and his band at the time.

** "Orphan of Flame" plays throughout the entire burning orphanage scene.

* [[Big Bad Ensemble]]: The {{spoiler|Dragonians}} and {{spoiler|FATE}}. With the added twist that the latter is a [[Necessary Evil]] for the preservation of humans.

* [[Boss Corridor]]: A pleasant example on Sky Dragon Isle: a long stairway decorated with greenery and plant life. {{spoiler|Later revisited as Terra Tower, with ghastly faces in place of the vines.}}

* [[Boss in Mook Clothing]]: The [[Flunky Boss|Beebas]] the first time you fight them. The game doesn't recognize them as a boss, but there are five of them, they will attack you ''between your attacks'', and have around 300 HP (very high at that point in the game).

* [[Can't Drop the Hero]]: Until New Game+, that is, but his overworld model would not be replaced.

* [[Catch Phrase]]: Peppor replaces his verbs with "shake" and Solt repeats his adverbs and adjectives (eg, "truly true" or "perfectly perfect").

* [[Character Filibuster]]: This was scriptwriter Masato Kato's [[Magnum Opus]], and it shows.

* [[Character Level]]: Notably averted, and in a JRPG at that. Rather than using XP and levels, characters just gain raw stat points from enemies, and get more slots for elements from defeating bosses. See [[Anti-Grinding]], above.

* [[The Chessmaster]]: ''Quite'' a few, but {{spoiler|Belthasar}} probably takes the cake.

* [[Cloning Blues]]: When it's revealed that {{spoiler|Kid is Schala's "daughter-clone"}}, she's unwilling to accept it at first. How it's resolved depends on your interpretation of the game's [[Gainax Ending]].

* [[Contemplate Our Navels]]: Given that much of the game revolves around the nature of time, reality, and existence, it was sort of inevitable.

* [[Cosmetic Award]]: One of the things you can find is a collection of new skins for dialog boxes.

* [[Creepy Child]]: The Ghost Children.

* [[Defeat Means Friendship]]: How Grobyc joins your party.

* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: You ''can'' choose to simply punch out the Time Devourer, but he gets better. Which is bad. The ''right'' way to defeat him is... a little more complicated.

* [[Downer Ending]]: The main ending is actually not a downer ending in the least, but a number of the bonus endings are.

* [[Dragon Rider]]: The Acacian Dragoons.

* [[Dual-Wielding]]: Glenn uses the legendary sword [[Gratuitous German|Einlanzer]] for his ultimate weapon... and can also retrieve its alternate-timeline counterpart and use them ''both at once''.

* [[Dual World Gameplay]]: One goes between parallel worlds although there was only one point at which you could travel between them, and you didn't receive the ability to do so until late in the game. Despite being parallel worlds, one side could affect the other e.g. cooling scorched ground on an island in one world allows plant life to grow in the other world.

* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: The Time Devourer.

* [[Eldritch Location]]: The Darkness Beyond Time, and probably the [[Time Crash|Dead Sea]] as well.

* [[Elemental Crafting]]: The weapon forging system ranks.

* [[Evil Versus Evil]]: Chronopolis vs. the Terra Tower, in the game's distant past.

* [[Evil Is Not a Toy]]: The Frozen Flame.

* [[Expy]]: More than a few, as may be expected of a game with [[Loads and Loads of Characters]].

** Leah is also an Expy of Ayla. Beating the game with Leah in your party implies {{spoiler|that she is actually Ayla's ''mother''}}. Yay for time travel?

* [[Extranormal Institute]]: Chronopolis fits the bill.

* [[Fan Service]]: Serge's naked scene. It even has a good shot of his bare butt. [[Bare Your Midriff|Kid]], [[Amazonian Beauty|Orlha]], and Janice (a [[Little Bit Beastly|bunny-girl]]) also probably count in general.

* [[Fantastic Racism]]: Humans and Demi-Humans do not get along, and players will experience that firsthand {{spoiler|from both sides}}.

* [[Fetal Position Rebirth]]: {{spoiler|Serge}}'s rebirth in human form, complete with floating in a giant bubble of unexplained fluid as he rapidly grows from infancy to his actual age before waking up.

* [[Field Power Effect]]: The colors in the field.

* [[Fighting Your Friend]]:

* [[Flying Saucer]]: And it's plot-relevant, to boot.

* [[Foreshadowing]]: When the Dead Sea is destroyed, ribbons of flame emerge from three triangular spots on the water. These spots correspond to {{spoiler|Chronopolis's isles}} in the mirror dimension.

* [[For Want of a Nail]]: Serge's presence (or lack thereof) is the driving force in the differences between Home and Another world.

* [[Fusion Dance]]: The Time Devourer is a fusion of {{spoiler|Schala and Lavos}}. And {{spoiler|the Dragon Gods fuse once FATE falls}}.

* [[Gainax Ending]]: No surprise here, as Masato Kato ''did'' work for Gainax previously. The game's final [[Cutscene]] shows {{spoiler|the Time Devourer is defeated, you merged the worlds together again, and... now there's a girl running around Tokyo}}? Yea, good luck figuring ''that'' out. One of the developers has since explained that this ending is intended to make players "think about the reality of their own world", and that part of the ending is to make the player think that there might be a Kid in their world. Presumably a reference to the game's themes of alternate dimensions and such.

* [[Gambit Pileup]]: There's at least half a dozen plans working at cross purposes throughout the game. In rough order of [[Unwitting Pawn]]-ness: the Arcadia Dragoons and Porre are trying to [[Out Gambit]] one another via Lynx, who is actually trying to {{spoiler|break the restrictions on FATE}}, while the dragon gods manipulate {{spoiler|Serge, so that he'll free them by killing FATE}}, ''all'' of which was part of a plan by {{spoiler|the Prophet of Time}} meant to result in the final defeat of the Time Devourer.

* [[Ghost Ship]]: Subverted then played straight. While sailing through dense fog, the party runs across a ship rumored to be a ghost ship, but turns out to be a pirate vessel using the legend to its advantage. The pirates are then attacked by an ''[[Crying Wolf|actual]]'' ghost ship.

* [[Giant Wall of Watery Doom]]: The Dead Sea was in the middle of getting pummeled by these when it froze.

* [[Groundhog Day Loop]]: The ghosts of Chonopolis are stuck in one.

* [[Guide Dang It]]: Several of the optional characters, as well as the best weapon of the game and many characters' Level 7 techs. And, of course, the good ending.

* [[Hartman Hips]]: Even though many of the female characters embody this trope, Lady Riddell stands out the most.

* [[Heads I Win, Tails You Lose]]: Lynx vs. Kid in Fort Dragonia.

* [[Heel Face Turn]]: {{spoiler|The Dragoons}}. {{spoiler|Harle}}... [[Heel Face Revolving Door|kind of]]. And to a lesser extent {{spoiler|Lynx/You}}.

* [[He Knows About Timed Hits]]: Radius kindly instructs the player on Field Effect in the beginning of the game, while Solt and Peppor explain a new mechanic to you almost every time you fight them.

** Other supporting baddies, the {{spoiler|Reptites}} and {{spoiler|Mother Brain}}, also turn up in new guises.

* [[Hello, Insert Name Here]]: You can't, however, name Serge "Crono".

* [[I Don't Like the Sound of That Place]]: ''Lots'' of fun places in El Nido, like Death's Door, the Dead Sea, and the Isle of the Damned.

* [[Info Dump]]: The Chronopolis segment is particularly guilty of this. The {{spoiler|apparitions on Opassa Beach}} right before the final battle also lay it on thick.

* [[Interdimensional Travel Device]]

* [[Joined Your Party]]: Those messages are personalized for each character's accent/verbal tic/gimmick. "Marcy, like, joined your party!" (has some [[Valley Girl]] speech patterns), "ZOAH JOINED YOUR PARTY." (speaks in [[No Indoor Voice|ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME]]), and "Greco tagged into your party!" (is a [[Masked Luchador]]) come to mind.

* [[Justified Save Point]]: People pray to the Records of Fate for good luck. {{spoiler|It's a machine devised by FATE to experiment on her progeny}} and prevent them from interacting with {{spoiler|the outside world}}.

* [[Lethal Joke Character]]: Poshul and Pierre, two rather pathetic characters, get significantly powered up when equipped with the proper key items. Poshul only needs one, but Pierre needs ''three''

* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: With extreme variations of relevance to the plot. Then again, if you ever wanted to form a party with an animate, talking voodoo fetish or a sentient turnip, have we got a game for you!

* [[Lost Forever]]: A lot of stuff: characters, level 7 techs, and other things. It's actually impossible to gather the full party on your first go-around; you have to play the game ''three times'' on the same save file to get everyone... and even then, many things that are [[Lost Forever]] are ''huge'' [[Guide Dang It]] moments.

** Nikki, {{spoiler|Fargo}} is your father. And {{spoiler|Marcy}} is your sister, as well. Such varied job titles in one family!

* [[Mass Teleportation]]: {{spoiler|Chronopolis}} semi-accidentally did this to itself, creating both {{spoiler|the Sea of Eden and the Dead Sea}}.

* [[Mind Screw]]: And ''how!''

** The opening theme, "Scars of Time", contains a passage reminiscent of part of the opening theme for ''Trigger''

** "The Dream that Time Dreams", "Fields of Time" and "Chronomantique" all contain the iconic main theme to ''Trigger''

** "On the Shore of Dreams" and "The Dream that Time Dreams" contain passages from "Faraway Promise ~ Dream Shore" from ''Radical Dreamers''

** "Jellyfish Sea" contains a brief portion taken from "Epilogue" in ''Radical Dreamers''

** Glenn's name is a reference to Frog, whose real name before his transformation was... Glenn.

** Serge's brief journey into Kid's past is a mirror of Lucca's trip to her mother's. They both involve a main character {{spoiler|going to Lucca's house in the past}} in order to prevent something terrible from happening to someone important to them.

** In Home Arni's tavern, some customers make a throwaway reference to the Radical Dreamers, Kid's gang in the titular game.

* [[Never Found the Body]]: Home World's Dragoons have all vanished, having gone on a quest for the Frozen Flame. {{spoiler|They're all dead, having been led to the Dead Sea and frozen by Lynx}}.

* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: Repeatedly. Serge ''[[Trope Namer|named the item]]'' on [[The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches]].

* [[Only the Chosen May Wield]]: Used with the Einlanzer.

* [[Perfect Poison]]: Lynx has poison-laced throwing daggers. One slice will knock you flat.

* [[Post Modernism]]: Throughout the game the distinction between Serge and the player is repeatedly blurred, until in the good ending it is demolished entirely.

* [[Punny Name]]: Some of the monsters suffer from this. Many of the names fall into [[Incredibly Lame Pun]] territory as well. (A red-elemental canine monster named HotDoggity, anyone?)

* [[Recurring Boss]]: Lynx, who is fought five times: twice as Lynx and once each as {{spoiler|Serge (in Fort Dragonia), Dark Serge, and finally in his true form as FATE}}.

* [[Ripple Effect Indicator]]: The Dead Sea replaces Chronopolis in Home World. As {{spoiler|Crono didn't stop Lavos}} in that timeline, Chronopolis likewise was never built; the sea changed to reflect that status.

* [[Sad Battle Music]]: "Prisoners of Fate" plays during the climax of the game's [[Wham! Episode]] in the Dead Sea. It culminates in a showdown against someone who ''really'' does not want to fight you, but will kick your ass seven ways to Sunday regardless. The same theme plays while fighting [[Bonus Boss]] Dario.

* [[Schizo-Tech]]: Contains, among other things: medieval dragoons, an early 20th-century army, an 18th-century pirate, a futuristic cyborg, a cave girl (who, admittedly, probably time traveled by accident to get to where you find her), robots from the distant future, and a modern rockstar.

* [[Shout-Out]]:

** Starky's [[Dub Name Change|Japanese name]] is [[2001: A Space Odyssey|Star Child]].

* [[Spiritual Successor]]: The developers' original goal for ''Chrono Cross'', as it had been for ''Radical Dreamers'', was allegedly not so much to make a full-fledged sequel to ''Chrono Trigger'' as to make another game set in the same world, hence the immensely different style, tone, story and gameplay. Even after its release, the developers were adamant that ''Chrono Cross'' was not ''Chrono Trigger 2''. ''Chrono Cross'' itself got its own Spiritual Successor of sorts in ''[[Baten Kaitos]]'', a game (with a sequel of its own) for the [[Game Cube]] featuring some of the same developers, the same unique visual style of 3D character models set against a hand-drawn background (hand-drawn by the same person, no less), a vaguely similar battle system focusing on multi-hit combos and customizable move sets, and in the first game, the same writer. It's not exactly another ''Chrono'' game, but fans looking to recapture just a bit of that ''Chrono Cross'' feel are suggested to check them out.

* [[Star-Crossed Lovers]]: Serge and Kid, though the ending leaves it ambiguous whether, in some time period or reality, they will eventually be together.

* [[Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome]]: Many fans believe that {{spoiler|Crono, Marle, and Lucca}} are dead, due to {{spoiler|Porre's invasion of Guardia and Lynx's attack on Lucca's orphanage}}. They also appear as "ghosts", but see the [[Living Memory]] entry above. {{spoiler|Robo}}, who became the {{spoiler|Prometheus Lock keeping the FATE supercomputer in check}}, is actually "killed" near the end of the game, unless it was {{spoiler|a copy of his programming rather than his actual "self"}}. Magus, however, is implied to be alive, though that's a whole 'nother [[Fan Wank]].

** Good lord, even the [[Mascot Mook|mascots]] aren't safe! Johnny's mangled corpse is strewn on an interstate in the Dead Sea, and the singing robot Gato is about to fatally short out when Serge travels back in time to Lucca's orphanage.

* [[A Taste of Power]]: The opening dungeon (which is a premonition of future events) has everyone armed with Mythril/Silver weapons and a few hundred HP. Of course, by the time you get to that point of the game, you can't get Silver weapons; the best you can do is Iron. Once the premonition is over, you're back to bone weapons and a few dozen HP, as well as much fewer element levels.

* [[Time Stands Still]]: One of the most chilling things about the Dead Sea.

* [[Trippy Finale Syndrome]]

* [[Unexplained Accent]]: Unavoidable with so many accents on display, but Kid's [[Land Down Under|Aussie]] twang is somewhat baffling.

* [[Unholy Holy Sword]]: The Masamune.

* [[Unlucky Childhood Friend]]: Leena. She is the childhood friend, the first girl, and they are most definitely dating, but then Serge meets Kid and Leena is forgotten about. The poor lass even has the game's fortune teller bluntly inform her (well, her alternate-dimension counterpart, at least) that she's not getting a boyfriend for some time. Ouch. Whether she actually ends up with Serge or not depends on which ending you get.

* [[Unusually Uninteresting Sight]]: You can recruit a pink dog that [[Speech-Impaired Animal|sounds like Elmer Fudd]], a glam rocker, a skeleton clown, a plant baby, a voodoo doll with a three-foot iron nail through its chest, and a psychic luchador priest, among other things. Few NPC's if any will bat an eye.

* [[Unwitting Pawn]]: Serge just keeps ''falling'' for it. Fortunately for him, the ultimate [[The Chessmaster|Chessmaster]] in the game, {{spoiler|Belthasar}}, is a good guy, so everything works out in the end... assuming you defeat the last boss the [[Guide Dang It|right way]].

* [[Vancian Magic]]: The Element Grid.

* [[Verbal Tic]]: Too many to count.

* [[Video Game Settings]]:

** [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer]]: The waterways beneath Viper Manor.

** [[Big Fancy Castle]]: Viper Manor. Oddly, after the first visit, Serge can waltz in and out unsupervised.

** [[Broken Bridge]]: Can you say Death's Door? {{spoiler|Dark Serge}} placed the Masamune there; the thing is so utterly [[Made of Evil]] that Lynx has to fetch the Einlanzer to counter its effect. That still leaves the door, which requires a [[Plot Coupon]] to unlock.

** [[Capital City]]: Termina.

** [[Fantastic Nature Reserve]] / [[Prehistoria]]: Gaia's Navel.

** [[First Town]]: Arni Village.

** [[It's All Upstairs From Here]]: Fort Dragonia.

** [[Meat Moss]]: The Isle of the Damned.

** [[Monster Town]]: Marbule, once it's repopulated.

** [[Noob Cave]] / [[Palmtree Panic]]: Opassa beach.

** [[One-Time Dungeon]]: The Dead Sea.

** [[Ominous Floating Castle]] / [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]: Terra Tower.

** [[Port Town]]: Guldove.

** [[Secret Level]]: The Bend in Time allows you to revisit old enemies. Useful for Sprigg's Morphs and leveling up Pip.

** [[Ship Level]]: The Ghost Ship, later followed by the S.S. Zelbess.

** [[Under the Sea]]: El Nido Triangle.

** [[Where It All Began]]: Opassa Beach.

* [[Villains Out Shopping]]: One of the endings is like this.

* [[Warmup Boss]]: Mama Komodo. Incidentally, you've just finished killing all of her babies, and she's pretty steamed. Her [[Death Cry Echo]] is rather piteous, too, making this (yet another) instance of [[You Bastard]].

* [[Weapon Tombstone]]: Both Dario and his father Garai's graves (in their respective dimensions) are marked with the Einlanzer, a sword they both used. While Garai's Einlanzer is obtained through the course of the game no matter what, Glenn can retrieve Dario's after some [[Character Development]] and use them [[Dual-Wielding|simultaneously]].

* [[Wham! Episode]]: Fort Dragonia; appropriate, as a [[Disc One Final Dungeon]]. Chronopolis is another example.

* [[Where It All Began]]: This works on multiple levels. The portal to the [[Final Boss]] is located at Opassa Beach.

* [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]: {{spoiler|Schala, the [[Friend to All Living Things]] from the first game, fused with Lavos and formed the Time Devourer, which wants to destroy all of existence.}}

** The DS re-release of ''Trigger'' elaborates on this a bit: {{spoiler|because of the intense hardship of her life, Schala deeply wished for all the horrible things in the world to have never occurred... or in fact, for everything about the world to have never occurred, which gave Lavos an opening to take over her soul.}}

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Science Fiction Video Games]]

[[Category:The Nineties]]

[[Category:Eastern RPG]]

[[Category:Chrono Cross]]

[[Category:Video Game]]