Plot Idea

[ZeaLitY]

My job ends on the 17th, at which point I'll be able to write dialogue and continue directing. I guess we should think about the hard, unusual stuff.

• Respriting - Okay, would anyone object if we...well, you know where this is going. Yeah, if we just ditched the cloak? But I guess Dalton needs to not have an eyepatch.
• New tileset - Chrono'99 does too much, but he's also the only one capable of this...
• New songs - After playing through, I'll see if we can stick in a couple Radical Dreamers tunes somewhere, and then fish Front Mission / other stuff to see if we can use one of the Crimson Echoes tunes we scrapped.
• Title screen hack - A tutorial here talks about how to do it. If it's too tough, we can scrap it, I guess, but it'd be nice to load CHRONO COMPENDIUM with a big Frozen Flame.
• New enemies - Can be avoided, I guess. CyberSarkany can help test enemy balance, and we can tweak stats as needed.

Here is Kajar. I won't have a chance to work on this until the following weekend; Zeal Palace NPC dialogue will be my first priority.

If you guys want to toy around, we could try making the blue menu theme default, and then modifying it to a royal purple. And then I guess we can do a new Magus portrait of some kind.

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[Kyronea]

As I said in PMs, I have a couple minor issues with this plot that I will address.

• At the peak, Melchior asks Magus if he knows why he has complied so easily. As Magus begins one of his typical responses, Melchior produces the Red Knife. A scripted battle takes place; Magus senses the Masamune. Melchior is injured, but Magus knocks him out, heals him, and seals him in the crystal with Ozzie's technique.

My issue with this is not so much that Melchior fights with the Red Knife--because I love that idea--but that the cage of sorts Melchior was imprisoned in was created by a technique of Ozzie's. I object strongly to this because it is based in nothing but the fact that the sprite is identical, and we cannot simply see that as enough proof of anything in this game. We see reused sprites all the time...consider the 1000 A.D. Guards that end up guarding the director of Truce Dome, or the green-haired teenager NPC that ends up playing Glenn, or the servents in 1000 A.D. that double as waitresses in Choras of 600 A.D., ect ect. Reused sprites are not a basis for this, though this is more a part of my second objection.
Furthermore, it is the release of the cage that breaks the seal on Mount Woe, as evidenced by the fact that nothing happens until after Melchior is released. If the seal was Giga Gaia then the mountain would begin shaking itself apart immediately upon its death, not two minutes or so later.

• Magus finds Schala at the base of the mountain. She asks him if he has truly placed Melchior atop the mountain, noting that "imprisonment" really means death at the hands of Giga Gaia. Magus notes that he is safe. Schala draws near, but Magus pulls back, walking past her to the Skygate.

There is also nothing in the game that states this...there was never any impression that Giga Gaia was an executioner rather than merely a guard of the prison. Had this been the case Schala might have given Crono and the gang warning about Giga Gaia when they sought to rescue the imprisoned Guru, but we see nothing that says Melchior was ever in any danger.

• In the breached room, there are no monsters. Dalton enters with a Golem. However, Dalton reveals that he'd rather kill the Prophet himself, and attribute it to the breach.
• After the final battle, Magus wounds Dalton, injuring his eye. This explains the eye patch. Dalton threatens him further, but Magus notes that killing him would only incur suspicion. Magus lets him pathetically live.

Is this truly necessary? Admittedly it would be interesting to see why Dalton has the eye patch, and it would create some nice tension between Magus and Dalton but I'm not seeing the necessity of Magus inflicting the wound on Dalton's eye, as there was never anything that implied the wound was recent. But then, that's more a case of me quibbling over an unimportant detail, unlike the previous two issues.

Other than those minor issues which are easily reworked, I really like this plot and would love to see it proceed through.

[Chrono'99]

The cage spell is not such a huge detail; the technique isn't explicitely said in the hack to be Ozzie's technique. It's a bit like Kid's Red Pin tech in CC; one could imagine that Lucca taught Kid this tech (since Red Pin was originally a double tech between Lucca and Frog), but since it's never stated, nothing is asserted definitely. Same thing with this magic cage; nothing is stated explicitely, I think the player is free to imagine a link with Ozzie's magic cage or not.

As for the seal: the mountain doesn't begin crumbling immediately upon Melchior's release either, he has the time to tell a few things to the party. Since there was a clear lag between the breaking of the seal and the crumbling of the mountain, we can't really know what exactly the seal was out of the two actions the party did. For simplicity's sake, wouldn't it be better to say it was Giga Gaia though? If the seal were due to the cage, wouldn't it mean that Mt. Woe didn't float until the cage spell was cast upon Melchior, and thus that the Prophet himself raised a mountain above the ground just to seal Melchior?

There is also nothing in the game that states this...there was never any impression that Giga Gaia was an executioner rather than merely a guard of the prison. Had this been the case Schala might have given Crono and the gang warning about Giga Gaia when they sought to rescue the imprisoned Guru, but we see nothing that says Melchior was ever in any danger.

Good point, I agree.

Is this truly necessary? Admittedly it would be interesting to see why Dalton has the eye patch, and it would create some nice tension between Magus and Dalton but I'm not seeing the necessity of Magus inflicting the wound on Dalton's eye, as there was never anything that implied the wound was recent. But then, that's more a case of me quibbling over an unimportant detail, unlike the previous two issues.

It's true that there was nothing indicating the wound was recent... Crono's party arrives roughly after this scene, so when they meet Dalton in CT he should have had a big ugly bandage on the eye instead of this little post-wound eye patch.

On the other hand, I think this attack from Magus makes for a nice little "plot-twist" for the end of this hack. The end would be rather anti-climatic without something like this for the player to go "wahh!". Maybe the absence of bandage isn't really important; Zealians got magic, so maybe that's how Dalton healed quickly and didn't need a bandage (magic can't bring back injured eyes, but it can probably heal wound and make the bleeding stop). I guess Zeality has to decide

I'm beginning to think that there should actually be a few monsters and rooms inside the breach to turn this Ocean Palace sequence into a very small final dungeon, since otherwise the hack would be "just" a long sequence of cutscenes after the two first dungeons (Beast's Nest and Mt. Woe), despite the battle against Dalton. ...But let's get these two finished before considering adding another dungeon.

[Kyronea]

The cage spell is not such a huge detail; the technique isn't explicitely said in the hack to be Ozzie's technique. It's a bit like Kid's Red Pin tech in CC; one could imagine that Lucca taught Kid this tech (since Red Pin was originally a double tech between Lucca and Frog), but since it's never stated, nothing is asserted definitely. Same thing with this magic cage; nothing is stated explicitely, I think the player is free to imagine a link with Ozzie's magic cage or not.

As for the seal: the mountain doesn't begin crumbling immediately upon Melchior's release either, he has the time to tell a few things to the party. Since there was a clear lag between the breaking of the seal and the crumbling of the mountain, we can't really know what exactly the seal was out of the two actions the party did. For simplicity's sake, wouldn't it be better to say it was Giga Gaia though? If the seal were due to the cage, wouldn't it mean that Mt. Woe didn't float until the cage spell was cast upon Melchior, and thus that the Prophet himself raised a mountain above the ground just to seal Melchior?

Point...a point indeed. I will, thusly, bow to this.

It's true that there was nothing indicating the wound was recent... Crono's party arrives roughly after this scene, so when they meet Dalton in CT he should have had a big ugly bandage on the eye instead of this little post-wound eye patch.

On the other hand, I think this attack from Magus makes for a nice little "plot-twist" for the end of this hack. The end would be rather anti-climatic without something like this for the player to go "wahh!". Maybe the absence of bandage isn't really important; Zealians got magic, so maybe that's how Dalton healed quickly and didn't need a bandage (magic can't bring back injured eyes, but it can probably heal wound and make the bleeding stop). I guess Zeality has to decide

I agree with you there...it definitely makes for a nice little ending plot twist. I merely questioned the necessity of it being the wound to Dalton's eye, as previously noted this raised minor issues. That said, I can definitely buy the healing magic reason for why the would did not appear fresh.

I'm beginning to think that there should actually be a few monsters and rooms inside the breach to turn this Ocean Palace sequence into a very small final dungeon, since otherwise the hack would be "just" a long sequence of cutscenes after the two first dungeons (Beast's Nest and Mt. Woe), despite the battle against Dalton. ...But let's get these two finished before considering adding another dungeon.

I like that idea...we need to ensure that the entire thing can be interacted with on a reasonable level. It may be a hidden side of the video game story, but there's no need for it to not play as a video game does...that's one of the great benifits to video gaming as an art form versus televions, movies, and books...you can interact with them, make choices, and overall immerse yourself deeper into the story.

[Chrono'99]

In this latest version that was in a corner of my computer for a while now actually, I've added Queen Zeal's bedroom (I wanted to use the nifty layer3 lights, so it kind of contrasts with the corridor, but let's just pretend this bedroom is a remain of how the Queen's style used to be before the Mammon Machine dark period). Also added a bit of Mt. Woe, but it's highly uncomplete. I think I forgot to add the Kajar Flux files too, will do later I guess.

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[Chrono'99]

The title screen map has been glitched since 20 backups! Damn. What do I do? Try to import all the new stuff into that very old backup rom to get a clean version, or just import a clean title screen map into the current rom to try to "mask" the glitch?

[Chrono'99]

False alert... The glitch is only visual. It's because I had replaced a blank tile with a custom tile for one location, and so the blanks in the title screen got changed into that custom tile. I just have to put real blank tiles on this title screen and that's it.

[ZeaLitY]

Wait, do we still want to change the Giga Gaia thing? My idea came from the fact that there's no one else on Mt. Woe.

[Chrono'99]

Sorry, change what? I thought the current scene was fine (CT wasn't very precise about Mt. Woe in the first place).

[ZeaLitY]

Well, I have Schala note that Giga Gaia actually is an executioner type demon. Back in March, there was a debate over whether that's true.

[Chrono'99]

Mmh... I forgot about that. Well, personally, I don't think the Schala example is a concrete evidence. Giga Gaia is a really powerful monster whether he's a guardian or an executioner, so if Schala wanted to warn the party about it, she would have warned them either way. The NPCs speak as if Melchior is just imprisoned, but maybe it's because they really think Mt. Woe is a mere prison.

In this hack, Schala knows the truth about Mt. Woe (probably because she's royal), but she also knows that the Prophet actually didn't let Melchior die, so this conforms with CT in which Schala asks the party to save Melchior (implying he isn't dead). We're expanding on CT with the executioner detail, but it doesn't contradict the game so I think it's fine.

In any case, I just finished coding and putting monsters in the Beast's Nest sequence. If things continue like this, the hack will probably be ready by December 25 or 26.

[FaustWolf]

Hey guys, how many characters are playable in this hack? I thought it was just Magus at first (as I've only recently jumped into this forum) -- are there more, and how many? I'm exploring some options for Magus' status screen portrait, and the presence of other status screen portraits will affect this effort.

[ZeaLitY]

It's just Magus.

[FaustWolf]

Ah, sweetness. I can try something out then. I'll most likely not be able to break the 16 color limit, but I'm exploring that possibility. I can get the portrait in the game just fine; the palette reduction is the only headache left. Here's a preview of what's possible (note, no palette correction has taken place yet; it's using whatever colors are available by default in the game).

What do you guys think of the basic setup? Is it zoomed in too close on his face or does it look too pixelated or anything? I'll figure out what to do with colors of course.

Source pic is included below the screencap. Oh! I can make him face the other way too.

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[ZeaLitY]

It looks on the high end of what you can expect from the medium. With the correct palette, it'll be perfect. Yeah, you almost have to zoom in on the face to get any detail...