The shocking occurrence

[ZeaLitY]

Chrono'99 brought up a good point in an old thread -- that something shocking and unexpected needs to happen to the main character (or at least the party). This is a staple of the Chrono games; Crono outright dies and is an optional character, while Serge assumes Lynx's body. We need to decide what shocking thing we could use for Crimson Echoes.

The only thing I've thought of so far is a scenario in which Crono, Marle, and Lucca somehow become subject to King Zeal or the Flame's control (or maybe the other world time travelers), and Magus, Ayla, Robo, and Glenn have to track them down and fight them as they rampage through history for a chapter or two. It would probably not be difficult to give an enemy the sprite data for CML and edit enemy AI.

However, this doesn't seem very original or shocking, I guess. Any better suggestions, or ideas how to make a "party turned evil" theme work?

[Sentenal]

Here are some ideas:
-Maybe there could be a huge failure on the party's part in order to prevent something terrible from happening, and the party having to cope with the failure, and try and overcome it.

-For the "party turning evil" idea, perhaps someone close to Crono would be kidnapped, and Crono would be forced to do the bidding temporarily of his enemies, including fighting his friends.

[Shinrin]

In my fanfic that is in my head, *spoiler for my fanfic* Crono is possesed by Lavos after a long time traveling though time with two people of the future. */end spoiler for my fanfic.

[Chrono'99]

Perhaps Crono, Marle and Lucca don't really turn evil but it's actually the rest of the party which becomes opposed to them. Magus, Ayla, Robo, Glenn could be affected by some wicked magic device that totally makes them go bananas, totally nuts but-not-totally-evil... I don't know, for instance, Magus could suddenly decide that in order to advance in their quest, they need to slaughter everybody in Choras (or wherever). CM&L obviously refuse, but Magus is serious and takes action, so CM&L don't have another choice but to fight him. During that phase, you would play as Magus and the other crazy party members, just so that for once, you can play as evil guys in a RPG and rampage everything as you like.

[Daniel Krispin]

Hmmm... this is a tough question. I don't quite like anything that's been suggested so far, but can't right now think of anything better, either. Characters dying, switching sides, turning on the party... that would all be rather 'expected', don't you think?  I guess failing in some aspect, which Sentenal suggested, I like the best. But even so, that doesn't strike me as the absolute best. But I'm not too up on plot twists, and usually would argue against them in storytelling. However, seeing as one's required here... I'll have to give it some thought.

[Agent 12]

Hm......it may just be watching 24 but I really kinda of like this idea

Say at the point of the "worlds changing" Crono is forced to make a choice.  The guy that is going to cause the world to change has Ayla on one side and like whatever the catalyst for the Worlds changing on the other.  And Crono has to choose to either save Ayla or rescue the catalyst.  So first time through he obvoiusly rescues Ayla because I think that's the Crono thing to do .  But then bam he's transported to the "new world" and sees that his decision has basically destroyed the world as he knew it.  So he goes through whatever he has to in the new world, finds the chrono trigger gets sent back in time and uh oh he has to make the decision again....he has to let ayla die or destroy the world as he knows it.

We can make the scene replayable as many times as the player wants to allow the "new world" to be revisitable. And maybe (just maybe cause it's kinda corny) we have a super secret special way to save both.


--jp

[Lord J Esq]

The biggest can of worms that the Chrono series has yet to explore is the fact that, because of the way temporal mechanics seems to work in this series, no timeline is safe. No dimension is safe. It can all change in an instant. In the Chronoverse, warfare would evolve into an unwinnable gambit for control of the timelines. There is no limit to the number of people who could pursue time travel as a means to achieve any goal under the sun.

It is mind-boggling to imagine: Whole infinities of years coming into existence and then being erased completely; whole timelines in their infinite multitudes being pulled to and then discarded from the surface that is Reality into the ocean of non-reality beneath that is known as the Tesseract. And so, even though it would be possible for everybody in every timeline to live out their entire lives without realizing that their timeline's existence was limited to an instant, the person sitting and playing the game is going to have a sour taste in her or his mouth. Who likes the thought of existence itself being so transient? Which timeline is "real"? Which one "matters"? Those questions have no answer. This could certainly be used to dramatic effect as regards the "shocking occurence" that strikes the main character. We could even tie it in to the fate of Crono and Marle, and to the title of the game--"Crimson Echoes," which still doesn't make any sense to me and could certainly use some explaining.

[Daniel Krispin]

The biggest can of worms that the Chrono series has yet to explore is the fact that, because of the way temporal mechanics seems to work in this series, no timeline is safe. No dimension is safe. It can all change in an instant. In the Chronoverse, warfare would evolve into an unwinnable gambit for control of the timelines. There is no limit to the number of people who could pursue time travel as a means to achieve any goal under the sun.

It is mind-boggling to imagine: Whole infinities of years coming into existence and then being erased completely; whole timelines in their infinite multitudes being pulled to and then discarded from the surface that is Reality into the ocean of non-reality beneath that is known as the Tesseract. And so, even though it would be possible for everybody in every timeline to live out their entire lives without realizing that their timeline's existence was limited to an instant, the person sitting and playing the game is going to have a sour taste in her or his mouth. Who likes the thought of existence itself being so transient? Which timeline is "real"? Which one "matters"? Those questions have no answer. This could certainly be used to dramatic effect as regards the "shocking occurence" that strikes the main character. We could even tie it in to the fate of Crono and Marle, and to the title of the game--"Crimson Echoes," which still doesn't make any sense to me and could certainly use some explaining.

Now there's a grand idea!

[GrayLensman]

I like the idea of the player having a moral dilemma.  This would be even more dramatic than self-sacrifice.  However, as with Crono's death, I think the game should be beatable with both options.

[Chrono'99]

This is probably too late to implement in the plot, but an idea for a shocking occurrence just... occurred to me. It expands the "party becomes evil" gimmick but with an additional twist. Imagine this:

At some point, Magus and Glenn get warped in a strange era that looks like the Lavos's Defiled Earth from the early plot drafts. You control these two characters and must make your way fighting through all the demons, undeads, weird hostile creatures, etc.

At some point, the focus returns to the other party members, and they realize (wherever they are) something pretty disturbing: Magus and Glenn were actually sent to 1,005 A.D. and were slaughtering soldiers and villagers from Guardia! Magus and Glenn didn't know they were killing humans because they were struck with illusions and mental manipulations by the Frozen Flame, but the fact remains that they caused the Fall of Guardia! Now, the party (perhaps including the present and sane versions of Magus and Glenn) must travel to 1,005 A.D. and stop the two misled characters.

There's some additional irony as Porre tries to take advantage of the situation, yet the party essentially ally themselves with the southern nation since they have the same goals (stop Magus and Glenn). Perhaps we can mention Viper, Garai, Radius, and Zappa here, as regular Porre soldiers. The "enemy" versions of Magus and Glenn have their minds too disrupted to recognize the party and listen to them, so the party have no choice but to fight and eventually kill these past versions. However, Guardia was still mostly destroyed; they didn't manage to avoid the fall of the kingdom. Marle remains the Queen, but Guardia becomes a satellite state of Porre (to fit with its curious, apparently distinct status in CC).

Plotwise, the "enemy" characters are Magus and Glenn because they're the only ones who don't appear on the drawings in Lucca's house in CC (it would be weird to have Crono slaughter people and then a kid drawing "Crono is cool!").

Anyway, this is just a hypothetical scenario I wanted to share. I think it's definitely shocking since it takes advantage of what the player expects and twists it around into something that he probably never expected. Also, I don't know if it's really significant, but the shocking occurrences in CT and CC are not moral; they're purely plot-driven. It's also the case here (killing past Magus and Glenn doesn't affect the present versions). For moral shock, we do have the Reptite timeline story arc, in any case.

Problem is, it may be too difficult to fit this in the plot now since there isn't much empty spot to fill and since it's redundant with a few stuff (we already have two "FF warps the party around" sequences, and the Defiled Earth concept is supposed to be Crono's FF nightmare). Perhaps Glenn could have no FF nightmare and be warped to 1005 A.D. right after he tries to destroy the Mammon Machine/FF with the Masamune in the pre-nightmare Chapter. This would concretely tie the shocking occurrence with the plot and would also further explain the Masamune's corruption. This would not explain Magus's involvement though. Well, I guess Magus doesn't have to be involved and Glenn could be the unique enemy character. He'd be kinda like Dario in CC.

This being said, I'd rather keep a "coherent" storyline than try to add a very late idea at the last minute. And perhaps the "King Zeal causes the Fall" twist is more elegant, even if (or because?) it is more subtle and less slap-in-your-face. Any thoughts on what to do with this?

[Agent 12]

I just read this idea of Chrono 99's and I think it can fit very well in the ending.  We still have Kasmir alive and Zeal has been helping him out (he saves his ass when the party attacks his fort) and we never see him again. 

We could potentially have him be at the DBT with Zeal and he could cause the illusions that Magus and Glenn are fighting (that is his forte after all).  Zeal could even allow the party to watch as the killing takes place.   Question is how to save him...do we need to save them?   The party could fight Kasmir and Zeal effectively removing the illusions and then just get them back via chronopolis.

Course then you have two characters not in a fight vs Zeal and Kasmir....hm


--JP