Akira Toriyama has passed away.

The man is a legend but it is immeasurable how much his art was crucial for Chrono Trigger and setting the visual tone of the series. Just looking at the sprite icons and how the pixel art was translated directly from his designs is making me feel some type of way.

Edit: Posted this in the wrong forum.

See here.

"Kitase described three different routes for a potential Chrono Trigger remake: a port, a graphical remaster or a remake of the scope of Final Fantasy VII Remake. Parkin shared his view on the matter, stating that he appreciated what Nintendo did with its remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. Kitase responded by thanking Parkin for his great input."

https://gonintendo.com/contents/30317-chrono-trigger-devs-talk-sequel-chances-praise-sea-of-stars

No bombshells or anything, but interesting to see them still talking about it in 2023.

We kick things off with the realization that Mathew Valente (or as you may know him, tssf from the Chrono Trigger Resurrection progress) finished his Synthetic Origins restoration of Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers music! Restorations involve tracking down the original high-quality source samples that companies downsized for use in games, with a loss of fidelity. This restoration sounds just incredible. Check out the FF4, FF5, and FF6 restorations too! You can find them all right now right here. The Compendium will keep a backup of these.

Welcome to the 2023 update! We've got a bitter pill to lead this one off, as we've got a new article by me soapboxing about the problems with Chrono Cross's story. This effort was motivated by one last round of Q&A with Masato Kato on Square's Twitter (see links below the jump). If you want to check out the article immediately, hit this mysterious thumbnail!



[INTERVIEWS]  First up is a Chrono Cross remake interview with Hiromichi Sakamoto, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Masato Kato, brought to us by Trig! Check it out here. Though it's mostly about music, Kato confirms that he wrote Radical Dreamers completely as an original story, before declaring that it linked to Chrono Trigger at the end of the process. Which...sigh...  [2]  The much-maligned Kato/Mitsuda Q&A by Square on Twitter had one final update, which further evidenced that Cross's creative team truly did not plan the plot in detail. Brand new problems from this interview include: 1) Kid apparently remembers Serge saving her at the orphanage when they first meet in 1020 A.D., which...of course, hasn't happened yet! 2) The question of how the Masamune came to be corrupted was once again totally dodged; I'm ready to assume there's simply no story for this. 3) It's confirmed that Serge loses his memories of Chrono Cross after it's done, and that Kid is searching for him across timelines, which...he's right there in Arni, in 1020 A.D.! Go look him up!! 4) The Kingdom of Guardia receiving Schala's pendant, despite her being sucked into the DBT from the Ocean Palace, is explained by speculating that Serge, Kid, and other Cross party members visited Zenan early in Marle's life to give her the pendant. Predestination paradoxes galore.

[HACKS]  wakkoswami has released a revision of the original KWhazit translation, building on the prior work by DoctorL and LethargicOwl; check it out here! Thanks to everyone who spent time getting this up to speed as the definitive SNES retranslation.  [2]  The Turkish Chrono Trigger translation project has released another incremental update; they are now on version 0.8. Let's cheer as they get closer to the finish line! Grab this update here.  [3]  You're well-acquainted with it already, but I still wanted to note that Chrono Trigger Soundtrack Expansion v3.2 finally has the correct accoutrement on the Modification page as written by PowerPanda; grab it here if you haven't already as it's an amazing piece of work!  [4]  In case you prefer listening to your own tunes while playing Chrono Trigger, you can grab the No Music Patch by Readmit and Pseudoarc.  [5]  Last but not least (and long overdue), Reld's fork of Temporal Flux, 3.04 R1, has been made the recommended download on the Modification section for TF as well. Again, if you haven't already, swipe it here.

[PLUGINS and GUIDES]  Mauron has updated Warrior Workshop; grab it here. Mauron also made some fixes to Hi-Tech, the tech editor; grab it here.  [2]  TheMage has written an awesome field map tile editing guide; check it out here.  [3]  Mauron has made a available a spreadsheet indexing overworld graphic packets across the NA, JP, and Prerelease versions of the game; find it here.

[OCREMIX]  [ 'A Battle across Time' by jnWake, Gamer of the Winds, Ivan Hakštok, Lucas Guimaraes ][ Treasure Beyond Dreams' by AzureKevin ][ 'Tyrano's Stash' by Lucas Guimaraes, Brandon Harnish, Cory Johnson, ImAFutureGuitarHero, ThisIsJayC ][DWELLING OF DUELS][ 'Donkey! Bobonga!' by cacomistle, The Beauty of Grind ][ 'Yet Another Time's Scar Cover' by Cyril the Wolf ][ 'Goodnight, Dear Friends' by valence ][ 'Eh?!' by Triple B Music ][ 'Longing of the Wind' by Nemo, Michelle Dreyband ][ 'Tyrano's Stash' by Lucas Guimaraes, Cory Johnson, ImAFutureGuitarHero, Brandon Harnish, ThisIsJay ][ 'Chicken Sauce' by bjkmenu ][ 'Finding the Frozen Flame' by Ivan Hakštok ][ 'A Battle across Time' by jnWake, Ivan Hakštok, Lucas Guimaraes, GameroftheWinds ][ 'Chronossienne' by EndlessRepeat ][ 'Corridors of Time - Enhasa Theme' by Ian Martyn, TriacFox ][ '書っかでも着けどこ' by Ian Martyn ][ 'Gods? There Are None.' by Lucas Guimaraes ][ 'The Black Wind Howls at the Showdown with Magus' by The Rocket Knights, Travis Snowberger ][ 'The Revolution Will Be Dooted' by donut, lobby ]  [COMPENDIUM]  [ Arni Village Trigger Style by Maguzar ][ Radical Dreamers English Version 2.0 by Maguzar ][RESTORATIONS]  [ Corridors of Time by Jammin' Sam Miller ]

[FAN ART & FICTION]  [ Lucca and Robo by Ema ][ Zeal Ascendancy by KSera ][ Asocksual: Ayla - Frog - Frog 2 ]

Last year, I found a recently-abandoned Japanese Chrono site that archived links to Chrono series interviews. They had a link to this Another Eden interview with a note that Masato Kato discussed Chrono Break as part of it. Today, I was able to use OpenAI's Whisper tool to transcribe the Japanese, and sure enough, he talks about the game! By feeding the transcription into DeepL, it appears that:

• He started brainstorming ideas for a new Chrono game shortly after Cross's release around 2000, with the idea that it would be a PS2-era game.
• It really is intended to be titled "Break", not "Brake", as he was imagining a story about time literally breaking somehow (DeepL says, "And the title was something like, 'That's when it all goes to shit.'")
• Preproduction was in session around 2000/2001 (including the registration of the trademark).
• Final Fantasy Dimensions II ended up recycling the main scenario of the story!

We'd already found an interview from Takashi Tokita where he mentioned, as machine-translated, that certain story details were reused this way for FFD2. But this interview sounds much more definitive, and DeepL is suggesting that the main story idea itself became the basis for the game. We've tried put together a summary of FFD2's story at this thread, but there's just hardly information available in English. You can already draw parallels between Lavos and FFD2's "flare"-type weapon raining fire from the heavens.

What we really need now is someone who understands spoken Japanese to translate this interview snippet! We'll be in our eternal debt. Anyone who's also familiar with FFD2's plot is encouraged to add details and reply to that thread as well. If you know someone who might be able to translate, I've excerpted the relevant part of the interview here: Masato Kato Discusses Chrono Break. Pass that link on!

Not news worthy yet, but could be if it turns out to be true. A leaker states that a Chrono Trigger remake in the HD-2D art style is in the works. They've been right about things in the past, but wrong about other things too. Something to keep an eye out for.

https://zippospeaks.blogspot.com/2023/06/hes-back.html?m=1

On YouTube, SQUARE ENIX shared a video called The birth of #CHRONOCROSS Interview with Original Director Masato Kato and Composer Yasunori Mitsuda at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNcJyNaUT3o. (The Remaster producer Koichiro Sakamoto and briefly the project manager Mariko Sato join.)

They discuss:
0:00 Opening and self-introductions
1:59 Mr. Kato and Mr. Mitsuda's long-awaited reunion
5:54 The remastered edition was originally to commemorate the 20th anniversary of CHRONO CROSS
7:06 Mr. Kato: "Why I agreed to remastering RADICAL DREAMERS"
9:13 Mr. Mitsuda: "The way the CHRONO CROSS music sounded on the PlayStation is everything"
10:52 Refined elements that retain the nostalgia of the past
12:50 Some of the original illustrations were actually only half-finished
14:38 The musical refinements to achieve what couldn't be done at the time
16:28 About the elusive masterpiece RADICAL DREAMERS
20:31 CHRONO TRIGGER, RADICAL DREAMERS and CHRONO CROSS are connected
21:56 Did the idea for CHRONO CROSS exist when CHRONO TRIGGER was being made? [Player Question]
21:41 Why were parallel worlds used?
25:08 Why are there more than 40 playable characters?
26:30 Which parts moved you emotionally when the scenario, music and graphics were combined? [Player Question]
29:54 The relationship between the music of CHRONO TRIGGER and CHRONO CROSS [Player Question]
31:40 Composing the music of CHRONO CROSS through intentional subtraction [Player Question]
34:26 Fight between Mr. Kato and Mr. Mitsuda (!?)
36:09 How did you come up with the main theme? [Player Question]
37:41 Why does "Chrono Cross -Scars of Time-" feature shakuhachi? [Player Question]
39:16 What are the lyrics to "Dragon God"? [Player Question]
40:39 About the composition of the new song
44:12 New arrangements of the pieces Mr. Mitsuda wanted to record
48:28 The experience of CHRONO CROSS and the message Mr. Kato wanted to convey [Player Message]
51:48 What does the music of CHRONO CROSS mean to Mr. Mitsuda?
53:01 What does CHRONO CROSS mean to Mr. Kato?

Transcript, adapted from YouTube captions:

I don't know anything about this game, but it's getting some Chrono content:

https://twitter.com/FinalFantasy/status/1620059523074629635

Four Chrono Trigger projects have received updates, all in coordination with each other.

PowerPanda has updated Chrono Trigger Soundrack Expansion to version 3.0. This hack completes the Chrono Trigger Soundtrack by adding in 12 missing pieces of music from the physical OST, the PSX/DS rereleases, and the Japanese Pre-Release catridge. After version 2.0 was released a month ago, hackers worked together to figure out the pieces of the sound engine that hadn't been documented before, and used the knowledge to improve the quality of the music. 2.0 introduced compatibility with Enhansa Edition, and 3.0 adds compatibility with the Bugfix and Uncensoring Patch.

Chrono Trigger+, by ThegreatBen, gets its long-awaited update to version 2.6, incorporating the music from Chrono Trigger Soundtrack Expansion version 3.0, and changing around Frog's techs to allow for human Glenn to be used. The Soundtrack Expansion also includes an optional addendum patch for Chrono Trigger+ that adds the new music to more locations.

Reld has released Temporal Flux Version 3.4 R1, a fork of Geiger's popular Chrono Trigger editor, to incorporate the new knowledge about the sound engine. Hackers using the utility now have full control over each song's instrumentation, drum table, volume, and echo. Additionally, songs and enemies above the base game's limit can be placed within the editor, and music can be changed directly on the Location Properties screen.  3.4 R1 will detect if the Soundtrack Expansion has been applied, and if so, it will include the titles of the new songs in the UI and allow the battle music to be changed within the Location Properties screen. Compatibility with all Plug-ins is retained.

Not to be outdone, Gi Nattak, who was instrumental in the Soundtrack Expansion, has taken the opportunity to update his Unsightly Pixel patch to version 2.0. This new version fixes 20-some unsightly pixels on the snowy 12,000 BC map. It is included by default in all versions of the Chrono Trigger Soundtrack Expansion, and also in Chrono Trigger+ v2.6.

Happy gaming!