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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Favorite Chrono Trigger Character
« on: January 21, 2006, 06:45:41 pm »
For CT, I like Janus the best, since he's so tied to the story and has a much more defined and complicated pathos than the other characters, who are just sort of the do-gooder type (which is enjoyable, but not as enticing).
I think my favorite character in the whole series, however, is Kid/Schala; like Magus, she has such an interesting back story and a well-defined and (to some extent) complex pathos. She is part of, IMO, the most interesting and engrossing relationship in the whole series which is that between her and Serge. Furthermore, her merging with the Time-Devourer makes for one of the most interesting last bosses in all of RPG-dom--all at once you want to destroy the Time Devourer, yet Schala's young and innocent face and her connection to Serge gives you pause. Great stuff.
I think my favorite character in the whole series, however, is Kid/Schala; like Magus, she has such an interesting back story and a well-defined and (to some extent) complex pathos. She is part of, IMO, the most interesting and engrossing relationship in the whole series which is that between her and Serge. Furthermore, her merging with the Time-Devourer makes for one of the most interesting last bosses in all of RPG-dom--all at once you want to destroy the Time Devourer, yet Schala's young and innocent face and her connection to Serge gives you pause. Great stuff.
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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Here we go again.
« on: January 21, 2006, 06:30:20 pm »
I posted this on Gamefaqs.com, http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=196917&topic=25697050, as a sort of a 'refutation' of these Cross-haters' arguments.
"It has to come to my attention, having reviewed the consensus litany of complaints attributed to Cross-haters, that 98% of the criticism is leveled out of a spite for innovation.
Complaint One: Characters
Cross-haters often cite the 40 characters as detrimental to the story and a fatal flaw in the gameplay. However, how much does Chrono Cross really lack in the character development department? Serge, Kid, Harle and Lynx are developed just as well as, if not better than, the roster of characters in Chrono Trigger. Heck, the relationship between Kid and Serge has a heavier emotional weight than the hints-of-teenage-romance-around-the-edges plot between Crono and Marle (though I, and I'm sure most of us here, find this sort of simple, if cliched, underplayed romance very likeable).
The other 36? Many have tie-ins of equal complexity to Ayla or Frog's, where they do not play a central role in the story but have their own plots that relate to events or locales moving the story along. The Karsh-Glenn-Riddel-Viper complex, Fargo coupled with Miki and Nikki, even Radius to some extent.
The characters beyond those act as characters qua items. And here is where we run into the problem: those who don't want to think-outside-the-box will say that that isn't how you're supposed to structure a character in an RPG. But that's exactly it: that is not a valid criticism of the game, merely a spite for innovation. Cross made use of many of its characters much differently than any game that had come before it. Result? Replayability, non-linearity, and a more interesting world to inhabit. Positives. The overall criticism of this structure has never come close to validly undermining the integrity of the game on its own terms, and since the beginning has amounted to not much more than a strawman.
Complaint Two: Story and sequel/original dissimilarity
Here's where Cross criticism usually reaches fever-pitch idiosyncrosy. I'd say 85-90% of Cross haters make the following argument: "Cross is supposed to be a sequel. Yet it is not like its original. Therefore it is a bad game."
Now, if we are to step back and take an objective approach to the issue, it is easy to see that such a statement makes no sense. We are talking about an individual game here. Not half-a-game or a mini-game, but a fully stand-alone game. And in the history of criticism of any medium, one of the most basic constants has been that dissimilarity has no intrinsic value as a quality.
Similarity has some intrinsic value in that an over-abundance of similarity can lead to a lack of originality and thus a depreciation in quality. However, dissimilarity has never had any intrinsic quality. Example: Let's say the entire critical community is pumped for Back to the Future IV. Let's say Back to the Future IV comes out, and instead of being a 90-minute action-adventure film like its predecessors it is a 3-hour epic directed by Peter Jackson in the vein of Lord of the Rings.
What would the critics do? Would they subtract a star for dissimilarity? Of course not. They would look at the quality of the acting, the script, the editing, etc. If all these turn out to be nigh-perfect, would a professional reviewer afford the movie a lesser rating because of its dissimilarity from its predecessor? No. Because a movie is stand-alone and meant to be taken on its own terms. Taken on its own terms, Cross is an excellent game.
Again, the criticisms leveled at the game are almost uniformly spite for innovation: "the character designs are not like Akira Toriyami's," "the battle system isn't a level-up-via-experience-points one like the original," "Chrono Trigger's characters aren't used heavily in the game." Yet taken alone, these statements are merely declarative, and hold no value aside from being connotative of a think-inside-the-box attitude. Addressing Chrono Cross as a game in its own right, these criticisms are as empty as empty can be, as they do not criticize gameplay/graphics/soundtrack/etc., but merely dissimilarity, a property of no intrinsic value.
Furthermore, people complain the story is lackluster, lacking momentum and being overly convoluded.
However, criticisms of pace are largely unfounded; for example, what percentage of the time in CC is mandatorily spent doing something unrelated to the furthering of the plot? I'd say at max 5%. The story's ratio of action to plot relation is stellar, in fact, and easily matches its predecessor's ratio, which in essence debunks the "slow" criticism. One may choose to take a sidequest--such as retrieving the life sparkle before saving kid or fighting Dario--but these are optional. I'd say the only two stand-out dead-ends are the ghost ship and the rock-concert (an unnecessary elaboration on the quest to find the black dragon, IMO).
As for the convoluded criticism, I'd say that its convolutions may alternately take away or add to the story's force depending on taste (Xenogears fans I know generally like the way it plays out), and that is about as close to a valid criticism as most Cross-haters get.
Beyond that, almost all Cross-haters' complaints link back up to the 'dissimilarity' criticism, which has already been shown for the flawed strain of reasoning it is.
Coming to the ultimate point of this discussion, one must ask "if such is the root of the bulk of Cross-haters' criticisms, what are we to make of them?" Following from the reasoning presented in the preceding posts, we can make two concrete conclusions. A.)said criticisms are essentially unsound and occasionally invalid (check above reasoning) and B.)said criticisms are based on a disdain for innovation and newness.
Which is why, fellow board-lurkers, I find so many of the tirade's against this game, which belongs in the list of the top ten RPG's of all time (and I mean this without hyperbole and with a disdain for the overuse of superlatives, judging from all factors such as originality, gameplay, graphics, impact, etc.) so incredibly sad."
Okay, so it's a little abrasive to its target critics, but nonetheless I feel it effectively dispels many of the mindless criticisms of CC, which, if taken on its own, is one of the best RPG's on the Playstation and a worthy successor to CT.
"It has to come to my attention, having reviewed the consensus litany of complaints attributed to Cross-haters, that 98% of the criticism is leveled out of a spite for innovation.
Complaint One: Characters
Cross-haters often cite the 40 characters as detrimental to the story and a fatal flaw in the gameplay. However, how much does Chrono Cross really lack in the character development department? Serge, Kid, Harle and Lynx are developed just as well as, if not better than, the roster of characters in Chrono Trigger. Heck, the relationship between Kid and Serge has a heavier emotional weight than the hints-of-teenage-romance-around-the-edges plot between Crono and Marle (though I, and I'm sure most of us here, find this sort of simple, if cliched, underplayed romance very likeable).
The other 36? Many have tie-ins of equal complexity to Ayla or Frog's, where they do not play a central role in the story but have their own plots that relate to events or locales moving the story along. The Karsh-Glenn-Riddel-Viper complex, Fargo coupled with Miki and Nikki, even Radius to some extent.
The characters beyond those act as characters qua items. And here is where we run into the problem: those who don't want to think-outside-the-box will say that that isn't how you're supposed to structure a character in an RPG. But that's exactly it: that is not a valid criticism of the game, merely a spite for innovation. Cross made use of many of its characters much differently than any game that had come before it. Result? Replayability, non-linearity, and a more interesting world to inhabit. Positives. The overall criticism of this structure has never come close to validly undermining the integrity of the game on its own terms, and since the beginning has amounted to not much more than a strawman.
Complaint Two: Story and sequel/original dissimilarity
Here's where Cross criticism usually reaches fever-pitch idiosyncrosy. I'd say 85-90% of Cross haters make the following argument: "Cross is supposed to be a sequel. Yet it is not like its original. Therefore it is a bad game."
Now, if we are to step back and take an objective approach to the issue, it is easy to see that such a statement makes no sense. We are talking about an individual game here. Not half-a-game or a mini-game, but a fully stand-alone game. And in the history of criticism of any medium, one of the most basic constants has been that dissimilarity has no intrinsic value as a quality.
Similarity has some intrinsic value in that an over-abundance of similarity can lead to a lack of originality and thus a depreciation in quality. However, dissimilarity has never had any intrinsic quality. Example: Let's say the entire critical community is pumped for Back to the Future IV. Let's say Back to the Future IV comes out, and instead of being a 90-minute action-adventure film like its predecessors it is a 3-hour epic directed by Peter Jackson in the vein of Lord of the Rings.
What would the critics do? Would they subtract a star for dissimilarity? Of course not. They would look at the quality of the acting, the script, the editing, etc. If all these turn out to be nigh-perfect, would a professional reviewer afford the movie a lesser rating because of its dissimilarity from its predecessor? No. Because a movie is stand-alone and meant to be taken on its own terms. Taken on its own terms, Cross is an excellent game.
Again, the criticisms leveled at the game are almost uniformly spite for innovation: "the character designs are not like Akira Toriyami's," "the battle system isn't a level-up-via-experience-points one like the original," "Chrono Trigger's characters aren't used heavily in the game." Yet taken alone, these statements are merely declarative, and hold no value aside from being connotative of a think-inside-the-box attitude. Addressing Chrono Cross as a game in its own right, these criticisms are as empty as empty can be, as they do not criticize gameplay/graphics/soundtrack/etc., but merely dissimilarity, a property of no intrinsic value.
Furthermore, people complain the story is lackluster, lacking momentum and being overly convoluded.
However, criticisms of pace are largely unfounded; for example, what percentage of the time in CC is mandatorily spent doing something unrelated to the furthering of the plot? I'd say at max 5%. The story's ratio of action to plot relation is stellar, in fact, and easily matches its predecessor's ratio, which in essence debunks the "slow" criticism. One may choose to take a sidequest--such as retrieving the life sparkle before saving kid or fighting Dario--but these are optional. I'd say the only two stand-out dead-ends are the ghost ship and the rock-concert (an unnecessary elaboration on the quest to find the black dragon, IMO).
As for the convoluded criticism, I'd say that its convolutions may alternately take away or add to the story's force depending on taste (Xenogears fans I know generally like the way it plays out), and that is about as close to a valid criticism as most Cross-haters get.
Beyond that, almost all Cross-haters' complaints link back up to the 'dissimilarity' criticism, which has already been shown for the flawed strain of reasoning it is.
Coming to the ultimate point of this discussion, one must ask "if such is the root of the bulk of Cross-haters' criticisms, what are we to make of them?" Following from the reasoning presented in the preceding posts, we can make two concrete conclusions. A.)said criticisms are essentially unsound and occasionally invalid (check above reasoning) and B.)said criticisms are based on a disdain for innovation and newness.
Which is why, fellow board-lurkers, I find so many of the tirade's against this game, which belongs in the list of the top ten RPG's of all time (and I mean this without hyperbole and with a disdain for the overuse of superlatives, judging from all factors such as originality, gameplay, graphics, impact, etc.) so incredibly sad."
Okay, so it's a little abrasive to its target critics, but nonetheless I feel it effectively dispels many of the mindless criticisms of CC, which, if taken on its own, is one of the best RPG's on the Playstation and a worthy successor to CT.
3
Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / I have a great idea for Chrono Brake
« on: January 13, 2006, 07:47:04 pm »
I'm gonna send it into Square:
Crono and co. get up out of bed the day after beating Lavos, fall inexplicably into a timewarp that has been severely warped by someone sneezing in the frozen flame chamber in the middle of CC's timeline (sending obstructive temporal forces throughout spacetime inevitably affecting past events in CT's timeline), sending them all into the tesseract where they stay forever, completely unable to escape.
After this point, the game shall display the game-over screen and the player will get the new game+ in which he can play the game over again in slo-mo and all the items he gained in the first game, of which there are none.
The game will have state-of-the-art graphics, a 2-track OST composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, a stellar battle system which will never be used, and approximately 5 incredible minutes of playing time. This will allow Square to produce it for cheap so the company will yield a large profit (since all the unsuspecting Chrono fans, such as ourselves, will buy it on faith). It will also create absurd inconsistencies in both CC and CT's plot structure.
Feel free to post suggestions; I'm sending it in next week.
No joke.
Crono and co. get up out of bed the day after beating Lavos, fall inexplicably into a timewarp that has been severely warped by someone sneezing in the frozen flame chamber in the middle of CC's timeline (sending obstructive temporal forces throughout spacetime inevitably affecting past events in CT's timeline), sending them all into the tesseract where they stay forever, completely unable to escape.
After this point, the game shall display the game-over screen and the player will get the new game+ in which he can play the game over again in slo-mo and all the items he gained in the first game, of which there are none.
The game will have state-of-the-art graphics, a 2-track OST composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, a stellar battle system which will never be used, and approximately 5 incredible minutes of playing time. This will allow Square to produce it for cheap so the company will yield a large profit (since all the unsuspecting Chrono fans, such as ourselves, will buy it on faith). It will also create absurd inconsistencies in both CC and CT's plot structure.
Feel free to post suggestions; I'm sending it in next week.
No joke.
4
Chrono Compendium Discussion / Something to add to article on Marles' disappearance
« on: January 13, 2006, 07:34:36 pm »
A long time ago, this website produced an article detailing how the paradox that causes Marle's disappearance early on in CT violates priorly established theories of time; however, the article made no suggestion of the Novikov self-consistency principle, which would make another considerable contribution to the argument of the disappearance being an inconsistency in the form of scientific support.
But perhaps you're not editing articles that old and it doesn't matter anyway, so do what you will, and keep up the good work on the site.
But perhaps you're not editing articles that old and it doesn't matter anyway, so do what you will, and keep up the good work on the site.
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Time, Space, and Dimensions / Or...
« on: January 13, 2006, 07:20:16 pm »
One could also merely posit that the nature of the laws of physics simply do not allow for paradoxes, a la the Novikov self-consistency principle.
Here is a useful, if lightweight overview of this idea.
I wanted to suggest this as an addition to the article discussing how the disappearance of Marle defies priorly established axioms of time.[/url]
Here is a useful, if lightweight overview of this idea.
I wanted to suggest this as an addition to the article discussing how the disappearance of Marle defies priorly established axioms of time.[/url]
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Articles / A Bit of History on Square's Venture
« on: June 25, 2004, 03:30:29 am »
My knowledge of CC is all derived from this web site.
Hence preventing you from making a fair judgement on the quality of the game...and thusly trivializing any opinion of it you might have, unfortunately.
CC was a beautiful game with a top-notch battle system, great music and incredible replay value. To me, at least, the overall plot, once it got going, exuded a maturity that only began to materialize in CT's final stages--not to knock CT at all. Though many will complain that it had too many characters, if you look at Serge, Kid, Lynx and Harle you will see that their development and involvement with the story makes them every bit as complicated and well done as Crono, Lucca, Marle, Frog or Robo.
The death of the former characters was not done sloppily--something you would realize if you actually played the game--and the tint of tragedy that it leaves only increases the drama and energy of CC. Overall, to call CC's story blasphemy or to call it a bad game without having given it a fair chance is rather ridiculous--why do you think it got rave reviews? Because when judged without bias, it is an excellent game.
Hence preventing you from making a fair judgement on the quality of the game...and thusly trivializing any opinion of it you might have, unfortunately.
CC was a beautiful game with a top-notch battle system, great music and incredible replay value. To me, at least, the overall plot, once it got going, exuded a maturity that only began to materialize in CT's final stages--not to knock CT at all. Though many will complain that it had too many characters, if you look at Serge, Kid, Lynx and Harle you will see that their development and involvement with the story makes them every bit as complicated and well done as Crono, Lucca, Marle, Frog or Robo.
The death of the former characters was not done sloppily--something you would realize if you actually played the game--and the tint of tragedy that it leaves only increases the drama and energy of CC. Overall, to call CC's story blasphemy or to call it a bad game without having given it a fair chance is rather ridiculous--why do you think it got rave reviews? Because when judged without bias, it is an excellent game.
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Articles / what about logic?
« on: June 21, 2004, 07:48:53 pm »
Have any of you considered that in logic, the greek letter nu stands for the 'or' function?
a v ~a--animals are good or animals are not good.
Now, if we are to put it in the context of set theory, and we view Chrono Trigger and Cross' dimensions/timelines as infinite in number and length, then time begins with an infinite set of possibilities and ends in an infinite set of possible ways.
adding the 'or' function between these two sets in a premise creates a tautology.
So time/space/life begins with infinity and ends with infinity, and thus is just sort of a singular 'infinite member.' Or you could interpret the 'or' as meaning choice. You can do this OR this, be it the beginning or the end. It's up to YOU, and all that stuff.
Just my two cents.
a v ~a--animals are good or animals are not good.
Now, if we are to put it in the context of set theory, and we view Chrono Trigger and Cross' dimensions/timelines as infinite in number and length, then time begins with an infinite set of possibilities and ends in an infinite set of possible ways.
adding the 'or' function between these two sets in a premise creates a tautology.
So time/space/life begins with infinity and ends with infinity, and thus is just sort of a singular 'infinite member.' Or you could interpret the 'or' as meaning choice. You can do this OR this, be it the beginning or the end. It's up to YOU, and all that stuff.
Just my two cents.
8
General Discussion / Translations?
« on: June 21, 2004, 01:53:14 am »
Hey.
I was just a-wondering if anyone had ever translated the japanese version of CT, and if it was available online.
I hear it adds more to the story, but I can't seem to find it. Where in the world have all of you found it? Or are most of you just fluent in japanese?
I was just a-wondering if anyone had ever translated the japanese version of CT, and if it was available online.
I hear it adds more to the story, but I can't seem to find it. Where in the world have all of you found it? Or are most of you just fluent in japanese?
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