Messages

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History, Locations, and Artifacts / Re: Magus, The Masamune, and The Amulet

« on: June 24, 2008, 03:52:11 am »

There are generic anti-magic weapons in the game, like the Demon Edge.  And they specifically say they're strong against magic enemies.  As for the Masamune, it's specifically said that it's strong against dreamstone.  It also happens to be strong against Magus, and Magus happens to be using an amulet that protects him.  Also the Masamune has no special properties against any other magic enemies, except Mammon Machine.  Occam's Razor says that the best explanation is that the Amulet is dreamstone and that's why Magus is weak to the Masamune.  I like your idea and it would be simpler, the only thing is it doesn't work, the Masamune is *not* strong against generic magic enemies, it's only strong against enemies involving dreamstone (of which there are only 2).  If Magus was afraid of Masamune just for generic anti-magic properties, he'd be equally afraid of Demon Edge.

Occam's razor perfectly supports my claim.  Masamune is strong vs. Dreamstone (fact).  Masamune is strong vs. Magus (fact).  Masamune isn't specifically strong against anything else, except M.Machine (fact).  M.Machine is dreamstone (fact).  Nothing else is specifically, storyline/cutscene-wise strong against Magus (fact).  Magus is protected by an Amulet from Schala (fact).  The only special assumption I make is that that amulet is Dreamstone, and this is a pretty weak assumption.  All the evidence points conclusively that:  Magus is weak against Masamune because he's protected by a dreamstone Amulet.  That's pretty simple, it has the bonus of fitting very nicely with the overall game storyline, and it doesn't contradict anything else.

It's a pretty good theory 

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History, Locations, and Artifacts / Re: Magus, The Masamune, and The Amulet

« on: June 24, 2008, 12:30:28 am »

I think the connection is a lot simpler than all of that: Magus is a magical powerhouse (rivaling even Schala). The Masamune absorbs magical energy absorbed by the Mammon Machine. So the Masamune also drains Magus' Magical defenses. The connections are MAGIC.

Although it may also have something to do w/the fact that Magus at that time can cast Magical barriers. Although mechanics-wise, they don't boost his M. Def, technically they do increase his defenses against certain Magics...I mention this at all because I don't think the Masamune effects Magus in the same way if you use it against him in the North Cape fight (but I may be wrong, I don't think I had it equipped when I ever tried to fight him with Frog)...

If this were the case, the sword would have similar effects on Spekkio, Dalton, Queen Zeal, Flea, etc.  The only other enemy specifically effected is Mammon Machine, which reinforces the theory.

I also don't know whether Masamune does anything in MagusFight2.  I think most people don't, cuz at that point the Masamune is several sword generations obsolete, until it gets powered up at Cyrus's tomb, which can't be done by that point in the game...  (Masamune power up isn't even preserved over New Game+)

One thing that's also worth mentioning is that storywise, Magus is stronger in his castle than at North Cape, because before North Cape he got drained by Lavos.  It's possible Lavos also drained power from Schala's Sacred Protection.

Next time I'm playing and I'm at that point, I'll throw the wimpy Masamune on Frog and give it a shot.  Or maybe someone else has a save file there and can give it a go

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History, Locations, and Artifacts / Re: The Summoning Circle in Magus's Castle

« on: June 21, 2008, 01:34:07 pm »

That doesn't change what I said at all

I wasn't trying to change what you said, just pointing out there's no need to speculate.  I'm not knowledgeable enough to know whether there are Buddhist connections for that word, that'd be an interesting question to find out, kind of like asking whether "devil" has roots in Christianity even though nowdays the word can be used much more broadly.

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History, Locations, and Artifacts / Re: The enlightened = the mystics?

« on: June 21, 2008, 01:20:42 pm »

The Mystics still seem to me as experiments designed by Zeal, then after their great masters died in a firery explosion which wiped out the Enlightened race for the most part.  They realize they are free and then do as they please.  Ravaging the earth and such. 
Actually the whole Mystics are blood thirsty monsters thing cannot be true, seeing as what happens when you destroy Ozzie's castle.  They become normal creatures who want economic prosperity.  Too bad they didnt sell their equipment at decent prices when it was actually useful.

There's also evidence that by 1999AD, Mystics and Humans are no longer segregated and start working together.  There's one 1999AD factory you can enter, it's in one of the endings (dream team maybe?) and you can see Mystics and Humans working side by side.

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History, Locations, and Artifacts / Re: Grandleon, name origin?

« on: June 21, 2008, 12:58:37 pm »

Although the sword is gurandorion, the creatures themselves are guran and rion.  My theory is that the "do" is really "to" with a voicing phenomenon (called rendaku) applied, although rendaku usually isn't applied to this "to".  "to" means "and", so the sword name would be "guran and rion" if my theory were true.

The J word for lion (feline creature) is raion.  The borrow-word for grand actually comes from Italian "grande" (according to my dictionary), and the Japanese turned it into gurande.  But they use gurando in compound words like gurandoopera ("grand opera") or gurandosuramu ("grand slam").   Neither guran nor rion seems to have any Japanese meaning, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't just an alternate Japanification of "grand lion".

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History, Locations, and Artifacts / Re: The Summoning Circle in Magus's Castle

« on: June 21, 2008, 12:42:40 pm »

This does seem like it may be something meaningful. There are a Zodiac wheel and a summoning circle in Final Fantasy Tactics and people took years to realize there was a lot of symbols hidden in there (with even names inscribed in a made-up alphabet). Maybe this CT circle has some meaning too.

I don't know enough about Hindu/Tantric/Buddhist symbolism to make up some theory, but I think this circle looks a bit like a Mandala. Since Magus' Japanese name is Maou and Maou is a Buddhist concept, maybe there's a thematical relation.

Fortunately, Magus's name in the Japanese is spelled in kanji (he's the only character with a kanji name, and one consequence is that if you change his name, you can never change it back, since the name selection only has kana).  Since it's spelled in kanji, there's no need to speculate about what it means.  It is 魔王 and means "witch king" or "magic king", whichever you prefer.

In fact, the idea of "Magus" being his _NAME_, seems to be a translation invention.  In the Japanese, it's more like they're just calling him "the witch king" (Japanese doesn't have articles like "the").

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History, Locations, and Artifacts / Re: The Black Omen: How does everyone know?

« on: June 21, 2008, 11:50:52 am »

Then what the hell happened with it BEFORE Crono and friends meddled with time? Apparently the Black Omen never rose, and the Ocean Palace never sank. So just what happened at the Ocean Palace? Did Lavos just destroy Zeal? Very weird.

Besides what V_Translanka said, another possibility is that in the original timeline, Schala used the last charge of her pendant for some other purpose.  Like, warping herself out, or even killing Queen Zeal.  That sort of action could cause some massive change even if by themselves Crono and Magus accomplished jack-squat.

RE:  V_Translanka:  I think the Guru intervention happened in both timelines.  It must happen after Mt. Woe falls but before Crono gets to the Mammon Machine.  I don't have the English readily available so I dunno if this is even there.  In the Japanese version, when the earthbound elder wakes up Marle in the hut after Zeal falls, he says...

大災害の時、黒いゆがみのようなものが現れての……吸い込まれそうになったジャキ様を助けようとボッシュも……

This translates loosely as...  "When the great disaster occurred, a black vortex-like thing appeared, sucking in and therefore saving Janus and Melchoir"  (Janus and Melchoir are names Jacky and Bosshu, respectively, in the Japanese)

If the elder knew that, it must have happened in the game timeline.

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History, Locations, and Artifacts / Magus, The Masamune, and The Amulet

« on: June 21, 2008, 11:35:18 am »

Here's a very simple, beautiful, and concise theory to explain the strange relationship between Magus and the Masamune.  I posted about this years ago and it failed to gain traction, then I was reminded about it just recently when playing through CT in the original Japanese.  The original Japanese has a very unexpected difference which lends strong support to the theory.

The Problem

Magus has a weakness to the Masamune which is never explained.  Why is Magus weak to the Masamune?!?!?!?

Background

Question: What do these three artifacts have in common?  1.  The Masamune, 2. The Mammon Machine, 3. Schala's/Marle's pendant?

Answer:  They're all made of Dreamstone.  In fact, it's exactly this relation that causes the Mammon Machine to be weak against the Masamune.  The Mammon Machine is weak against the Masamune because they're made of the same mysterious red rock.  Just like you use a diamond to cut another diamond, you use Dreamstone to cut Dreamstone.

The Simple, Beautiful, and Concise Theory

Magus is weak to the Masamune for the exact same reason that the Mammon Machine is weak to to the Masamune.

The Assumption and the Explanation

Everything else in this report is based on the words of the characters of Chrono Trigger; to explain the Theory, we need to make just a single implicit assumption which the game doesn't explicitly deal with.  The assumption:  Magus's "Amulet" is also made of Dreamstone.  This isn't a big stretch at all: afterall, it stands to reason it would be similar to Schala's Pendant.

When Frog beats Magus in 600 AD, Magus says:  "What did you do to the Masamune?!"  The answer:  Frog's pals got Melchoir to add a giant-ass new hunk of pure Dreamstone!

The Amulet protects Magus.  As far as in-game mechanics go, it protects him from status ailments.  It's much more than that, though.  We witness the intimate moment when Schala gives Janus the Amulet, and she says it will keep him safe.  Obviously, story-wise the Amulet is far more important than as a mere B-rate accessory.

When Magus is attacked with the Masamune, a reaction takes place similar to the Mammon-Masamune Reaction.  Thus, Magus's "weakness" is not really a weakness at all, but rather a niche in his protection.

Now, the additional evidence I found in the Japanese version:  I was surprised to see that the Amulet accessory has a drastically different name in the Japanese version.  It was probably only changed because the original name would be way too long in English.  Bearing in mind that Schala's Japanese name is Sara, the Amulet's true name:

サラのおまもり
sara no omamori
Schala's Sacred Protection

The only thing still unexplained is the Hero Medal.  I see two possibilities for the Hero Medal.  One is that Melchoir created it and it has survived from Zeal.  It would make for a nice "trilogy" of related neckwear:  the Pendant, the Amulet, and the Medal.  The other possibility is that it's native to the middle ages and its connections with the Masamune are urban legend.  I tend to favor the latter, just because everything else blends so beautiful into the larger overall story, while the Medal comes way out of left field and has no connection to any of the game outside the "Tata and the Frog" chapter.  It would be interesting to hear what others say about the Hero's Medal.

ONE LAST THING....

In formulating theories, it's important to give a big grain of salt to battle details.  Otherwise you're forced to come to some very weird conclusions.  Like:  1.  Yakra is weak compared to common monsters in Magus's Castle.  2.  The Ocean Palace has a whole lot of giant iron orbs above the Golem Twins room.  3.  The elevators in Ocean Palace and Black Oman can descend arbitrarily long distances (if you let the battles drag on).  And so on.  I say this because one possible attack on my theory would be:  "But the effects of Masamune in the Magus fight don't line up perfectly with the stats of the Amulet!  It lowers his magic defense, not his status defense!"  Well, by that logic the GreenDream is broken since it won't save Crono in the Ocean Palace.  It's just an example of taking in-fight data with a grain of salt.