Sorry for the hiatus, everyone (and huge apologies to my Peach Mountain Shoguns). Let's sum up everything that's happened since the last official mega-update. Since it'll take even longer to add remixes and doujins, those will be updated separately.
The Chrono Compendium is hosting another
Dream Splash contest, the first in nearly 6 years! These contests are a way for fans to create and share their wonderful art, music, fiction ... anything having to do with the Chrono series that YOU make. We encourage anyone and everyone to participate, so tell your friends and join us in keeping the dream alive! (Thanks to tushantin for the art!)
[CHRONO BREAK] A Chrono fan named Mariela Gonzalez managed to contact Masato Kato on Facebook in 2015, publishing a retrospective on the series (that was later translated to French) with the interview. She asked about his original idea for Chrono Break; find the translated section
here. Note that no other part of the interview has been translated, nor has an additional interview with Yasunori Mitsuda, and so the book has been placed on
Material Requiring Translation. Long story short, and using a separate post from Kato's Facebook page, "Chrono Reflect" would've encompassed Serge, Kid, and Janus saving the original Chrono Trigger crew shortly after the events of CT concluded (perhaps from the Fall of Guardia?) and would've featured Crono, Lucca, and Frog returning as well.
[HOWEVER] We're not sure if Kato's concept is the same as Takashi Tokita's planned Chrono Break game, which is probably how the trademark filing originated. Check out
this interview, where he mentions that the concept carried over to Aemo's character and the balance of three starting characters seen in Final Fantasy Dimensions II. Boo the Gentleman Caller followed up and researched what the game was about. As taken from the FF wiki (our proud affiliate for over a decade at this point): "The game follows a young man named Morrow and his companions as they travel through time and space in order to save the world from beings attacking the fabric of history." Per Boo, based on this, the game would have returned to time travel akin to Chrono Trigger, visiting different eras. More importantly, it would have revolved around the "Chrono Break" being the literal breaking of space-time by multiple aligned big bads attacking different points in space-time in unison. Check
this thread for a further character run-down and speculation.
[INTERVIEWS] Takashi Tokita revealed in 2016 that Tetsuya Nomura created the famous courthouse location art! Check out the interview
here.
[2] Hironobu Sakaguchi mentioned last year that FF7's development was halted so that virtually every resource at their disposal could work on finishing Chrono Trigger. Check it out
here!
[3] Next we have Takashi Tokita stating which ending of CT he thinks is canon (see the interview
here. Spoiler—it's the one where the Epoch must be sacrificed to reach the Lavos core.
[4] shmuplations completed a new round of very similar 1995 magazine interviews with the Chrono Trigger team; find it
here. Many, many thinks to him for this work!
[MODIFICATION RELEASES] In case you missed it, Temporal Flux 3.04 is out! Grab it
here!
[2] LethargicOwl has produced an addendum to Doctor L's re-retranslation of KWhazit's original Chrono Trigger retranslation, hoping to polish it further. Check out the patch notes
here.
[3] Right behind is
Chrono Trigger Complete, an effort by Kakera Sorcerer to create a complete experience with clarification of mistranslations, additional text from CT DS, and even some original lines taken from Chrono Compendium theory (such as referencing the Frozen Flame in Zeal).
[4] From Chronospolit, we have the CT Bug Fix and Uncensoring Patch. This patch fixes several bugs and also restores censored dialogue from the Japanese original, as well as restoring things referenced by Chrono Cross that were not originally localized for the American release. Find it
here.
[5] Moving on from translations, we have The Fang's Chrono Trigger 1.01, a hack with several tweaks oriented for low-level gameplay. Check it out
here and hit the
ROMHacking.net page for full patch notes.
[6] Notthisguy has provided a patch allowing one to start the game with Marle at Crono's house, bypassing Crono's first encounter; find it
here.
[7] Last but not least, we have three tweak patches from Laputan Machine, which eliminate the randomness of Reptite Cave treasure, tweak Johnny's race mechanics, or offer better prizes for completing the race. Find them
here.
[8] Okay, one more...thegreatBen released
Chrono Trigger + unrelated to the Zakyrus project of the same name, restoring a lot of cut content; check out the readme for the full list!
[CROSS MODIFICATION] nullpointer has uploaded the Chrono Cross 70-80% complete NTSC Disc One beta disc! This disc remarkably features working debug rooms, which were stripped out before the game went gold. The Compendium has picked up the dump for hosting on
this page, and a research effort is underway at
this thread, with some action items just waiting to be explored. Many, many thinks to nullpointer for releasing this!!
[2] utunnels got pretty far on dumping Chrono Cross models into his viewer utility. Check out the full list
here. Enjoy seeing several Chrono Cross characters and enemies like you've never seen before!
[3] It's worth noting that the model viewer has given us basically our only true good look at Tia; check it out
here.
[4] Danetta has authorized linking the Chrono Cross Single Disc project, which avoids the need to change discs when playing Chrono Cross on an emulator. Check it out
here!
[FLUX PLUGINS] Mauron and others have been busy creating Temporal Flux plugins capable of an incredible range of Chrono Trigger modification!
[1] Hi-Tech is Mauron's flagship tech editor; grab it
here.
[2] A bevy of others are
this zip file! they include: Fiendcrafter, An enemy stat and appearance editor; Inventory Manager: A shop editor; Itemizer: Item and equipment editor; NPCustom: NPC graphics data editor; Save Master: A plugin to control the data copied into save files; String Relabeler: A plugin that allows editing of some of Temporal Flux's global strings; and Warrior Workshop: A character stat editor. Thank goodness, no more using Crone!
[CHRONO TRIGGER] someguy339 recovered an amazing piece of lost CuteLucca fan art; see it
here!
[2] Xouman has released soundfonts for Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, and other games; find them
here.
[3] If you're into speedrunning, check out
this page, hosting practice run and textless hacks for Chrono Trigger. The hacks have been mirrored at the Compendium. Good luck!
[4] Scintillating_Void provided a great write-up on Lavos in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft, which is now our newest feature! Check it out
here.
[CHRONO CROSS] Lina Takezawa, a Japanese user, graciously stopped by to try and help us with the Chronopolis battle text romaji. Check out her translation as juxtaposed with XABY's old attempt
here.
[2] utunnels made an awesome topic comparing characters' listed heights to their height as measured with his model viewer utility; check out the surprising results
here!
[3] The rules for each card of the Chrono Cross Bandai Card Game have been translated
here. We still need the name card translated, however (check
here).
[4] Masato Kato released a storyboard of a cut FMV on his Facebook showing Harle leaving Serge at Chronopolis when the Dragon God formed. This rather settles the fact that Harle, too, merged into the Dragon God, which was previously not explicitly shown. Find it
here.
[DREAMERS AND ECHOES] Crimson Echoes peripheral content has been restored to
this page, including all the art done for release, beta screenshots, the CE Memorial soundtrack, and several interviews. This was originally hosted on crimsonechoes.com, and now is coming home to the Compendium.
[2] Masato Kato released his character art for Serge and Kid (Radical Dreamers) on Facebook; check it out
here!
[3] I'm not sure it's being worked on any longer, but it's always worth checking out utunnels' web version of
Radical Dreamers. Easy to play at work!
[ANALYSIS] Schala (why does she send away Magus from the Dream Devourer battle?) [2] Lynx (Why didn't he simply wait for Serge to cross dimensions and grab him?) [3] Anti-annihilation energy (Counter Time Experiment)[STEAM] Chrono Trigger's maligned Steam release prompted various hackers to release patches and other utilities to improve the game.
This site has a wonderful selection of them. As the site and its efforts are still ongoing, the Compendium has not picked up the patches to host here, but has added a link to their page on the Modification encyclopedia page (and has backed up all items to date).
[COMPENDIUM] We now have a Discord thanks to V_Translanka; check it out
here.
[2] Rounding out the update, we're announcing a new Guru court! Guru of Reason will be Mauron, who has been a constant, steady presence over the last several years, quietly working on and expanding Chrono Trigger hacking knowledge and serving as a linchpin of the surviving modification community, along with several others. Guru of Time will be shared by Danetta and Prizvel, who have made countless invaluable contributions to Chrono Cross modification, and have taken time frequently on the forums to help new Chrono Cross hackers find their footing. Lastly, Guru of Life will be Boo the Gentleman Caller, whose community-focused efforts and threads have kept a sense of Compendiumite spirit going, when we'd all assumed a quiet death would ensue a few years back. The Dream Splash is going and life is good! Congratulations to everyone.
