The Amalgamated Weapons, Techs, Items, and Enemies Thread

[ZeaLitY]

There's an easy fix for Ayla and Crono. We don't have armor slots to spare, but we have key items. Ayla could simply pick up the

"Lion Hide"
"Lion Fur"

And explain that she and Kino both as teens killed a mighty lion which nearly killed them. For good luck, they placed the hide within buried rocks on Singing Mountain. Ayla finds them for nostalgic purposes, because on that day, she affirmed her strength. Glenn suggests they make something out of them, and they take them to Chronopolis. We can even have Melchior note that he's not sure how we'd apply Rainbow stuff, and ask them to visit Yaluk, who explains that blending it with certain space-age materials can ingrain it into a fine, flexible "skin". Of course, this scene is entirely superlative and we can have Melchior figure it out by himself.

Crono can do something similar. He takes the

"TatteredGi"
"PatrusBand"

to Melchior, who has the scene (or doesn't if Ayla's armor was acquired first) and processes the Rainbow Shell. Still, Crono is sort of a plate armor guy if we want to go that route. The results are the JeetKuneDo and the Lee Band.

Magus is another problem...ah, I wish I could give him a reason to show up and threaten his former self...have to think about it. Doesn't help that I've been doing homework the last four hours.

[Daniel Krispin]

Aw, come on! This naming stuff, next to that thing with the Furies, is pretty well my only input in the project. And I don't see a problem here. I'd prefer to keep it NemeanHide, but more than that I'd REALLY want to keep the other two, the Lee Band and the JuKunDo or whatever it's called. Anachronisms be damned. Most every fantasy work out there does things like this. If this were historical fiction, I'd admit it... but even there, often, things are changed! Heck, you seen the trailer for Frank Miller's 300? Bloody war-rhinos. As a Classicst, I can tell you that, technically, that stuff is flawed. Having been at friggn' Thermopylae myself, I can say it looks nothing like what it appears as in the movie. The style is wrong. And a hundred other technicalities and anachronisms. I've heard they merged in some eastern fighting styles into the Spartan fighting to make them look badass. The truth? They didn't train for some sort of overpowering martial skill. They did strength training and dicipline - they didn't even practise swordplay or handling of spears. But do I really care? No. I'm expecting the movie to be brilliant as an artistic piece. That's an important distinction, knowing when to be technical and when not to be. Often, it's okay to break the rules, so long as you KNOW the rules. A poet doesn't have to obey the laws of grammar, but really should know them to know how to break them for the best effect. Things don't have to be accurate in art, so long as they're not accurate with INTENT. That's the problem with Xenosaga. The impression it left me with is that the writers didn't have the first clue about the sources of their allusions. They weren't clever. The surface story - the plot - it was good, but the depth was second-rate. I wonder if they improved on that in the succeeding games... anyway, point is, I don't think this is any sort of fatal or even grievous error, nor even an error at all.

If you really want to be techincal about things, you can call into account many things in Trigger that are readily strange to those that know them, even as this might be to those that know mythology. For example, Meso Mail. Mail?! In prehistoric times? That's a Celtic invention, probably about... 400BC I'm guessing? Mail in no way should be that early. Yet there it is. To anyone that knows a bit about military history, it's glaring.

Here, we know what we're doing. We've not just looked through a list of mythological names and picked one to suit our fancy. Every time you've asked me for a name, have I just picked random names? No. I gave you Celtic women names for Cedric's wife to keep the feeling in line, and chose names whose meanings were in line with the story. When you asked me for ultimate armour for Lucca, I picked the name of one of the most famous heroines in Greek mythology. Even Khrusaor wasn't random. I was looking through the lists of Hesiod's Theogony, at the monsters who were born. The giant with a gilded sword struck me as fitting to be connected with Zeal, which is why I suggested it.

The thing is, I do my research for these things. More so than most. For example, I use the term 'adamant' as a material in some of my other wriitng. But I've not like some derivative fantasy writer just taken a name. I know what it is, what it truly is. How many can say that, of those who use the term? Watching the Xmen movies (those movies are all I know about comics) I see them use the term adamant. Yeah, I'm sure they got it from the mythically hard substance... but, that's not all there is to it. And people don't know that. They don't know it means 'untameable', and in fact means 'steel'. That's all. And that's why I use it as a synonymn for steel (and I'm probably unique in that.) That's how I do things. I layer my allusions and, though they might not work at all points, rarely is a name 'just a name.' So you've got to trust me, Nemean isn't out of place. If Chrono'99 really is that worried about it, I'd say mask it by making it a tribal or creature name. However, I think it would be silly to make it simply 'Lion Skin'... that is too anti-climatic. The players will expect something interesting, and a simple 'lion' is boring. The helmet pushes the line, and only survives in my mind because of its assocciation with the skin, and thus the whole panoply of Herakles.

Really, I think I'm justified in saying to keep it. If everything were correct chronologically, it would make for a very boring game.

[ZeaLitY]

They do get kept; I'm just proposing that they are found as worse items then upgraded by Melchior to put them on logical par with the other ones.

[Chrono'99]

I'm sorry to insist, but I really think the name Nemean doesn't fit in the prehistoric era. Yes, "Nemea" only exists in the real world, but by inserting the name in the series' Prehistory we are hellenizing the very roots of the Chrono world, whether directly or not. A denaturation of the Chrono world, I think that's one of the few dangers that Crimson Echoes really risks, much more than slow development or ROM corruption. During the project history, there used to be risks of the game atmosphere leaning too much towards hardcore science fiction, Star Wars, Xenogears, Final Fantasy VII or X... Let's be careful and not make it lean too much towards the Greek world now. The other Greek references do fit well in their locations, but this one in Prehistory stands rather too much. Azala, Ioka, and Laruba don't mean anything special for the player, thus the effect is that these names sound distant, primitive, indeed prehistoric. On the other hand, Nemean sounds Greek and is Greek, not for people within the Chrono world, but for the players at least. This immediately takes out the era's universality and gives it a cultural flavor which directly correspond to an existing culture of the real world. Nemean could be a synonym for "impervious" or other similar adjectives, but it would still blantantly be a Greek term in the middle of a universal, non Greek-centered, "non-aligned" prehistoric era. The Meso Mail is not an example of the era's non-universalness, it's actually one of the few bad Woolseyism, since the item was called and simply was a Tricera Plate in the original version. A triceratops plate is not culture-specific contrary to Nemean Hide.

It's hard to rely only on the connotations of the name "Nemean Hide", because its sound, its "flavor" always remains, and its origin is part of the connotations anyhow. I'll pick my Zhuangzi example again: most connotations of this name perfectly fits in the Kingdom of Zeal. Zhuangzi was a great philosopher who lived in a period of intellectual expansion, and who was deeply interested in the notions of dreams, reality, illusions, etc. This is totally not out of place for a Zealian to correspond to this. Doreen even directly quotes one of his sayings. Despite all this, in the end "Zhuangzi" is still a name that is definitely Chinese for the player (not for the Zealians, but certainly for the player) and it just doesn't fit well among all the Middle-Eastern names of the Kingdom of Zeal. Granted, I took an extreme with this Chinese name, but the issue is still relatively the same for Prehistory because that era is the most universal stuff ever seen in Chrono. It's the primeval era, the universal Motherland which existed before more specific and regional cultures were born. Thus we can't hardly have a specific term in it like Nemean without automatically removing this primeval/universal atmosphere.

As I said, we can imagine simple fixes, like making the hide an ordinary one instead, that Melchior upgrades. The initial situation is a bit redundant with the panther attack that Serge suffered though. Serge didn't kill the beast and its hide was never used, but there are still small, non-meaniningful-yet-strange similarities. But the main question is, what was so special about that hide in the first place compared to the other pieces of equipment found throughout the game (a hide which rot under the ground for years, moreover)?

With Zeality's latest suggestion, I agree that Crono's equipment is nicely fixed though. We could have the father's equipment be recoverable after some point in the game (not right before Melchior upgrades it though, that would be too suspicious and coincidental). Its upgrade would be justified by the fact that Melchior could really upgrade anything and come up with the same ultimate protection in the end anyway, and so the father's equipments are choosen for sentimental values. This doesn't apply to Ayla, because a lion skin buried in volcanic grounds for a dozen of years is hardly a good material for Melchior to work with...

In some aspects, I believe the hide could fit better if the party had to hunt the creature themselves and directly. This would be redundant with Khrusaor though... We could merge both situations and have this creature be Khrusaor, but it wouldn't fit without heavy alterations since Khrusaor isn't a feline (I'm not sure I'm up to date with this side-quest, but he isn't a feline, right?).

[ZeaLitY]

Yeah, and the party would be approaching ** to kill that beast anyhow...

Well, we already have Magus visiting and talking to Janus, so perhaps him challenging his older self is too over the top and redundant. I'm going to give it some thought and try to come up with another scenario. I thought about sending him to 302 A.D. to a serious conflict between Guardia and a few magic using Mystics, in which the old knight would have been present. Magus would have known about the presence of a legendary item in the Mystics hands that was destroyed there. Still, this is kind of inventing history for convenience. For if this was true, why couldn't the party go to 15000 B.C. to find some other legendary armor that existed only then? Or farther back? So I need to keep thinking.

Here's an idea: Ayla wears Dreamstone.

Anyhow, I implore you guys to try and think up ideas for Magus and Ayla too, because I'm going to be pretty busy for a while...and getting the Zeal part of the Retranslation added to the script also takes precedence when I do have some free time.

[Daniel Krispin]

Chrono'99, I agree that it might be good to have them hunt the lion, but I still stand by the name, and will call to me the very things you said: originally, Tricera Plate. That is itself as Greek as Nemean! It means 'three horn'. Just like 'Nemean' comes from Nemos, which is a woodland (thus the wooded region of Nemea.) Honestly, I don't think the names sounds particularly Greek. A kh like in Khrusaor, an x, ph, things like that, and especially a y, are representative of Greek names. Nemea doesn't have the same sort of obvious connection. Woud I not know it, I wouldn't be able to neccessarially peg it as Greek, and I'm better than most at figuring out if a word has a Greek root (I've got a fondness and affinity for etymology, and love perusing the Liddel and Scott Greek Lexicon... that's where I found out what Nemean means.) I admit to being phil-Hellenic, and favouring it, but generally I'm not letting that influence my decisions here - I honestly don't think it sounds out of place. For example, when ZeaLitY had Latin words for a spell, I mentioned what Greek would be, but got him to rather ask Legend for the Hebrew.

The thing is, I've got a good language sense, and I don't see Nemean as sounding particularly Greek. Actually, it sounds more... Latin, because, well, that's the Latin versoin of it. In truth, it doesn't sound Greek at all. Nemeios... that's Greek. The very 'ea' in Nemean is a Latin (thence English) version. It's like Achilles. Not at all Greek in sound. Akhilleus sounds Greek, but the way we say the 'ees' at the end of Achilles couldn't quite be done in Greek. 'ho Nemeios lay-own' ... phonetically, that's how you say Nemean Lion in Greek. Even the 'ee-en' on Nemean is wholly English. Some words due retain a bit of the Greek sound, despite a greatly changed pronunciation. Aeschylus sounds Greek, even though it is far removed from the true 'Ai-skh-u-ous' (that lone u is like a german umlaudt... can't quite say it in English.) But Nemean is too generic to be readily identifiable.

I must ask, for example, does not the Indo-European Janus (pronounced ee-ah-nus), a very allusive name, stand out of place in Zeal? Nemean, I maintain, is no worse than the name Janus. If you take the anglisized Jay-nus, it fits better, even as Nemean does. But ee-ah-nuss is out of place with Kajar and Enhasa as Nemeios would be with Ioka. So that's my defence. Just like Belthesar, Melchior, Janus, and the rest didn't take us out of the world, neither does this. And trust me on this, I'm a writer that makes a heck of a lot of uses of allusive names, and as a fantasy writer I'm better than 99% at being careful and consistant with names and their feel. This won't be a problem. And interestingly, I chose Nemean because it DOES sound primitive. Anyway, I really fail to see how Janus is not out of place, but Nemean would be. Really, if THAT didn't draw people out of the 'CT world', then neither will this... and in some ways, such uses and allusions to myth are a hallmark of the Chrono world. Only, unlike FF and the like, they tend to be more pertinant than mere names. That was one of the things I liked best - the allusions that seemed for once fitting. Oh, and let's not forget, the Fates of CC. Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis. Direct, absolutely direct, allusion to the three Fates. I never quite got what they're doing there, yet CC does it. Seriously, I don't think this all is a concern.

By the way, amidst all my ranting... what WOULD you suggestion be for a name?

[Chrono'99]

Well, it's a question of meaning, not of etymology. The word "Tricera" in Tricera Plate comes from the Greek, but there were no Triceratops in Greece; this piece of armor makes us think much more about the dinosaur species than something Greek. On the other hand, "Nemean" by definition refers either to the Greek wood or the Greek mythical lion of that wood. I do realize that my Zeal example was not a good one, as Janus (and Dalton) are used among other names corresponding to other cultures... My main point however was that Prehistory is a truely virgin, neutral ground in the Chrono series, nothing in it corresponds to an identifiable culture in the real world. Janus and Dalton can fit in Zeal, and the Moirae can fit in the futuristic Chronopolis, but none of them would have fitted in the Prehistoric era as they are culture-specific and this era is not. It would have altered the sense of universal Motherland central to that period. I feel that putting a NemeanHide in this neutral Prehistory would be like implying that this era is Greek (Greek-inspired, I mean), and consequently that all the historical civilizations on the Chrono planet have their origin in a primordial Greek-like mother civilization. I mean, the Americans raised their flag on the Moon, and here, we are in my opinion, raising a Western "flag" in Prehistory... The comparison might seem a little disturbing or disproportionate, but I do not think it's really that far from the truth.

...but of course, I realize that the following will close the debate:

By the way, amidst all my ranting... what WOULD you suggestion be for a name?

In the end, I don't have a better name to suggest. It doesn't reduce my argumentation, but it does prevent us from reaching a solution... What comes to my mind is some sort of clothing elementally charged with Sun Stone energy... SolarMantle, or something. Not that great is it? So, I still stand seriously by my position, but I'll let "NemeanHide" be now since that's still the best name we have for the Ayla stuff, despite the strong eurocentric connotation. That is, except if someone later finds a name which is better and less culturally oriented.

~

Anyway, there may be a problem with the CyrusPlate. People in the Kingdom of Guardia, including the King, didn't know Cyrus' whereabouts in 600 A.D., they didn't know he was dead. So it's most probable that Glenn buried Cyrus with his equipments as he couldn't have tell the King and gave them to him. It might be hard to recover these in CT:CE, except if Glenn would dig up his friend's tomb...

And, er... I don't want to "destroy" this topic or anything but... is this ultimate equipment idea really interesting to begin with, in terms of gameplay? I'm not sure anymore... CT didn't have ultimate equipments unique to each character; there was no single ultimate armor but several ones which all had different pros and cons. Moon Armor for instance was less resistant than PrismMail or whatever, but gave a whopping Mag.Def. +10. Nova Armor had a status protection. I think this is also the case in CC (perhaps to a smaller extent). Having only one single ultimate armor and one single ultimate helmet for each character may reduces flexibility and strategy. Should we have non character-specific ultimate equipments instead? Most of the ultimate equipments proposed in this topic can remain, but they would just be equipable by everybody (or by "males" or "females") and may not be "ultimate". We could still have some character-specific equipments too, probably for Ayla, Robo, and Magus, since their anatomy and style are the most different from the other characters'.

[ZeaLitY]

We ended up with enough stuff for ultimate armor since Chrono Trigger was sort of wasteful. There was some extra low-end armor and then all the elemental vests. I suppose we should bring in CyberSarkany to weigh in...

[nightmare975]

Regarding the CyrusPlate, perhaps it would be a good time to tell everyone that Cyrus was killed? Glenn is finally ready to admit the truth to the people of Guardia and goes the goes to the grave and tells the ghost of Cyrus that he's finally strong enough, mentally and physically to defeat the Time Devourer. Cyrus is proud of his friend in admiting the truth finally and now his soul can rest in piece for all enternity. When the ghost disappears, Glenn finds the CyrusPlate on top of the grave.

[CyberSarkany]

If there are armours left, I would throw follwing idea in:
Don't make one ultimate, like status protection+highest def., instead do more, yet semi-ultimate, armours, like:
- high def
- medium def + status protection
- Medium def + element absorb
- low def + element absorb + status protection

Combined with various Helm and accesoires it is far more tactical than best armour + best helm. CT had at least haste helm + nova & prism helm + Moon for the males and prims helm + Prism mail(or whatever it was called). The player would need to equip the party after his own style of playing and the enemies he will encounter, not only use the best stuff and have it easy.

This doesn't have to be for every char, like some stuff is for a certain char(or gender) only.

[Daniel Krispin]

Well, it's a question of meaning, not of etymology. The word "Tricera" in Tricera Plate comes from the Greek, but there were no Triceratops in Greece; this piece of armor makes us think much more about the dinosaur species than something Greek. On the other hand, "Nemean" by definition refers either to the Greek wood or the Greek mythical lion of that wood. I do realize that my Zeal example was not a good one, as Janus (and Dalton) are used among other names corresponding to other cultures... My main point however was that Prehistory is a truely virgin, neutral ground in the Chrono series, nothing in it corresponds to an identifiable culture in the real world. Janus and Dalton can fit in Zeal, and the Moirae can fit in the futuristic Chronopolis, but none of them would have fitted in the Prehistoric era as they are culture-specific and this era is not. It would have altered the sense of universal Motherland central to that period. I feel that putting a NemeanHide in this neutral Prehistory would be like implying that this era is Greek (Greek-inspired, I mean), and consequently that all the historical civilizations on the Chrono planet have their origin in a primordial Greek-like mother civilization. I mean, the Americans raised their flag on the Moon, and here, we are in my opinion, raising a Western "flag" in Prehistory... The comparison might seem a little disturbing or disproportionate, but I do not think it's really that far from the truth.

...but of course, I realize that the following will close the debate:

Hmmm... unfortuately, now you're starting to make sense. Okay, how about we call it ForestLion or something like that? That way they can hunt it, too. And it IS non-descript. Also, the hunt can be treated in the typical way you see with certain beasts (and in this I'm thinking back to Greek... again): the beast has been killing people, so they ask a band (in this case, THE band) of heroes to help. So they go on the lion hunt, and kill the thing. Ayla gets the ForestLion and the LionHead, and that's that. Better?

[Chrono'99]

I think this is a good solution, though the difficulty in practice may be to create a lion sprite... The "Beast" monster looks the most like a lion, but his attack animations don't correspond very well as the monster charges with its head like a bull instead of using its claws in a feline way.

Well, I think I'll have to inspect the Beast spriteset to see if we can convert it decently (I'm afraid this will be difficult). If the lion monster is possible, here's my idea to wrap up this hide stuff. The party kills the Forest Lion and gains a Forest Lion and a Lion Head: two decent equipments, though not exceptional. Later, Melchior can upgrade the 2 pieces of equipment with Sun Stone energy, to create the much more resistant StellarLeo and Lion Crown. This way, the allusion is kept and even expanded a bit (the Nemean lion was turned into a constellation after its death, wasn't it?), but the cultural bias is lessened since we're not naming the lion explicitely; it could pass as a reference to a universal motif rather than the specifically Greek legend.

If we can't make a lion sprite, then the party simply recovers the buried lion hide as in Zeality's idea. The party and Ayla are surprised that it's still in good condition - in excellent condition actually. We'll imply that the local piece of ground is really a Power Spot (like Divine Dragon Falls and the Sun Keep), and that it's why the hide and head buried there for years became exceptionally resistant. In this scenario, Melchior doesn't have to intervene, so we need only two names: Forest Lion / Lion Head, or StellarLeo / Lion Crown, or maybe StellarLeo / Lion Head?

---

Regarding the CyrusPlate, perhaps it would be a good time to tell everyone that Cyrus was killed? Glenn is finally ready to admit the truth to the people of Guardia and goes the goes to the grave and tells the ghost of Cyrus that he's finally strong enough, mentally and physically to defeat the Time Devourer. Cyrus is proud of his friend in admiting the truth finally and now his soul can rest in piece for all enternity. When the ghost disappears, Glenn finds the CyrusPlate on top of the grave.

Well it's sure enough that Glenn told the King at the end of CT and people are aware of it in CE. The weird detail was if Glenn had to dig up Cyrus' tomb to get the armor... but your idea about a final consultation with Cyrus' spirit solves the problem.

[Chrono'99]

A suggestion for the ultimate armor created by Melchior from the Dreamweave:

The ArayaShiki.

This refers to a Buddhic notion, the store consciousness ("Alayavijnana" in Sanskrit, "Araya-shiki" in Japanese). According to some Buddhic schools, there are 8 senses: the 5 physical senses, the sense of ideas, the sense of self-awareness, and the 8th one, the store consciousness. In a nutshell, this sense is the collection of all the sensations, ideas, and emotions ("seeds"), which together constitute the universe as one perceives it. It keeps one's impressions of the past and influences one's actions and thoughts. After death, the 7 first senses cease to exist, but the 8th one remains and carries on to the next reincarnation.

So, yeah, that's quite profound. That's exactly what we need though: something "more than human", truely transcendental. This is in my opinion more daunting than Time Shell. Also, as always with Buddhic concepts, a lot of interpretations are possible, whether they're pertinent or crazy. This 8th sense might have some similarities with Schala's Sea of Dreams for instance, if dreams are born there and will eventually return to it (of course, we don't have to characterize the armor with these abstract properties or mention these ramblings)... There are even some (more coincidental) ties with Melchior: the store consciousness contains metaphorical "seeds", and Melchior did create the actual Seed of Life/Hope. The equipments that Melchior forges even have a phonetical motif this way: Ara Dei, ArayaShiki (yeah, this is totally tangential, but it's still nice-sounding to the ear, no?).

This notion is not very obscure, at least in Japan. It was used in the manga Saint Seiya for example, in which mastering this Arayashiki sense is the only mean for the characters to enter the realm of the dead without... dying first.

Anyway, I think this Buddhic allusion with a Japanese name would be a welcome addition to counterbalance the mass of Classical references.

[ZeaLitY]

My final final is in an hour and thirty minutes. So we are keeping ultimate armor? I guess the only factors that matter are extra scenes versus extra armor possibilities. With my current setup, there are like two armors per chapter; the old one from last chapter, and the new one available in a dungeon. In the next chapter, the new one becomes a bit old and maybe can be sold in shops, while yet another is introduced. Chrono Trigger had multiple armors per chapter, however. Of course, CT didn't have that many more, it was moreover just the four elemental vests.

[Chrono'99]

Looking back, I'm feeling more and more unconfortable with the setup... Some armors appear in two different and distant eras, and some anachronisms are hard not to notice (Prometheus Buster in shops from 602 AD?). I know this kind of things happened in CT too, but still, I feel like we could be more "rigorous" about this, especially as our names are more technical than the CT ones (XocoltSuit sounds so much like something from the Reptite timeline that it's strange to see it sold in 602 AD too).

Actually, I'm afraid we started the equipment topic the wrong way; we should probably have started with the story placement planning first and only then have picked up names accordingly. Of course, I realize this whole story placement setup must have been difficult to come up with to begin with, so personally I'm not sure how I would correct it (this would require fixing it and probably having to change some names, all at the same time... like juggling with several balls at the same time).