I just played it; Oh, my, GOSH is it awesome!!! But, besides the usual noted bugs, I have ONE complaint:
So far, I've noticed that this game plays like an attempt to "bridge" Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross together, which is EXACTLY what I've been looking for, for, Yahweh knows how many years. I haven't played Chrono Cross for a while, but, if you talk to the CT ghosts on Opassa Beach just before fighting the Time Devourer, it is told what happens to Schala: (can't remember the exact words, so I'll post it in my own)
Basically, Schala gets sucked into a vortex AT the destruction of the Kingdom of Zeal, when Lavos attacks, and gets combined with Lavos, so that the two become one entity. Then, before the destructive mindset can become dominant, she clones herself - because baby Serge was crying as the panther demon attacked him, which touched the heart of Princess Schala, so she travelled 10,000 years in time to try and make contact with Serge's dimension - and sent her copy into that dimension with her magic pendant, possessing powers. (This is supported in the PlayStation remake of Chrono Trigger, at the end, where Lucca finds baby Kid in the forest, with the aid of her mini Robo-bot. And, the other parts of the plot in Crimson Echoes, i.e., war in Guardia with Porre winning, supports the little video in the end of PS/CT, which shows two swordsmen fighting, and one dies; later, a town is burning, and a few people lie dead, presumably Crono, Marle, and Lucca. The text is something like this: 1015 A.D., The fall of the Kingdom of Guardia... And the disappearance of the legendary sword, the Masamune...) Of course, this Lavos, is the Lavos "clone" or backup plan that is mentioned in CC, just in case the original Lavos was destroyed - which it was. Oops. Anyway, I kind of like the idea of having Schala again, but can you STILL keep it true to the Chrono Cross storyline, as well? Like, maybe Magus is reunited with Schala, and they go back a little bit in time, before Zeal was destroyed, to save it; it happens again for some reason, and Schala is sucked into the vortex, resulting eventually in her combining with the "new Lavos," which furthermore would result in the Time Devourer, still giving Chrono Cross its purpose: rescuing Schala once and for all... (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Belthasar mentions it as well in Chrono Cross, so........) I was thinking it would be good to stay true to the Chrono Cross storyline, bridging the gap. However, just about as many things can happen in the game without "breaking" the CC storyline; heck, Schala could be saved 10,000 times if it was done right, but I was hoping for a game that would bridge the two games together, notwithstanding Radical Dreamers, which is an alternate dimension, bearing almost no resemblances to either CT or CC - though, in that game, Kid does indirectly mention Crono getting killed, and Kid said that her "big sis," which is Lucca, wanted Crono to rest with the Frozen Flame. Don't care so much about the RD storyline; it's a dimension all its own, so it will always "work," per se. I'm sorry about all of this rambling, but if you don't add Schala getting lost in that vortex - regardless of saving her again (BTW, if you do decide for this idea/positive criticism, maybe it should be at least a few chapters after saving Schala, just to jerk at some heartstrings... *Sob, Weep, Cry, Mourn*) - then it won't feel like a true CT sequel, at least to me. Doesn't matter when, though, especially if another attempt were made at saving Zeal; it would work almost perfectly with Belthasar's time chamber that he has in Chronopolis, i.e., it only works a year at a time, so let's say, that Epoch only travels to relative time eras, maybe, and not absolute time eras; Belthasar's chamber could do it, right back to 12,000 B.C., and not 11,998 B.C. or whatever it is. (Maybe a few of the Zealians want to try to stop Lavos before it smashes the Kingdom of Zeal, maybe even Schala, but they fail - again. (Side note: I know about the various theories of Lavos existing outside of time and such, but it seems more probable that the special "Lavos dimension" theory, of which is connected to most other time periods in CT, would be more accurate; this would explain the weird, but cool, wave/pool background that accompanies its first form when you fight it in CT, and why, when Lavos is destroyed, all time periods are positively affected. It would also support another reason for trying to save Zeal - in some ways.)
I don't know. Do what you want, but I think it would help solve a potential problem that would be created with the whole storyline: Crimson Echoes would not properly bridge the other two games - in effect, it would make Lucca a liar in CC.
Thank you for your time, and once again, I apologize for the length of this post. This is the best fan project I think I have ever seen!
EDIT: I was looking through the posts in this topic, and for the Glenn/Frog debate, I personally think, that since Glenn IS his human form at the end of the PlayStation Chrono Trigger, keeping him as Glenn would keep the storyline stable; either the spell wears off, or Magus calls it off. Or... Maybe you could have them BOTH playable somehow? (Maybe, to appease the "Frog only" fans, you could give Glenn a spell that would change him to Frog, or back to Glenn whenever you please. However, looking through the posts, it seems like you would be pretty limited with what you could do, due to the limits that Square Enix had to work with in the ROM.) I simply request that the things that happened in the PlayStation cutscenes (i.e., Glenn's human form, fall of Guardia because of Porre (CC tie-in), baby Kid (maybe)) be not nullified - let them fit, and tie this whole series together in semi-perfect knots. And, that the CC plot be not rejected, but accepted for what it is, and utilized in this game - at least through dialogue, and Schala getting sucked into the vortex and whatnot; since you've obviously made some other attempts with the creation of Chronopolis, why not go all the way?
That is all I have to say in regards to this matter. Please consider it, at least. (I'd do a tie-in game myself, but I don't have the programming skills, nor the creative mental faculties - except in poetry - nor the time to give to a project like that; but, this is exactly what I've been looking for, for a long time - and I'm sure others, as well.)
