Revised Plot and Planning Thread

[ZeaLitY]

Legend of the Past's notes for the Atash Kedah scene:

1. The reward for Zeal is death.
2. Let the world be bathed in the fire of heaven.

AhPras AhYachid Bishvile Zeal Ooh Mavet.

הפרס היחיד בשביל זיל הוא מוות.

Tno LaHolam Leerchotz BeHesh Gan Eden.

תנו לעולם לרחוץ באש גן עדן.

[ZeaLitY]

Pressing issues:

Frozen Flame Scenes -- I don't think we reached something concrete. By the way Vehek, did you get my PM about AIM? Perhaps Chrono'99, you, and I can resolve this tomorrow. We're just showing little scenes rather than long battles, right?
Belthasar KRS Device -- About to go through the plot thread once I finish and check this out. If push comes to shove, perhaps Gaspar can contact them from the End of Time?
Belthasar's Speech -- You know, the long one. Well, I forgot where it goes, but we need at least some of it if only for that part where Lavos stands up and "Zeal Palace" plays. That part was amazing.
Theme of Humanity / Lavos -- We need to pick a few spots in the plot to put hints towards this theme so that it's not all dumped at the end in DBT quotes.
Sorin -- Stick in his naming somewhere.

[nightmare975]

I think Belthasar's speach should be turned into a semi cutscene. Much like the begining of FFVI.

[ZeaLitY]

I checked the entire outline and again and it seems we won't have to worry about Belthasar and the KRS device. Okay, so we have that speech, which basically talks about the Flame, and how Lavos used it to give humans magic, and how King Zeal found it and was zapped. What's the best place for this? I can tone it down so it's not so darn text-heavy...I notice in the outline that there is no "gather round heroes, let me tell you about King Zeal, who is the one behind the changes!" Would it still work before the mission to prehistory? They learn about the Flame and get hints about King Zeal in Zeal, so keeping it in that position seems good.

Sorin can be named in 1002 Reptite when he meets the party.

And humanity / Lavos...we've got the DBT. Then perhaps this works:

• At this Atash Kedah, King Zeal notes how Zeal and Lavos are both in a contest for survival, and he will kill Lavos.
• When Crono meets with the religious leaders who doubt the time travelers, they'll reason that time traveling is going too far...that the Reptites have grown in harmony with the planet by restricting their ambitions, and that the time traveling seems to be a blind leap.
• At the second Atash Kedah sequence, King Zeal taunts Crono and talks about the Flame. It's such an illustrious shade of crimson...it represents the uncovered, unbound desire for more power and advancement. He notes that communicating with it has given him many new perspectives, and opened his mind to all sorts of things...
• Cakulha in the missile base ridicules the world and the party for mucking in time, noting that dangerous, blind pursuits like this are like a cancer of space-time.
• Yaluk tells the party that she knows of Azala, who may have had a chance to save the Reptites, but was so selfish and absorbed with his war with humanity that he did nothing and was crushed by the events of Lavos's fall. His desire became almost self-destructive. Yaluk cautions the humans against a similar fate.
• At the Ocean Palace, the Frozen Flame perhaps speaks after all the players falter. It notes that none of them are worthy to control the evolution of God...but if Ayla is present and succeeds, it can say something like "Speak...voice of the land. What are you...?"
• At the North Cape, King Zeal reveals that something behind the Flame has taken a violent turn...and he must answer the call as the Flame-bearer. He muses that even in the eternal pursuit, things end with darkness.
• The Entity directly calls out Crono on whether this is true.
• At the DBT, the full story erupts. Emanations of Lavos reveal the role of the Arbiter...Lavos's history and original desires...and the spurned Lavos's desire to end it all. At the end, the player characters reveal what they've learned. Magus represents this well -- "...What stupid, destructive desires. Zeal and Lavos are the same, consumed by their own power. Such pathetic things are ashes in the Black Wind. You writhe and scream of deceitful dreams...and lament your sorrows with hateful art...But you have delayed the inevitable. Nothing can live forever! The darkness has at last come to claim you. I will personally send you to hell, Lavos!

Also make sure Belthasar notes that Chronopolis will be pulled back by an attempt to get the flame. That's a great plot point.

~

Okay, that's it for the final post here tonight. Please comment on all this stuff...and is that Magus line good? I spent a good ten minutes on it, since it was a little rough.

[nightmare975]

You make a good point Zealty. But I have two ideas for CE.

First one: What if Chronopolis is destroyed? It would make a reason to return to the End of Time, and give another reason to why the Chronopolis in Chrono Cross is different to the one in CE(and doesn't have the TDC).

Second: Currently, we have the entire crew from the orginal game, why don't we replace Ayla with a reptile from the other dimension? He/she could have conflicts with Chrono stopping King Zeal from causing the Atash Kedah, but in the end decides that he/she shouldn't be the product of a time traveller's actions (his creation is the cause of King Zeal stopping Lavos) but when Zeal is stopped, he/she still lives because of TTI. This further fuels his/her rage for King Zeal and remains with the party until the end of the game, at which point lives out the rest of his/her life in the reptile sanctuary you wrote about in another topic.

God damn it I hate it when I write so much for something that will never be used.

[Chrono'99]

First one: What if Chronopolis is destroyed? It would make a reason to return to the End of Time, and give another reason to why the Chronopolis in Chrono Cross is different to the one in CE(and doesn't have the TDC).

This might be difficult because we need to avoid permanent settlements in the End of Time, because Belthasar wants to hide knowledge of the Fall of Guardia from the party and Gaspar. If they would stay at the EoT long enough, they might learn about this event by observing the timeline. The Chronopolis location will probably be augmented a bit though, perhaps with some room for Gaspar, etc. It already looks like a very subtle, early version of the CC time fortress actually, with the elevator that leads to the underground Powerstation with Mother "FATE" Brain guarding it.

Second: Currently, we have the entire crew from the orginal game, why don't we replace Ayla with a reptile from the other dimension? He/she could have conflicts with Chrono stopping King Zeal from causing the Atash Kedah, but in the end decides that he/she shouldn't be the product of a time traveller's actions (his creation is the cause of King Zeal stopping Lavos) but when Zeal is stopped, he/she still lives because of TTI. This further fuels his/her rage for King Zeal and remains with the party until the end of the game, at which point lives out the rest of his/her life in the reptile sanctuary you wrote about in another topic.

God damn it I hate it when I write so much for something that will never be used.

Personally, I think this could be interesting, but... we might alienate fans of Ayla by doing this (or not?). In any case, I'd rather wait until human Glenn is real before considering another PC replacement.

~

About the Frozen Flame:

I think it could be very effective to show it and reveal its name for the first time at Lavos's Crater. The details about its uses can be explained normally in Belthasar's files, but perhaps it could be referred to only with cryptic names or periphrases like "a strange Red Rock", etc. The players would be curious; some might guess that it's the Frozen Flame, or not... In any case, they'd be amazed in the climactic Atash Kedah scene to see a weird "ammonite" sprite opening itself to reveal the famous CC Frozen Flame. Then King Zeal would finally refer to it as the "Frozen Flame", and the name would stuck.

Perhaps he should also reveal at this point that the Flame's creation was accidental and that the destruction of Zeal was caused by Lavos' attempt at claiming it back.

The KRS: Are we dumping it? I never thought it was very necessary.

[ZeaLitY]

Okay. Yeah, KRS is out, and perhaps we can replicate that scene for King Zeal with the dramatic "Lavos stands up" scene intact. We'll still make sure it looks like King Zeal has no idea he is under Lavos's control.

If the thematic insertions I listed are in order, then I think we're through here and can move on to sidequests.

[ZeaLitY]

Forgot about the nightmare sequences...

Crono's would probably be an inability to protect those he loves. Marle...would become a commoner, but yes, couldn't run away from all her duties.

Magus would fear never finding Schala, so the Flame would offer him...hah, it'd be so fun to give him the power to extract her from Zeal, only to have her disappear from Time Bastard, but no one would buy that.

I'm really starting to desire importing fresh ideas for these nightmare sequences, because I'm bankrupt for ideas. Anywya, we can continue with the sidequests and endings now.

[Chrono'99]

Yeah, we can probably just leave this part blurry for now and do the rest. I'm sure ideas will come up naturally when we'll have a good amount of the game finally coded.

[ZeaLitY]

• 01 Magus goes through the Beast Forest, then Dalton's Hideout
• 02 Crono / Marle / Lucca fight Sorin, then several enemies after inspection
• 03 Crono / Marle / Lucca go through Zeal Dungeon, add Magus then go through Ocean Palace
• 04 Glenn and All go through Kasmir's tunnel
• 05 All go through Zeal with one Nu battle
• 06 All go through Singing Mountain to battle Nizbel, then rush to crater to battle King Zeal
• 07 Marle goes through Terra Tower
• 08 Lucca and Robo go through a factory to dismantle an AI, then go through Terra Tower to fight the Dragon God
• 09 Crono, Magus, and Glenn fight in the strong contest, then enter Terra Tower and fight Coyopa
• 10 Crono, Magus, and Glenn battle King Zeal
• 11 Marle battles Antaeus
• 12 All go through Cakulha's rebel base and possibly batle him
• 13 Glenn romps around a mountain, possibly killing a few monsters
• 14 All fight several battles in 602 A.D. in Kasmir's fort
• 15 Crono fights a few battles in Guardia Castle
• 16 All fight rigorous battles at the secret Porre lab, including proto Neo N' Bulb
• 17 All fight Spekkio and possibly a couple monsters long ago
• 18 All, definitely Magus, fight several monsters at the icy lake and kill Dalton
• 19 All fight several monsters at the Ocean Palace
• 20 All battle the Frozen Flame and perhaps other monsters in the nightmare
• 21 All fight...numerous side quests

* The party go through wilderness of prehistory and fight a boss on Singing Mountain
* The party defeat the ultimate boss, Khrusaor
* The party fight several enemies to save library books
* The party battle several soldiers on the ship near Choras
* The party beat the Coliseum (at any time)
* The party defeat Kasmir
* Glenn fights Spekkio
* The party fight in the Valle Crimse and Crono fights the Old Knight
* Magus duels Janus and Schala

• 22 Surprisingly, nothing happens.
• 23 All go through the underwater dungeon; Crono has specific battles afterwards
• 24 All go through the Darkness Beyond Time

[Vehek]

If Lucca's and Robo's Reptile TL part comes before Crono's, Magus's, and Glenn's; then what happens to the key to the optional boss? Beating up monsters in 1999 A.D. isn't going to make those same monsters drop the key to the optional boss room in 1002 A.D.

[ZeaLitY]

Was that from an earlier incarnation of the plot?

[nightmare975]

Was that from an earlier incarnation of the plot?

It's kinda what Jason used to create Terra Tower,

[Chrono'99]

Better late than never... Plot-hole alert!

There's a problem with the whole Chapters 7 and 8 (Reptite 1 A.D. and Reptite 1,999 A.D.). What's special about these chapters is that Marle dies in the former and Lucca and Robo are stranded in the future in the latter, for the rest of their lifes. It's basically "game over" for these 3 characters.

To recover them, the neat plot device we have is that it's not them who save themselves in a typical "heroes can't die" fashion, but it's Crono, Glenn and Magus who prevent them from dying by outright reverting the timeline in Prehistory. This results (in Chapter 11) in a different version of Marle appearing in the human 1 A.D., and different versions of Lucca and Robo appearing in the future (kinda like there's two versions of Belthasar in CT and CC).

That's totally original and clever storywise, but we have a problem gameplaywise: Marle, Lucca and Robo will gain items, money, levels, and probably Techs in the Reptite timeline... and they will keep all of these in the reverted timeline, even though it's illogical since they aren't the same versions of the characters. How do we solve this?

[nightmare975]

Better late than never... Plot-hole alert!

There's a problem with the whole Chapters 7 and 8 (Reptite 1 A.D. and Reptite 1,999 A.D.). What's special about these chapters is that Marle dies in the former and Lucca and Robo are stranded in the future in the latter, for the rest of their lifes. It's basically "game over" for these 3 characters.

To recover them, the neat plot device we have is that it's not them who save themselves in a typical "heroes can't die" fashion, but it's Crono, Glenn and Magus who prevent them from dying by outright reverting the timeline in Prehistory. This results (in Chapter 11) in a different version of Marle appearing in the human 1 A.D., and different versions of Lucca and Robo appearing in the future (kinda like there's two versions of Belthasar in CT and CC).

That's totally original and clever storywise, but we have a problem gameplaywise: Marle, Lucca and Robo will gain items, money, levels, and probably Techs in the Reptite timeline... and they will keep all of these in the reverted timeline, even though it's illogical since they aren't the same versions of the characters. How do we solve this?

Time Traveller's Immunity should work, right? Or would Time Bastard?