If you could change Chrono Cross, how would you do it?

[FaustWolf]

On that note, anyone know of some good Serge-centric fanfics? A talented writer can shine a whole new and unexpected light on a given character. I was absolutely disgusted with Harle until I read apsymbol's Harle fanfic, which turned me into a huge fan of the little clown. If only apsymbol didn't disappear after such a promising first post!

[Zaulche]

What if the person playing the game was given response choices. If you use a format similar to the growlanser or start ocean games then relationships with your party members can be affected by how you react to a certain situation. Not sure if that can be done easily with a hack, since you would need new variables, but I think it is something to consider.

If we reduce the number of characters at the same time then we gain some of that speech text back, so we could have the characters in your party respond differently depending on how much they like or dislike you.

Don't like Kid? Then you can ignore her, not save her, be nice to Leena, and get close to her instead of Kid/Schala at the end of the game.

It would also be a way to give the characters more personality. For example, Glenn tries to do what is right. Maybe if you pick up Glenn, but then perform acts that are sly or dishonorable (not sure if there are any, but we could always create some) he then leaves your party because of it. Maybe some characters would only stay with you if you were sly.

Anyway, that might make it more complicated than it needs to be, but I like the idea of allowing players to choose the character they want to be. If you do not really like Kid then why play a game to save her other half? I think more choice would be a great way to expand upon the gaming experience without having to create a lot of new content from scratch (such as maps and locations).

[FaustWolf]

From what I've seen of the decompressed dialogue files, branching paths shouldn't be too difficult to implement via ambitious hacking. I'm still not sure how the game knows which "path" to take after a branch point, i.e., which fieldscript to load in a given room when more than one exist, but event flags might be involved somehow. Luckily ZeaLitY archived what's known about Chrono Cross event flags somewhere in the forums here -- the subject had been brought up by an investigator at GameFAQs, but the admins there purge the boards every so often, eliminating countless goodies along with the chaff.

The major difficulty associated with branching paths is the sheer amount of work for the writers. We might end up having to gather several writing teams to split up the work, much as Kato did with Radical Dreamers -- I've read that much of the writing was done by people other than Kato. Hopefully there will be no shortage of folks who want to see their writing emblazoned in interactive form, when the time comes. All interested parties must study Compendium theory and the forum debates closely in the meantime.

[Zaulche]

If it is event flags then it should not be hard to implement once we know where they are. We can create our own set of flags to check for when a room is loaded and create our own fieldscript text.

It seems like the most difficult task is just deciphering where and how this information is stored and recalled. Once we know changing it should be relatively simple (albeit tedious).

Then again, I am still very new to hacking, so I do not actually have any idea. Perhaps I am just naively optimistic.

[FaustWolf]

The event flag info is here:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,5167.0.html

The Gameshark code for altering the event flags was reported by joseph_sw. There should be a way to figure out where event flags are stored (in RAM?) just by looking at the gameshark code, but I haven't even begun to investigate that sort of thing yet.

EDIT: Oh, maybe it's actually just address 0x800E57A0 in the PSX RAM that does it, i.e., Gameshark codes work directly on specific RAM addresses, so no re-interpreting of the code has to be done unlike with the old Game Genie codes.

[nightmare975]

*Give Zoah some clothes.
*Fewer playable characters altogether -- a Final Fantasy VI-size roster can produce just the right balance between variety and character development.
*Make one or more of the following characters playable: Dario, Miguel.
*Better explain the underlying story using Compendium theory, and in a way that isn't so esoteric and cramped into the last minutes of the game.

[tushantin]

xD I liked all the options, but I'd rather stick to my own opinion. *ahem* Chrono Cross is a good game, but if I managed to hack it then I'd change, well, everything!

For one, I'd change the setting of the story. Being good at storyboard plotting, I'll manage to do that with sufficient amount of time, linking it properly to Chrono Trigger/Radical Dreamers with great respect. Although, I wouldn't intend to "revive" some of the dead characters (well, I could revive Magus). I wouldn't really remove the characters already playable in-game, except for a few useless ones, and group them accordingly; say a group of playable characters that are involved with the story greatly and have good personally developments, and another group of playable characters who aren't useful for the story and are just there for fun's sake, except for minor side-quests/stories (I'll give that to all characters) and certain secrets. So the major characters would only be a few.

Next, I'll keep the current stamina battle system with innate, but somehow shorten the LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG battle transitions. Well, an active battle would be great too. xD I'd also give Guile a priority, and at a certain point revealing his true identity as (duh!) Magus, where all his old spells and stuff is unlocked. The character will then change his appearance from Guile to CT style Magus. He will be the one to rescue Schalla. And pretty much, I'd say that the so called "Time Devourer" really sucked! =_= Lavos seemed more intimidating than it. SO I'd change EVERYTHING about it, giving it a far more scarier appearance and battle formations than Lavos, including it's spells and skills. FATE also sucked, and I'd do the same with it.

Another thing that would make CT fans cling onto Cross hack. xD Secret playable characters that have some connection with the old CT. Give the characters more background story, and making them interact with other playable characters to give more depth. Give more skills and spells. Enable exploration outside El Nido, including exploring Guardia and Medina, etc. Implement Time Travel. Make Glenn learn about Frog (LOL). The true mystery of Ayla and Leah. Ayla's baby (W00T). Several alternatives resulting in several different timeline effects. Secret bosses and items.

Okay, I think I mentioned too much. But I must say I have a LOT more ideas where THAT little thing came from. XD So you can see, I wanna do everything in my power to (BE A GOD AND) change the game and make it several times interesting driving the gameplay to it's apex. Plus, I hated the way it connected with Chrono Trigger, so yeah.

P.S.: Did I mention I WOULDN'T let Prometheus (Robo) die either?! And someone *secret* appears and fixes him?

[OverlordMikey]

I would remove someof the useless/pointless characters, I would keep Leena

Don't like Kid? Then you can ignore her, not save her, be nice to Leena, and get close to her instead of Kid/Schala at the end of the game.

that would be nice....don't get me wrong I like Kid, but that idea of making a choice between the two seems nice. Serge is still young, there's plenty of time to choose a girl....well trying to save everybody and being a mindless husk controlled by multible forces...seriously I think he need a personlity, I learned I was being used from the start I'd say screw the world! Back to seriousness, I would want the game to make more sense to, half of the time I had no idea what was going on! I felt like I had missed something important, but after playng a few more times I noticed that I hadn't, character devolpment was so abscure at times I felt Luccia (did I get that name right? The scientist lady who was friends with Lucca....my point was made in that description!) could have been way better, I mean she had connetions with a considrable amount of characters, apparently knew some stuff about the first game from Lucca, ext, It feels like they set her up for something then said...."awwww screw it..." then threw in the letter from Lucca and walked away. Add Magus...goes without saying...it felt like he should have been there, If they felt that he would have been overused over everyone else or whatever they could have had it so that he only joins at certain points (they can do it, they did it with Kid and about half the cast when you turn into Lynx!)

I've been rambeing sorry. I felt like some of the game was just thrown together at the last minute...like they where bored and wanted to get it over with quickly or something. This is more like a complain about the game sorry. Um you get the picture

-More lucid story (It never made much sense to me, I got the general idea to some extent)
-Better character devlopment
-Bring Magus back!
-ext.

[FaustWolf]

All good feedback. If we are worried about Magus/Magil overwhelming the other characters with his sheer awesomeness, we must simply make the other characters more awesome so that they may compete for the gamer's affection.

[MagilsugaM]

More story about all characters. They are so many and you don't know well were some of then came from, like Greco or Leah and many many more. Add like more flashbacks on the story (like in Dario's side-quest). And more side-quest!!

[tushantin]

Exactly! So suppose when we do develop the hack for Chrono, aside from the development team we'll need a debate.

  Along side Magus, which characters would be playable. (But I suppose, playing with useless characters could also prove to be enjoyable)
  Turn the game into a dating simulation~ (Lol, not really. xD Just for the several ending's sake, we could give Serge alternatives for his right girl, for fun's sake.)
  Assign 2 to 3 people to work the story and design character background.
  1 or 2 to design "in-detail" plot and subplot, say, secret characters and quests/sidequests?
  Customized artwork? xD Lol, just random.

[Zaulche]

Well, not a dating sim per se, but I like the multiple ending idea. It would give people different game play without having to do a New Game+. It would also add to replay value.

Maybe also add more junctions in the game, where decisions you make affect what people join your party. One thing I did not like about Chrono Cross is you get over 30 characters the first play through, then you have to play through at least two more times (or the equivalent of one more time, if you make liberal use of Continue+) just to get 6 more characters. If the character branching were divided up so that you had to play the game three times to get everyone, but every time you got an equal amount of people, I think I would enjoy playing through the game multiple times more.

I think another option that would be cool is increasing the boss encounters (higher star level) while simultaneously making the enemies more challenging.

Also, the option to start a New Game+ with your items and characters, but being able to reset your level to 1 if you wanted to would also be cool.

[Oatmeal1209]

I'd change the game into an isometric turn-based rpg, a la FFT or Makai series.  It just seems perfect given the number of playable characters.  I had started working on this idea a couple years ago, actually.  Also, the battle system in it's current form might actually work out, obviously given certain tweaks.

EDIT:  Also, I've always wanted to bring this up, I'd give more insight into Norris' backstory, as it would likely tie to the so-called fall of Guardia.

[Radical_Dreamer]

All good feedback. If we are worried about Magus/Magil overwhelming the other characters with his sheer awesomeness, we must simply make the other characters more awesome so that they may compete for the gamer's affection.

Ah yes, the Guilty Gear school of character balance. Everyone gets better, some just more so than others.

[OverlordMikey]

Exactly! So suppose when we do develop the hack for Chrono, aside from the development team we'll need a debate.

  Along side Magus, which characters would be playable. (But I suppose, playing with useless characters could also prove to be enjoyable)
  Turn the game into a dating simulation~ (Lol, not really. xD Just for the several ending's sake, we could give Serge alternatives for his right girl, for fun's sake.)
  Assign 2 to 3 people to work the story and design character background.
  1 or 2 to design "in-detail" plot and subplot, say, secret characters and quests/sidequests?
  Customized artwork? xD Lol, just random.

I...I could write Leena's background, I mean we know her background but, I always felt she was kinda missing something. You know a person would still be affected by the loss of there father at a young age even if it happened a while back. I was like "Why is it she wonders what if Serge had never died?" yet seemingly not once mentions her father even though you have to fight him. (I think there should be a way to bring her to that battle...that would be interesting.) What was she more love for Serge as a child then her father! When Serge died daddy died.....I'm so sad about serge, but not daddy....no wait the Another World version! Of course what a twist the Record of Fate made her not think about him at all (well in home world she had Serge to keep her happy.) Imagine her shock when she learns the fact that the record of fate made her barely think of her father's death (I would need to work on why the record of fate would surpress such a thing, but still.)

Hehehehe I'm getting excited for nothing....I mean is anyone going to really going to do this....if so they would most likely trust someone else to work on this kinda stuff...beside I would never be able to play it (I can't get a Playstation Emulator to work on my computer)