Who is better, Magil or Guile?

[utunnels]

I don't know how many backstories they had written until they decided to replace CC Magus with Guile. The name Gil still exits in the debug text of the final version, with all those other characters' names. But it is possible that they remained the name unchanged until before release.

[V_Translanka]

Well, Magil/Gil is mentioned in CC while you're in Chronopolis...

[utunnels]

Of course I meant the playable one.

[Chrono'99]

Technically it IS Magus vs. Guile. Magil/Gil is just Magus later (who knows how much later?). Guile/Alf is just some random mage character.

Guile has likely been retconned to be Magus though, whereas Magil has been retconned out of the canon storyline.

[Dark Serge]

Well you should be relieved considering Magil is 100x better then Magus

You got that backwards. Magil gets defeated by glowing rope. Magus beats up a giant monster and saves the world.

Actually, I got that perfectly straight. The thing I do like about Magil is that every now and then, he's a positive thinker, not like Magus. I liked Magus in the beginning of Trigger, but the dude just doesn't grow at all during the game. All he can talk about is how he's just going to laugh if he dies, and all he does is standing on peaks with his cape waving in the wind wondering why he's not dead yet. Glenn(Frog) had that same attitude in the beginning of Trigger, but hell he got over it. Magus didn't. The guy's practically looking for death. This is only further implied by the fact that he won't learn any dual or triple techs, which makes him a bad combat player as well.

I loathe Magus, and I thought they finally fixed him up a bit when he appeared as Magil.

[Mr Bekkler]

Well you should be relieved considering Magil is 100x better then Magus

You got that backwards. Magil gets defeated by glowing rope. Magus beats up a giant monster and saves the world.

Actually, I got that perfectly straight. The thing I do like about Magil is that every now and then, he's a positive thinker, not like Magus. I liked Magus in the beginning of Trigger, but the dude just doesn't grow at all during the game. All he can talk about is how he's just going to laugh if he dies, and all he does is standing on peaks with his cape waving in the wind wondering why he's not dead yet. Glenn(Frog) had that same attitude in the beginning of Trigger, but hell he got over it. Magus didn't. The guy's practically looking for death. This is only further implied by the fact that he won't learn any dual or triple techs, which makes him a bad combat player as well.

I loathe Magus, and I thought they finally fixed him up a bit when he appeared as Magil.

Y'know, I've always thought he had no double or triple techs (I know about the rocks I'm saying normal techs though) because the developers thought him too powerful, I never thought about it being because he didn't want to have any. That's an interesting point.

[Dark Serge]

Compared to all the other characters who can do triple techs, he's not really an asset in battle. I don't see why anyone would have him in the party, unless they're a Magus fan. Him not having double and triple techs is just a typical indication of his bullshit loner streak.

[Mr Bekkler]

Well I don't know about bullshit, but it is well-known that he's not a necessary playable character.

So they probably spent less time developing his stats and interactions with other playable characters as well. But I really don't think it would be for any one reason, probably a combination of things that happen to work together.



SE's list of reasons Magus don't gotz no double or triple techs:

1. He's a loner, Dottie. A rebel.
2. He's already got some strong techs
3. We had some problems with space on the cartridge
4. We couldn't think of any impactful ones
5. We really didn't feel like doing it anyway.

[Dark Serge]

Well, there's only two real plausible options:

A- Square couldn't be assed, in which case they're being lazy, a mistake they have made too much
B- They did it because they really wanted us to feel how emo lonely Magus is.

I swear, the guy doesn't have a single positive emotion in the entire game. I'll commend you if you name me one. Even his love for Schala was a twisted, unhealthy thing. It wasn't incest, but it wasn't healthy family love either.

[alfadorredux]

Compared to all the other characters who can do triple techs, he's not really an asset in battle. I don't see why anyone would have him in the party, unless they're a Magus fan. Him not having double and triple techs is just a typical indication of his bullshit loner streak.

Whether he's useful in your party or not depends on your playing style.  I hardly ever use double or triple techs, because I always seem to get more damage from two top-level single techs (that might be just an artefact of character levels and equipment, I suppose, but...) and Magus' single techs are pretty damned good, so I find that he's an asset to my party.

Loner?  Well, yeah, he is.  Those of us who are also loners can empathise with that, y'know.

[maggiekarp]

Magus made some jokes if you took him with you for the Rainbow Shell sidequest. They weren't exactly positive, but they were remarkably light-hearted for the character thus far.

As for his relationship with Schala, it's very much open to interpretation. Going from context clues from his life as Janus, he was a complete shut-in because of his own death-vision powers and later hatred of magic. The people in Zeal noted that his pacing around was a new thing, since he rarely went out and only ever talked with his sis and cat. Something hit me when he went to the Earthbound village with Schala and remarked how filthy it was, everyone seems to take that as him being a rude little churl and insulting the morlocks, but he hadn't ever been there before and only heard about it from how Schala loved to play down there. Little duder was surprised it was so crappy.

It just makes you wonder why he was so upset at the black wind blowing around all of Zeal before Lavos attacked if he was such a bastard who only loved his sister and cat. Then there's his "Lavos is using all people for food" line, makes me think he actually does care about people and life, he's just so warped and removed from it he can't really express it the right way.

His relationship with Schala is less twisted if you think of him as sharing some of her ideals, I guess. It can be played with, though.


I like Magil partly because he shows Magus had hope in him after all that time. Guile is Magus who gave up and who couldn't deal with his past life. He's distressed at the dark truth he learned with the Time Devourer, and I'm of the belief that the fortune teller recognized him as the long-dead Fiendlord.

[V_Translanka]

Technically it IS Magus vs. Guile. Magil/Gil is just Magus later (who knows how much later?). Guile/Alf is just some random mage character.

Guile has likely been retconned to be Magus though, whereas Magil has been retconned out of the canon storyline.

I go by what's official though, not supposedly maybe could be how it is. To me, Guile has yet to be proven to be Magus, while it HAS been proven that he is not. I don't think anyone can be retconned out of the 'canon' story of the Chrono series since each new story starts in a new timeline or dimension...That's just how the series works.

In the beginning, 1st playthrough, Magus is going to have a higher starting Magic stat than the rest of your crew so that Dark Matter is going to be more powerful than Luminaire, Flare or Shock. He also has access to all 4 Magics. He also has a decent attack & critical (both of which are made better in CTDS). Double & Triple Techs are overrated, but Magus has the best all-targeting Magic Triple Tech with Omega Flare, anyways...I think by not having learned Double & Triple Techs, Magus is basically telling everyone how pointless they are. Why waste waiting for two turns to come together for what you can do better with two turns separately?

I think Magus does change a bit by basically asking Crono & Co. (though at the time it was just the Co.) to let him join them. It's one of his greatest moments of weakness in the game besides when the party enters the distortion created by the Time Egg and he sees himself & Schala...He isn't above working with others, but he prefers to be in control...Which makes sense because his ultimate goal is revenge against the one who took that away from him almost completely...

For more in-depth (and slightly less off-topicness), there's always 23 pages & over 300 posts of people saying Why Magus Is So Cool...

[Dark Serge]

Well the first thing depends all on how much you leveled your characters. Being a grinder, when I first got to Magus he was far below my other characters.

As for the triple techs; sometimes double or triple techs can be way more useful then Luminaire or Ice 2 or Flare. Facing a boss who's immune to magic for example, Falcon Strike can really help out. Magus' Dark Matter is alright, but the rest of his attacks are pretty weak and the other half are just straight copies from other characters.

As for him asking to join, it's just because he's that, an opportunist. That's what he really is, someone who exploits opportunities over the backs of others. He didn't join because he finally decided to change his ways and become friends with the others, but just because he thought "hey wut I can use these ppl to get my REVENGE dun dun dun".

Why Magus is so awesome? That's because japanese wank on dark emo characters like this. Other people who find him awesome only look at the awesum cape and dark matter and omg black wind howls is so cool. While actually all three of these aspects indicate his emoness only more clearly.

[V_Translanka]

Facing a boss who's immune to magic for example...

Um, how many of those are there again...? There are plenty of monsters (& even a few bosses) that are immune or (like the Reptites) require a specific Magic (another reason why Magus' access to all 4 Magics is helpful) and even a handful of monsters that are immune to physical attacks, but I don't know about completely immune to Magic...

That's what he (Magus) really is, someone who exploits opportunities over the backs of others.

Is it really "on the backs of others" if 1) he's telling them how to bring back their friend? and 2) they share the same goal?

He didn't join because he finally decided to change his ways and become friends with the others, but just because he thought "hey wut I can use these ppl to get my REVENGE dun dun dun".

Prove it? (that one's for you SDD! lol)...but seriously, I wasn't saying that he completely changed who he was and started to fart rainbows and spout out Glenn's pacifist views (which Glenn eventually gave up on like he seemed to give up on everything...see how you can make a positive aspect sound negative? amazing)...He was willing to help them and let his fate intertwine with their own but it was ultimately it was for the greater good, regardless of whether or not he was motivated by revenge...a great injustice was thrust upon him and his loved ones, so you could even say that he has the most right to his actions.

[Mr Bekkler]

Why Magus is so awesome? That's because japanese wank on dark emo characters like this.

Oh yeah, I've heard of that before. Another example would be...Dark Serge?