ZEALITY: Gin what is so funny Aizen I don't get your jokes Tousen I am indifferent towards you. Also, here are the alternate endings to CE: [
Part 87 -
Part 88 ]
ZEALITY: Dig if you will, a picture...of you and I engaged in a kiss; the sweat of your body covers me; can you my darling, can you picture this? Dream if you can, a courtyard, an ocean of violets in bloom...animals strike curious poses, they feel the heat, the heat between me and you: [
Part 77 -
Part 78 -
Part 79 -
Part 80 -
Part 81 -
Part 82 -
Part 83 -
Part 84 -
Part 85 -
Part 86 ]
ZEALITY: HI HOW YOU DOIN'
IM MR. JEAN, AND YOU MIGHT BE...FRIEND'A MINE
WHY DON'T YOU COME DOWN AND...HAVE LITTLE PLAYTIME
BOUNCIN' AROUND
AHH, PUSHY
)) [
Part 69 -
Part 70 -
Part 71 -
Part 72 -
Part 73 -
Part 74 -
Part 75 -
Part 76 ]
ZEALITY: Here's Chapter 21, with one video from Chapter 22 thrown in to make three total. [
Part 66 -
Part 67 -
Part 68 ]
ZEALITY: Only two videos for Chapter 20, the first of which is just a bunch of battles. But gear up for the second! It's...plotkai! Plot no jutsu! [
Part 64 -
Part 65 ]
AGENT 12: Alrighty everyone I'm going on vacation for a week so Z will take over releasing from now on. You guys can finally stop asking if the end of time is in the game now
. You also get a super exciting sneak peak into FW's inventory! I thought about leaving it afte 62 but that would be 3 HUGE cliff hangers in a row and I thought you guys would not be happy haha. If you want to not start halfway through Project Anabis you can use this
link, which will start you from the point the terminal is turned on. [
Part 61 -
Part 62 -
Part 63 ]
First of all, let's kick off the
Cry of Summer Ultra Update with Chapter 18 of Crimson Echoes as shown via CEMemorial. You're getting five videos today: [
Part 56 -
Part 57 -
Part 58 -
Part 59 -
Part 60 ] Sorry for the ultra cliffhanger! Let's begin...
At E3, Alex Donaldson of
RPGSite conducted an interview with Square Enix Senior Vice President
Shinji Hashimoto about upcoming Front Mission titles and SE's partnership with Double Helix. The VP and Donaldson had this exchange towards the end:
When asked by RPGSite staff if he could forsee Square handing off other much-loved but neglected franchises to external developers as with Front Mission, he asked what franchsie we had in mind. "Why does everyone ask about
Chrono Trigger?" he laughed.
We told him it's a very loved series. "That's not what the sales tell me!" he responded. "If people want a sequel, they should buy more!"
[REAX] While it's easy to be offended by this or something, keep in mind that Chrono Trigger DS is still being sold, and this is a talking point tactic. As
Lord J offers: "In other words, the exec didn't say anything except that he wants to see more sales of CT:DS. He did not explicitly say that there will or will not be another Chrono game. Simple logic, people! Leaven your minds with the yeast of critical analysis. That's not even his decision to make, and, even if it were, there's nothing stopping the SE board and executive management from changing all its positions tomorrow."
Alex has stepped in to clarify Hashimoto's position.
[—>[ To clarify one last thing for some of your readers: If you look at the Chrono Trigger numbers, it's done well overall yes and has far out-performed Front Mission. (Yes, I glanced at your thread!) This is true. However, if you look at the sales in detail, the vast majority of the Chrono Trigger sales were in Japan - it's been doing fantastically in Japan, merely ok in the US and EU. Off the top of my head it's around 200,000 in the EU - pathetic numbers - and 600,000 in the US. Square's reasoning behind doing Front Mission - and Hashimoto went into detail about this - is that only a few (three, I think) Front Mission games have been released outside of Japan, and only one in Europe. Unlike Chrono Trigger, they believe Front Mission hasn't had a 'chance' to go big, whereas Chrono Trigger has. That's why they're handing Front Mission - a franchise with guns, explosions etc - off to a company more experienced in making those kinds of games to try to make it big.
]<—] Many thanks for these
comments, and credit to FaustWolf's alacrity as well!
SERIES >>> [1] In the May issue of Famitsu, readers voted the Chrono series 14th in a list of the 50 most wanted franchise sequels as seen
here.
[2] 1Up recently interviewed Masato Kato about Final Fantasy XI (which, if you know much about recent Chrono series history, is the excuse for why Square Enix can't get the Chrono team back together). There's nothing about the series in the interview, but it's still interesting to read the words of our beloved and beleaguered Kato. It's almost painful to read, since you know inside he's probably been frustrated ever since Chrono Break wasn't greenlighted in 2001. Find the interview
here. A good quote: "Well, I don't like leaving things unfinished. If you start telling a story, you should bring it to a proper conclusion, you know?" And, on his future involvement: "To tell you the truth, there are just so many constraints to writing add-on scenarios for this game that I don't think I'll be doing any more -- I could see myself getting into some epic battles with the dev team if that happened!"
CROSS RESEARCH >>> [1] Chrono'99 and utunnels have noticed what might be nods to Norstein Bekkler in the art for Serge's room and a Marbule shop in Chrono Cross. They come in the form of masks on the walls; see them
here (leftmost mask) and
here. Interesting catch, and feasible enough to warrant a note on Norstein Bekkler's
bio!
[2] Another catch by utunnels: Una, Leena's supposed sister, is actually her brother. Sort of creepy or embarrassing that the community thought he was a she for 9 years after the game's release, eh? A translation of a Missing Piece caption helped deliver this revelation; you can find the translated term at Una's bio
here.
[3] utunnels also solved the mystery of the
Malebranche monster by loading it in Chrono Cross, at which point it was determined to be part of the Loch Nest monster (specifically, the branches holding it up). Great detective work! In fact, utunnels found another unused enemy called FamilyTree; check it out
here!
[4] Lastly, utunnels illuminated why Radius (during Arni training) is easier to kill in the Japanese version of Chrono Cross. Enemies in Cross have 5% more HP than their base value if they're male, and so in the North American version, Radius (who has 30,000 HP base) gets 31,500 HP total. However, in the Japanese version, his base is 65,535 HP, meaning the male boost resets the value to ~3000 HP, making him much easier to kill. This has been added to the
Glitches page for the game.
CROSS DEBUG >>> Before the C&D, utunnels and yaz0r ripped the script of the
Chrono Cross demo. It's got a few goodies in it, including the debug room text, whose character selection prompts will help us pin down which characters were planned and not yet implemented once they're translated. Of note is the presence of "Gil" in the character selection prompt. As you know, Gil was the name of Magil in Radical Dreamers. This is a relic of the development period in which Guile was still intended to be Magus in disguise. Download it
here.
[FINAL] Fans also found a corresponding debug room in 242 of the final Chrono Cross, apparently missing from the Terminus Traduction script; Vehek's ripped it and it's been added to the
Chrono Cross script at the end of the Appendices section.
[CHAR] The debug text has a list of event flags, and one of them refers to a ghost in the Dead Sea. This is enough to warrant a distinct character entry in the encyclopedia, which you can find
here.
TRIGGER >>> [1] Chrono Trigger speedrunner inichi recently shattered the previous tool-assisted record of 4 hours (by the way, even his non-TAS speedrun is less than that) by glitching the hell out of the game and using save file corruption to achieve a time of
21 minutes. If you want an explanation of his technique, read
this at TASVideos, and if you want to behold this work of art, click
here. Congratulations; this project took a year and a half to pull off!
[2] SirDark has taken the two uses of Battle 1 in the Chrono Trigger V-Jump 2 video demonstrating the alpha version to reconstruct a complete version, which you can download
here. Just listen; it's interesting to hear this rough arrangement!
[3] Thanks to Lord Homonculus and Vehek, Johnny's sprite sheet has been mostly completed with new location sprites
here. We still haven't even begun to rip the Mode 7 sprites in Chrono Trigger, though.
FAN STUFF >>> [1] Neo-fusion recently completed Chrono Trigger Apocalypse III and released it on Newgrounds; find it
here. Can't wait for IV! It's been given (with CT Unglued) a listing on the Fan Projects page under the new heading "Flash Series".
[2] Speaking of CT Unglued, episode 18 has finally been added to our page here on the Compendium. If you haven't seen it yet, click
here.
[3] silentellipsis has released The Rise of Magus, an original game and platformer built in Game Maker 7 and released to excellent reviews across their scene community. You can find it
here with a link to play online if you don't want to download the 16 megabyte executable. Thanks to silentellipsis for this pleasant surprise! It's been added to the Fan Projects listing as well.
FEATURES >>> [1] A batch of Chrono De-motivational posters has been added to a new feature, which you can find
here. Be sure to hit the link within the feature if you want to post your own for consideration. Thanks to the contributors!
[2] Chrono Trigger Unglued #18 has been added (yeah, tardily) to its feature page, which you can find
here.
[3] BULLFUCKER CANDLE-SHITTING FUCK FENCE SHITASS GHOST-RIDING FUCKSPARKLERS FROM HELL MIKE TERRY'S SAUSAGE-SACK HEY KID
COMIX WERE UPDATED READ THEM YOU VILE ASSHOLE
[4] Speaking of surreality, hit MrBekkler's CROH-NO! comics
here; it's now also linked from the CHRONO COMIX feature, too.
[5] The links in the first
Remix Spotlight have been fixed.
SITE NOTES >>> [1] Yoko Endovale has contributed a fantastic repository of links to Japanese Chrono series sites at her page
here. I've added these to the
Community Map.
[2] I've added the Chrono Cross Piano Project to the
Music (Chrono Cross) page under Remixes > Other. There are both performances and arrangements to be had; many thanks to Piano for getting me the files.
[3] Support for Crimson Echoes has been warm from members. DRMProd submitted a fantastic Zeal tribute wallpaper, which you can see
here (without text
here). Dunce made a tribute song, which you can listen to
here. Katie Skyye also did a tribute image featuring Schala, viewable
here. Shee also uploaded a musical Youtube tribute, seen
here. Thanks for the show of support, everyone. This was really a terrible blow to the community.
The Winter Fanfiction contest has been judged, and the winner is Delta Dragon, who provided an incredibly surreal and humorous dream sequence had by Glenn. Find it
here. The other entrants include V_Translanka's account of a different Cyrus and Magus battle at
Light Changes, Falawful's fantastic look at Robo in
Meaningless, Katie Skyye's cross-dimensional Zealian adventure in
The City of Zeal, Zephira's twist look at nocturnal Magus in
He Woke Up, and Yoko Endovale's tale of the afflicted Flea in
My Life is a Dream. Thanks to all the contributors; this was better turnout than recent contests, especially considering all the site's attention was focused elsewhere.
Time for fan stuff.
[ART] We start with longtime contributor ChronoWeapon with his original characters: [
Be Mine Valentine -
Monsters ] addie sin follows with the menacing
Dark Frog. Next is Kyle Fox with
Epoch. Brink-of-Time contributes a fantastic wallpaper featuring Crono & Marle
here. KillaGouge sculpted Magus's scythe in Blender, seen
here. 9900giljerky found a couple old pieces; [
Zeal Family -
Schala ] Next comes Captain Falcon's two edits: [
Crono -
Magus ] FouCapitan sketched a version of Kid for his Chrono Breaker idea
here. From skylark, we have Schala and two characters from his fanfic: [
Lark -
Schala -
Glenn ] grey_the_angel submitted three new pieces a couple months ago, including: [
Kid and Serge -
Harle (5000 hits) -
Kid Sketch ] pat gives us a sweet gig flyer
here. And now for something special; ONSLAUGHT has rare, never-before-seen screenshots of
Chrono Cuddly: [
Crono and Link -
Luminaire -
You're Not Marle! -
Lavos -
Norstein Bekkler -
Magus -
Crono Sprites -
Janus and Schala ] Specter shows Magus love with a stained glass tribute
here. Next is alfadorredux, who did Magus
here. Sooperkreep blesses us with more great art this time around! [
Ayla -
Reptite Concepts -
New Imp Concept -
Debugger Concept -
Glenn and Guardia Soldier Concept -
Crono (2009) -
Dalton (2009) ] From TheMage, we have a
2300 A.D. map attempt. Anonymouse keeps things rolling with Schala, seen
here.
[FICTION] Arthemist begins things with a short piece called
A Radical Dream. Skylark also posted a new fic called
To the Sea of Eden. Uboa has begun a Magus and Metroid crossover, which you can find
here.
...THANKS >>> During this entire little crisis, the actions of the Chrono Compendium's administrators, moderators, and the Crimson Echoes team have been admirable and contemplative. FaustWolf, Ramsus, Agent 12, Chrono'99, Lord J Esq, and several others deserve serious commendation for navigating the community through this last month. They've carefully managed contact with Square, policy-setting on leaks, explanation and clarification of the events (especially at other communities), and the site's official functions, and made their best effort to have leaks removed from torrents and other hosting sites. They've done a smashing job, especially since I've been away from the community for most of the uproar because of real life engagements. The Compendium is lucky to have their contribution and service, and I'm seriously thankful for their help. As we clean up the mess, be sure to congratulate them for a job well done amidst the rumors, flaring tempers, and heartbreak of recent affairs. This ends this update, but there's an awful
lot yet to be done, so stay tuned.
