It's been a long time coming. It seems like our Mega Update system (predictably) failed us when I found myself really busy for most of last year and last month. Ramsus instituted some great structural changes to the site that'll make sure we never go for so long without updates again. I'm also going to start updating bi-weekly again and just checking the site every day as part of a daily routine for things to add (and checking for new remixes at the end of every two week period). The
Dream of Zeal is alive, most obviously through the two announcements that Chrono Cross is coming to PSN and Chrono Trigger's being ported to
mobile phones! But let's dig deeper...news after the jump!
[PSN] Square announced through
this Twitter update and Chrono Cross is coming to PSN! I'm really showing just how busy I've been lately with this (as well as my lack of care for Sony), but I had no idea what that actually meant. In case anyone else is uninitiated, this means one can buy the game and play it on PS3 or PSP through emulation. It's great news of course, as it lengthens the life of the Chrono franchise and possibly jams it in the eyes of new fans. At some point, you gotta stop milking the old games and make a new one, though!
[MOBILE] Square also set up a teaser site for...a mobile phone port of Chrono Trigger! The teaser site's
here; specific phones haven't been named yet. No telling when we'll get more information.
[NEWS] Feargus Urquhart and his development studio, Obsidian, have said that they would like to make a "westernized" version of Chrono Trigger! Check out the news (ahem, from last July; sorry)
right here!
[GUINNESS] Guinness World Records has
named Chrono Trigger the 37th greatest video game franchise of all time...well, through use of a poll. But hey, free publicity for the series! (Halo and Call of Duty were first and second, so think what you will...at least Halo beat Call of Duty!)
[NUUMAMONJA] Thanks to Guru of Time Angerona, the Chrono Compendium has acquired Nuumamonja (the ~160 page manga tie-in to the OAV) and the V-Jump Player's Guide, which contain a lot of developer commentary and some exciting early sketches by Akira Toriyama. As announced in an earlier update, these sketches and commentary led us to discover that Gaspar was at one time going to be the 8th playable character of Chrono Trigger. There's a lot more information just waiting to be translated and unlocked; one of the pages has an alpha version screenshot (with that weird prototype overworld seen in the V-Jump video) in it! Head to
Material Requiring Translation to check it out! And if you'd like to check out Nuumamonja in its full untranslated forum, head to
this entry!
[ART] Speaking of those sketches, they've been posted on the
Official Art page. There's a sweet one of Magus with a skull helmet and everything!
[NEXT GATE] On a side note, the Nuumamonja collection does not feature the "Next Gate" previews that would come after chapters in V-Jump magazine. These had some unique content, so finding them and scanning them has become
an item on our to-do list.
[TRANSLATION] GlitterBerri's translated the Ultimania battle team interview, as well as dialogue from the Chrono Cross demo! From the battle interview, we've learned that Pip's Japanese name (tsumaru) was a pun on how much content the team was trying to "pack" into Chrono Cross. We've also learned that the summon Sonja started out as a stripper! Check out the interviews on GlitterBerri's site
here and
here.
[MERCHANDISE] Angerona has highlighted some previously-unlisted merchandise for the encyclopedia. First up are Chrono Trigger phonecards sold by Anime Teleca; find links and pictures
here. Next are Chrono Trigger DS and PSX posters; find them at
Chrono Series Posters. Third is a Happy New Year Chrono Trigger postcard, seen
here. Fourth is the resurrected listing of Chrono series scores and sheet music; check out the page
here (some are still in stock at Amazon.co.jp). More information on these items and their original release/availability would be great! But the best is for last:
Toriyama Artbook! This book has his work from Chrono Trigger, and we're currently in the process of getting a copy to scan for the site.
[FANGAMER] We've finally added Fangamer merchandise to its own page in the Merchandise page; check it out
here!
[CARDS] We've learned that the Chrono Cross Bandai card game was packaged in a certain box, of which we now have an
image.
[GPMAG] Thanks to Nangbaby, we have a look at Chrono Trigger's coverage in the memorable late Game Players magazine: [
Advertisement -
Cover -
Index -
First Page -
Second Page -
Table of Contents ]
[OFFSITE] Socksmakepeoplesexy.net has written a couple great pieces about Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. Find them
here. Thanks for the shout out for the usefulness of the encyclopedia!
[TCRF] Just a heads up! The people at
The Cutting Room Floor have done a great job of tracking down a lot of graphical differences in the Prerelease; check out their work
here. We've been enjoying an open spirit of collaboration. Thanks to TCRF, we've discovered something previously not in the encyclopedia:
Futuristic Leene Square (CTP). Check it out! Other new differences included
Heckran Cave (Jinn Bottles);
Giant's Claw;
Sealed Pyramid (door animation mockup); and
Filler Map. Also note that the Chrono Cross slot machine graphics were intended for a cut Element:
Slots.
[BOUNTIES] Thanks to a collaborative effort, we tracked down two pieces of Cross art (Kid and Marcy) done by Masato Kato and posted to his now-defunct Twitter account. Check them out
here!
[CUTELUCCA] Thanks to the efforts of TheMage, a lot of lost CuteLucca artwork has been tracked down. Check out our archive of her gallery in our
fan art page. There are still a few pieces to go; check
here to see if you can help find them!
[INVERTEDHEARTS] FaustWolf helped find an old Kingdom Hearts fan project named Inverted Hearts that features a Guardia stage! We've archived the screenshots at
Abandoned Projects.
[RANKS] Thanks for all the help on the
Great To-Do List. We have some new bounty hunters on the points board, which means a few people are now sporting the bounty hunter user ranks! Keep in mind that if you want to keep the regular post ranks, just ask and I'll switch it back for you.
[FAN PROJECTS] Chrono Trigger: Time's Eclipse has released a demo;
find it here! Lance is also working on a revised version of Chrono Alter, which you can find
here.
[SHIFT] Chrono Shift is now running at full steam, with new screenshots and other news. Check it all out
here.
[APOCALYPSE] neo-fusion released Chrono Trigger Apocalypse 0 last July. It's late getting to the front page, but check it out
here! Be sure to check out
Chrono Trigger Apocalypse VI as well.
[ALTER] Lance has been at work on the
Chrono Alter Final Mix, a revamp of his prior project. Good luck!
[GAME STUFF] utunnels discovered that most Cross characters have hit values for heavy attacks of 20, unless they target all enemies (at which point they're only 10). Square apparently made a mistake with Zoah and Razzly; Zoah's is only 10, while Razzly's is a beefy 20! Interesting find.
[GRAYLENSMAN] I've added an old map by GrayLensman theorizing where Regiorra would be located on Chrono Trigger's map to the encyclopedia; find it
here.
[DRAWINGS] TheMage has found that the unviewable drawings in Lucca's house in Chrono Cross resemble Frog's fallen animation sprite and a Nu. Check out the comparison at
Lucca's house.
[SITE STUFF] FaustWolf and Ramsus have compiled several of the best and brightest Oekaki drawings over the last couple of years into an
Oekaki Highlights feature. In the words of the Porre jerky salesman, stop by and check...it...OUT!!
[WALLPAPERS] We've appropriated and commandeered three Chrono Trigger wallpapers whose author is unknown. Find them in
this section; authorship credit would be awesome!
[TILESET] We've replaced our Chrono Trigger RPGMaker tileset pack with a more complete version; find it
here.
[PSFS] DarioEMeloD has timed and tagged a PSF release for Chrono Trigger's PSX version. Find it
here. Many thanks for helping complete the music section!
[ART STUFF] Lady Marle has begun taking Chrono fan art commissions! In my eloquence, I'd describe her skill and style as "really fucking good", so don't miss this precious opportunity to have your vision realized for a reasonable price! Check out the thread
here.
[TUTORIAL] grey_the_angel has returned and set up a fan art tutorial; check it out
here!
[CT COMIC] We've also been pretty bad about updates for mysticalpha's Chrono Trigger comic. The fan art library is now caught up; head to
Megaelixir if you still haven't checked out this great comic!
[AND MORE...] Speaking of which, Mr Bekkler just updated CROH-NO!, which has found its home in the fan art section with mysticalpha's comic. Check out the new three comics
here!
[FANFICTION] Zipp Dementia's Chrono Break story has been rolling fast this year, and is nearing its conclusion. It's developed quite a following at fanfiction.net; be sure to get caught up on the chapters
here before it ends!
[2] alfadorredux's Chrono Helix has also been updating at a great pace; there's a lot to check out since the last Compendium update in May. Just head over
here!
[3] Princess Schala Zeal wrote a couple pieces since then as well; check out
Chrono Echoes: Rise of the Fiendlady and
Temporal Flux, with a couple snippets of a Chrono space opera concept.
[4] Next is silentellipsis, who wrote a great short piece from an unusual perspective:
A Bold Experiment.
[5] Rumblings from skylark's
To the Sea of Dreams Parody; perhaps an update is coming soon!
[5] Lennis has formally submitted the first four chapters of Project Unity; find them
here!
[6] grey_the_angel has returned with
Payback Mate!
[7] Princess Schala Zeal has updated
Chrono Echoes: Rise of the Fiendlady.
[8] Speaking of updates, GenesisOne has updated
Real World: Chrono Trigger!
[FAN ART] First up is Ema with a few: [
Chrono Trigger team -
Crono -
Magus ] Next is desrever with
Kid Pants. tuxedojacob made an awesome wallpaper of the red star; find it
here. Dice did a fabulous
King Zeal portrait inspired by this year's Dream Splash; it's always nice to see a dream shard from Crimson Echoes come alive! Next is F-546 with two versions of a Vera sprite (remember her from Radical Dreamers?): [
One -
Two ] Katie Skyye's up next with a goatee'd Flea and turtlenecked Magus! Find it
here. TheMage is next with
Happy Halloween! Our very own Ramsus followed with a piece
For the Lucca Fanboys. Next up is CronoBJS with a cool
Crono render. Prism rocked the fan art forum with four amazing sprites: [
Harle - Je t'aime -
Marle Casting Magic -
Marle Giggling -
Schala's Mysterious Pendant ] Thacrudd's been busy as well; check out sculptures of Lavos and Gaspar at
this thread. Check out his really cool rear-window Chrono decal
here! Next up is TheMage with a few
Harle sprites. tushantin meanwhile vectorized the Guardia seal; the vector is
here (PNG
here). Of special mention, though it's not yet complete, is tushantin's
Nadia's Bell WIP. Angerona's submitted several sweet pieces: [
Angel Schala -
Hello, Bunny Girl -
Hello, Bunny Girl (2) -
The Prince and the Nu -
Portrait of a Fading Princess -
Chrono Christmas Card -
Kid Colored -
Kid Colored (Alternate) ] From the year 2005, we have Zizzlebop's
Chrono Trigger wallpaper. Then we've got a couple Kid sprites by satchel_dawg
here. Hey, we've got a couple new works from Ema:
Ayla and
Crono in Guardia Forest. We've also finally got a submission from Tact that fell through the cracks:
MS Paint Serge. Another crack-faller is jono's
Kid reaching, as well as its two colored versions: [
One -
Two ] Next up is newcomer Licawolf with really amazing Radical Dreamers fan art; see it
here! grey_the_angel is back with a load of new artwork: [
Kid Quick Sketch -
Kid and Serge -
Kid Wallpaper Concept -
Because I Need You -
Kid Sketch Colored -
Arni Village ] Last, and certainly not least, we end with Manly Man's auspicious
No They Didn't, which has perfected the Roboroll.
Jeez, there. Never again, I promise. Updates are going to flow freely from this point forward. By the way, you may have noticed that new remixes still haven't been added, and that we're overdue for an analysis update. Both are next on my plate, and I'll start on them right now. I have an utter fuckton of doujins to add to Albums and Doujins, so this is just going to be fun! Wait, biting cynical sarcasm isn't how we do things...
PEOPLE IT'S TIME TO FIGHT THE POWER, BREAK THE UNBREAKABLE AND CLIMB THE LADDER, YEAH, LET'S GO SWITCH THE WEATHER, SHOW THE FORECASTERS WHO'RE THE GO-GETTERS!
