Wanted to share how I feel about Chrono Cross, and why.

[Rocky]

First off, for you Cross fans, I assure you - this topic is NOT about bashing the game.  And I fully respect the opinions of anyone that enjoys it.  I merely wanted to share the specific reasons why the game made me feel... I don't know, sad about the effect it had on the Chrono world.  So these are just my feelings regarding it, no more or less valid than anyone else's.  I certainly have no intention of antagonizing.

To start, I will tell you (probably not to anyone's surprise) that Chrono Trigger is my all-time favorite game.  Everyone looks for different things in a game.  For me, there are really only two main elements that matter to me - characters and story.  Gameplay and stuff like that really won't make or break a game for me.  In 1996, when I was 12, I went to a video game rental place, as per usual.  I came across a game box that caught my eye.  I read the blurb on the back, and thought it sounded really cool.  For some reason, I didn't realize it was an RPG - good thing, since I didn't care for RPG's at all.  Primarily because of random battle encounters - it was annoying to me.  I started playing it, and... I became completely hooked.  I went out and bought it for 70 bucks, and still have that copy today (though I now just use the Wii Virtual Console for it).  Chrono Trigger became my favorite video game, and 16 years later, it still is.  Here is why I loved (and still love) it:

The characters.  It started with Crono and Marle at the fair.  And I could name them - that was really cool to me.  I'd had a crush on a girl for a long time (despite still being so young) - so I used our names.  One by one, the characters came on the scene - and I really liked them all.  They were simple, of course, but each one pretty unique.  And they were just good, ya know?  Altruistic, positive, supporting each other - just really likable.  I guess I'm drawn to that kind of thing - a close group of friends, even putting their lives on the line for each other.  And even the idea of 7 people coming together from 5 vastly different eras - joining together for one cause.  They were a fun bunch, yet all with their own weighty moments.  I don't know, it was just... great, to me.

The story.  Here's how I'd describe it - epic in scope, yet easy to grasp.  The story was fascinating, but still so simple.  Now, I love stories with time travel - probably why I rented the game after reading the back.  But this game did something really special with that concept, I thought.  Yeah, time travel is cool, but that wasn't my favorite part of the story.  My favorite part(s) were the stories of the characters themselves.  Marle turning from upbeat to obsessive and relentless trying to get Crono back.  Lucca and her mother.  Robo instantly offering to labor for 400 years.  Lucca fixing him 3 different times.  Robo giving her the Green Dream, and the moment they share.  Glenn & Cyrus; Glenn's subsequent low self-esteem; Glenn vs. Magus.  Magus and Schala; Magus swallowing his pride and joining the good guys.  Schala and her mother.  The 3 Gurus all playing a necessary role from each of their eras.  Ayla and Azala, right before Lavos crashes.  Ayla's lonely "It's all on me" mindset, and then learning to let friends help.  Marle and her father.  Robo standing up to his creator.  And of course, the campfire scene.  On and on and on... THOSE are the stories that stuck with me.  For me, those are the stories that made the game - and made it my all-time favorite.

I must add - although music isn't up there with story and characters in terms of importance to me... Well, come on - the music was staggering, and I got the soundtrack as soon as I could.

Up to that point, I had primarily been a Mario and Zelda player - I generally bought all those games right when they came out, or else pre-ordered.  Not so with CT, obviously.  But when I first found out about a sequel to Trigger... my head just about exploded.  I pre-ordered it LONG in advance.  I started Chrono Cross, more excited than over any other game I'd ever played.  So much so that I sort of kept the rose-colored glasses on for the entire 60 hours of play, regardless of what was going on.  (That's probably a high hour total - I played through it with a friend, and could only get together for a few hours at a time, over the course of like 3 months.  I still have a piece of paper on which I kept track of the dates of each session, along with what part of the story we did.)  Well, after beating the game the wrong way, and then the right way... I didn't really... know what to say.  Essentially, I just sort of scratched my head.  As the years passed, and playthroughs increased in number, I figured out why:

Characters.  Okay, so everyone knows what I'll say about that.  A mystifying number of characters.  My friend and I, during that first time through, reached the point where we just laughed every time some... thing forced its way into the mix (the times we weren't given an option).  When we got a ways in, and 4 characters were forcibly piled on all at once on the S.S. Invincible... that kind of pushed it over the top, for me.  Now yes, I know, "You don't need to use them all.  Having 44 characters allows for individual customization."  True.  But here's my problem with that motif.  These aren't inanimate elements or pieces of armor.  These are living, intelligent creatures.  Chrono Trigger made me feel like each of the 7 characters mattered.  They were all needed.  They each had their own entire section within the game.  They each played a pivotal role in the overarching story.  They were people.  In Cross... it felt to me like they were a shopping list of options.  There was no way for me to have them with me nearly enough to become familiar with them, to care about them individually.  To illustrate: If you go to a party with a friend, and there's 42 other people there, that you don't know - maybe you'll feel out of place, or overwhelmed.  You could stay there for a long time and even go unnoticed.  On the other hand, if you go to a friend's house, and there's 5 other people there, that you don't know - there's no way you would escape notice.  You'd have no choice but to become part of the mix.  It would only be natural.  Other than Serge and Kid, I personally didn't care very much about any of the characters.  I know there are other main ones, like Norris and Harle and Viper, etc.  But with all of them, they'd have a small segment where they were in the party, and then a new character would be thrown in my face, so I felt compelled to swap them out.  There just couldn't be a lot of face time for them all.  (That said, I really did love the Serge & Kid storyline and moments.)

Story.  Oh boy, story... Again, scratched my head.  For me, this was the most ridiculously complex story I'd ever witnessed - completely the opposite of Trigger.  And some of the explanations were so bizarre that... well, I didn't believe it.  But there were also some pretty pivotal parts to the story that, though I could grasp them, just didn't calculate right.  A lot of them centered around Belthasar.  Here's how I personally felt regarding him: In Chrono Trigger, all 3 of the Gurus seemed, much like the 7 heroes, altruistic.  They didn't support the Queen, and they all did what they could to stop Lavos.  And they were very, very intelligent, very wise.  Okay, so... Lavos has been taken down; Belthasar now lives in a peaceful future world in 2300 AD; he starts researching and experimenting with time; ..... See, that's where I start to not understand.  If, as far as he knows, all is now right with Earth - Why would he keep messing with time?  I realize he's a brilliant scientist with much time travel knowledge, and he no doubt WANTS to keep up time research.  But the Belthasar I remember from CT was also responsible.  (Yes, he was going insane in the future, so we can't learn much - but looking at his two fellow Gurus, they all seemed that way to me.)  And with no more known threat... it just didn't seem like something he would do - but that's just how it seemed to me.  The idea that he started up with time stuff again because he wanted to find/save Schala doesn't compute with me either.  For the same reason - I realize how close he was to her, but it wouldn't be responsible to mess with this kind of stuff just to save one person.  Still, if it's just a matter of being eccentric, like Doc Brown - okay, fair enough.  I also realize that Gaspar could very well have informed him of this new Time Devourer threat from the End of Time.  (If I'm getting some of these events wrong, I apologize.  It's been a while, and it's hard to keep them sorted out in my head.)  But then there's "Project Kid".  There's so many things I find wrong with the kinds of events that Belthasar knew and planned, but I'll just pick the biggest one I can think of.  He's doing time research, so let's say that yeah, he can see what people will do what, how this or that will be affected.  My biggest holdup is the part where the Entity (Earth) pulls in Dinopolis from another dimension.  First, is it just accepted that Belthasar knows of alternate dimensions now?  Either way, how could he cause or know or predict an action that would be taken by the very planet itself, ahead of time? Does he control the planet now?  These are just some of the examples that, even if not inconsistencies, seem not to make a great deal of sense or logic - again, just to me.

Buy hey, when it came to music - I think it's hard to find anyone that doesn't love the soundtrack, which I also bought of course.

But there are two more facets of Chrono Cross that upset me, perhaps even more than how the characters and story were handled.  The first is this: How it felt to me, while playing this game, was that the world that I knew from Chrono Trigger was shattered, right down to the very characters.  Crono (dead or whereabouts unknown), Marle (dead or whereabouts unknown), Lucca (likely dead or on the run), Robo (dead).  Though we don't know much that's concrete, suffice it to say that Kato decided that all 4 of them would have a dark, gloomy outcome.  Tell me, how often does that happen in a fictional story?  In Empire Strikes Back, were we told "By the way, a few years after Episode IV, Luke, Han, and Leia all died or went missing"?  In Back to the Future II, were we told "Well, Marty and Doc did a good job restoring their future.  Oh, but sad to say, they died a little while later"?  Is it fundamentally wrong to do something like that?  Of course not.  But by and large, fans of a series or game don't like it when the heroes of the story all get vanquished.  So, since it almost never happens, it was just upsetting to me that the heroes of my favorite game, characters that I really liked, would get that treatment.  But also the world itself.  Guardia, the happy kingdom, that's lasted for 1000 years, that has prosperity ahead of it, with Crono and Marle as prince and princess... has now... been... BURNED TO THE GROUND just 5 years later.  Heh heh... uh, what?  That fun little twist... was it really essential to Cross's plot?  Yes, it set up the storyline of Porre's rise to power.  But I'm pretty sure they could have thought of many other explanations.  And then, Chronopolis (and then Dinopolis) being ripped from the future(s) and shoved into the past, terraforming the world that I got to explore in Trigger.

What happened to the CT heroes and Guardia sets up my last qualm - one that, I would really think, even Cross lovers might agree with.  A big reason this game, this sequel, upset me was that... to me, it FELT nothing like Trigger.  I didn't need to have the very same characters, or same towns, or what have you.  That's not what I'm talking about.  It's this: The world and characters of CT felt jovial, bright, upbeat, optimistic.  That of CC felt extremely dark, gloomy, defeatist in nature.  And other stuff: Basically every character in CT had no accent or dialect (except Frog, for instance).  In CC, pretty much each and every one of the 44 playable characters does.  (I'm not insisting that's worse or anything, I'm just pointing out elements that were completely different between the games.)  In CT, NPC's just talked... normal.  Normal, every day, nothing special: "Hello! Going to the fair?"  In CC, every person on the planet is a certified philosopher, musing on life or lamenting over past events or... whatever.  And that contrast is easily noticed best when you compare the endings of the games.  CT has the 7 heroes, saying goodbyes, joking, getting emotional, just... normal stuff.  Now I encourage you to read the closing soliloquy by Schala/Kid, at the end of Chrono Cross.  And then try to tell me these two games aren't bafflingly different.

That's the point of this whole post.  Although Chrono Cross isn't suited for me, I don't doubt that it's still a very fine game.  But as a sequel - when I play each game, almost everything feels... just, different.  I didn't need a "Chrono Trigger 2", as they say.  I'm fine with sequels making changes.  But if you change virtually everything, if it's difficult to see the similarities, it kind of waters down the meaning of the word sequel.

Anyway, as someone whose favorite game is Trigger, those are the reasons why Cross really upset me, saddened me.  I apologize for any unintended tone of annoyance in what I wrote.  Like I said, this is only my perspective.  If someone made a post and said everything the opposite of what I have, it would be just as valid, and I'd be fine with that.  I'm not looking to argue.  I guess I just wanted to write out all this for a while, on this truly impressive site that understands the series better than anyone else out there, even a 16 year veteran like me. Again, sorry for any game facts I got wrong and, well, sorry for this wearily long post.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Hi Rocky,

I feel many of your sentiments towards Chrono Cross. The roster was just overwhelming (you know when you play through 1/3 of the game with Funguy there is something seriously wrong with your character roster), the storyline was convoluted and felt hastily stitched together, and it seemed like a slap in the face to the Chrono Trigger gang (as several of them were outright offed). All in all, it was a game with some strange components and created some frustrations across the Chrono fanbase.

I remember the week or two before Chrono Cross was announced the release was accidentally leaked. I was about 13 at the time and wondered quite strongly if this was a real game or not, seeing as how I had spent several years scouring the web for Chrono Trigger secrets and the promise of a sequel (I remember spending ages trying to get a triple tech rock from a Blue Imp - a rumor I had read online - and for the life of me I couldn't find that darned Blue Imp... because they only exist the first time you visit 600AD). Chrono Cross was announced and, having been raised in a Christian home, I immediately thought of the Biblical cross and crucifixion. It seemed odd and out of place.

A week later Chrono Cross was formally announced and they said that the demo was being packaged with Legend of Mana. I was so excited - I had pre-ordered Legend of Mana some time beforehand. Unfortunately, there was no Chrono Cross disc with my game (darn you, Funcoland), so I never got to play the demo.

I also remember, after Chrono Cross had been released in Japan, finding midi's for the Guldove and Arni themes. I played them on repeat for weeks and fell asleep to them each night; the tunes were so tranquil and relaxing. I knew little to nothing about Chrono Cross prior to it's release and couldn't wait to fire it up! The music along had me excited.

When I finally got it and fired it up I was so confused. The entire world looked nothing like Chrono Trigger, and it wasn't until later I realized that El Nido was just a small island chain somewhere south of Zenan Mainland. Later I saw Lucca and Robo killed and I was mortified. Even upon reaching the end of the game the plot made very little sense to me. Heck, even subsequent playthroughs brought little to my own understanding of the plot. It wasn't until I stumbled here circa 2004 that the community was able to spell it out to me.

I agree with you: Chrono Cross has some serious flaws. As much as I loved the combat system, I have some complaints there, too. The summons were rarely used and were almost completely void; the leveling system was forced (beat a boss, get a star / star = level up) and most battles were pointless. The explanation or the Chrono Cross' existence was lame. So on and so forth; I could go on.

That being said, I love Chrono Cross. Once I got past the fact that it wasn't Chrono Trigger I was more open to it. I realized that I hung to Chrono Trigger like it was perfect (when it also has it's own flaws that were unnoticeable when I was that young). In the end, I think that Chrono Cross was more of a spiritual successor that just happened to take place in the Chrono Trigger world rather than a direct sequel to Chrono Trigger. The tropical flair, amazing graphics (for the PS1), and music were all great. And despite that the fact that the plot was confusing as heck, I actually find myself enjoying most of it now. I just has to suspend my disbelief a bit and assume that the entire game was a part of Project Kid (and that Belthesar was a bit of a megalomaniac).

So maybe in time I lowered my standards. Or maybe I came to terms with Chrono Cross. Or maybe I liked the series so much that I was willing to adopt Chrono Cross simply because of it's moniker. Who knows. Long story short, I feel you. Chrono Cross is a flawed game and can be frustrating to no end (don't let Zeality or anyone else try to convince you otherwise). But once you get past those frustrations you may find a tasty morsel of a game as I did.

EDIT: Just re-read my post. I wasn't telling you, Rocky, that you were wrong for feeling the way you do towards Chrono Cross. Nor was I telling you to "look past" anything to find the gem that is Chrono Cross. Sorry if it sounds that way (as it did when I read through it). I was moreso explaining my own process towards Chrono Cross and how I eventually came to love it. I was just sharing my own opinion rather than assuming you should follow mine, hahaha... Just to clarify.

[Kodokami]

A wonderful post, from both you and Boo. While I do enjoy Chrono Cross more than Chrono Trigger (I guess me playing Cross first really made a difference of opinion), I can definitely relate to what the two of you are saying.

I'd love to hear what you have to say about Radical Dreamers sometime, if you've played it. I have a feeling that Trigger fans are more likely to connect with this gaiden than with Cross simply because of the vast differences in presentation.

[Rocky]

I appreciate the reply, Boo.  And no, I didn't take it as pressure to like Cross more.  I shared how the experience made me feel, as did you.  That's the way discussions like this should go.  People don't ever need to be up in arms about this stuff - everyone's opinion is valid.

As I said, this topic wasn't created so I could bash CC.  In fact, I wasn't even trying to point out flaws, though of course that's how it appeared.  After all, some people love strange and complex stories, and lots and lots of characters.  So if some like those kinds of things, then they can't even factually be called flaws at all.  No, the purpose of my post (easily drowned out by its enormous length), was to show how those elements made the two games almost as different as night and day to me - yet still somehow a sequel.  So if what I adored most about CT was the small, intimate cast of characters (and their personal stories) and the immense, yet still really simple overall story - if that's what made it special to me, then doesn't it just make sense that CC would leave almost no impact on me?  Even to avid Chrono Cross lovers, I think my reaction to the game is fair, given what was most important to me about the first game - it at least makes sense from a logical standpoint.

So, to me, if a person really likes both games, it's likely because they like both sets of game elements already.  In other words, I would think that (outside of just general loyalty to the franchise) how much a person likes one game wouldn't have a terribly strong bearing on how much they will like the other - and to me, that's something of an anomaly when it comes to making a sequel.  Neither game is objectively superior - but in terms of how I feel, since I loved the first game to death, and then the second changed almost everything, felt nothing like it... That's the simplest I can put it - why Chrono Cross just kind of saddened me.  It tore into the nice little world I loved, for the sake of a gaming experience that felt, well, foreign to me.

By the way, you mentioned the Guldove and Arni tracks.  Guldove (Another World) is my second favorite track (second only to The Girl Who Stole the Stars) in the entire game (a game with oodles of phenomenal tracks).  It's a masterpiece.  And Arni Village is near the top for me, as well.  I like both versions, but although I usually like the slower versions of music in the game (the Another World ones), I actually like the Home one more.  I got the music selection CD when I pre-ordered the game, and boy did they choose some good ones - got me really stoked to play the game.  I had also bought the full soundtrack and had it before I even finished the game - I tried not to listen to any music beyond the point where I was, but it was sometimes too hard to wait.  I heard Life ~ Faraway Promise (or whatever it's called) before saving Schala, and fell in love with that track too.  Oh, and I've also owned the piano score books for both games for many, many years - and within the last few months, decided to try to learn to play different pieces on a keyboard (no keyboard experience, BTW).  I'll start a topic soon about how it's been going, and which ones I've learned - it's felt awesome to do.

---

Kodokami - As a matter of fact, I have played through Radical Dreamers - I first came across it on the internet 9 or 10 years ago.  The first download I got had the game in Japanese text, so I couldn't make many informed choices when given options.  I still tried to move forward (died a few times - hurts when you don't know what you've chosen).  Somehow, I made it to a room with an old woman.  And after some dialogue, I heard my favorite song from CC - Star-Stealing Girl (abbrev.).  Man, I got shivers when that started playing.  Much later, I got my hands on an English translation, and played through the whole thing.  It's true, I kind of liked it better than CC - mainly due to having just the 3 characters, and therefore getting really well acquainted with them.  It still had a pretty dark feel to it, which wasn't quite my thing - though I really liked the emotional, sadder parts of the characters and their stories.

I will say, when I first played Chrono Cross (so before playing this), one of my favorite parts of the game was the terminal in Chronopolis, and the dialogue between Serge and Kid - it was just sort of poetic and romantic sounding.  And yet mysterious, as I didn't know where it came from or what it meant at the time.  Then I saw it in RD - pretty cool, I thought.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

The first time I heard "The Girl Who Stole the Stars" I was stumped. It was the Kid scene on the S.S. Zelbess (or was it the S.S. Invincible) when Serge is remembering Kid. I was shocked by the song and immediately fell in love with it.

Oh, and for the the "la la laaaa" part - I thought it was a weird instrument or a violin my first time playing through the game. Then, on my second pass on the game about a year later I realized that it was a woman singing. Haha.

[chi_z]

nice to see mitsuda did his job, even if someone isnt going to like a game, he aims to at least have enjoyable music. All your points about CC are valid and understandable, I personally love all 3 games just as much. to me CC is just more darker and grittier (along with RD), its apples and oranges.

[HeadlessFritz]

When I played CC, somehow I thought only Mitsuda worked as if it was a sequel.

[Rocky]

I did at least want to take a moment to mention the things I truly did love about Chrono Cross.  Basically, as I briefly stated earlier, the Serge and Kid moments.  First, when Kid comes onto the scene, and banters with Serge to get him to let her join him.  Then when she's poisoned, and speaks with Serge on her deathbed in Guldove.  The scene where Kid tells Serge about her big sis for the first time, in the middle of the night on Water Dragon Isle.  (I was fortunate to have triggered the scene on that very first playthrough - I certainly wasn't aware at the time that it could easily be missed.)  I think that was the first time I heard The Girl Who Stole the Stars, in game.

The whole sequence, starting from the confrontation with Lynx at the top of Fort Dragonia all the way through and out of the limbo-like space between dimensions - that is actually my overall favorite part of the game.  Serge doesn't know what happened to make him switch bodies, can't figure it out quick enough to explain it to Kid.  The look of anguish and shock on Kid's face when "Serge" stabs her while she's starting to figure it out.  The overall hopeless feeling tied to the scene, as Lynx veritably destroys them all.  The vision of Kid, at the beach - haunting and melancholy, since you just saw her probably killed.  (And where, based on the order of music on the soundtrack, it seems like "Beginning of a Dream" should've played.  I really wish it had been in the game.)  And then the space between dimensions.  It feels so surreal, so empty - like everything you cared about has been taken from you, and you don't know if it's even possible to get it back.  I guess I just feel a connection to that sort of feeling, feeling like all hope is lost - it's over.  (Probably why Marle's despondent and irrational mood until she gets Crono back always sticks with me in CT.)

One non Serge-and-Kid moment that I enjoyed tremendously was the Dead Sea.  Oh, what a chilling place, mysterious, mood perfectly set by that brilliant music (as the music in Trigger's Undersea Palace did for it).

I'm sure there's lots more I can't remember, but the last one that comes to mind is the burning orphanage, Lucca's house.  The experience within the burning building is tense, adrenaline-pumping.  The pictures of all my buddies from CT, with descriptions.  But the moment between adult Serge and young Kid?  Oh man, that was heavy.  I suppose I might like that part of the game best, it's just that I feel more of a connection to the aforementioned section, and it's overwhelming tone of losing all hope.

Like I said earlier, what I loved most about Chrono Trigger was those kinds of moments, with all the characters.  Cross was far from devoid of such moments, and those were my favorite parts of the game.  It's just that since it was limited mostly to just Serge and Kid, that left a large percentage of the game not focused on such moments.  (I realize there were such moments with many other characters - but since I didn't have much face time with any of those others, their moments just couldn't mean as much to me.)  Whereas with CT, the moments felt plentiful, woven through the game with regularity, and dispersed among 7 characters, plus some NPC's like Schala and the Gurus.  But I digress - Chrono Cross did indeed have a lot of such moments that stuck with me.

I don't let my bitterness toward Chrono Cross as a whole blind me and prevent me from praising its parts that I honestly do enjoy.

[utunnels]

Very well said.

Belthasar's plan sounds too crazily out of control. During a period of the game play, I had been thinking what ever his plan was, it got messed up by so many unpredictable and unexpected events. But it turned out that Belthasar had been always directing everything, sounds too godlike and too unbelievable.

However, I don't think Belthasar's very first motivation was to save Schala. His research on time/dimensions was aided by the future science plus his knowledge to Lavos, he learned the connection between the Frozen Flame and the Time Devourer. So it sounds another mission to save the world/universe to me. As for Schala, she's just part of the grand plan. This makes me feel a bit bad  towards him, hehe.

[Rocky]

Yeah, that does make sense.  It's just, I was surprised someone with his character would even start messing with time research again at all - even in an advanced world - now that, as far as he knows, everything has been set right.  Like how Lucca talks about dismantling the Epoch after they save the future.

Of course, time research might not be as dangerous to toy with as time travel itself.  I sometimes forget that his whole Counter-Time Experiment, designed to cause the Time Crash, is not necessarily even related to whatever his initial time research was - that research may have been perfectly safe.

So (always happy to learn more and increase my grasp of the story if it makes sense to me) the matter of whether it was irresponsible of him to start the time research in the first place doesn't bother me as much - as long as it wasn't anything unstable.

Eh, that's something anyway.

[xcalibur]

My biggest problem with Chrono Cross is that it seems to make a point of pushing Chrono Trigger aside instead of building on it or transforming it. It's like, screw you old game, this is the new one! From killing off/neutralizing CT cast members; to a new, undead, more powerful Lavos; smashing Guardia Kingdom when it seemed to be at the height of prosperity; the timeline getting cut to ribbons, and so on. It basically makes a World of Ruin out of the Chrono Trigger world, and negates much of what CTs plot accomplished.

[chi_z]

yes but CT was a pretty close ended game when it was over, not exactly a cliffhanger. the only thing is 'what happened the schala and magus, and possibly robo if you give a flyin fook'. If you don't like how kato handled the idea of what happens with sara, then feel in the blanks yourself.

[xcalibur]

yes but CT was a pretty close ended game when it was over, not exactly a cliffhanger. the only thing is 'what happened the schala and magus, and possibly robo if you give a flyin fook'. If you don't like how kato handled the idea of what happens with sara, then feel in the blanks yourself.

Admittedly it would be hard to create a sequel without causing disruption, since most threads were tied up at the end of CT. Still, they could've had something like the Time Crash, which opens up all sorts of possibilities, without attacking CT to the same extent. I'm not sure how I'd handle that as a plot writer, I'd have to think about it.

[chi_z]

well there's never enough excellent fanfic so feel free to start your own! love the avatar btw.

[xcalibur]

well there's never enough excellent fanfic so feel free to start your own! love the avatar btw.

indeed, thanks. it's from interstella 5555.

I'm definitely capable of writing, but I've got other projects going on, and overhauling the chrono cross plot would be pretty involved. I'm sure that you could cause chaos with the Time Crash, Chronopolis, Dinopolis etc, with less hostility to CT.

You could tell a similar story without wiping the original cast, and without the Fall of Guardia, which irks me in particular. Guardia was clearly strong and prosperous, and capable of building steampunk tanks (even if they were in the experimental phase, it still shows industry and resources) Porre is a peaceful village, the name even sounds peaceful! Yet only 5 years later, Porre becomes a juggernaut and wipes out Guardia? You could argue that Dalton played a role in that, but it's still a stretch. and Dalton was always a puffed-up assclown, and never really meant to be taken seriously as a villain. Which is why it bothers me when he's tasked with being a more legitimate adversary - it doesn't really fit his character. In any case, the Fall of Guardia seems like a definite slight to CT, like a deliberate attempt to shatter the structure of the old world.

Clearly any sequel would feature Schala prominently, since she was a major loose end in CT. I'm not sure where I'd go with that yet, but there are many possibilities.

I believe that Chrono Cross could've easily been a stand-alone game without any ties to Chrono Trigger.