Fort Dragonia is a long hallway that leads to four paths. You need to activate a, let’s call it, obelisk to advance.
I start by going to my direct left. It leads to a small circular maze with the obelisk in the middle, on an elevated platform. To reach the platform, you have to order your party in just the correct way. In a room to the left, there is a mechanic that tests and names your party. Party member one (Serge in my case) is the Dragon’s head, member two (Kid) is the body, and the tail (Glenn) is the third. The goal is to dissect and poorly reassemble this dragon that your characters represent. For example, placing the body before the tail and head will open a new path. Will the path be worthwhile? The only way to know is to do. There are a few chests here and there, so it’s worth trying everything, but the solution is just to completely flip the dragon. Usage of the select button and a nearby glyph will necessitate the outcome. I reach the obelisk and activate the yellow crystal, which shows a yellow dragon somewhere down the road.
I head clockwise, to the north-northwest, to the blue room. The goal is to open and close empty cheats, which moves a platform to access one of the three rooms in this wing. It’s the simplest puzzle, so I reach the obelisk and fight a boss.
He murders the crap outta me! My first team wipe of the game is to a gelatinous sphere? The biggest problem of this boss is he can spam a spell called Iceberg, which hits everyone for 150 damage. I can’t out heal that.
Returning to the save in the central room, I hide my shame and head to my direct right, the red room. If blue was the simplest puzzle, then red might be easiest. All you have to do is move a platform around a statue of a directionally challenged dragon. You only need to do it once if you choose south, but you should also go west first (then west again) to pick up the four treasures. There’s no boss, so I return to the center foyer.
Still afraid of blue, I go north-northeast into yellow. It’s a maze. It’s filled with mobs and treasures. Not much to say, really. You know what an RPG maze looks like. Eventually, I reach the obelisk, and it’s protecting boss. I fear playtime may be over for Chrono Cross bosses. Taursaoir, the bull demon/machine hits as hard as you’d think it would. It’s a bit slow and doesn’t disrupt you too often, though. I made a bit of a blunder bringing Glenn, who is a green innate, to the green boss, but what can ya do? To be honest, I can’t name any yellow characters. Bull boy only does single target damage, so I can out heal him and can take him out in due time. RIP his rockin’ abs. Also, I looked it up, and Poshul is yellow. Yeah, I'll take Glenn...
Before my rematch, I head to Marbule. One of the merchants I mentioned last time sells trap elements, and one of the traps is for Iceberg. Which s perfect because I couldn’t equip the trap until the Taurosaur boss star.
So, with trepidation and angst, I return to my arch jellyfiend. The first thing I do is rake-up elemental levels with Glenn and set the trap. I continue as I normally would, which I may need to rethink since I’m having a rough go. Eventually, Giant Gloop falls for my plan. Iceberg is now in my possession, and more importantly, I still have my health. ...And then he casts it again! Traps only work once, I repeat: traps only work once. On the verge of death and another embarrassment, Kid takes her dagger and pierces the inpierceable! Kid barely does any damage, so it’s kinda shocking. I may need to rethink her placement on this team, unfortunately. She’s one of the few plot filled characters, and it sucks she’s bad.
Which all four obelisks and statues active, an elevator rises in the center room. I save, enter, and fight the white obelisk boss, SunOfAGun. He’s a happy Sun face until he becomes a sad Sun face. It occasionally makes out with our characters, which stuns them, but is ultimately a simple boss. He spams debuffs, but otherwise, he does negligible damage. I didn’t bring enough black elements into this, so most of the complications were on my part.
A new elevator appears behind the obelisk. Down leads to nothing, but up leads to where the flashback scene took place. Kid didn’t tell Lynx to say his prayers, though. Not sure if she would have if I replaced Glenn with Poshul, but I wasn't gonna do that. I make my way to the final obelisk, the black one.
Why is this a red innate? Bunyip is a kinda, adorable thing, and OMG WHAT IS THAT!!! When you do enough damage, the kinda bunny looking dude opens his mouth and reveals a massive shadow body with one piercing eye atop it. It stares into my soul. Despite turning into a black innate and being weak to my Serge bombs, this guy was tough. His physical attacks are no joke and his special spell, Freefall, is special for a reason. He also has a high damaging attack-all move, which does not bode well for me. Fortunately, Serge is a living holy bomb and can out damage the abomination.
After I defeated him, I walked around and found a Meteor Swarm spell, a high level white spell that attacks the whole party. Sure could have used that a minute ago...
Fully healed and saved, I activate the teleporting elevator and reach the giant doors. No old dialogue, but the future is spoiled one last time. Serge opens the doors, and we see General Viper and Lynx. In the middle of the room is the Dragon's Tear, surrounded by all the statues we've been seeing activate. After some talking, where Kid says she’s stopping whatever they have planned, Viper attacks!
He kills Kid by focusing on her for his first two turns, but otherwise, isn’t hard. He’s slow, and only has one hit-all move. He’s also weak to Glenn, so guess who beat-up his boss? Afterwards, Viper informs us we’re a worthy challenge and gets prepared to go full-out in round two. Or tries to, at least, before Lynx literally stabs him in the back. Viper falls to the floor and, presumably, dies. Lynx then now takes us on.
He’s oddly easy. The usual plan works, and he falls to a few Serge bombs. Kid really needs more HP, defense, attack, etc.
The fight over, Lynx infers, but doesn’t outright say, then he and Serge have been linked together for fourteen years. There’s a cutscene where a full animal lynx attacks something. Was Lynx once a normal jungle cat? At this time, Serge looks into the Tear, and his face changes to that of Lynx. There are a few more strange happenings with Serge’s body, but it’s clear what happened. Kid them threatens to get revenge on Lynx and Serge says...
Wait, Serge spoke!? But he’s a silent protagonist!? Maybe I should talk to Glenn...why did Lynx move when I touched my controller? We switched bodies! A boss battle ensues as we're fighting our former allies and body. We can’t win against their might and lose quickly
Serge then eggs on Kid to kill me until he makes a mistake of saying, “Get revenge for Lucca.” Kid then realizes that Serge and Lynx have body swamped. Alas, the villain is armed are stabs Kid. The twist no longer spoiled, “Serge” tells “Lynx” that this universe doesn’t want him and something about another dimension. The Tear then breaks, as do all the statues, and the screen pixelates.
We suddenly wake up in a world that resembles “A Sunday Afternoon...” by Georges Seurat, called the Temporal Vortex. There’s probably a better example, but I don’t know art. A Van Gogh painting, maybe? I walk into a treehouse, after knocking a berry out of a tree, and meet the enigmatic Sprigg. She has an Irish accent and is a bit of a realist as she tells us nothing matters. She then goes to sleep. I step down the ladder, save, and call it a day!
So I think the flashback wasn’t a flashback, but actually another timeline. I don’t know, and I’m just trying to make sense of this terrible, but quick, part of the game.
Questions are beginning to form about Cross. Who really is Serge? What’s Lynx’s connection to the hero? Who’s Kid? What’s going on in Home World? How will the story change now that I am the evil villain the world hates? The plot is in full force, and it’s only gonna get weirder!
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