I’ll start with the bad news: the raid he had planned fell through. No idea where everyone was, but our Celestial Citadel raid in Crowns of Power didn’t happen. We did do a quick pass of Cloister Prime, a much lower skilled dungeon, but that only lasted an hour.
And now for the good news: from one CC to another, baby, I got Chrono Cross to work! I swamped out a graphics plug-in with another one, and, boom, smooth 60 frames. It’s not perfect, but neither am I, but I’ll take this every day. I’m so freakin pumped, man. Yeah!!!!
So let’s get down to business!
An elevator lifts up to a room covered in steel. Three creatures are inside. As the gates open, a woman clad in red shorts and vest runs forward and pumps up the party. She yells at a man named Lynx and asks him to, “say your prayers, although I don’t think they’ll do ya any good”.
Then walks out...a dog...with a lisp. This is a very strange way to start a game. Anyway, Poshul was my randomly chosen third character for this, kinda, terrible flashback. It’s a good flashback only for the fact that it introduces the players to the accent system every character uses. Kid, the woman in red, has a unique Australian accent, and Poshul has, what I think is, a lisp. The accent system is kinda unique and fun. Anything that adds character is something I’m always for. While not shown off yet, every character/ cent gets a unique dialogue for every situation. I’ll, hopefully, go into more detail as we meet new characters. To finish off the scene, we also learn that Serge is a silent protagonist. Just like Chrono in Cross' predecessor, our main protagonist's only 'words' are what you choose for him to say. It worked in CT, so we’ll see how well it works in CC.
The flashback is bad because why do I care about any of these people right now? Who is Lynx, why is there a talking dog, why are we in this location? This isn't even a framing device. It's just...a thing. There's another reason why I hate this, which I'll get to in a moment.
For now, though, we go through the dungeon, which acts as the battle system tutorial more than anything. The system, itself, is something I've never really fully grasped, but I've always enjoyed it. Every character gets a stamina bar, and every attack depletes a portion of it. A small attack removes one of seven, while a strong attack removes three. Each strength also has a different chance to hit, so you can't spam heavy attacks. There are also elements, which act as magic and special skills. In order to use the elements on the grid, you need to build up element levels using physical attacks in the same ratio as the stamina does. Interestingly, once you’ve used an element, you can not use that again for the rest of the battle. There are consumables for healing you can equip, but I rarely use them. They're not terrible, but I'm a hoarder. Every element also has an innate color assorted with it that works in a Strength/weakness type of relationship, similar to Pokémon types. Red is strong to blue, and vice versa. Green to yellow, and Black to white. Every character also has an element that strengthens elements of that type and dictates what they're weak against. I think it even restricts certain late game elements from being equipped (or allocated, as the game uses). To summarize, attack physically to build up element level and unleash your special attacks on your enemies, but watch out for their element. It seems very basic when I spell it out that way, but in Cross, it’s a lot of fun and has some depth to it late game.
But, let's finally get out of this dungeon. We walk around a few scenes, trigger a black orb mechanism, and find a magic teleporting elevator. Everyone is dumbfounded by its mechanics. Serge walks up to a massive door, opens it, and proceeds to ruin the big twist. I won’t spoil it here, but a big scene happens at the end of disk 1, which is also shown here. Why spoil twists before they have any context or weight to them? New players aren't invested yet, give them some time. Maybe they expect you to forget it in twenty hours? Its just...questionable. But I said my piece earlier, so I'll continue.
The screen goes black, and a familiar refrain happens. The words, “Good morning, Serge” appear onscreen, as an ode to the opening of Chrono Trigger. Serge’s mom, Marge, wakes him up and opens the blinds continuing the echo. I search under my bed for 200 gold to finish the echo. As we walk out of the only room in the house, our mother tells us that we were supposed to meet up with our friend, Leena, but we slept in. We leave the house and go talk to her because the echo is even stronger than I remember. We walk out into the tropical beach village Arni, complete with one of the best themed music around. We make for the docks as that is where Leena is babysitting. The gist is, we were supposed to on a date to collect Komodo Dragon Scales for a necklace. Because Serge slept-in, Leena is mad, so now we have to go find the scales alone. Before venturing out to Lizard Rock, I hang around the village. I meet a woman who used to be into Poetry and a man who dedicated himself to fishing (and gives us a shark tooth necklace). Both people did so ten years ago. There’s also an old man named Radius, who showed up four years ago. He was kind and just, so everyone decided he's the village elder now. He offers to properly introduce the battle system, which I forwent*. We also learn the save system/point has some canonicity in the game. Finally, I made a mistake in not getting a free Komodo scale from a man who dreams of a water dragon but did catch a giant house sized fish once.
We also overhear two people talking about how much rain we've gotten. Two more people inform us the viper festival has been canceled. And an old man is seen ogling a picture of a dancer named Miki.
My work done, I venture out to the world map! The music is jaunty and tropical and inspires me to walk around the southern part of this island. The Hydra Marsh is closed because of evil dwarves, Dragon Falls is empty, and the mountain path of Fossil Valley is being investigated by Poore soldiers. Poore is a foreign nation to the north, and also a location in Chrono Trigger, giving us some geographical clues to our current whereabouts. There’s also a cape, Cape Howl, which has a rock inscribed with, “Serge and Leena forever”. It’s cute and shows is that Serge and Leena are a couple.
I make my way to Lizard Rock to take out the three Komodo dragons and kill their mother. Did I just cause a local species to go extinct? After I prove my love with murder, I walk to nearby Opassa Beach, where Leena catches up. The couple happily reminisces about their youth, ponders about the vastness of the sea, and wonders if she and Serge will remember this day. She goes to ask Serge a question, only for the inquiry to be drowned out by Serge suddenly hearing a voice from nowhere. He then starts acting strangely and has a flashback involving kids laughing and a black panther. He then sees the sea rush in at alarming speed and, before being swallowed by it, passes out. He awakes an unknown time later when an old man and his Komodo dragon find him. Serge asks about Leena, and the old man wonders if Serge is a friend of Leena. Seems strange he doesn’t know Serge, but what have ya? We then make our way to the village only to find the world map music has changed...hmmm...i wonder why?
But I’ll do that tomorrow!
Dude, I’m pumped! Cross was one of the games I was looking forward to when I started lockdown, and, after two disappointing non-starts, I’m more hyped than ever. The moment I “woke-up” and heard "Dream from Another Shore", I felt so calm and as though the world is going to be okay. It's not currently, and probably won't be a while, but it will be. I’m just so happy, and I’m looking forward to this playthrough!
PS: I’m gonna name all my titles by the day's save title. Every chapter of the game has a save title, which you see when you go to load and save. I like that mostly useless mechanic, so I’m gonna show it off.
I looked this up, "forwent" is the past tense form of "forgo". Who knew?
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