The Masamune

I started out hunting for the prehistoric anti-capitalist barter system, killed two Nus, and then jumped off a cliff into a portal. All in a days work.

The team then went back to Melchior. He was shocked that we not only had the Masamune, but the Dreamstone, as well. He asked us how we got either of them but then rescinded his question for fear of his heart. He began to work, and Lucca joined him. I wondered if it's always her or anyone could join in? The world may never know. Melchior reforges the blade, and Lucca poofs around with the Dreamstone. Crono and Marle/Robo just sit around. After a few min, each blacksmith comes together, and the Masamune is reforged! The whole time this happens, a familiar song is played. Hallways of Clocks, I think it was called. We should now head back to the past and talk to Glenn.

We'll show him the reforged blade, and we'll ask him to join in our hunt to stop Magus. Glenn says he needs to sleep on it, and we'll get a flashback. A man in armor is speaking to King Guardia and Lenne. This is Sir Cyrus, a man we've heard a few legends about from Glenn and some townspeople. He's leaving the castle to stop the Frog King from terrorizing the countryside. He also wants to see this sword everyone's been talking about. He passes the Knights of the Square Table and comes to a humanoid Glenn. This happened before whatever turned Glenn into a frog took place. The two of them leave the castle and fight around Guardia Forest. A part of me hopes it's not the actual forest but just asset reuseal. Some lamia are slain, and Cyrus and Glenn save a woman from the Frog King. They get the Medal of Courage from him as he runs off, never to be seen again. We cut to the Denodoro Mountains, where Cyrus and Glenn stand against Magus and Ozzie. Or, trying to. It's not going well for them, and Cyrus asks Glenn to flee. Glenn refuses to leave his friend behind despite the chances both of them dying are a certainty. Cyrus rushes forward and is killed by Magus. Just to toy with the young squire, Glenn, they opt to change his form.

We return to Frog's house in the Cursed Woods, and a night of rumination has changed Glenn's mind. Our paladin is ready to take revenge for his friend and slay the Fiendlord, Magus! He has no idea about Lavos, but a lot of people don't like this guy. Far to the east of Denodoro is a random mountain. Enter it to see another flashback between Glenn and Cyrus. This time, they're both in training, thinking about their futures. Glenn, as a child, is saved by a teenaged Cyrus, and we'll get a scene on the Zenon Bridge. We'll end this with the aftermath of Cyrus' death and Glenn lying still as a frog. His best friend died ten years ago, and Glenn has been sitting on these emotions ever since. Back to the "present," and we'll see another anime cutscene that's one of my favorites. Glenn will soak up the blowing wind before removing the Masamune from its sheath. He will power the blade up and a blue pillar of light will shine across the world. He'll swing the sword and rend the mountain in two, revealing a passage under the straight to the west. Glenn can now equip the Masamune, and you should also give him the Hero's Badge to up the critical attack rate of the weapon. Before venturing further, return to the End of Time. Spekkio can grant Glenn his magical ability, which will be water. You should do this since Glenn is a mandatory party member, so leaving him with no spells or anything to learn is a real disadvantage for you. Everyone needs Tech Points! He's one of my favorite characters in any game. Glenn fights like a paladin, but he's pretty fast, second on the team right now behind Crono. He hits hard, is pretty tanky, can heal, crits all the time, has versatile double techs, and can do both good magic and physical damage. He's a character with no weaknesses and only strengths. So I guess he's broken, but it's cool. Also got some good plot arcs...

The path under the straight is filled with bats, who are weak to physical attacks, and rats that are vulnerable to magic. Marle and Glenn can learn Ice Water, which attacks everyone on screen. I plan to spam it for the next two hours. There's also a tiny bat following us... On the otherside of the passage is a massive castle. We've entered Magus' domain, and there are plenty of tricks to be had here.

There are two paths for the foyer. Both contain random people, mid ethers in chests, and are dead ends. Go to the ends of both of them and return here. When we do, things start to go. Ozzie will appear before us and give a typical villain speech. He'll say if we want to get to Magus, we'll need to get through the castle and the 100 demons that inhabit this place! The first battle of the dungeon happens! This whole place only has a handful of mobs, but they're unique to each other. Some are weak to either type of damage, while one absorbs magic (sorcerer). Nearly every battle is against groups of two or more species, so you have to figure out who to attack first and how. It'll keep ya on ya toes, depending on who you brought in. I usually just Ice Watered everyone and let Crono and Glenn clean up if anyone survived.

But once Ozzie goes away, we need to head down the hallways once more. This time, enemies are here, and I went to the right first. This section has us meeting fake versions of friends and family. Crono's mom wants to punish him, and Queen Lenne wants to eat Glenn. Our third party member's nightmare changes based on who's in the party. If you have Robby, Lucca will promise to break him again, Marle's dad wants her dead, and Taban will berate Lucca. At the end is one of Magus' general, Flea. Glenn will introduce "her," but it turns out Flea is a man. As long as it's power, sex doesn't matter. Flea is the hardest fight in the game so far. He deas in magic damage, but his worst stuff is his ability to inflict status effects. Sleep is annoying, but confusion is something you'll see a lot. He also has a million hit points! You cannot do any single target damage, magic or physical, or it'll be countered. Stick to X-Slash. Marle has learned Haste before this battle, so I applied it to get as many turns in as I could. It's gonna take some time, luck, and plenty of ethers, so prepare for a long heavyweight fight. Michael Peter drops a magic tag when we win and flies off. He was the small bat following us, so that's one less nuisance.

Return to the front and take the left path. It's filled with Omicrones and skeletons, neither of which are hard. At the end is the third general, Slush...uh...Slash. He's a two round battle, but neither is hard. A bit time consuming, though. Spam X-Slash in round one, and don't worry about Haste. Just keep everyone healed with Marle. For round two, Slash will pull out his sword, and it gets a bit harder. Do caste Haste and keep spamming X-Slash. Slash (the boss) will usually use Slash (the move), which does trigger a counter if you have the Rage Band on. Slash (the tech) hits multiple party members, but the damage is much less than a normal sword swing. Sal Hudson, too, will run away and leave his sword behind. Slash (the sword) is one of the best in the game since it raises Crono's speed by two! The damage falls off later, of course, but I'll be using it for a while!

Return to the foyer and enter the "save point," It's actually a teleporter that takes us the rest of the keep. From here, we deal with Ozzie's hand cranked traps. Sometimes he's bringing up mobs to ambush us, and other times, he's trying to trap us in a guillotine. The death trap conveyor belts are easy to avoid, but they can't kill you if they strike you. They will bring you to one HP, so heal up when you chase off John Michael. Next up are traps that he'll trigger when we get near them, but they're kinda bad. They only drop us into a room below. There are unnamed save point mobs we'll have to kill, a real safe point, and a teleporter point down here. We keep returning to the room with the floors revealed. We'll finally have him cornered in a grand throne room. Rather than fight us, though, he freezes himself. If we attack him in the form, everything is countered with a powerful magical spell. Instead, aim for the cranks around him. The fourth one will drop the frozen Ozzie below, and two save points will appear before. One's a teleporter, though, and we can enter and exit from the one on the otherside. Rest up and head into the dark stairwell.

Do what you will with the bats here. The next few rooms are very similar. Mobs will roll down stairs in an attempt to start a battle with us. You can avoid them if you climb down the ladders should you want to. After a while, we'll reach one last save point.

We'll enter the room and hear chanting. As we step forward, a blue flame will light our way forward. After another anime cutscene, we'll finally reach Magus. Magus and Glenn will unhappily reminisce about the past before we attempt to stop him summoning Lavos.

Magus changes his weakness every few turns or when stuck by said weakness. If you hit him with anything other than that, he'll absorb it. His physical defense is incredibly high, so don't bother with the attack command for a while. Glenn, though, can use it. The Masamune will lower Magus' magical defense, allowing Chrono and your third party member to get more damage in. There's a good argument to bring in Lucca or Robo for this as two water users is a bit redundant. Unless Robo has Cure Beam, though, I'm not a believer in it. Marle's heals are too good and sync with Aura Whirl. Magus' attacks aren't too strong, so that duel tech goes a long way. At least, for phase one...
 
After Magus takes enough damage, he'll "risk casting a spell." This normalizes his physical defense and removes his ability to absorb magic. But this also ups his attack. It takes two turns, but Magus will usually cast his strongest spell, Dark Matter. Keep your HP above 200/250, and you'll survive. Just make sure to heal after. I ran out of MP for Crono and Marle, so mid ethers are going to be used a few times. Fortunately, I had over thirty of them.

Despite us winning, Magus is more concerned with something else. He's lost concentration of his summon, and now Lavos is going mad. We'll yell at him for losing control of his creation, but we'll tell us that he had no part in creating Lavos... Suddenly, time and space around us will begin to warp and distort. We'll revolve a point in front of not Vegeta until the world goes black. We hear a bell ring in the distance, and someone tries to wake up Crono, mirroring the start of the game. It's not mom, but it's Marle. It seems Crono and her got married, and they've been living off the King's money. However, Marle wants Crono to get a job and be independent. She keeps trying to wake up him. She keeps trying and trying and trying... It was a dream, and we awaken in a hut in 65 Million BC. Ayla had a dream which led her to find us in the mountains. She dragged us all here and now wants to eat Glenn, who's still a frog. We dissuade her, and she tells us to go back to bed. Just as we wake up later, Kino enters the hut to inform us Ayla has gone looking for Laruba, another human village hiding from the Reptites. But he's followed by a loud random guy who screams that the forest to the north is burning! I wonder what we'll find there...

...tomorrow!

So Magus didn't summon Lavos? What's really going on here!? The plot's just starting now!