Chrono Trigger, was the first game that came out in 1993. Radical Dreamers: The Unstealable Jewel, was the visual novel that only came out in Japan. Last but not least is Chrono Cross, which came out in 1999, and is personally my favorite, but also my introduction into the series.
If the animation looks familiar, the same creator of Dragon Ball did the animation, and character art for Chrono Trigger!
The main character, and silent protagonist. He wields a sword, and has an affinity for lightning/holy magic.
Lucca: A mad scientist, and one of Crono's best friends. She uses a gun/mallet as her weapon, and uses fire magic. She's the engineer of the group, and sometimes can help with mechanical issues that may arise.
Lucca: A mad scientist, and one of Crono's best friends. She uses a gun/mallet as her weapon, and uses fire magic. She's the engineer of the group, and sometimes can help with mechanical issues that may arise.
Robo: A giant robot, whom Lucca takes a fascination from. Due to being a robot, robo has no magic abilities.
Marle: A princess, whos weapon is a crossbow, and is good with water magic.
Frog: Previously a knight, who was turned into a frog. His real name is Glenn, and they introduce a Glenn in the second game as somewhat of a nod to Frog. Like Marle, he also uses water magic.
Marle: A princess, whos weapon is a crossbow, and is good with water magic.
Frog: Previously a knight, who was turned into a frog. His real name is Glenn, and they introduce a Glenn in the second game as somewhat of a nod to Frog. Like Marle, he also uses water magic.
Ayla: A cavewoman from 65,000,000 BC, we meet her mother in Chrono Cross. Due to being born before magic was found, she has no magic capabilities.
Secret Character: Is the 7th, and final character to join the party. He starts off as a villain, who later joins Crono and his team. His weapon is a scythe, and he uses dark magic.
Story:Secret Character: Is the 7th, and final character to join the party. He starts off as a villain, who later joins Crono and his team. His weapon is a scythe, and he uses dark magic.
The game starts with the hero Crono meeting up with his friend Lucca, at a festival in a nearby town. Upon arrival, he bumps into a mysterious blonde girl named Marle. The two tour the town, until they find Lucca, and her new invention, a teleportation machine! Marle decides to give the machine a try, and instead of teleporting to another teleporting pod, she disappears without a trace! Marle was wearing an amulet, that when it was used in the pod, it instead sent her to a different time period.
The pendant stayed in their time, in which Crono goes after Marle! Lucca later joins up.
Crono, Marle and Lucca find themselves in 600 AD, medieval times. (Crono and the gang are from 1000 AD.)
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| Pierre from Chrono Cross |
Battles:
Unlike many RPGs, including it's sequel, Chrono Cross. Battles in Chrono Trigger appear on screen, in real time.
Characters are also able to do combo attacks with other characters, Lucca for example, can turn Crono's sword into fire, and deal a fire attack on enemies in the surrounding area.
Magic:
They eventually meet Frog in this era of the past, and find out about magic. Each character has a specific affinity to a certain element, and can use spells based on that element. Crono is Light and can use Light and lightning based spells, Lucca is Fire, Marle is Ice, Frog is Water, Magus is Shadow and Robo and Ayla cannot use magic due to Robo being a robot, and Ayla was born before the times of magic. Robo does have attacks that are Shadow, Fire and Lightning based. Based on Ayla's attacks, if she were a magical being, she would probably have Earth. As one of her attacks is "Boulder Toss". Earth magic does not exist in Chrono Trigger, but it does in Chrono Cross. In fact, Ayla's mother appears in Cross, and her element is yellow. Which is lightning/earth.
Magic varies between games. In Chrono Trigger, characters can use real magic they obtain as they level up. While in Chrono Cross, the characters use a fake magic, that can be purchased at shops.
There's a little bit of an error, as one of the covers for Chrono Trigger shows Marle using fire magic, when she cannot actually use fire, only Lucca can.
Bio:
Crono, and his friends go on a journey through time, they find out that there is an alien being known as Lavos. Lavos has been in their world since the very beginning, around Ayla's time period. Lavos is sucking the life force out of the planet, and on 1999 the planet will die out, and cause the world to go to waste. Crono and his friends get to go into the future, to see what happens to the world. Crono, and friends decide to stop Lavos, and save the world.
My favorite time period is when Crono and the gang go to 65,000,000,000 BC. It's mostly a volcanic island, with some really nice music, and scenery!
Radical Dreamers
Radical Dreamers is a text based game created three years after Chrono Trigger, and was never released in English.
It stars Serge, Kid, and Magil, who are after the ancient artifact known as the Frozen Flame, which is a fragment of Lavos.
Chrono Cross is largely based off of Radical Dreamers, Serge and Kid are main characters, while the main enemy Lynx, is also the enemy in Cross as well. Magil, is not in Cross, however, the character Guile is possibly based off of him.
Chrono Cross is largely based off of Radical Dreamers, Serge and Kid are main characters, while the main enemy Lynx, is also the enemy in Cross as well. Magil, is not in Cross, however, the character Guile is possibly based off of him.
Many of the songs in Radical Dreamers are re-used in Chrono Cross.
Bio:
Chrono Cross takes place 20 years after the events of Chrono Trigger, it stars Serge a 17 year old boy from the village of Arni. On his way to Opassa beach, he gets teleported to another dimension. In this world, he died ten years ago, when he was 7. He bumps into a strange girl named Kid, who is off to Viper Manor to go and steal a magical item known as the Frozen Flame! Kid is chasing after an anthropomorphic panther man named Lynx, who is also after the Frozen Flame. Serge decides to accompany her, in search of the Frozen Flame.
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| Harleequin (Harle for short), a leading character in Chrono Cross. |
There are three separate characters to recruit, on your way to a place called Viper Manor. Once you recruit one, you can't get the other two, unless you start a new save!
The same can be said for a storyline later on, when trying to save a character. If you find a way to save them, three specific characters can join, and if you don't try to save them, three others will join you instead.
If you've completed the game, and have saves with all the characters, there is a way in the end of the game to automatically have all 45 characters!
The funny thing is that there were supposed to be more than 60 characters, as well as a "journey to the west" scenario. Unfortunately this was scrapped, but you can find out about it by searching up unused characters in Chrono Cross, if you're interested!
Battle:
Despite the fact that the game has 45 playable characters, Chrono Cross sticks with Chrono Trigger's 3 character party.
Battles are different from Trigger, as the battles are not time based, and the screen fades to enter a new "Battle" area, like in most rpg's..
The interesting thing about Cross is that every character has 3 levels of regular attacks.
The higher the level, the stronger, while the lower is weaker. Level 1 is the weakest while level three is the strongest, but the higher the attack the easier for enemies to dodge! So, you have a better chance of hitting an enemy with a level 1 attack, than a level 3 attack.
Each level of attack has a different animation too, which is really interesting. On level 1, Serge will stab an opponent with his weapon, while a level three attack he does a spin slash attack and each level has two animations. The interesting thing with levels is that some characters can actually attack all enemies with their level 3 attack, but it has a better chance of missing. Characters with Boomerangs, and magic staffs can attack all enemies with their level 3 attack, this only includes 5 characters in total, with there being 3 staff users and 2 boomerang users. Staff users actually shoot magic orbs at enemies on their 3rd level, while boomerang users do a strong throw to hit all enemies.
The amount of normal attacks you can do is based on the characters stamina points, usually you can only use the third level attack twice and maybe one 1 level attack per round. Weaker attacks use less stamina, while stronger attacks use more stamina, so you could do many more level 1 attacks than level 3 in one turn.
The level attacks also allow the character to use magic, if the character uses a level 1 attack, they unlock their level 1 magic spells, while level 3 would unlock level three spells, and if they do a level three attack again, it would unlock level 6 spells.
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| Skelly from Chrono Cross |
Unlike Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross has a different set of magic. Elements are purchasable items that allow characters to use a magic spell once per battle. If a character has one fireball spell equipped, they can use it once. If they equip 3 of them, they can use it up to three times. Elements recharge after battle, which is a nice battle mechanic that hasn't been used in a game before.
Chrono Trigger is the opposite, where a character has a natural ability to use magic, which used magic power, instead of recharging after battle.
Elements allow for the player to choose who can use what kind of spell, which I think is also better, since I hate it when characters can only use certain set spells (like Chrono Trigger). I like it when you can give whatever you want to a character, be it magic, or weapons. While most elements are items you can buy at shops, some are consumable, and rare ones are usually only found while treasure hunting.
There are 6 elemental affinities in Chrono Cross, White, Black, Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. White is Light magic, Black is Dark, Red is Fire, Blue is Water, Green is Wind and Poison, and Yellow is Earth and Lightning.
Each character has an elemental affinity, Serge is White, while Kid is Red. Certain elements can be more powerful against others, and characters who have that affinity, will have more stronger attacks with those spells. A Red element spell would be more powerful when Kid uses it, rather than when Serge uses it.
Each element has an opposite, and when the opposite element is used, it damages the character more than it would another element.
Red innate characters are weaker to blue innate spells than a green innate character would be, while blue innate characters are weaker to red innate spells.
Red < > Blue
Yellow < > Green
White < > Black
Each character gets 3 special elements that are attributed to their personality, and fighting style, they get more as bosses are defeated. Everyone gets their first two special attack elements at the same boss battles, but some characters you have to do something in particular to get their last attack. For example, the character Poshul must speak to the character Leena, in Serge's original world, in order to get her final element called Unleashed.
Some elements can also only be used by characters with that elemental affinity, a blue innate character can't use special elements that can only be used by fire innates, those elements all have stars next to them and usually have certain circumstances to obtain and use. Really powerful elements such as "Frog Prince", which only blue innates can use, must actually be captured with an element that traps other powerful elements.
Elements are equipped to an element grid on the character, the grids have levels. There are 8 levels, each characters first special element attack is on the third level of the grid, their second special attack is on 5 and their third special element attack is on the 7th level. Every character's element grid is different, their element slots all appear at different times.
In order to attach elements to characters, they have an element grid. There is a certain amount of slots that characters can unlock, and the grid also has levels. Level 1 slot on the grid, is the weakest, while level 8 is the strongest. Elements themselves do better, average or worse when on certain levels. A fireball Element is a level 1 spell, and will do good on any level, but if it's put on a level higher than level one, the power of it increases and it becomes Fireball +1, +2, +3 etc..
Some Elements can't even be equipped to lower levels on the grids, while others can also suffer if they are put on a lower class, a negative sign will appear and the spell will be weaker than normal.
Elements also replace use-able items, instead of having a potion in the party bag, you equip items like "Tablet" to a characters element grid in order for the character to use the item. (Tablets, Capsule, and Nostrum, are all consumable elements.)
Elements are more complicated than normal magic in Chrono Trigger, but they're much more customizable. You can give any character almost whatever element you want to give them.
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| Mojo, a living VooDoo Doll. |
My two favorite characters are Poshul, a talking pink dog, and Van, a painter whose weapon is a boomerang.
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| Poshul |
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| Van |
Visuals
The imagery in Chrono Cross is just as amazing as Chrono Trigger, and maybe even better.
The creators made a blend of 2D sprites and 3D and they did it right, the backgrounds to places are just stunning! I definitely recommend checking out some of the official artwork!
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| 65,000,000 BC (Chrono Trigger) |
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| Opassa Beach (Chrono Cross) |
Towns being Arni, Serge's home place, Guldove, Termina and Marbule, the town of demi humans. The other places are dungeons, and tropical get-a-ways.
When I was little, I was always so disappointed that you never get to go to this little island that is south from Arni village. I always thought you would get the fairy character Razzly there, I thought you'd find her in the woods or something. I also thought something similar for another place "Fossil Valley", where you meet the character Skelly, for the first time. For some reason, I thought there was a separate path behind Skelly, to go to another town. I don't know why I thought this, but I kind of wish it existed!
Did you know?
Magus from Chrono Trigger, Magil from Radical Dreamers, and Guile from Chrono Cross. Were all supposed to be the same character in disguise! Guile, is in fact not Magus.
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