Let's Play Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes!

[Dracorion]

Episode Five: Lucca versus the Wonderful World of Tomorrow Part Two: Dalton's RevengeEpisode Five: Lucca versus the Wonderful World of Tomorrow Part Two: Dalton's Revenge


Anyway, we are now out in the overworld of 2305 A.D., and the first "new" time period we encounter in this game. It uses the tilesets from 1999 AD from the previous game.

Music: Memories of Green

Incidentally, we don't actually get to visit 1999 AD. There's nothing interesting there now that Lavos is dead.

Anyway, while Chronopolis is out in the middle of the sea, the teleporter exit drops us in a little outpost in Choras. It's that fountain you see to the right, camouflaged to look like the ground.


That big dome at the bottom is actually a mall. That is, a glorified item shop. Indeed, that guy you see there is the item vendor who sells nothing we don't already have, though I take the opportunity to restock on Mid Tonics.

So what else is there to this mall, if we already saw the item vendor? There's no weapon vendor!


Hey...


Is that...


It's...


JOHNNY!

Music: Robo Gang Johnny

The music has actually been playing since we entered the mall, but I wanted to keep the surprise.


EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

... Wow, Johnny?



I'm just including these because it's Johnny.

In the flesh! We've got everything you need!
... Or so I'd say, but I haven't been able to get the best parts, lately. Hey, you guys look pretty adventurous. Wanna help me out?
Well-
GREAT!! You might have to do some bartering. Take this, and try to trade for the part. If you get it, I'll have something special for you!

Recieved MoldyBread!

Yeah, Johnny's purpose in this game is to stick us with a bartering quest. We have to trade a lump of moldy bread for an automotive part, somehow. And I'll tell you right now, there's no one in this time period we can trade with. Meaning we have to go to the past, find someone who wants a piece of bad futuristic bread, and trade it to them for a futuristic automobile part.

Yyyyyeaaaahhh... I don't like you as much anymore, Johnny. But you're still great. So great. Great forever.


I SAID FOREVER.

Anyway, I wonder what that kid nearby has to say.



... Moving right along.



Er, I mean... uh, no bad behavior, now.

Goddammit, this place.

Whatever, we just grab a MagicScarf from that treasure chests and sticks it on Lucca, increasing her magic by two points. She's going to be our magic nuker for the time being.


Back in the overworld, that dome to the left is just the residence of an old man who doesn't want to talk about the Central Regime, whatever that is. Choras also has... uh, what the hell is this?


The Hero's Grave museum was converted into an apartment building sometime in the last 1300 years, apparently.

It's nice staying out in the country like this!

... The country? I guess I shouldn't be surprised about people in the future having this kind of attitude. It's still pretty stupid, though.

Anyway, you'd think this apartment building would function as an inn, but nope, it's never open ever. You can't even get past the first floor. It's just an extra bit of flavor the developers added to this time period.


At the leftmost point of Choras we have this station. It's supposed to serve as like a future subway or a teleporter or something between Choras and Zenan, but it's broken right now and we have to walk through a silly one-screen tunnel instead.


So far, 2305 AD seems to be where the CE team concentrated most of the worldbuilding that ends up going nowhere in their game. The attention to detail is kinda neat, but none of this really matters at all.

Maybe it's the nostalgia goggles talking, but I don't think CT did this?


Anyway, Zenan has a couple of things of note too. Mostly...


The seat of the government! Which is situated in an old castle because why not. No, seriously, ingame they just did it because why not, I believe.

Music: Kingdom Trial

The place isn't even very secure. High-ranking officers hold their meetings behind unlocked doors. To their credit, the President of the regime isn't actually here, though.


WHAT'S BEHIND DOOR NUMBER ONE?

Yeah, NPC talk here boils down to the Regime having an open door policy with their main building (this place). You can talk to some random citizens milling about, and their talk seems to be about how there's a lot of rebellions popping up all the time but the Regime puts them down with their generosity. No, really.

I don't really get how the government can have a name as authoritative as the Regime and still be generous.

Anyway, there's also mention of some place called the Comet Islands being successful, and learn of a few new places. Namely, Zephram (not to be confused with Zenan, which is where we are), Old Truce and Hulson.

They're presumably regions somewhere, though we don't ge to see them and the last two are only mentioned by one person. Yeah, pointless flavor all over the place.

This castle holds a couple of treasure chests, though. One with 500G and another with...



The Speed Belt raises speed by 2, though the Bandana Crono's wearing already raises it by 1 so really it only goes up by one for him. Regardless, he can now get about twice as many turns as Lucca and Marle.

This prison area only has one prisoner claiming innocence. I sure hope this isn't supposed to be a real prison in the future, because that'd just be sad. Back to the overworld with us!


Let's check out this house because why not.



... Let's just go.

Last place of interest in the future is also the best place:


Yep, a Coliseum. This one in particular works like FF7's, not like FF6's as you would expect.

Music: Delightful Spekkio

Basically, you fight seven rounds worth of battles in easy, medium or hard mode, with your whole party or just the party leader, and if you win all seven you earn some BP. Each fight you'll get a random handicap that might be beneficial or detrimental, but usually detrimental. Something like HP restored, Bad Weapon, Bad Armor, and so on.

As mentioned, the guy behind the counter to the left signs us up, and the one on the right provides a tutorial explaining what I just said. The hallway to the right is where we can exchange our BP for prizes, and the hallway down the left is where we can get some soup from a chef for a free heal.

The thing is... the Coliseum isn't something you can really do in a first playthrough. To properly take on the place, you need to be on like your second New Game+ of this game.

But, a picture is worth a thousand words and ten pictures are worth ten thousand words, so I'll just show you how hard this thing is on Easy difficulty with the whole party.



Music: Battle 2

Our first fight is against a single Blue Imp that goes down in one critical hit from Crono. This earns the party their double techs, by the way, which are unchanged for the first game. Now we have Fire Whirl, Aura Whirl and Antipode. The latter is going to be our goto move for this run.


Next we fight a Juggler. You might remember these from Magus' castle, but if you don't, their gimmick is basically that they'll raise their defence against the last type of attack you used against them. So hit them with a physical attack, their defense will go up and their magic defense down. Then you hit them with a magical attack, so magic defense up and defense down, and repeat until it's dead.




The third battle is a simple one against a Reptite. The thing's basically just a big blob of HP. Crono's lightning shocks it, completely incapacitating it, and Marle and Lucca Antipode it a couple of times to finish it off.


By this point I've already gotten the Bad Weapon and Bad Armor handicaps, making my characters really squishy meatbags that can't even hit as hard as they should.

So yeah, the Winged Ape's attacks hurt, and we can't neuter this one with lightning. It has less HP than the Reptite, though, and it goes down after one Antipode and some Lightnings from Crono.


You might realize at this point that MP is really a problem. Each magic spell costs 4 MP and our characters have around 22 max MP, which isn't much for a long gauntlet like this. And the Silver Stud is still equipped on Magus. I end up having to use a lot of Ethers. You can't buy those! The only good thing is enemies have been dropping them like party favors.

Before we're done here, though, I'm down to one Ether in my inventory. I really wish I'd just quit at some point and stop using items I can't buy. At least it wasn't Elixirs, I guess.

Anyway, the Byte goes down with three shots of Antipode, and now we face the enemy that made me want to quit and stop wasting my items.


The Lizardactyl absorbs lightning, limiting Crono to using Cyclone or normal attacks, and it has good evasion so it avoids like a third of my attacks.

Also, any of its normal attacks will oneshot a party member that isn't fully healed, and it counters magic with an attack that causes damage as well as Chaos (aka Confusion).

A lot of Revives, Mid Tonics and Ethers were used here. Oh, my poor wallet. I'm going to need to go on a blackjack binge as soon as we get back to the present.


After much painstaking effort, including me having to resort to physical attacks because I didn't want to use any more Ethers and Marle spending half the fight confused because I didn't want to take time away from healing or attacking, it finally dies and at least has the decency to drop a Mid Ether in repayment.


And we move on to the last round, which is...




Oh, fuck me.

Yeah, after this we get unceremoniously dropped back at the entrance with no BPs. After a quick heal, we've officially seen everything there is to see in the future.


Yeah, this tunnel in the mountain serves no purpose other than cocktease, sadly. I'm chalking it up to 2%.

Though, perhaps it's for the best the CE team didn't get to add one or two more continents of pointless flavor to this era.

Anyway, back to Chronopolis to advance the plot! You'll recall Belthasar told us to visit the bottom level of his facility, so that's where we're going.



Yeah, there's a couple things of note in this floor. First, let's check out the door on the left.


She means rest room as in a place to sleep, not a bathroom. God, you people, get your minds out of the gutter.

She goes on to say that only the Central Regime has medical facilities as advanced as this one, but that doesn't matter. What matter is treasure chest!!!


Well, that's disappointing. What the hell are Power Meals even supposed to do? I don't think I've ever used one.


Whatever, let's just check out the door on the right.


Oh hey, it's Melchior! Apparently that "trip" he took was cross-time periods. He must have billions of frequent flier miles from back-and-forthing.

You're just in time to witness something spectacular! Here goes nothing...



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Blast it! It didn't work. Oh, what am I doing, you ask? It's simple! In theory...
My research indicates that the Dreamstone, with certain conditions, can be rigidified into stronger material.

Rigidified? But it's already stone! How much more rigid can it fucking get?

Unfortunately, it's just not working! And I don't want to exhaust our Dreamstone supply... Or you may have to fetch some! Hah!

Yeah, laugh it up about how you made us go all the way to the dawn of humanity to fetch your stupid Dreamstone, old man.

Well, more seriously, I'd better not keep you. You must be eager to explore this place!

A bit. But before we do that, let's check out that computer near Melchior, shall we?


More flavor! I'm renaming this time period the Bertie Botts era.


Back outside, we get this from a treasure chest, though I don't think I'm going to stick it on anyone just yet. Lucca's already got magic, Crono's got speed, and Marle's attack power is pitiful with or without the boost the Powerglove gives.

Better than the Power Meal, though.

Checking that computer to the right...



April 16, 2305 A.D. - TALKS RENEWED

The states of Regiorra and Porre renewed talks with the Comet Islands today, hoping to achieve a new trade deal that would bring the wealth of the archipelago to southern Zenan. When asked whether a new agreement would injure the wealth of New Dorino, its mayor scoffed at the idea, calling the talks a waste of time.
- DISPLAY COMPLETE -

More flavor. This console can occassionally give us some insight into relevant events in this time period. At the moment though, there's not much. I'm curious that there's apparently a New Dorino, though. Wasn't that the town between Truce and Porre in the Middle Ages, that went and disappeared at some point before 1000 AD?

Well, moving on, we go and talk to the computer next to this one.


Oh balls.

Well, what the hell, let's go into the dragon's den.

> So... when were you created?


When production halted in 2200 A.D., I was relocated to Truce to perform intelligence work.
In 2300 A.D., when Chronopolis was built, Director Belthasar secured my transportation here.
He also unlocked my higher thought processing abilities, which were disengaged in Truce.

Goddammit Belthasar!

I am now formally known as Mother Brain v2.8. I oversee the operations of this place.

> Who owns Chronopolis?

Chronopolis was created by Belthasar, who secured funding and resources independently from all governmental organizations. The actual location is the sea of El Nido, a barren stretch of ocean claimed by the Comet Islands government.
The center has remained totally unknown to the world thanks to advanced cloaking devices.


Every time you talk to her, Mother Brain says this, which just fills me with confidence.

Also, notice those three thingies above the console. They're supposed to be nods at the bosses you could face in the Sea of Eden in Chrono Cross, inspired by the three Goddesses of Fate from Greek mythology.


No, that area down there isn't accessible. With the way this game's been acting, I half-expected a treasure chest to be there.

Anyway, let's check out the room to the right and finish this tour!




Pretty.

And what're people from Zeal doing here?


That Dreamstone you see enriches the output of our generators tenfold. But we're always on the lookout for better sources of power...
Ah, what an interesting world. I'm relieved Belthasar saved me after the fall of Zeal.

So, Belthasar somehow reached into the Dark Ages and pulled this guy into the future. I'm sure this will never be relevant again!

Wow, this is really impressive! What a bright center!

Marle agrees with my earlier observation. This makes me feel smart.

So much technology... I could do a lot with this stuff!

You'd just make things that explode.

But anyway, me doth think I see a treasure chest.


Oh, booyah.


I wish I'd had this before I did the Coliseum. But whatever, we've seen everything now, so let's go back up and stumble into moving the plot along.


As soon as the team enters the elevator, they're greeted by an unwelcome face.

Music: A Shot of Crisis


The feeling is mutual, however, and the spy proceeds to climb right the fuck up outta there.

Huh?!


No idea... but we'd better stop him. He must be up to something!
Going UP!



Now, there's a small bug here in that when the elevator arrives, the music will change back to Brink of Time, and then as soon as you exit go back to Shot of Crisis. Not really interesting.


After saving quickly (yes, there's a hallway with a save point between the TDC room and the elevator that I neglected to show off), the team heads back to the main chamber!



On cue, the spy drops down from the rafters onto the TDC.


He's going to use the Dispatch Chamber!
... Not if we stop him!


And they rush him!


But you see, the Porre spy has many talents.


He's got super speed, rocket fists, and apparently also super strength.


So he just drags everyone into the TDC because he's awesome like that. I'd like to think that in his free time, he dresses up in a cape and tights and fights crime in Porre.


Oh.
At least we're going somewhere familiar.

True, it could be worse! Last time you went into an unknown time period, it was the boringest future ever. And the time before that, it was a massive Gate that plunged you into an icy wasteland! Except it was actually a world with an enlightened civilization in the sky filled with douchebags.

The point is not knowing where you're time traveling can result in some unfortunate surprises.

Find out what that person did! Hurry!


And so the team plus one end up back where they started in the Denadoro Mountains.

As soon as they all exit the Gate, the party draw their weapons.

Ugh, stop right there!
How'd you get to Chronopolis!?
No use talking, let's thrash this guy!

Why didn't you do that BEFORE he jumped into the time machine?



And once again the agent flies like the wind. You'd think by now the guys would've realized they can't keep up with him.

Where could he be going? Back to Porre?
We'll find out, one way or another!
They've got a base on the coast. That's got to be it! Crono, let's get a move-on!


And that's it for now, kids. How did the Porre agent get to Chronopolis? What did he learn there? Will Johnny ever get the parts he needs?

Find out all this and more, next time on Let's Play Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes!

By the way, I realized my line in the last update about reused bosses was slightly inaccurate. That comes later in this chapter. Still, I guess the Golem twins count.

Next time: Assholes! Stealth! Reused bosses! (For real this time)

[Satan's Onion]

Some of your observations about Crimson Echoes tie in pretty neatly with some of my thoughts about it (although I haven't played it nearly as much as you have): It seems to want to tell a lot of stories that don't really add much to the fictional universe they're meant to enrich. Like when we see what's apparently the very first moment Ozzie, Slash and Flea notice young Janus--frankly, if that information was terribly important to Magus' characterization, I expect we'd already have found out about it. (As for the "Shadow magic is the most powerful magic of all of them ever" thing, I wonder if that isn't a bit of Magus-fansturbation creeping in to the game--that is, Magus uses Shadow; Magus is teh kewlest evar; therefore, Magus is using the most powerful magic evar.) It seems to me like Crimson Echoes is trying so hard to make Trigger and Cross fit together that it doesn't focus enough on being a compelling story in its own right.

[Dracorion]

I'd agree about the Magus thing, except so far this game has seemed to go out of its way to emasculate him.

As for Magus' flashbacks, yeah, they were pretty pointless. When you're showing off information the player already knows, it's usually a good idea to try to present it in interesting ways. As it stands, out of Magus' entire flashback schpiel, there was exactly one interesting piece.

Betcha can't guess which.

[Dracorion]

Episode Six: Marle versus the Little Military that CouldEpisode Six: Marle versus the Little Military that Could


Last time, the team found the Porre spy somehow made it into Chronopolis, and were dragged by him back to the past. Now they have to find out what he took from the future.

Music: Memories of Green

Anyway, Denadoro Mountains is still the same location from the previous game, only now it's in the present instead of the Middle Ages. Difference is...


It's no longer a dungeon.


Anyway, We grab a Mid Tonic and a Mid Ether from some treasure chests, both welcome after the Lizardactyl burned through my item stockpile, the bastard. Back in the overworld, let's see if we can't go over to Choras and cheat the Casino for more drug money.



Goddammit Marle. Fine, let's go over to dumb Fiona's forest so we can go to stupid Porre and find a jerkass spy.


Music: Secret of the Forest

Now, here's a neat thing about Fiona's forest I noticed while I was playing.


This area is where the campfire scene took place in Chrono Trigger, minus the ugly mushroom monsters. And over here...


Is where Lucca's red Gate appeared. The CE team expanded this map into a full forest.

Anyway, let's get out of this forest and pass Fiona's Shrine because there's nothing to do there at all. Let's see if Porre's really as terrible as they say, hm?




Assholes.

Music: Silent Light

So yeah, like I said in the first episode, Porre is all about soldiers being assholes and civilians whining about the soldiers being assholes. Place is a shithole.

The world map theme for Porre isn't all that good either, but it's welcome because I was getting kinda tired of Memories of Green.

The Snail Stop, aka Cafe aka Bar, has something mildly amusing, at least.


No, not that.


The Kilwala piano player will play us a song to show off some of the game's music tracks!

> I need a relaxing tune.

Music: At the Bottom of Night

> Yeeeah! Kick it up!!

Music: Bike Chase

I suspect the CE team spent a long time scratching their heads, trying to figure out where to put the bike race music.


In Porre Square we find this writer guy whose interpretation of current events seems a little... skewed. Let's see what those papers on the table say, shall we?


HEY! Don't read that! It's uh... the conclusion. Can't spoil the ending of my story, right?

Sure thing, dude.

Though I wonder whose bright idea it was to put the terrible spy inside your own territory. Seems like he should be over in Truce or somewhere, to see if they're planning to attack Porre. Or maybe he's trying to root out rebellion from within Porre? Ah, who cares.



This guy here will provide some half-assed explanations as to what is going on.

> Where's the mayor?

The position of mayor and elder was nullified one year ago. The citizens of Porre no longer require a civil leader as their ancestors did in the past.

> Why martial law?

The increase of civil violence and discontent at the old system have caused the people of Porre to look to us, who can provide a stable order.

Yeah, the people whining about the ferry being shut down or their sons being drafted sure seemed content.

Who's "us", anyway? Where the hell did Porre's military even come from? That's the million dollar question. But not one we can answer right now, so we head upstairs to violate someone's privacy by reading their diary.


... a comet dash across the sky. I think of home at times like this - Of my smiling parents, and my kid brother. Judging from the state of world affairs, I pray he does not follow my path, and enlist. If he does, however, I'm sure he will make a fine leader.

Good night.

-o- W.I. -o-

This W.I. fellow sounds like a total wuss. But that's the only interesting thing left in town, so let's go do what we were supposed to do.


Remember? We're supposed to investigate the base on the coast to find the Porre spy.

As soon as we step in, though, some asshole soldier tries to send us out.

Civilians are not allowed in the camp. I...
Oh, quiet! Where's that weird guy sent to the castle meeting?
... I know not who you are talking about. Please...
Step aside! We're gonna take a look!
I cannot do that. Only the King of Guardian can authorize external inspections...


Yeah, you tell him Lucca.

Hmph. Fine, do as you wish. It's not like we're hiding anything special anyway.


We only really need to go to the house in the top right corner of the map to move the story along, but like everywhere else the CE team put some unique scenes all over the camp.


What kind of a freak name is William? Reasonable people are called Crono, or Nadia or Melchior or Schala, jeez.

Whatever, let's go talk to the weirdly named guy.



Music: Delightful Spekkio

Hmm... I do believe I am tired, however. I will resume my nap, as I have the night shift.
Do stop by sometime. I would hugely enjoy a chat with you fellows! Farewell.

No, I have no clue why the music changes only during your conversation with him. Like, what the fuck.

Anyway, this William is the same W.I. from the diary we read back at the Soldier Housing. His full name is William Ishito. It's a reference to Chrono Cross, you see. Ishito was Norris' japanese name. William is supposed to be his brother. No, there is no mention of Norris having a brother in CC.

SO was correct in saying that the CE team was too concerned with tying together Trigger and Cross to write their own compelling story.

Anyway, the house on the bottom right corner of the map has a little scene of Marle being Marle.


HEY!! Do you know who you're talking to!? We're Guardia royalty!
Oh, sorry, um... I had no idea...!

By Marle being Marle, I mean Marle being a huge bitch. I know you can feel the conceitedness pouring out of your monitor.


Outside we find this little campfire, and another soldier begging Marle to yell at him.

Oh yeah? Who made it this way? Perhaps you should criticize your own leaders!


... Moving right along, I wonder what those big animal feet to the right were.


Oh.


It's not functional at all.
Well, that's good. It's still the ugliest tank I've ever seen, though. Let's go check out the house above it.


Seriously? That ugly looking tank?


Oh, I guess not. Then what the hell were you talking about? Anyway, after grabbing a Shelter from the treasure chest, we've seen everything there is to see in the camp.


HALT! This is the general's quarters. Only one guest at a time, darnit! I'm not letting all three of you through!


Absolutely not. You're our worst fighter! Tell 'er, guys!

No way! The king would be furious, and so would we! We just have to find another way...
Perhaps if they didn't know it was us...

So we need to find disguises now? Why, I think I know where we can find some hapless victims for our identity theft scheme.



No, absolutely not! These poor souls have clearly come down with something, probably food poisoning. Their existences are miserable enough as is. Let's steal uniforms from the two guys who are napping on the job, that's morally acceptable.



Unfortunately, Crono shivs them in the back anyway. What an honorable prince.


Alright, put 'em on!

Crono and Lucca drag the two guys off screen and put their duds on.

Yikes, it's hot in here...
I don't think the guy who had this was wearing deodorant...

Man, you live in a world that only recently discovered steam power. You shouldn't even know what deodorant is!


Anyway, the tracking for two NPC sprites following you isn't quite as good as it is with party members. As you can see, those two soldiers bashing their heads against the platform are Crono and Lucca.



The guard let's Marle inside now, though no explanation is given for why he lets Porre Soldier NPC #54 and #29 waltz in as well.


Porre: Nicest place on earth.

But who cares about that? Treasure chest!!!!


Oh, hell yes. We throw it on Lucca for another nice +5 to her attack stat. Actually, I'm curious why the game gives you a weapon upgrade in a chest for Lucca shortly after Chronopolis just gave you one. Where's the Marle love?

Okay, Marle sucks, but the game shouldn't really reflect that. I forgot to screenshot it, but I bought Marle a crossbow upgrade in Porre's weapon shop, as well as armor and helmet upgrades for her and Lucca.

My cash dipped below the quadruple digits, though, which I dislike. But whatever, let's go talk to an asshole.


Uh... well, I wouldn't say it like that...
Then I take it that Guardia is doing well?


... What the fuck happened to Marle's head here?

Um... What's the deal with the envoy you sent? And where is the agent who escaped?
(That should get him reeling!)
Uh... well, unbeknownst to us, spies had captured our emissaries, and went in their place to cause turmoil.
Spies from where?


Hm, okay... and what's that tank doing outside?
It's the prototype of an... "automobile". It's for civilian purposes. I assure you, it is not equipped with weapons or those sorts of things. It doesn't even work, in fact!

Okay, riding on cars shaped like badass animals would be the awesomest thing, but that thing outside is seriously the ugliest fucking car ever.

Oh... and this concludes our deal. Send the Chancellor my wishes. You may not return here. Have a safe journey home!

At this, Marle, Crono and Lucca contritely leave with their tails between their legs.


I gotta agree with his assessment of Marle here.

A shame the mission failed.
If only we had more... more soldiers, more weapons, and a working tank -- I'd give them what for, all right!


Back outside, the braintrust are discussing how they can catch the spy now.

I think so too. But we can't find the agent... For now, let's return to the castle and tell it to the King.

Haha, nope, they're just going to run back home. I mean, he only stole God knows what dangerous thing from a super-advanced future facility. No need to hurry.

And as soon as they leave...


Buy your limited edition Porre Spy Action Figures now, kids!



Now with Super Jumping action!

Meanwhile, the party makes it to Fiona's forest. Only...


It'll be dark soon.
This forest is no place for Guardia royalty to travel at night.
Let's stay at Fiona's Chapel for the night and leave tomorrow.

... Well, at least they're acknowledging that they were inexplicably knocked back down to level 1 meatsacks.

Anyway, this is just the game slowing the pace down a bit. Chrono Trigger had Crono waiting in a cell for three days to be executed, Crimson Echoes has the party resting in a chapel because the forest is dangerous at night.

Nevermind that they already rested in the middle of the forest in the previous game, and the only thing they had to worry about was wild Gate attacks.


As soon as we step into the shrine...


IT IS MAGICALLY NIGHT. Also, the party's sprites are darkened to reflect this, while the NPCs glow in the dark.

Music: Manoria Cathedral


Near the end, we can talk to this guy.

I'm investigating reports of thievery. Technically, my jurisdiction stops at the Zenan Bridge, but the Chancellor is tired of complaints from Truce.
What are you guys doing here? It's not safe.
We've been looking for that crazy emissary from the meeting. No luck...
Now that you've shown interest, they may be a little on edge. Be on your guard. Here, take this.

Recieved one Tonic!

Oh gee, one whole Tonic! Thanks dude, you just saved my life forever!

Cheapskate.


Something bad? I wonder what that is. Might have something to do with that the imp has to say.


This is probably what the report the really shitty undercover agent back in Porre had was talking about.


Apparently there are bandits in the forest? And presumably they're more dangerous than giant space hedgehogs. Moving on...


Music: Good Night



HELL YES ANIMAL CARS. I APPROVE ENTIRELY.

Music: Mystery of the Past


Anyway, now that night has passed we head over to the Zenan Bridge to go tell the king we lost the spy after he followed us to the future and probably stole something from the future. But as soon as we make it to the Guardia end of the bridge...



What? I thought their engineers couldn't make it work?

Music: A Shot of Crisis


Apparently they can.



We'll see about that.



Now, the Chimera Tank works exactly like the Dragon Tank from the first game. The wheels store energy for a rush attack to run your party over, the body shoots lasers and missiles, and the head restores HP and occasionally spits fire.



It likes to do tha twice in a row, to keep up with the asskicking you can give it. And believe me, this thing doesn't stand a chance.




While the Dragon Tank in Chrono Trigger was mildly threatening, this fight is trivialized by the addition of Marle, because she gives us access to Antipode.

After another shot of Crono's Cyclone, the wheels are dead before they can do anything.


The tank's damage isn't much to speak of, though it hits you often enough that it can start to pile up, especially if it concentrates on one target. The body likes to shoot lasers (which is what happened in this screenshot, I just suck at actually catching the lasers on screen).



Or it can fire missiles at someone, both for damage that isn't much to speak of.



Imagine me using Cyclone and Antipode again and again while the body fires lasers and missiles and the head heals or shoots flames at somebody, and you'll have the gist of this fight.

Eventually the head is the only part left alive, because it takes less damage from Antipode than the rest of the parts.


All in all, not too exciting. The reason we've been having so many rehashed boss fights is because by this point in the game the developers hadn't quite figured out how to work enemy AI.



Even though the tank working is the only reason Porre tried to start this war, and it just exploded, they decide to keep pushing forward and send those knights at us.

It is seriously the saddest thing that the Porre army needed information from the future to complete a piece of military technology that their enemy already perfected and implemented five years ago.

So, so sad. I can't hate Porre anymore because they're just so sad.


This is clearly going to end well for them.



Sadly for them, the knights are optimally positioned for a Slash to the face. One physical attack each later, they're all dead.


AS-YOU-WISH.

Unfortunately for you, Crono won't have any of that shit.





Montcrief, with the agent! How did they complete this tank so quickly?
He lost something... It looks like...

Recieved Gate Key!


Oh shit.

Did the agent steal it in my house? I have no idea what's going on, but if he used this to go to Chronopolis, perhaps we can, too.
Belthasar may be able to give us the answers we need... Let's see if the Telepod Gate is active.

Yeah, sure. He'll tell you what the agent took, and then probably withhold information like the fact that he knows, oh, the hows and whys of everything that's going on.



That's it for this update, kids. I'm sorry to say my update schedule will slow down quite a bit for the next month, but I will nonetheless strive my very best not to enjoy my vacation so I can continue to work on updates for your entertainment.



Next time: Fraud! Monsters! And the plot thickens.

[Ryong]

I don't mean to pry, but why are you talking about fleshing out the world being a bad thing?

[Dracorion]

Because it is mind-numbingly boring when I have to LP it!

But seriously now, I probably shouldn't have said anything so early in the RP, because now you're asking and the answer is too spoilery. I apologize for that. But, well, I opened this can of worms so what the hell.

The CE team did two kinds of fleshing out in the game. There's good old William, who serves only as a tie-in to CC. He doesn't add anything important or necessary to Norris' character, and he serves no more purpose in this game than any nameless NPC.

Then there's stuff like the Central Regime and the political situation in the future. It doesn't matter to the story of the game at all and unfolds only in text boxes. Unlike other time periods, current events have no bearing on the plot and or the appearance of the world. They're just fluff.

Things do get better soon, though. And William and 2305 AD are the worst of it that I recall. A short while after this point in the original game is when you get the reveal of Lavos. Let's just see what Crimson Echoes has in store for us, shall we?

[Dracorion]

Episode Seven: Marle versus The Dangers of Gambling AddictionEpisode Seven: Marle versus The Dangers of Gambling Addiction

So, now that the party got the Gate Key back, they have to go back to Chronopolis to tell Belthasar the Porre spy stole knowledge of how to build a tank from their computers somehow.

This instead of their previous plan to tell the King that Porre just started a war. Because that's just not as important.


My comrade went to inform the castle.

Oh, okay, well that's usef-


Huh.


That


was


fast.

Music: Peaceful Days

So yeah, the news of Porre's attack already spread all over the world. It's literally all anyone has to talk about. Some dialogue implies the war is already in full swing at this point, while others like the King indicate it's still just after the Chimera Tank attack. I expect it's meant to be ambiguous.

On the plus side, music!


Thanks! I'll play you a new song!

Music: Wind Scene

My opinion? Wind Scene is one of the best tracks from Chrono Trigger and probably tied for best world map theme with Corridors of Time. So, in the spirit of the season, I leave you with this.

Meanwhile, over at Crono's house...


Oh Crono's Mom, you are just the best.



But first, Marle heads upstairs to open Crono's blinds because no dumbass boyfriend of hers is going to passively rebel against her. Meanwhile, Crono stands behind her, head hung low and asshole puckered. A whiplash can be heard in the background.



Okay, I take it back. You're the best. Just... the best.

Music: Millennial Fair

I wonder if we can take on the Tyranno head now that we have a full party?



Hahah yeah, no.


Lookit Crono chasing some tail.


There's a little girl selling lemonade in the square, which provides a quick full heal. When they drink it, your lead character does a little victory dance, as you can see.


We can see the Telepod Gate is active again, but let's keep touring the world, shall we?

First, a bit of interesting NPC dialogue in the square.


Are you suggesting... we...
... I don't think I could condone an assassination.
Collins might--
Collins doesn't matter. Let Montcrief die on the field of battle. We should defeat them soon anyway. What a stupid mess his belligerence has gotten us in...

No, I didn't mess up the portraits. The game does have the old man be the one to say "Collins might--" even though it was probably supposed to be the captain. Either that, or the old man is crazy. I like that explanation too.

By the way, Collins is a soldier that was training with the captain here back in the prologue. If we talk to him, he'll say Collins and his other recruit Jones have been deployed to the war effort.

Man, Guardia must have the sweetest military. You just need to trudge past the first few ranks until you make captain, then you can just lounge around at home chatting with crazy old men while those dumb old privates fight your wars for you.

But yeah, I like this piece before it gives the otherwise blank NPCs some much-needed character. Even if it's just establishing Guardia as the good guys, I still like it.


Inspired.

Let's head over to Lucca's house now.


I only care if it's an awesome weapon for Lucca or an actual big-assed cannon you're going to use eventually to blow Porre straight to hell.

Stay safe, everyone! Hopefully this will be over soon!

Unfortunately, getting her legs back didn't give Lara any kind of character. If we head upstairs to Lucca's room, we can find a little optional scene.


Perhaps he heard us talk about time travel, and searched my room for clues or artifacts.

Technically, you never talked about time travel. You did mention temporal vortexes and Time Eggs after you got your egg back from him, though.


There's this little thing at the Medina ruins I forgot to show off back in the prologue.

Why don't we do a little contest? Whoever figures out what this means, I will do any one game-related thing for them. Everything except a low-level run, no magic run, no item run or whatever kind of run. I'm not interested in making this game a hellish experience. Let's save that for Flames of Eternity, shall we? In any case, I will rename a character, keep a character you dislike at level 1 forever or never have them in the party or whatever else you want. Go nuts.

Moving on, here's a shout out in Medina square.

Music: Delightful Spekkio


Back in the prologue, what she sung was:


If you can guess where either of these come from, you get a cookie.


Meanwhile, over at the new Medina Auxiliary, whatever that's supposed to be, shenanigans are afoot.


Sounds like a challenge. Let's see who this tough guy is.


... You're kidding, right?

Arright, let's hand this little bastard his ass and get goi-



OH GOD.

Yeah, this Imp hits like a fucking mach truck. His two methods of attack are kicking someone in the face or throwing a stone at them, both dealing about 100 HP when you can see my characters are just hitting the ballpark of 150.

Now, the Imp has something like 1000 HP, while Antipode only deals 200 per shot. Taking only five shots to kill him seems easy, doesn't it? Except Marle and Lucca are far from the fastest characters, while this guy is just slightly slower than Crono. You know, Crono who can double Lucca in turns.

And he hits hard enough that Crono spends the entire fight just throwing Mid Tonics at everyone. And he counters everything by kicking the attacker in the face, meaning it doubles up on damage. If I'm unfortunate enough that he hits Lucca or Marle with a counterattack and then again with a regular attack before Crono's turn, that's a Revive I have to spend.

I dislike my cash dipping into the hundreds, dammit! And this certainly didn't help matters. Of course, this is just because my early windfall of fraudulent cash back in the prologue spoiled me.


Eventually we do finish him, and the imp who told us about him pops in to goad about how he tricked us.

Sadly, this does not prompt a second battle to murder the blue imp.

The illusory magic of we Mystics sure is handy.

If we talk to him again...

Just wait 'till you see my next avatar! He'll knock your socks off!

Yeah, I look forward to it. Asshole.

Over in Choras, we head over to the Shooting Gallery because we have Lucca in the party now.


Except ha ha, we can't play this minigame yet because we're not allowed to switch party leaders yet!

So instead, we hop over to the Casino to make some money back.




Imagine this again and again until I have over 15000G. Why fifteen thousand?

Music: First Festival of Stars


Wow, you sure do play often! Here, enter the high roller room!

It's supposed to be a lot harder to get in than just playing Blackjack a half dozen times, but the developers didn't quite get around to setting the actual high requirement.


Games simple, we each draw a card between 0 and 255. If your card is higher you double your money. If it's lower you lose your money. If it's the same it's a draw.
This is the high rollers room. 15,000 a game!
> Play
> Leave

Sure, it sounds simple. The game just generates two random numbers and compares them. Unfortunately, in my experience the computer won like two thirds of the time.

This might just be my bad luck, though. If it weren't for the magic of savestates, I would've been stuck playing the casino for a while longer.




Imagine me savescumming over and over to get this kind of result.

Incidentally, I'm not quite sure how the RNG for this game and Blackjack work. I mean, with both games when I'm savescumming them I have to leave the room to reset the RNG, or else I'd just get the same result over and over.

I had the same experience when I started working with C++, filling arrays and matrices with random numbers. Every time I ran the compiler, even though the numbers were selected randomly, the same numbers showed up every time I ran it unless I closed the whole program.

By the way, we're not getting into the room behind the guy until we get a Galaxy Card, whatever the hell that is.

Anyway, back to me selling out my pride as a gamer by cheating like a whore.

My little gambling spree results in Marle becoming addicted to the high rollers room, eventually betting the kingdom's fortune when she burned through her own cash, before moving on to the kingdom itself. She hits rock bottom when she bets away the Gate Key, which ends up in the hands of a Porre schmuck who is probably the spy we've been dealing with, who manages to make their way to Chronopolis, stumble into the Dark Ages and find Dalton and recruit him to their cause.

All the while, Crono stood behind Marle. He tried to speak up once and got promptly bitchslapped for his trouble.

And that's how Dalton destroyed the Kingdom of Guardia.


I don't feel bad about that at all.



Anyway, there's a guy selling items at Choras' cafe, and he's the best item shop in any time period, unless there's one that sells Elixirs and Megalixirs I'm forgetting.


Here's the before picture.


And here's after. I stocked up on 99 Tonics, Mid Tonics and Ethers and about 50 Full Tonics and Mid Ethers. It was delicious.



Now, as I mentioned in the first update, Choras has an auction house. It works like FF6's auction house, only watered down a lot. There's only one guy who bids against you, and you have two chances to bid, and obviously the first one doesn't matter.


Now, usually they only give out Mid Ethers, and this is actually a more economic way to buy them because they go for just below 400G. The problem is you only get one, so getting a decent stock of them together would take forever.

But, I lucked out and managed to get this on my second try:




I snatch it up quickly and stick it on Crono.


And Crono is one step closer to maxing out his Speed stat.

And that's it for touring the world, since the Hero's Grave museum is still empty. It's time to move on with the plot! But instead of using the Telepod Gate, we'll use the one in Medina because we're rebels.




Hm, Robo's not here to greet us. Well, there's no alarms blaring, so I'm sure everything fine.

Music: Brink of Time


See? Perfectly fine.

Belthasar, that agent who entered Chronopolis, we think he changed something in the present!

If he changed something in the present, that means he just did whatever, Lucca. What you mean is he changed something in the past.

Yes, I share your conclusion. He apparently retrieved Lucca's Gate Key and used it to travel here... Which, by the way, implies the Gates have been reactivated, for some reason...

Implies? How the hell do you think the party got back here? Lucca only had the one shitty Time Egg!

In any case, he downloaded date on military tank engines and, back in 1005 A.D., fixed Porre's tank prototype!
But how did he manage to remember all that information he looked up? He must be very smart!

Uh, Marle, Belthasar said download. Unless he's using some crazy future slang that means "learned stuff", it means our spy is so computer smart he's an actual computer.

Either that, or Porre invented flash drives while we weren't looking.

Suddenly!


???: I've drawn first blood...
I am mightily curious as to who "???" is supposed to be. I hope it's not that bitch, Terra.


That doesn't sound good. It sounds like someone important died. And the only named character in Chronopolis who isn't here that I can think of is...

MELCHIOR OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO



Music: A Shot of Crisis

One of you stays here as I need help to monitor the systems! Robo and two others, go down to the reactor and stop whatever is wrecking havoc there!

Why Robo? Presumably because he's the only one who's familiar with Chronopolis' systems enough to shut down the reactor on his own.



So, choice time! Pick our party for this section, guys!

Next time: Monsters and plot thickening! Really! I swear!

[Flarecobra]

Drop Chrono's Bitch. Robo can heal people as well, and is more durable.

[Satan's Onion]

The way I see it, the two you really need to keep are Crono and Robo--they hit hard, which is helpful when plowing your way through all those regular enemies without using a fuckton of MP. (Look, I'm an MP miser and an item miser. It's just the way I am.)

So the big choice, for me at least, is Lucca versus Marle. If you expect to need a metric asston of healing, use Marle, because Robo and Marle both do lots of healing but Marle in particular doesn't have great attack spells. However--and this would be my preference--if you'd prefer a more attack-oriented party, use Robo, Crono and Lucca. (But then, you could probably guess I'd say that.)

[Menarker]

Normally, I would state that having Marle would be useful since Crono and Robo are both good attackers, but if Robo is attacking, he isn't healing, so you'll be short a healer without Marle. Additionally, because everyone but Crono are on the slow side, if bad goes to worse such as a big AOE attack, the result might be that the designated healers will not be able to keep pace with the offensive. Thus a possible option would be for Robo and Marle to both go into healing duty while Crono chips away at the baddies.

However, because you supposably have a shitload of healing items due to ransacking the gambling games, one viable option would be to take Lucca and use Crono as your HEALER, by letting his huge speed stat compensate by practically having two turns to act for every one turn everyone else can act, where each of those turns can either be a healing item or an attack. Robo and Lucca would be be able to focus on attacking in the meantime while Crono becomes the heal-slave.