Crono Trigger

Rumors floating around in the internets for a crono trigger remake insider from square I don’t know real or not but life is very good if its true.

https://www.gonintendo.com/contents/32596-square-enix-wants-to-know-how-fans-would-like-chrono-trigger-to-be-remade Ok it might be real

I'd like a clear resolution of Schala's fate, written by an actual writer that understands depth of character and human motivations without resorting to nonsensical behaviors simply to fit a visual theme while disregarding actual character desires.

Ie. Anyone involved in Hollywood as a writer for the last 7 years is disqualified.

Obviously they port it into a DBZ fighting game. Art style matches up. Call it a day, instead of wasting a bunch of time trying to tell the same story again. Poorly. SNES graphics and our imagination did a better job than anything they've put out lately.

The nostalgia is too strong. The game is still playable and enjoyable for people who played it originally. If they wanted to bring it to the newer generations, they really needed to have done more than Chrono Cross up till this point.

I would prefer to keep the legend untarnished. You cannot improve upon perfection. There is a reason Chrono trigger is regarded as the masterpiece it is. A modern remake sounds cool, but there's no way it would be as good as the original. Squaresoft is dead. I wouldn't expect square-enix to make a remake worthy of its legacy. There are some things you just don't mess with. Chrono Trigger is one of them


Ahhhh, Chrono Cross. The sequel that wasn't a sequel, yet was a sequel and also a game in and of itself. I played Chrono cross and enjoyed it thoroughly. The sound track was magnificent, the world was colorful and vivid, and the battle system with the element grid was a smash hit. They deviated from the dual and triple tech system of chrono trigger even though the didn't have to, took a chance, and knocked it out of the park. The game has it's fair share of highlights and it has some very nostalgic moments of its own.

But goddamn if they didn't &^%%$$##@@! up the storyline. It's like they had a vague idea of the story they wanted to tell, ran into a time crunch to finish the project, and then finished the final chapter by stuffing a million ideas spanning aeons into the space of a few seconds. The story is an absolute and utter train wreck. And while it's really cool to have 43 characters or something, like... a good 35 of them could be deleted from the game with no consequence. Most of the characters you never use. So while the good points of the game are very good, the falling shorts are very apparent. I highly recommend watching this review of the game. It's pretty damn spot on.

And if you don't watch the entire thing, if nothing else just fast forward to 43:00 where he reviews...and explains... the entire plot in chapter 3. From Chronopolis to the final boss.... it's just utter chaos



The two biggest milestones in that sumary are where he begins at

43:00 We enter Chronopolis, and it is here that Chrono Cross's story well and truly goes off the rails, and it will never recover.

and says this at

54:48: "It serves to do nothing but answer a thousand questions that you never even asked, while asking a million questions that will never be answered.

55:00 The connections to Chrono trigger are shoehorned in. They make very little sense. And each subsequent connection to that world requires a new time travel-dimension travel-inexplicable plot device to make sense.

Well Chrono Cross resolved it ... kinda .. if you get the "Good" ending.

As for remakes, best option would be a HD-2.5D style, so basically the same thing just better sprites and backgrounds. Absolutely do not translate it into another ARPG, Chrono didn't speak for a reason. Use Unity so that the community can then fix the inevitable minor issues that crop up via mods.

If we're going grave robbing in my childhood for HD remakes profits, at least get vagrant story in there. I'd get a ton of enjoyment from seeing that game just upscaled and even more if they felt like actually expanding it with a faithful remake. Sequels are also welcome. Keep it grim and spooky.

Ahh Chrono Cross. Melliny said it perfectly above, but to pile on I will simply say that the story was much too convoluted to offer a satisfying resolution. That's the really nice way of not using the phrase: "clusterf%&% of bad storytelling."

Thinking as I type, a great reboot should include the original chrono trigger which includes a FIXED chrono cross that doesn't sound like it was written by a drunken hyena or a modern Hollywood script writer.

Or just a fighting game. That actually wasn't a bad idea.

Chrono Chross was a very satisfying game to play through. I really did enjoy it for the time. I think as a standalone game it's pretty fantastic. But when they wrote the plot to try to connect the two worlds they made a bumbling mess of it that just made everything confusing, convoluted, and nonsensical.

Chrono trigger on the other had was well written, well thought out, the plot elements made sense, the story was good, the motivation to defeat the final boss was there, and everything just flowed seamlessly..... even timelessly. Trigger worked! And the sprites and maps are somewhere in the middle of 2d and 3d. They would not translate into a modern era game very well. When you fully 3D a sprite like chrono, or frog, or terra, celes, or locke, or any of the other classic characters from the SNES era it just doesn't translate well at all. The vagueness of the sprite model gives room for the imagination to fill in the holes, and that's something that you can't do when you have a fully fleshed out character like we get in the modern final fantasy games.

Square-Enix always tries to innovate with remakes and add in new systems and features to give an old game a fresh coat of paint, but trigger's systems are so fine tuned and work so well together that adding to them is almost guaranteed to detract from the experience rather than add to it. It's like taking a polished race car and burdening it down with clunky steering and a bad transmission. That's not to say that I wouldn't love to relive the game, just that I don't think a remake would do it any form of justice.

There's so much awesome in that statement it absolutely required it's own singular quote.

Hollywood learned that after Jaws. Then forgot it after CGI went mainstream.

Which is why the best option would be to make it HD 2.5D not 3D. Keep the exact same perspective and just add scene depth and tune up some of the animations to look cooler. The Tech animations on Chrono were a result of the limitations of the SNES, those could definitely be made to look cooler.

The reason so many of the recent "remakes" have been terrible was due to the studios they hired making them for Apple iOS, then trying to kludge a port to PC.

I had a feeling I'd watched this review before, and lo and behold it's Majuular's review! Where he's wrong on half a dozen points, and this is one of them! (off topic, but I love Majuular, but he sometimes misses)

The elements for Chrono Trigger are actually sprinkled into Chrono Cross all throughout its game as part of its mystery. Majuular completely neglects the framing of Chrono Cross's story, mainly to fit in his own brand of memes. What he neglects is that idea of mystery in a story.

Like the entire reason Chrono Cross starts with a dream sequence is to make you, the player, question what that was all about. This sets up its entire narrative structure. i.e. Here's something to wonder about; it will be resolved and demystified later.


Majuular in his review does not blow for blow retell Chrono Cross's narrative, and as such, he missed out on (or in my opinion, chose to OMIT) key details which tie it in with Chrono Trigger very early on.

One such detail being the scene with Kid on Water Dragon Island. You camp for the night, and she talks to Serge about being raised in an orphanage, and you get the cinematic that shows burning children's crayon pictures of the cast of Chrono Trigger. (kind of a meta acknowledgment that the writer/lead devs for Cross knew what they were doing to your adolescence when they wrote CC)

Later, in Fort Dragonia, when Lynx takes Serge's body, he cries out, "I'll avenge Lucca for you!!!" We and Kid both know she never said Lucca's name. She never told Serge that. Basically an explicit tie in that Lucca raised Kid, and Lucca was killed by Lynx. (and he was able to do so by presenting her with a problem her fire magic could not stop, burning down her orphanage, and then holding orphans hostage. Are you motivated to kill the bad guy? I'm motivated to kill the bad guy.)

Looping back to the Viper Manor heist. Majuular completely moved past meeting Balthasar for the first time. Like put on a trench coat, wide brimmed hat, and shades and just duck and pretend this plot point doesn't see him kind of move past. This is the first introduction and exposition that explains alternate universe/timelines, and how Serge is supposed to be important to this timeline but was otherwise killed. Like this is literal early game saying, "Oh, by the way, the two timelines want to resolve themselves in a specific way, and you are the key to all of that."

I could keep going on and on about this review that missed the mark, but suffice it to say, Majuular ignored early game hints and tie ins to try and paint a picture that Chrono Cross just shits it all into your bed in the final act, and that's just not true.

I'm not saying you have to like or enjoy Chrono Cross, but it's one of those games where people will willingly ignore a lot about it to dig on it.

Part of the problem with the tie ins between the two worlds though are that they're so vague and confusing at times, and at others so wild and unbelievable that they feel like they're made up on the spot. Some of the story points just don't make sense. In Chrono cross belthesar literally tells you the planet pulled Dinopolis through time as a counterbalance to Lavos dragging Chronopolis through time. Like... huh?

It's also kind of a douchebag move to kill off every one of the main protagonists from the previous game, but that's more of a personal gripe. You go on this grand adventure to save the world in trigger, only for cross to tell you every one of your heroes ended up meeting a premature death not more than a year or two after the credits rolled. The story does tie in between the two worlds, but it was badly written. The review I linked may have its own problems, but the overall narrative that the tie in between cross and trigger are done poorly is pretty true.

K, so this just brings up an elephant that a lot of people just sort of nod and ignore from Chrono Trigger. That is, whether Lavos caused the timegates or something else caused the timegates. The only time this gets mused on in detail is during the campfire scene following Robo's 400 years of forest caretaking. Where Robo muses to the team that some, "entity" wanted them all to experience this, and is what is actually responsible for the timegates. Immediately after you can take the red timegate to Lucca's past and save her mother's legs. (this is a subtle admission that the "entity" is not Lavos)

This has led some folks to posit that the "entity" is the planet itself, acting to protect itself from Lavos. Since, you know, Lavos is feeding off of it, intending to leave it a broken husk.

I would have to replay Chrono Cross in its entirety to really make more of an authoritative statement here, but given that knowledge from Chrono Trigger, then ask yourself why it doesn't make sense for the planet to pull Dinopolis across from the other timeline to stop Chronopolis? It would just be another move to protect itself from Lavos, using a timeline that never experienced that alien parasite.

I mean, I know that's not 100% why or whatever, as there's some war between Dinopolis and Chronopolis that I can't quite remember. My analysis isn't perfect either, but I'm pretty sure that boils down to the whole, the Reptites hated humans and wanted to wipe them out. Finding a timeline where the humans were dominant over the planet would be anathema to them, so they did what they want, which aided the planet, I guess?

As for why they didn't show actual Crono or the old team members... I think the out of game explanation was that they couldn't get Akira Toriyama back for character designs, and as a result, couldn't reuse his art or something like that? They still should have laid out what happened to them explicitly at some point. It's never sat well with me that apparently Dalton from Zeal was thrown forward in time and militarized Porre to get revenge. Like that could be a whole *** game in and of itself.

It worked pretty well for Gran Blue and honestly they need to do something to test the waters and get reactions/feedback on art style/gauge interest before they go and attempt to break their reputation/credibility. Please no phone games.

Mana did really well by casually remaking a sleeper hit from SNES, but not it's more famous predecessor. They provided access to people who might not have even known it existed (new game all together) and gave long time fans something that was not just new, but was also expanded. Then they tried to make a phone game and it crashed already. Then they realized they really just needed to make a brand new game in the series on consoles/pc because all we care about is getting more. The expectations are low and the crowd is receptive so there aren't high stakes. The last one they put money into made money, they can do it again so long as they have any sense.

CT isn't as dry because it's on a pedestal, rightfully so, for being a legend. The hope is you revisit it so you can continue to make more. But it's a game that if you touch things or change them, you will make the angry/loud part of fandom erupt because you made them wait X years for this and how dare you mess it up. It's a game that focuses on diverging time lines and as stated, it's sequel is messy. Anything you do become plausible canon and you have to live with the consequences. Ayla would be labeled WOKE, Robo would be a trans icon for picking his gender. A lot of stuff that was not a part of the original discussion would suddenly come into play. Instead of being able focus on making a good remake and then quickly moving on to making more for profit, you'd have to deal with the CF that is modern divisive gaming culture. I don't see why they would revisit it without first taking a side step to gauge interest in the character/fandom before drop big money on a game that is just more risky to remake than almost anything in their catalogue because it's universally loved.

As a personal statement, I loved Cross and I'd love to yell, "I am the Wind!" with hype.

That video link was a great review, I'd never seen it.

"The Chrono Cross story is a beautiful disaster."

Best line in the whole thing.

I played Chrono Cross last year for the first time, after loving Trigger many years ago. I didn't play either as a kid.

I was pretty taken by it, because so much happened with little explanation. The mystery immediately gripped me in to playing through. And when backstory finally got revealed, and they tied the two games together, I didn't hate it. I loved it! Sure, it could have been done better, but I was happy to understand what was happening.

We have to remember this was during the same timeframe as FFVIII & FFIX. Both games were far out there with some of their concepts and reveals late in their stories. To me, Cross is like the FFVIII to Trigger's FFVII. It was never going to live up to Trigger, but I really enjoyed being in its world.

My only gripe was having a million characters, with some being missable early on (I had to restart just to get the dog...), while half had barely anything to do with the plot. I understand throwing them in for replay value, but I just don't like characters for no reason. They should mean something.
And the way you get the true good ending is absolutely ridiculous. How was anyone supposed to know how to get that??? Lol.

I loved the fact you didn't want to grind. It is an anti-grind game, which is the opposite of RPGs of that era. Cross wasn't overly difficult at any point, so you can just enjoy the story and the world.

I think that the more you want it to tie to Chrono Trigger in a meaningful way, the more disappointing it is. I was fine with the loose connection, and just enjoyed the ride while it lasted. I've played games with no story, poorly written stories, and epics that are overly convoluted. Cross is a decent story that would have been appreciated way more if the same company hadn't released much bigger games shortly before it.

I agree that the review missed many key clues to the story. Having said that, they are really easy to miss if someone hadn't played through the game multiple times. Chrono Cross is one of those games that you need to play through a few times to really understand it's story.



It didn't really click for me until I played them both back to back after having played through CC several times in my life.

From the Ghost Children scene.


In CT Chrono and Friends time traveled to the future and witnessed the world after it had been destroyed by Lavos. That event set them on the path to destroying Lavos before 2300, meaning they destroyed the very future that set them on that path, a paradox. The Lavos that was destroyed was not it's true form as it exists outside of space and time. The actions of Chrono and Friends set into motion a series of events that resulted in Lavos attempting to restore that future.

CC is the finale where the new team fights off the consequences of the old team destroying Lavos's body. The ending is the new team finally destroying real form of Lavos known as the time eater. This was all only possible because upon merging with Lavos, Schala was able to use its extra-dimensional power to prevent Serge from dieing and kicking off the events of the second story.

Its kinda sad that people hare cc i swear it was top 5 ps 1 games by rating maybe 10 id i was wrong