Yeah, I understand that…and Chrono Trigger does have fleshed out characters in that regard…they’re just mostly static. Not necesarily a bad thing, but I know it can dissuade some. My bro got pretty far into the game Ocean Palace before he decided that it just wasn’t character-driven enough for him.
One of my major problems with CT(its actually my 2nd favorite game) is that, like most final fantasy’s, the plot is rushed and incomplete towards the end. For instance, don’t you think Magus and Frog would interact with each other? especially when Frog does the Cyrus subquest?
I’ll give ya that. Magus always seemed kinda tacked on, as if they weren’t QUITE finished with adding him in properly. Not to mentioned the entire Schala thing was unresolved which forced Square to tack THAT onto the end of Chrono Cross and they would have been much smarter to just work a bit harder on Chrono Trigger and work in a ‘save Schala!’ subplot at the end of THAT game and save us the trouble of the Cross team stomping on our beloved memories such as they did. But whatever, I can forgive them for not quite adding Magus in perfectly because he is fucking awesome, even without any Double Techs.
Wouldn’t it be nice if for the DS version a part of the bonus material could be a Save Schala! subquest?
That’s what I was seriously hoping for, but I also seriously doubt it. The bonus dungeon having you save Schala and negate all the events of Chrono Cross would feel like a lovely bit of karmic retribution in a way with how Cross spat on the events of Trigger. But this is why I don’t think it will happen, because it’s TOO GOOD of an idea, and Square-Enix simply isn’t that observant.
But it WOULD be nice if, in the bonus content, they used the two unused BGM tracks since they were pretty neat and, hey, they’re already made. Even if Singing Mountain sounded suspiciously similar to the main theme of Laputa.
Vickymints: Yeah, that would be awesome! :biggrin: <- (How appropiate!) 
I should also point out that I played Cross befre I played Trigger; I was aware it was a sequel but had no knowledge of Trigger at all, so I judged CC on its own merits. I still found it mediocre and confusing, though. Trigger was indeed far superior in every way.
You know, I never did bother to check exactly what the tie-ins between the two games are (beyond the obvious ones); I think I’ll go over to Wikipedia and do so now.
I think it would be too good to be true to retcon all that crap from Chrono Cross, but I just had to throw it out there.
I think it would be awesome if the dungeon was about the RUMOR that Schala was hidden in there, but instead, it was a ruse by Dalton hidden inside- and now you fight him AND the Boss Golem, sans acrophobia. Really, I wish Schala was never found. But then, I’m on of the few who loves plot elements left open.
God I love this game. Honestly I always thought Schala was dead. This was reinforced by Magus’s hatred of the period and his actions while he was in 12000 BC, which were clearly to save Schala.
And I have to say Curtis that I never thought CT’s plot was rushed towards the end. If anything was rushed, it was the strange encounter with Lucca and Robo in the forest. I thought the speed at which things happened at the end of the game was reflective of the intensity of the story. I always thought Chrono Triggers most intiguing element was it’s developed and complete story line. Most of the problems I had with Chrono Cross was the dissection of the story line into what seemed to be a clear fabrication of events to reason the existence of a sequel. Kid, for example, a child born of the timestream. What the fuck is that?
Clearly a result of TIME KOMPRESSION.
Sorry, had to throw it out there.
That was good Zero, that was GOOD.
Spoiler Alert:[SPOILER]Well, I studied up one day on all dis. I have to say, what was explained to me really helped to understand everydin’. Like da whole stuff wid da TD and dat got explained as a freak mutation. Lavos was jus’ a creature dat existed to learn, mutate, spawn and send it’s spawn out to repeat da process to try and create a perfect bein’.
Also, how Lavos could appear in any timeline was pretty good too. As dey explained it, he created a pocket dimension dat existed as a sort of place outside of Earth’s dimension and linked it to every timeline, dat is why if you destroyed his shell in a later timeline, it was still broken in an earlier time. Also, it would explain da final area of CC, Lavos’s pocket bein’ da final place, but out of wack. Da destruction of Lavos destroyed da dimension and created a hole dat caused da world’s main timeline to split into two.[/SPOILER]
If I could, I would find dat site again and post it up.
Zero - best answer I’ve heard on that front. 
All right I see I HAVE opened a can of worms here. (I wonder if there would be more entertaing posts if I said Trigger sucked…just kidding, what kind of gamer would I be?!") Anyway I am serious when I said that this is the best game created to this day (to me), but mind you it was one of my first RPGs and the only one that has captured me on such an emotional level. As for the soundrack…well I listen to alot of wierd shit so I didnt mind the whole folk thing now and again.
What did disturb me, and I do agree with you guys on this one, is the confusing story ( I mean WTF PLOT STAFF, it took 3 times to beat this game just for me to fucking understand it) Kid! Comeon…wtf. I didnt have prior knowledge of Trigger and I understood that that crap was a load of baloney. Was that thing bipolar or am I just reading the wrong thing? And even though I love this game, the thing that I think makes it more interesting it the same thing I despise in this game. The fact that if you go to a place at a different time BAM, your locked into a different path. Now you cant get the certain items or you miss out on plot stuffs cause you either came too early or too late. I mean, when the hell do you know when to go. Then when that happens you dont know up from down, left from right and dont know what the fuck to do. But this same unique quality from CC allows for playbacks because each time you play it, itll always be different.
Im assuming along with DS, CT will have more polished graphics? Cause I saw snap shots of CT… perhaps because my first system was a PS but I cant go for that pixel stuff… but hey, whatever.
CC is also probably the game that’s caught me the most on an emotional level
Lanyx, you’re the guy who caught me the most on an emotional level
The game that caught me the most on an emotional level was FFX-2.
See, when my morning paper declared that to be “RPG of the year 2004” I went into a berserk rage.
Anyway, I never played CC, but wasn’t one of the characters supposed to be Magus in disguise? What a wonderful thing to cut out of the storyline, people -_-
Technically, Guile, a masked magician, was actually Magil from Radical Dreamers, who was supposed to be Magus from Crhono Trigger, so yes, he WAS Magus. He never had anything special about him - all you did was potentially help him sneak into a mansion. Hell, even the ROCK STAR had more plot than him.
Mitsuko: That can of worms was going to get opened eventually, so don’t sweat it. Heck, it makes a good topic for discussion.
It’s also a pretty confusing one… I went to Wikipedia and I’m STILL confused about certain Chrono Cross facts. So, can anyone explain:
[SPOILER]1- Was Chronopolis being stuck in the past an accident or something rigged by somebody? The Prophet of Time supposedly planned everything, but I don’t see how that would help.
2- Was FATE the same evil AI as in Trigger, or derived from it?
3- If the Time Devourer ate time- how could it exist afterwards?
4- Why was Serge important? Was it an accident, or was he, again, chosen for some reason?
5- What turned the Masamune evil?[/SPOILER]
Educated guesses are acceptable.
Those questions are pretty much what makes the game fucking confusing.