"A Star Shines on the Hour of our Meeting"
I am a long time fan of The Lord of the Rings. In fact, it was twenty years ago today that I received The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring for Christmas. Not knowing anything about them at the time, I decided to tackle Fellowship first, simply because it was longer - I had never read anything that long before - not realizing that Fellowship was actually the sequel to The Hobbit.
To quote that oft overused phrase "and the rest, as they say, is history."
I read through Fellowship fairly ravenously, and I remember, among other things, being gripped by the tension of the journey through the Mines of Moria. I also remember that, upon reaching the end of the first book, that I didn't want to wait to have to read the other two. It seemed like it would be forever until I was able to get them. My parents had to tell me that they'd already gotten the other two books or I'd have gone out and gotten them by myself. So I tided myself over by reading The Silmarillion (which, while slow to get into, I nevertheless ended up adoring as well) and, I think, pretty much every other Tolkien book I could get from the local library.
Of course, when I finally did get The Two Towers and The Return of the King (after what seemed like an eternity as a child) I enjoyed them as well, including the appendices. I even taught myself to write using Tolkien's Tengwar letters (his Elvish script), though slightly adapted for the english alphabet.
I have continued to read and enjoy The Lord of the Rings from time to time throughout the years and started another read through of it today to commemorate the 20th anniversary of my first journey to Middle-Earth. I still have my original paperbacks, though Fellowship is in rough shape, having some loose pages, so I'm reading a newer edition. I might go back to my originals for the 2nd and 3rd books if they seem like they're in good enough condition.
There are relatively few things that have had as large or as lasting an impact on me as The Lord of the Rings. The fact that I enjoy it and still return to it 20 years later speaks to that. Among the things that I enjoy in The Lord of the Rings is the sense of history, the languages and the sense of hope against all odds - and many other things, besides.
Anyway, I could no doubt was on in much more detail than I have here, but I think it suffices to say that The Lord of the Rings is something which has had, and will likely continue to have, a profound impact on me.
Namarie,
-TFitC
Friday, December 25, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
NSERC Update
I got an e-mail this afternoon from the associate provost for graduate studies here at the university (don't ask me what a provost is, I haven't looked into the details) regarding my NSERC application.
My initial reaction was "uh oh" since the first two paragraphs read like what I would expect from a standard form rejection letter. Then the third paragraph was "I am pleased to inform you..." and I sighed a bit in relief. The e-mail itself is really nothing exciting. It's just informing me that the application made it beyond the university level and was sent on to NSERC itself. While this is what I was expecting, it's nice to get confirmation of that, even if it's coming later than I was expecting. The actual scholarship results don't come out until March so there's still a few months to go for that.
So, fingers are crossed (metaphorically speaking).
Freak Out,
-TFitC
My initial reaction was "uh oh" since the first two paragraphs read like what I would expect from a standard form rejection letter. Then the third paragraph was "I am pleased to inform you..." and I sighed a bit in relief. The e-mail itself is really nothing exciting. It's just informing me that the application made it beyond the university level and was sent on to NSERC itself. While this is what I was expecting, it's nice to get confirmation of that, even if it's coming later than I was expecting. The actual scholarship results don't come out until March so there's still a few months to go for that.
So, fingers are crossed (metaphorically speaking).
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Graphical Interlude
So, I've spent the better part of the past three days doing marking and marking-related activities for the graphics course I've been TAing this term. Monday and Tuesday were marking projects (which included demos by the students) and Wednesday was proctoring and marking the final.
First, the projects. There were some very good projects, but also some, shall we say, not so good projects. Kinda felt sorry for some of the students who, for whatever reason, weren't able to finish their projects and obviously felt bad about it - then, of course, there were some students who didn't seem to care much as long as they passed the course. Ah well.
For the final - well, I've mentioned proctoring before and this was just as boring as all my previous proctoring experiences. Marking the exams went significantly faster since the prof who's teaching the course this term seems fond of making exams that are easy to mark.
In related news, here is the final version of the image for the course t-shirt:
All of the interesting puppets from assignment three are positioned on an 8x8 grid of tetris pieces (the background colours are, supposedly, the official tetris colours according to wikipedia). Since sixteen pieces fit in an 8x8 grid and there were only fifteen puppets, I snuck in my evil snowman from my raytracer scene in the last piece. The four leftmost images along the bottom are raytracer scenes (the middle two being from students who didn't make a fancy puppet) and the images along the right side are project screen shots. The top, middle and bottom projects were raytracers with the other two being openGL projects.
There is a full-size version of the image (4500x4500 pixels) available here.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
First, the projects. There were some very good projects, but also some, shall we say, not so good projects. Kinda felt sorry for some of the students who, for whatever reason, weren't able to finish their projects and obviously felt bad about it - then, of course, there were some students who didn't seem to care much as long as they passed the course. Ah well.
For the final - well, I've mentioned proctoring before and this was just as boring as all my previous proctoring experiences. Marking the exams went significantly faster since the prof who's teaching the course this term seems fond of making exams that are easy to mark.
In related news, here is the final version of the image for the course t-shirt:
All of the interesting puppets from assignment three are positioned on an 8x8 grid of tetris pieces (the background colours are, supposedly, the official tetris colours according to wikipedia). Since sixteen pieces fit in an 8x8 grid and there were only fifteen puppets, I snuck in my evil snowman from my raytracer scene in the last piece. The four leftmost images along the bottom are raytracer scenes (the middle two being from students who didn't make a fancy puppet) and the images along the right side are project screen shots. The top, middle and bottom projects were raytracers with the other two being openGL projects.There is a full-size version of the image (4500x4500 pixels) available here.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Two Worlds are Better Than One
After having replayed Chrono Trigger on the DS and making a "summary" of sorts for it, I decided to replay Chrono Cross and do the same thing for it. Of course, I use the term summary loosely here, as these sumaries turn out to be fairly long, really.
Anywho...
Chrono Cross was the follow up to Chrono Trigger. While it doesn't really need knowledge of the previous game to play, it helps, and there's plenty of "recap" of Chrono Trigger provided in the places where Chrono Cross' story requires it.
So, Chrono Cross was a fairly different game overall than Chrono Trigger - for one, dealing with parallel worlds rather than time travel. I suppose that going in a different direction from the original game was probably the smart thing to do since following up Chrono Trigger was certainly a tall order. And, looked at from that perspective, Chrono Cross is certainly a good game. I enjoyed both the first time I played and on this replay. Though I suppose that fans of the original game might have preferred if there was more of a carry over of certain things (especially charactrers, I think) from the first game. Still, overall, a good game.
One thing about Chrono Cross is that it has an absurdly large cast of playable characters, some of whom are just plain abusrd. Nothing wrong with this, really, as it gives players a fair amount of freedom to pick and choose which characters they like best. Or at least that's how I tend to approach it anyway.
As a side note, Chrono Cross was, at least partly, inspired by an earlier game called Radical Dreamers which was only released in Japan and doesn't seem to have gotten a very wide release even there. Radical Dreamers was the original attempt to tie up some loose ends in Chrono Trigger and some of the characters, locations and situations seem to have carried over into or influenced things Chrono Cross, though Chrono Cross itself completely supercedes/replaces Radical Dreamers and the plots of the two games don't seem to be related at all and, in fact, appear to contradict in places from what I can tell.
Anyway, the summary of the play through is posted below, though, as noted above, it's rather long.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Anywho...
Chrono Cross was the follow up to Chrono Trigger. While it doesn't really need knowledge of the previous game to play, it helps, and there's plenty of "recap" of Chrono Trigger provided in the places where Chrono Cross' story requires it.
So, Chrono Cross was a fairly different game overall than Chrono Trigger - for one, dealing with parallel worlds rather than time travel. I suppose that going in a different direction from the original game was probably the smart thing to do since following up Chrono Trigger was certainly a tall order. And, looked at from that perspective, Chrono Cross is certainly a good game. I enjoyed both the first time I played and on this replay. Though I suppose that fans of the original game might have preferred if there was more of a carry over of certain things (especially charactrers, I think) from the first game. Still, overall, a good game.
One thing about Chrono Cross is that it has an absurdly large cast of playable characters, some of whom are just plain abusrd. Nothing wrong with this, really, as it gives players a fair amount of freedom to pick and choose which characters they like best. Or at least that's how I tend to approach it anyway.
As a side note, Chrono Cross was, at least partly, inspired by an earlier game called Radical Dreamers which was only released in Japan and doesn't seem to have gotten a very wide release even there. Radical Dreamers was the original attempt to tie up some loose ends in Chrono Trigger and some of the characters, locations and situations seem to have carried over into or influenced things Chrono Cross, though Chrono Cross itself completely supercedes/replaces Radical Dreamers and the plots of the two games don't seem to be related at all and, in fact, appear to contradict in places from what I can tell.
Anyway, the summary of the play through is posted below, though, as noted above, it's rather long.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Chrono Cross "Summary"
Chrono Cross Plot Summary
====================
- Fly by of some rectangular-prism tower surrounded by dragon-like statues. Inside, an elevator drops a trio of intrepid explorers to some unknown part of the tower. They are Serge, the apparent ring-leader and two flunkies, Kid and Korcha. After a bit of proding, Serge finally decides to step off the elevator.
- In a near by room, we see a large crystal switch thing (viewed from a balcony) which is apparantly what we're aiming for. Kid complains that is so close, yet so far... why can't you just jump off the balcony then? It doesn't look far...
- So we have to find our way through the labyrithine interior of the tower - seemingly the interior designer is trying to give M.C. Escher a run for his money. We manage to get to the crystal thing and deactivate it which allows us to teleport up to a platform floating high above the tower.
- Serge walks forward and touches a door which starts to bubble out at him in a way that is not entirely door-like. There is a flash of images, including one with a seemingly dead Kid on the floor, but then the whole thing turns out to be a dream.
- As Serge's mom wakes him up, we hear the enticing ring of Lenne's Bell... er, I mean, it's Arni village! And Serge's Mom informs him that he's late to me Leena, his would-be girl friend, or somesuch, who's waiting on the pier.
- Serge pokes around town a bit before going to see Leena (he's whipped, but not that whipped) and gets a sea charm from one of the local, oogles a poster of hot dancer Miki in the tavern and get a combat tutorial from Cheif Radius, who's pretty tough for and old guy. Also of relevance, a group of thieves, known as the Radical Dreamers, has apparantly been making a nuisance of themselves both here and on the mainland, even Porre's having trouble with them.
- When he finally gets around to going to the pier, Leena's been stuck babysitting. She whines at Serge for a bit then asks him to go get her some komodo dragon scales to make a necklace, apparantly all the rage around here, after which she'll catch up with him at Opassa Beach.
- So serge goes off and slaughters baby komodo dragons (and eventually their mom too, insensitive bastard) to take their scales and trots off happily to Opassa Beach.
- Leena catches up to Serge at the Beach and starts to prattle on about some promise they made many years ago and how Serge almost drowned (she sure is a dull one) but Serge is more interested in some unknown voice whispering his name and some large, incoming tidal wave.
- Serge's world goes a bit wonky - he gets a flash of various disjointed images including a scary looking black panther thing as some vortex opens around him at which point he then collapses on the beach. Next thing he knows, some person is waking him up, thinking he might have been a dead body. When asked, it turns out Leena's back at the village babysitting. Now why'd she run off and leave Serge lying there?
- Serge also notes that the overworld music has changed. What unexpected events could that herald?
- Regardless, Serge makes his way back to Arni, only things are now subtly different in town, plus nobody seems to remember him and his house is occupied by some dude who gets all annoyed by random people invading his house.
- Leena is still babysitting on the pier, though, and she says that Serge looks like a boy that used to live next door to her. She then relates the tale of how he drowned 10 years ago, and that his name was Serge. Dun dun dun. But Serge is alive and well? What's going on?
- Leena suggests that Serge go to visit the boy's grave on Cape Howl, which is exactly what he does. The tombstone has some poem that might be touching if it weren't so creepy to be reading from your own tombstone.
- As Serge is pondering things, three soldiers show up: Karsh and his two flunkies, Solt and Peppor. They seem to have expected to find Serge there and try to apprehend him, but that girl from Serge's initial dream shows up and instigates a fight.
- After Karsh and his flunkies are driven off, the girl, who calls herself Kid, offers to join Serge. She seems rather violent though so Serge is a bit wary of her and, though she's rather persistent, Serge eventually gets her to go away, though she says she plans to go to Termina before she leaves.
- Serge decides to spend the night in Arni in his old home. In the morning, Leena and some freaky looking dog thing named Poshul show up. Leena seems to feel sorry for Serge, thinking he might have hit his head, and as she has some errands to run in Termina, offers to help him out for a bit. Poshul comes along just because it doesn't know any better.
- Before leaving town, Serge decides to check on that fisherman guy who gave him the charm. Only now he's not a fisherman, but spends his time praying to a straw doll named Lucky Dan, which is kinda creepy. As we leave, the doll comes alive and decides its going to join the party. Great. Bunch of freaks.
- Anyway, to get to Termina we've got to go through Fossil Valley. Some soldiers are doing an excavation but are haunted by some spooky noises. We pose as the excorsist and find a disembodied skull hopping around. It wants to find the rest of its body so we agree to carry it around for a while. So icky...
- At the exit to the valley, the comic relief, Solt and Peppor are waiting for us, but they prove just an innefectual as last time.
- In Termina, we walk around and talk to people, sticking our noses where they don't really belong. Here's the salient points:
- There's a festival coming up. The singer, Nikki, has gone missing and the dancer, Miki, asks us to help look for him. His last known location was the Shadow Woods.
- The young knight, Glenn, and young lady Riddel are visiting the grave of Glenn's older brother, Dario, former Deva of the Acacia Dragoons. Apparantly, not all is well in Viper Manor since "he" came along. "He" being the one who sent Karsh "ghost hunting" to pick up Serge.
- Lord Viper apparantly has jurisdiction over this area and is supposedly responsible for keeping everything peaceful and happy.
- There is an object known as the Frozen Flame that is considered to be quite valuable and at least one person (including the Radical Dreameres) wants to get their grubby little hands on it.
- Various other characters are introduced. Since they've got portraits, many of them will probably be important later on.
- Kid finally joins up with us. Or, rather, forces herself upon us. She has "business" in Viper Manor (I suspect it is not really legitimate business since she seems unable or unwilling to use the front door). She also encourages Serge to go there in order to find out why he "died" 10 years ago and why Karsh was sent to retrive him.
- So we start by chasing AWOL singers into the Shadow Woods. Inside, we find Nikki who is trying to talk to plants. Well, lure them to their doom is more like it since we've got to feed these plant things to a monster blocking the path to proceed.
- Nikki wants in the manor because he believes his sister is in there so he tags along with us. The woods leads to an underground stream which brings us inside the walls of the Manor. We duck inside the dragon stable to avoid the search lights and help the aging groundskeeper feed the dragons in return for a key to the manor. He's far too trusting, that one.
- We now proceed to run amok inside the manor. A trap door drops us into a trap (duh), but Kid, whose been sneaking along after us, lets us free. She warns us not to interfere with her work. The party decides to walk around in the outfits of the unconcsiouc guards.
- Glenn has the memory of a seive and writes down the code to get past the trap door which we dutifully copy. We also stumble upon the research lab of one Dr. Luccia who's content to do a combat trial with us and let us go.
- We get a chance to talk to Zoah and Karsh of the Dragoons and question them about the goings on in the manor. Then we wander into the library where we find Marcia, the last of the living Devas, who's just a little girl and eager to fight us. Nikki is also convinced that she's his sister.
- Before we fight Marcia, an old man who appears to live in the Library and calls himself "The Prophet of Time" (hmmm...) gives us a lesson in parallel universes and suggests that something important happened involving Serge that caused the worlds to split - one in which he is alive, the other in which he isn't. He also tells us how to get to the top floor of the manor.
- After Marcia's had her taste of combat, we proceed up to the top floor of the manor (after a brief introduction to the flirty Harle) where we find some glowy object in General Viper's room (the dragon tear) which seems to give Serge a headache (better not sit too close to the TV)
- The General seems perplexed at Kid's varoius outbursts, but a cat-man, Lynx, the General's mysterious "guest" shows himself and Kid starts a fight, as usual. However, it turns out to be just a shadow.
- General Viper's daughter, Riddel, chooses this moment to come see her father so Kid takes her hostage and we escape to the roof. Only there's nowhere to go from here and Lynx and the others advance menacingly on our party.
- Well, nothing to do but jump and hope for the best at this point. Before they leap, Lynx manages to stab Kid and also calls Serge the "Assassin of Time" and the "CHRONO TRIGGER". Sheesh. No need to be so melodramatic there, cat-boy. (And don't talk in all-caps.)
- Anyway, everyone plumets into the water at the base of the cliff (somehow managing to avoid getting bashed to bits on the rocks) and are picked up by that Korcha guy who's there for some reason with his boat.
- Serge regains consciousness in the little village of Guldove where he soon meets up with his companions. Tragedy strikes quickly, however, when Kid collapses. Is she dead? We don't know so we drag her to the local doctor's (aptly named Doc) for a diagnosis.
- Turns out Kid's been poisoned by Hydra venom and Doc gives her about two days. She could be cured with Hydra humour (laughter is the best medicine, after all), but hydra's no longer exist in the El Nido archepelago and travel to the mainland is dangerous this time of year and would likely take too long, regardless, so we're at an impasse.
- Serge is at a loss for what to do next and refuses to go on a wild goose chase looking for hydras, partly because Kid's just been forcing herself on us, but mostly because Korcha's annoying.
- Korcha refuses to play ferry man for us now, but his mother, Macha, commandeers his boat (boat? more like a glorified canoe) and offers us a lift.
- Before leaving the village, we stop by the temple where we learn a bit about the Dragonian ruins that can be found around the archapalego, including the mostly intact Fort Dragonia for which the dragon's tear is apparently a key of sorts.
- Anyway, Macha ferries us back to Termina where we overhear Glenn talking about how Lynx and General Viper are headed to Fort Dragonia and that Lynx is probably up to no good.
- Glenn is looking for a ship of sorts to take to follow Lynx so he enlists our help so he and Macha now join our motly crew.
- Glenn wants to stop at a small island where Radius is living in his retirement in this world. However, when we get there, its been razed to the ground by Harle, who is waiting for us with orders to delay us, which she does, despite not being too tough.
- All is not lost, however, as Radius has built a secret underground bunker where he was able to take refuge. We go talk to him where he tells us a bit about Porre's military and how the General probably wants the Frozen Flame to use its power to impose peace. We're also warned about fog enroute to Fort Dragonia.
- Make a quick detour back to Viper Manor and talk to Dr. Luccia who is now willing to join our increasingly unweildly large group of adventurers, in the name of science!
- Now we get to sail headlong and recklessly into the fog near the shores of Mount Pyre (where Fort Dragonia is located). In the fog we encounter a ship - could it be the ghost ship we've been warned about? There is naturally no possible choice but to board the ship and loot it, running does not even cross our mind.
- It turns out that the ship is just a run-of-the-mill pirate ship (the S.S. Invincible) whose crew seems to be hiding from Lynx and are, hence, masquerading as a ghost ship. They seem to believe our story about what we're up to, but decide they need to test us in combat to see if we're up to snuff.
- We are victorious in battle, but the pirates play dirty and managed to slip us some tranquillizers unnoticed at some point and drag us off to the brig. While we're locked up a REAL ghost ship emerges from the fog and attacks the Invincible.
- In the ensuing mayhem, we escape our cell, find some creature named Pip (which we'd previously released from one of Luccia's cages), defeat the ghost ship's boss, thus driving it off.
- The captain, Fargo, tells us that Mount Pyre is really, really hot (temperature wise) so we'll need some sort of protection. He suggests visiting the Water Dragon, only nobody's really heard from the Water Dragon (or any of the other Dragons) is some time, so who knows what's up. Still, guess it's worth a shot.
- So we head over to Water Dragon Island, except that everything's dried up due to recent inclement weather, the dragon's lair is sealed off and the Water Dragon is apparently nowhere to be found.
- At a bit of a loss, Serge heads back to Guldove to check on Kid. It turns out that she's up and about. The Doc informs us that some anonymous benefactor from the mainland provided some hydra humour, so that's all resolved. But it doesn't help us with our missing dragon problem.
- Kid suggests that if Serge uses her amulet, he might be able to cross between dimensions, the theory being that the Water Dragon might still exist in th other world. Seems a bit dubious, but there aren't any other leads so it probably won't hurt... The Doc decides to tag along since he's bored.
- Serge returns to Opassa beach and finds a swirly thing in the sand. Using the amulet pulls us through the dimensional vortex to Serge's home world. Ducking into Arni village, one of the fishermen offers to take us to Water Dragon Isle for a small fee. How thoughtful.
- This version of Water Dragon Isle has lots of water and lilypads to jump on. Not all is well, though, as some beady-eyed, big-nosed dwarves are attacking the helpless fairies who live on the island. We retaliate by killing off every single last dwarf we can find.
- Pursuing the dwarves into the caves and slaughtering them mercilessly leads us to the Water Dragon who's just sitting around, frog-like, letting all this senseless slaughter occur. He seems to know what we want, however, and gives us his ice breath (how the heck do we carry breath around?) so that we can freeze the lava on Mount Pyre.
- We go back to the other world and head to mount Pyre. The Water Dragon's ice breath does the trick nicely and lets us freeze the lava so we can avoid burning our feet off.
- Pretty soon, we have another encounter with the comic relief duo of Solt and Peppor and they're still as dumb as always. After that we fight some random little red dragon guy and finally, just before the exit, we fight Karsh, Zoah and Marcy. Marcy doesn't seem to like us very much, but it doesn't really matter as we defeat them and go on our merry way.
- This brings us out into a plain in the middle of the mountains where stands Fort Dragonia which turns out to be that structure from Serge's dream way back at the start of the game. From the looks of it, the fort is going to be some annoying puzzle dungeon. Fun fun fun!
- Anyway, we manage to climb to the top of the tower - that floaty platform with the door from Serge's dream. As in the dream, the door bubbles out and Serge has that recurring vision of him with a bloody dagger in his hand standing over a prone Kid and looking awefully pleased about himself.
- Then the door opens, ominously. NO! DON'T GO IN THERE SERGE!! Unfortunately, his party members have a different idea.
- The Dragon Tear is on a pedistal in the middle of the room with General Viper and Lynx waiting for us. The General decides to give us a bit of a warm up, but he's old and not very tough. Then Lynx stabs Viper in the back and we fight him who, whilst acting intimidating, turns out to be only moderately dangerous.
- However, Lynx is resilient and starts babbling about how defeating him is like Serge denying his own existence. This is about when Kid bursts in demanding vengance for Lynx's past wrongdoings.
- It is, however, also when the Dragon Tear starts to go glowy again and Serge needs to get his migrane medication. There's a bit of a twist, though, as some morphing goes on in the reflection in the Dragon Tear, then Serge starts looking kinda evil.
- And then Serge talks, urging Kid to defeat Lynx, who backs away and says nothing. No this is officially very bad (tm). You know when the Silent Protagonist actually says something that it's a sign of the apocalypse or something. Serious stuff is about to go down.
- So, Kid and crew fight "Lynx", who really doesn't stand a chance. Three on one, afterall. Not even remotely fair.
- Then Evil Serge tries to goad Kid into finishing "Lynx" off by mocking her memories of Lucca (not Luccia), only Kid never told Serge about Lucca. Oh snap! Since Evil Serge has blown his cover, he does the only thing possible: he stabs Kid.
- In one last act of vandalism, Evil Serge blows up all the statues in the room and tells Serge-Lynx to come to the Sea of Eden if he wishes to learn what the hell is going on. Then things black out for a bit.
- Then Lynx wakes up in a dimensional vortex that looks like a wonky impressionist painting. He sneaks into the house of a green-skined goblin thing named Sprigg whilst she is out chasing nuts. She seems to take pity on him and allows him to stay the night.
- Sprigg decides to tag along the next morning since she thinks we might be able to help her escape the vortex. Also, she can let us into a tower, though she doesn't explain how.
- In the tower we encounter Harle who gives Lynx an existential lecture trying to convince him that he is, in fact, Lynx now and not Serge. Lynx doesn't fall for it and presses onward.
- Lynx enters a strange Escher-esque landscape and Harle decides to be helpful and join up after all. We soon find our way out of the vortex and wind up in the Hydra Marshes in Serge's home world. Sprigg seems happy to be back in some form of reality.
- Harle suggests we should go back to the distortion on Opassa Beach to begin our investigation, so we do, but it proves unresponsive. Harle claims this is because Lynx is not Serge, or something.
- At a loss for what to do next, Lynx decides to impose himself on his mother's hospitality. She seems willing to believe his story, but then Radius bursts in and demands Lynx to "step outside", identifying himself as a former Acacia Dragoon.
- Somewhere in there, Serge's mother tells us about how Leena's father, Miguel, and Serge's father got lost during a storm on a fishing trip and wound up in the Sea of Eden (now the Dead Sea). Miguel did not return.
- After beating Radius into the ground he decides we're not so bad after all. He seems to take hope in the fact that General Viper and Riddel are still active in the Other World and decides to join us, seemingly to help the General in this world. He demands we go to Termina, and, oh, maybe we'll find something to help our situation somewhere along the way.
- The Porre military has overrun Termina and seem to recognize Lynx, though the common folk don't seem to take too kindly to him. Snooping around town we add a couple new faces to our entourage: Zappa, the blacksmith who's shutting down his smithy and is also Karsh's father (who's missing in this world) and Van, son of Gogh, who tags along just because.
- We traipse on over to the ruins of Viper Manor, which nobody has apparantly thought to repair, to talk to the Porre Commander, Norris, who is hiding out in the basement (which we have to go through a well to get to)
- Norris seems willing to answer Radius' questions. The Porre Military had come to the manor because they thought the Frozen Flame was there, only it turned out not to be and they don't know the current whereabouts of the General.
- It is thought that the Frozen Flame and/or general might be in the general vicinity of the Dead Sea, only there's no known way in, though it is thought that the people of Marbule might have some connection. Norris also offers to tag along to learn if the Frozen Flame really exists or not.
- It's off to Marbule, then. The town is deserted except for some spooky ghost things and the great explorer Toma and his assistant. Toma gives a little history lesson and explains that the people of Marbule are now working on the S.S. Zelbess. We then decide to take a nap.
- At night, we overhear a mermaid weeping, but she flees. In the morning, she approaches, introducing herself as Irenes, and basically orders us to take her to the Zelbess. The nerve!
- Well, off to the S.S. Zelbess, I guess. It's a cruise ship and is this world's version of the prirate ship Invicible. What a difference! A ship belonging to the Magical Dreamers (that's Nikki's band) is sailing along side the Zelbess. Seems like a concert's in the works.
- On board we meet dynamite dancer Miki who claims the Magical Dreamers are about more than just looks. Sure, you believe that...
- Anyway, we try to locate the Sage of Marbule, only the guy is all mopey and depressed and pretends he doesn't know what we're talking about. We only learn the truth after he goes down to the lower level where you need the captain's permission to go.
- So we go talk to captain Fargo, only the others blab about our real reason for wanting access (shut up guys, sheesh!) and the captain turns out to have a grudge against the people of Marbule and denies permission, at least until he decides it would be more fun to gamble on it.
- Well, we lose, initially, but through a series of events that involve getting turned into cats for a brief spell by the hapless magician Sneff, we uncover Fargo's dirty secret: he's a cheater! We also find out that he's the father of Nikki and Marcy, their mother being Irene's deceased sister, Zelbess, the ship's namesake. Which, by the way, is the source of Fargo's gruge: he's emo and wants Marbule to die along with his deceased lover.
- (And, by the way, this world's version of Solt and Peppor are hanging around in Sneff's green room.)
- When we confront Fargo with his secret, he relents and lets us do as we please. Yay for blackmail!
- Down below, we find the Sage mopping floors. He tries to play hard-to-get at first, but we beat him up and he admits knowing about how to get into the Dead Sea and gives us a fiddler crab. Is this some kind of joke?
- We don't get a chance to pummel him for further information as Nikki decides to show up and convinces the Sage to teach him the Song of Marbule so they can restore the village. They go off to Nikki's ship and invite us along.
- On the ship, Nikki unveils his mad plan: they must somehow get the Zelbess within shouting distance of Marbule and play the song which will allow us to beat up those ghost things. Miki is behind the plan, but the only problem is it requires Fargo's cooperation and, so far, he's having none of that.
- Since Fargo won't oblige and move the ship, we give up for now and go looking for the entrance to the Dead Sea. Turns out that fiddler crab is an explosives expert or something as it manages to demolish a section of the coral reef around the sea revealing a passage.
- The passage, however, is blocked by the Masamune which is giving off seriously evil vibes. Masa and Mune must be pissed about something! According to Radius, the only thing that can counter the Masamune is the holy sword, Einlanzer.
- Flashback to Radius training with Garai and an expedition to the Isle of the Damned to retrieve the Masamune. Something is not quite right about Radius' story, but it seems we now have to take a field trip to the Isle of the Damned to get the damn sword back. Meaning the Einlanzer, of course.
- We navigate the Isle of the Damned and come to Garai's grave where Radius has a flashback to being overcome by the mind-altering powers of the Masamune (or so he claims) and killing Garai by stabbing him in the back. We then have to beat up a noticably cheesed off spirit of Garai, but after that we get the Einlanzer and all is happy and sunshine. Well, not really 'cause the Isle of the Damned is still made of piles of bones and is burning, burning, always burning!
- Anywho, we can now get into the Dead Sea which... is very interesting looking. It looks like ruins from the future are locked in a frozen sea. We wander through the ruins, half expecting to see Johnny of the Robo Gang, and find a terminal with data on our dear old friend, Lavos. Mayhap this is what the Frozen Flame is refering to. Hmmm...
- We get to the centre of the Dead Sea and the Tower of Geddon. In here it looks a bit like a shopping mall, but Serge-Lynx starts hallucinating about ghosts of three children who look familiar. Also, it seems this world's Acacia Dragoons came here and are now frozen in time. Or lost in time or something.
- After napping in an Enertron (still hungry), we find ourselves in what seems to be the ruins of Leene's Square where the ghostly visages of child versions of Chrono, Lucca and Marle accuse Serge-Lynx of destroying the future they worked so hard to save.
- Then, a guy steps out from behind the decrepit remains of Lenne's Bell and gives us a quick summary of Chrono Trigger and explains that the future that was prevented in the first game is trying to reassert itself. This is Miguel (Leena's father) who has been stranded here since he and Serge's father stumbled upon the place when trying to find help for an injured Serge (though it was in better repair then).
- We then have to fight Miguel over the fate of the future. While he looks like he's just some guy, Miguel is no slouch, but we emerge victorious.
- Things start to get a bit shakey then. Miguel says that the ruined future is starting to disappear back into the void again, but he suggests that FATE is doing whatever it needs to do to prevent the Frozen Flame from being found, taking as if Fate is some sort of physical entity.
- Miguel tells us to run to save ourselves and, having a healthy dose of self-preservation, we do just that. However, things look grim but a silver dragon (the Sky Dragon) swoops down and saves us from certain doom. He (or perhaps it) tells us that if we wish to challenge FATE then we will need to seek the blessing of the six dragon gods of El Nido. Great, fetch quest time.
- Serge-Lynx's hangers on suggest trying to go back to the other world so we head to Opassa Beach and find that the dimensional portal is back in working order. Visiting Arni Village reveals that Lynx, in the guise of Serge (this could get confusing...) has been running amok and terrorizing the countryside.
- We wander up to Termina to find that the Porre military has invaded (the world seems to have gone to hell quickly in our absense) and also taken control of Viper Manor.
- In the back of the pub, Karsh and Zoah fill us in on what happend in Fort Dragonia after Serge and Lynx played switcheroo with their bodies. Seems the Dragoons burst in just as evil Serge disappeared with Kid. The dragoons then took the wounded Viper to Hermit's Hideaway along with the shards of the Dragon Tear.
- Serge-Lynx decides to team up with Karsh to invade Viper Manor and rescue Lady Riddel, leaving Zoah in Termina for, uh, delicate undercover work whilst Marcy is still at Hermit Hideaway protecting the General.
- Leaving Termina, we encounter this world's Norris who admits that siding with Lynx was not the brightest thing they've ever done. He offers to help as he apparently believes our story that this Lynx is not the real Lynx.
- The soldiers at the manor let us through with no problem since they think Lynx is Lynx. Following Norris' advice, we infiltrate the prison complex via the sewers and free the pirate captain Fargo (who went and got himself captured somehow) in the process.
- When we find Lady Riddel, she is about to be interrogated by the "Hell" cook, Orcha (the Manor's cook who has undergone some major Pavlovian conditioning). But we put a stop to that nonsense and free the General's daughter.
- Norris escorts Riddel out of the manor, but we get stuck fighting the bosses on the way out. Figures, leave us to do all the dirty work. This includes fighting the Porre Army's new killing machine cyborg thing, Grobryc. (And after defeating him he decides to tag along since he only takes orders from those "stronger" than him, ie. us.)
- After defeating all the bosses, we jump through the fancy stain glass window in the library (ala Nadia in Chrono Trigger) and land in the stables. We instigate a dragon stampede which we use as cover to flee the manor. And hey! There's a boat all nice and ready for us. Time to go sailing!
- Head on over to the Hermit's Hideaway where General Viper is recovering nicely. Riddel joins our party out of thanks for rescuing her, but then evil Serge and brainwashed Kid attack! Someone must have tipped them off to our whereabouts...
- Things look grim, but Fargo rescues us with his oversized parrot monster and takes us back to the S.S. Invincible, leaving evil Serge to shake his fist. "I'll get you next time!" or something.
- On the Invincible, Serge-Lynx mopes around and daydreams about Kid. Except he focuses on all her violent tendencies. Makes you wonder a bit about his "preferences."
- Below deck, Fargo and Viper are posing for a duel over some long running fued betwixt them that they don't have the courtesy to explain just yet. In light of the current situation, they decide to put aside their differences for the time being and both join our party. Then Marcy and Zoah (he of the tin can on the head variety) also join up. Wow, everyone's being so helpful...
- It's imperative to prevent evil Serge from getting to the Frozen Flame so we wander over to try to get into the Sea of Eden, but like its cross-dimensional counter part, it is sealed tight. Harle informs us the "Pearly Gates", as they seem to be called, require the blessing of the six dragon gods of El Nido and implies that Serge-Lynx has to regain his proper form to enter.
- Harle returns to the Invincible briefly where she decides to part ways with Serge-Lynx. Oh well, the party was starting to get a bit unwieldly anyway.
- So, off to track down those dragon gods. We wander over to Guldove to see if anything interesting is happening there and, oh look, some Porre Soldiers are being beat up by one of the local ladies.
- One of the soldiers recognizes Lynx and so the violent woman decides we must be an enemy as well (this could get annoying...) but we fight her off and convince the half-wit soldiers to leave her in our care.
- The woman, Orhla, along with the locals, buys into the story that Lynx is actually Serge and gives him a brooch so that she'll know its him when he gets his real body back at which point she promises to help out. Nothing else seems to be going on here at the moment so we resume searching for the dragon gods.
- Well, we know where the Water Dragon was hanging out since he gave us his breath earlier, so we go back to the appropriate island in Serge's home world and challenge him to a duel. Victory earns us his blessing in the form of the Blue Relic. One down, five to go.
- Poking around, we also find Earth Dragon Island where some explorers are wandering around on the surface with no idea of how to proceed. Being the intrepid adventurers we are, we walk into the quicksand without a second thought (or any sense of self-preservation) and let it suck is down.
- Under the surface, we soon run into some immovable objects. Returning to the surface, the astounded explorers set to work and tell us to come back later.
- So we go explore the El Nido triangle and find a star fragment which we take to Sky Dragon Isle where, after a brief fight, we are able to recruit the petit alien Starsky.
- We then return to Earth Dragon Island where the explorers have removed the blockage from the caverns allowing us to make our way to the Earth Dragon's chamber where he challenges us to a duel. Victory rewards us with the Yellow Relic. Two down, four to go.
- Next we go visit sissy-Fargo on the S.S. Zelbess. With pirate Fargo in our party, he tells off his sissy counterpart and takes control of the ship, rechristening it the S.S. Invincible. The ship gets steered over towards Marbule and Nikki and the Magical Dreamers get to put on their show.
- The show is a melodramatic reenactment of the meeting between a mermaid and lost sailor. Full of thees and thous and sappiness. Some neat muzak though. Anyway, this music renderes the ghostly monsters in Marbule into corporeal entities which we then have to beat up. Defeating them all wakes up the Black Dragon - in the other world. To punish him for taking
a nap at an inopportune time, we go and defeat him. Three down, three to go.
- While in the other world, we go visit the Red Dragon in Mount Pyre whom we encountered here earlier on our way to Fort Dragonia. But this is no fire side chat, we've come to beat up the pesky dragon and abscond with his pet salamander. Well, actually he gives it to us, but we'd rather just take it, so nya! Four down, two to go.
- Going back to Serge-Lynx's home world, we terrorize some innocent marshland creatures and ride a giant insect over to Gaea's Navel where we encounter what seems to be a chibi-Ayla. She's gotten separated from her tribe, though she doesn't know how - she's just a kid after all. Since she's never been taught not to go places with strangers she decides to tag along, but she carries an axe that's as big as she is so she can probably take care of herself.
- The ironic thing about Gaea's Navel, is that it's supposed to be this pristine island, untouched by humans, but to get to the Green Dragon, we've got to go an slaughter all the creatures on the island, destroying it's ecosystem. This coming after a big deal is made about the how the Hydra Marshes have suffered due to human actions. Oh well, the Dragons stand in our path so there's no time worry about moral quandries, we'll just kill things and take their stuff. Much simpler.
- After destroying the island's ecosystem we then burst in upon and defeat the Green Dragon. Five down, one to go.
- With his comrades defeated, the Sky Dragon now consents to our challenge and we show him who's boss and take his relic. Six down, none to go.
- Now that the dragons standing in the way of progress have all been defeated we can access the Sea of Eden, though the strange glowy things therein do not respond to us and Serge-Lynx's flunkies speculate that he needs to regain his human form. Never mind that Serge is getting used to being a large cat-man-thing. Oh well, them's the breaks.
- This means we'll need to go to Fort Dragonia again, but in order to do so we stop by Guldove in Serge's home world and speak to the priestess Steena. Now that we have all the dragon relics she is willing to hand over the Dragon Tear that unlocks the fort and she decides to tag along with our merry band of fools. As a side note, Steena also appears to have stolen Elvis' pants.
- Anyway, we go to home world's Fort Dragonia. Since we possess the Dragon Tear this time, it means that we don't have to mess around with the Fort's annoying puzzles (yay) but we still take a few moments to loot the fort before proceeding into the main elevator thing.
- When we do, it just so happens that evil Serge is waiting for us (how'd he get in here?) and is intent on preventing Serge-Lynx from defurryfication (yes, that's a word).
- Evil Serge is but a minor speed bump and we proceed up to the top of the tower, looting as we go, 'till we get to that floating platform with the bubbly door.
- Serge-Lynx enters the chamber by himself because the other two are too wussy to accompany him. There's no boss or anything inside, just a brief history lesson from the point of view of the Reptites up to the fall of their civilization with the coming of Lavos. They seem bitter.
- Serge-Lynx is then reborn as Serge by the Dragon Tear and he somehow manages to get his old clothes back too. When he emerges, Steena feeds him some line about Divine Dragon Falls and how the two parts of the Dragon Tear which he now posesses (remember kids, he's still got that one from the other world) could combine to form the legendary Chrono Cross. I dunno. Sounds kind of hoaky to me.
- So, in theory we could go to the Sea of Eden now, but instead we're going to go do some random side quests and collect some extra characters. Oh, and now that Serge is defurried, all the party members he had accumulated before becoming Serge-Lynx magically reappear. Bunch of fair weather band wagon riders.
- A trip to the Isle of the Damned in the Other World with Karsh in tow nets a confrontation with Solt and Peppor who aren't entirely comic relief this time and implies some disturbing things about Karsh's role in Dario's (Glenn's brother's) death. Of course he denies it - convenient that there were no witnesses.
- Returning to Serge's home world, we visit a small shack on a small island where this world's Dario is still alive, if forgetful. It turns out Karsh really did kill Dario's alternate self, but it was only because the Masamune had possessed Dario. The legendary sword just happens to appear and possesses this Dario as well, but we manage to fight him off and purge the evil from the Masamune. Then Masa and Mune (and Doreen) transform into the Mastermune, a weapon for Serge.
- As noted, we also run around collecting characters: skeletal clown Skelly, bunny-girl Janice, plant-thing Turnip, bartender Orlha and baby dragon Draggy. Many of these will never see action, but oh well!
- Finally, it's off to the Sea of Eden. There are 3 small islands surrounding some frozen triangle thing. If it were smaller, perhaps it would be a delectible dessert. But it's not, so we'll cry at our misfortune because it probably means trouble instead.
- We find the three Fate (Atropos, Clotho and Lechesis) on each of the small islands (one per) and on the last one, they combine to form a boss - a floating mask-thing. Well, we smash it's face in and doing so reveals a central island that was hiding under all that curiously frozen water.
- The central island is home to the Time Fortress Chronopolis which is populated by spooky ghost things. The Fortress is from the year 2400 A.D. and the ghosts talk about some sort of experiment they were running that would have allowed them to control time. It seems that, with Lavos eliminated, the people of the future started to develop a god-complex.
- Also of note, it seems that in the future from which Chronopolis hails, the sea of El Nido was empty except for the man-made island on which it was located. Curious. Most curious indeed.
- Snooping around, we learn that Chronopolis' super computer, FATE, has been observing and controlling the two parallel worlds via the "Record of Fate" (ie, save points) scattered around.
- Apparently, the experiment went awry and Chronopolis was thrown backwards in time by 10000 years. As a result, FATE terraformed the archipelago and the fortress' researches went out to populate it. Since then, FATE has been guiding things and preventing the outside world from influencing events in El Nido and vice versa. FATE also created the Element system.
- After messing around for a bit and pressing some random buttons, we eventually gain access to the inner chamber, the security system recognizing Serge as some sort of "Arbiter"
- Inside we find out what we've suspected all along: that the Frozen Flame is actually a fragment of Lavos. Which of course means that things could suddenly get very bad.
- Evil-serge appears and explains that when Serge was bitten by the panther-demon ten years ago and his father and Miguel came here (having been blown off course by a storm), Serge came in contact with the Flame which healed him and identified Serge as the new arbiter. This prevented FATE from being able to intervene directly with the two worlds.
- Lynx is also the phyical incarnation of FATE and needed Serge's form to regain access to the system. And now that that's been done, it's time to remove Serge from the picture, once and for all.
- FATE attacks (though a hidden circuit, known as Prometheus - attributed to the work of a certain Lucca - tries and fails to prevent it) but, naturally, we destroy it, 'cause that's what we do. Fisticuffs, yay!
- Kid, who has been present but unconscious up until now, wakes up and tries to make off with the Flame for her own nefarious purposes, but Harle decides to suddenly reappear and tells her to stop.
- However, it now turns out that the six dragon gods had been sealed by FATE and now that the meddling computer system is gone, they're back at full power and combine into one super dragon and blow the place up - or maybe it just made off with the flame. Also, Sky Dragond Island turns into some floating tower thing. Harle also disappears again.
- We somehow managed to escape the dragons' wrath and are back on the Invincible where all the grumpy old men are debating what to do next. It can be summed up thusly: this is kind of bad, we should do something about it, but we don't know what. Oh, and Kid is unconscious again - sleeping on the job and letting us do all the dirtly work. Figures.
- With the end of the world nigh there is only one logical thing to do: side quests and tieing up loose ends! Yippee!
- We drag Steena to Ancient Dragon Falls (which she alluded to earlier) and use the two versions of the Dragon Tear to create the legendary element known as "Crono Cross". Oooh, sparkly.
- Then we drag the alien Starsky to the El Nido Triangle in the Other World where his spaceship is more or less in tact and he pulls out the anti-gravity unit and attaches it to our boat, allowing us to travel to Terra Tower. (Ok, so we actually needed to do this so it's not a side-quest, per se)
- Then we pay a visit to Hermit's Hideaway where Kid is sleeping on the job. Masa and Mune refer to her as "The Princess" but seem to think they are unable to do anything about the situation. Doreen, however, bullies them into, well, doing stuff.
- Kid just happens to be holding a Time Egg (implied to have been made by Lucca which, presumably, is who Kid received it from) so Masa, Mune and Doreen use it to send Serge and his party into Kid's past.
- This turns out to be the orphanage where Kid grew up which is also Lucca's home. Except it's on fire. And Gato looks decidedly... broken (*sniff*). So we run around the burning house rescuing children and killing fire monsters until we find an unconscious Kid.
- Just past Kid are Lynx and Harle, looking evil. (You killed Lucca, you bastards!) They take off and Serge carries Kid out of the burning house.
- On the hill outside, Kid whines about being left alone. Serge, the fool that he is, promises not to leave her alone and then vanishes (seeing as he's got to return to his present and all that) leaving Kid by herself. This just proves that Serge is not to be trusted.
- Anywho, back in the present, Kid wakes up and joins the party for good, or so we assume. Radius informs us that Luccia wants to see her in Viper Manor. So we go there (we've got to pick up plant-thing NeoFio anyhow) and Luccia gives Kid a letter from Lucca which basically implies that Kid is Schala, if Masa and Mune's reaction to her wasn't enough of a clue.
- So, time to go save the world, I guess. We hike our way through Terra Tower and part way through that Prophet guy from way back near the start who was hanging out in the Viper Manor library hijacks us into some sort of recreation of said library.
- The Prophet wants to interrupt our journey for a little chat. Would have been nicer of he'd offered us scones, but can't win 'em all, I guess. Anywho, he is now calling himself Belthasar, Guru of Reason.
- He gives a breif summary of how he ended up in the future, thanks to Lavos. In the future, he discovered something about an entity called the Time Devourer in the distant future and established Chronopolis.
- However, their time experiments went bad, creating the Time Crash, drawing Chronopolis 10000 years in the past. At the same time, a city from an alternate dimension's future, Dinopolis (built by the descendants of the Reptites and is now known as Terra Tower) was pulled back in time as a sort of counter balance.
- The two cities warred and Chronopolis won. The super computer FATE divided and sealed the dragon god (a creation of the Reptites as a sort of biological machine) into six parts and locked down El Nido, guiding its development to ensure history stayed on course, more or less.
- On the night Serge came into contact with the Frozen Flame, the storm temporarily disabled FATE allowing the dragon gods enough time to create a seventh dragon which, it turns out, is Harle. This seventh dragon manipulated Lynx into getting access to FATE so that it could be destroyed, thereby releasing the seal on the dragons so they could seek their revenge. Um... big oops on our part, I guess.
- It also turns out that Lynx was originally Serge's father, remoulded by FATE, based loosely on the panther demon that had poisoned Serge. Somehow, I suspect that Serge is going to need a lot of therapy to work all this out.
- Anyway, we go on our merry way and eventually come to the top of the tower. Belthasar is waiting for us again (he's pretty quick for an old guy) and gives us a new Time Egg which he tells us to use to journey to the Darkness Beyond Time, but first we've got to defeat that pesky seventh dragon thing.
- Which, of course, we do. Terra Tower rumbles like it's going to fall apart, but instead it just does some weird final transformation thing before becoming inert.
- Well, to get to this ominous sounding Darkness Beyond Time we have to go back to where this whole thing started - back on Opassa Beach in Serge's homeworld.
- There, we find the ghostly visages of Chrono, Marle and Lucca, much like when we fought Miguel.
- Ghostly Lucca fills us in on a few details about Schala. It turns out, as the Ocean Palace was crumbling around her, Schala and Lavos merged into a single entity (ewww) which evolved into the Time Devourer and became trapped (more or less) in the Darkness Beyond Time.
- Serge's pathetic wailing when he was attacked by the panther demon got Schala's attention and earned her pitty. First, she created a clone of herself which is who Kid actually is (surprise!) and in her efforts to reach Serge she caused the storm that temporary disabled FATE.
- Schala left her pendant with her clone which was picked up and raised by Lucca. And things unfolded as they unfolded.
- So now it's up to Serge and company to use the Time Egg to travel to the Darkness Beyond Time and try to put an end to Lavos-Schala.
- Which is precisely whate we do by using that Chrono Cross element thing that we made a little earlier.
- Schala is freed from Lavos and, in return, she gets all philosophical about life, death and the nature of evolution. Well, I suppose she's probably had a long time to think about all this.
- Anyway, Schala then tells Serge he's not going to remember any of this now that the two worlds are merging back together again so, basically, from Serge's point of view it will all have been a dream.
- Then, Serge wakes up on Opassa Beach with Leena having apparently just blacked out after having mercilessly slaughtered all those Komodo Dragon Pups just so he could appease Leena and make her a silly necklace from their scales which she's probably just going to forget about after a day or two anyway.
- Serge babbles something half-remembered about his adventures but Leena has no idea what he's talking about and that, it seems, is that.
- We see some scenes that suggest that Schala/Kid is looking for and/or watching over Serge (stalker girl) and lastly we see her standing on Opassa Beach, now in a dress, a bit more Schala-like than the skimpy Kid outfit.
The End
====================
- Fly by of some rectangular-prism tower surrounded by dragon-like statues. Inside, an elevator drops a trio of intrepid explorers to some unknown part of the tower. They are Serge, the apparent ring-leader and two flunkies, Kid and Korcha. After a bit of proding, Serge finally decides to step off the elevator.
- In a near by room, we see a large crystal switch thing (viewed from a balcony) which is apparantly what we're aiming for. Kid complains that is so close, yet so far... why can't you just jump off the balcony then? It doesn't look far...
- So we have to find our way through the labyrithine interior of the tower - seemingly the interior designer is trying to give M.C. Escher a run for his money. We manage to get to the crystal thing and deactivate it which allows us to teleport up to a platform floating high above the tower.
- Serge walks forward and touches a door which starts to bubble out at him in a way that is not entirely door-like. There is a flash of images, including one with a seemingly dead Kid on the floor, but then the whole thing turns out to be a dream.
- As Serge's mom wakes him up, we hear the enticing ring of Lenne's Bell... er, I mean, it's Arni village! And Serge's Mom informs him that he's late to me Leena, his would-be girl friend, or somesuch, who's waiting on the pier.
- Serge pokes around town a bit before going to see Leena (he's whipped, but not that whipped) and gets a sea charm from one of the local, oogles a poster of hot dancer Miki in the tavern and get a combat tutorial from Cheif Radius, who's pretty tough for and old guy. Also of relevance, a group of thieves, known as the Radical Dreamers, has apparantly been making a nuisance of themselves both here and on the mainland, even Porre's having trouble with them.
- When he finally gets around to going to the pier, Leena's been stuck babysitting. She whines at Serge for a bit then asks him to go get her some komodo dragon scales to make a necklace, apparantly all the rage around here, after which she'll catch up with him at Opassa Beach.
- So serge goes off and slaughters baby komodo dragons (and eventually their mom too, insensitive bastard) to take their scales and trots off happily to Opassa Beach.
- Leena catches up to Serge at the Beach and starts to prattle on about some promise they made many years ago and how Serge almost drowned (she sure is a dull one) but Serge is more interested in some unknown voice whispering his name and some large, incoming tidal wave.
- Serge's world goes a bit wonky - he gets a flash of various disjointed images including a scary looking black panther thing as some vortex opens around him at which point he then collapses on the beach. Next thing he knows, some person is waking him up, thinking he might have been a dead body. When asked, it turns out Leena's back at the village babysitting. Now why'd she run off and leave Serge lying there?
- Serge also notes that the overworld music has changed. What unexpected events could that herald?
- Regardless, Serge makes his way back to Arni, only things are now subtly different in town, plus nobody seems to remember him and his house is occupied by some dude who gets all annoyed by random people invading his house.
- Leena is still babysitting on the pier, though, and she says that Serge looks like a boy that used to live next door to her. She then relates the tale of how he drowned 10 years ago, and that his name was Serge. Dun dun dun. But Serge is alive and well? What's going on?
- Leena suggests that Serge go to visit the boy's grave on Cape Howl, which is exactly what he does. The tombstone has some poem that might be touching if it weren't so creepy to be reading from your own tombstone.
- As Serge is pondering things, three soldiers show up: Karsh and his two flunkies, Solt and Peppor. They seem to have expected to find Serge there and try to apprehend him, but that girl from Serge's initial dream shows up and instigates a fight.
- After Karsh and his flunkies are driven off, the girl, who calls herself Kid, offers to join Serge. She seems rather violent though so Serge is a bit wary of her and, though she's rather persistent, Serge eventually gets her to go away, though she says she plans to go to Termina before she leaves.
- Serge decides to spend the night in Arni in his old home. In the morning, Leena and some freaky looking dog thing named Poshul show up. Leena seems to feel sorry for Serge, thinking he might have hit his head, and as she has some errands to run in Termina, offers to help him out for a bit. Poshul comes along just because it doesn't know any better.
- Before leaving town, Serge decides to check on that fisherman guy who gave him the charm. Only now he's not a fisherman, but spends his time praying to a straw doll named Lucky Dan, which is kinda creepy. As we leave, the doll comes alive and decides its going to join the party. Great. Bunch of freaks.
- Anyway, to get to Termina we've got to go through Fossil Valley. Some soldiers are doing an excavation but are haunted by some spooky noises. We pose as the excorsist and find a disembodied skull hopping around. It wants to find the rest of its body so we agree to carry it around for a while. So icky...
- At the exit to the valley, the comic relief, Solt and Peppor are waiting for us, but they prove just an innefectual as last time.
- In Termina, we walk around and talk to people, sticking our noses where they don't really belong. Here's the salient points:
- There's a festival coming up. The singer, Nikki, has gone missing and the dancer, Miki, asks us to help look for him. His last known location was the Shadow Woods.
- The young knight, Glenn, and young lady Riddel are visiting the grave of Glenn's older brother, Dario, former Deva of the Acacia Dragoons. Apparantly, not all is well in Viper Manor since "he" came along. "He" being the one who sent Karsh "ghost hunting" to pick up Serge.
- Lord Viper apparantly has jurisdiction over this area and is supposedly responsible for keeping everything peaceful and happy.
- There is an object known as the Frozen Flame that is considered to be quite valuable and at least one person (including the Radical Dreameres) wants to get their grubby little hands on it.
- Various other characters are introduced. Since they've got portraits, many of them will probably be important later on.
- Kid finally joins up with us. Or, rather, forces herself upon us. She has "business" in Viper Manor (I suspect it is not really legitimate business since she seems unable or unwilling to use the front door). She also encourages Serge to go there in order to find out why he "died" 10 years ago and why Karsh was sent to retrive him.
- So we start by chasing AWOL singers into the Shadow Woods. Inside, we find Nikki who is trying to talk to plants. Well, lure them to their doom is more like it since we've got to feed these plant things to a monster blocking the path to proceed.
- Nikki wants in the manor because he believes his sister is in there so he tags along with us. The woods leads to an underground stream which brings us inside the walls of the Manor. We duck inside the dragon stable to avoid the search lights and help the aging groundskeeper feed the dragons in return for a key to the manor. He's far too trusting, that one.
- We now proceed to run amok inside the manor. A trap door drops us into a trap (duh), but Kid, whose been sneaking along after us, lets us free. She warns us not to interfere with her work. The party decides to walk around in the outfits of the unconcsiouc guards.
- Glenn has the memory of a seive and writes down the code to get past the trap door which we dutifully copy. We also stumble upon the research lab of one Dr. Luccia who's content to do a combat trial with us and let us go.
- We get a chance to talk to Zoah and Karsh of the Dragoons and question them about the goings on in the manor. Then we wander into the library where we find Marcia, the last of the living Devas, who's just a little girl and eager to fight us. Nikki is also convinced that she's his sister.
- Before we fight Marcia, an old man who appears to live in the Library and calls himself "The Prophet of Time" (hmmm...) gives us a lesson in parallel universes and suggests that something important happened involving Serge that caused the worlds to split - one in which he is alive, the other in which he isn't. He also tells us how to get to the top floor of the manor.
- After Marcia's had her taste of combat, we proceed up to the top floor of the manor (after a brief introduction to the flirty Harle) where we find some glowy object in General Viper's room (the dragon tear) which seems to give Serge a headache (better not sit too close to the TV)
- The General seems perplexed at Kid's varoius outbursts, but a cat-man, Lynx, the General's mysterious "guest" shows himself and Kid starts a fight, as usual. However, it turns out to be just a shadow.
- General Viper's daughter, Riddel, chooses this moment to come see her father so Kid takes her hostage and we escape to the roof. Only there's nowhere to go from here and Lynx and the others advance menacingly on our party.
- Well, nothing to do but jump and hope for the best at this point. Before they leap, Lynx manages to stab Kid and also calls Serge the "Assassin of Time" and the "CHRONO TRIGGER". Sheesh. No need to be so melodramatic there, cat-boy. (And don't talk in all-caps.)
- Anyway, everyone plumets into the water at the base of the cliff (somehow managing to avoid getting bashed to bits on the rocks) and are picked up by that Korcha guy who's there for some reason with his boat.
- Serge regains consciousness in the little village of Guldove where he soon meets up with his companions. Tragedy strikes quickly, however, when Kid collapses. Is she dead? We don't know so we drag her to the local doctor's (aptly named Doc) for a diagnosis.
- Turns out Kid's been poisoned by Hydra venom and Doc gives her about two days. She could be cured with Hydra humour (laughter is the best medicine, after all), but hydra's no longer exist in the El Nido archepelago and travel to the mainland is dangerous this time of year and would likely take too long, regardless, so we're at an impasse.
- Serge is at a loss for what to do next and refuses to go on a wild goose chase looking for hydras, partly because Kid's just been forcing herself on us, but mostly because Korcha's annoying.
- Korcha refuses to play ferry man for us now, but his mother, Macha, commandeers his boat (boat? more like a glorified canoe) and offers us a lift.
- Before leaving the village, we stop by the temple where we learn a bit about the Dragonian ruins that can be found around the archapalego, including the mostly intact Fort Dragonia for which the dragon's tear is apparently a key of sorts.
- Anyway, Macha ferries us back to Termina where we overhear Glenn talking about how Lynx and General Viper are headed to Fort Dragonia and that Lynx is probably up to no good.
- Glenn is looking for a ship of sorts to take to follow Lynx so he enlists our help so he and Macha now join our motly crew.
- Glenn wants to stop at a small island where Radius is living in his retirement in this world. However, when we get there, its been razed to the ground by Harle, who is waiting for us with orders to delay us, which she does, despite not being too tough.
- All is not lost, however, as Radius has built a secret underground bunker where he was able to take refuge. We go talk to him where he tells us a bit about Porre's military and how the General probably wants the Frozen Flame to use its power to impose peace. We're also warned about fog enroute to Fort Dragonia.
- Make a quick detour back to Viper Manor and talk to Dr. Luccia who is now willing to join our increasingly unweildly large group of adventurers, in the name of science!
- Now we get to sail headlong and recklessly into the fog near the shores of Mount Pyre (where Fort Dragonia is located). In the fog we encounter a ship - could it be the ghost ship we've been warned about? There is naturally no possible choice but to board the ship and loot it, running does not even cross our mind.
- It turns out that the ship is just a run-of-the-mill pirate ship (the S.S. Invincible) whose crew seems to be hiding from Lynx and are, hence, masquerading as a ghost ship. They seem to believe our story about what we're up to, but decide they need to test us in combat to see if we're up to snuff.
- We are victorious in battle, but the pirates play dirty and managed to slip us some tranquillizers unnoticed at some point and drag us off to the brig. While we're locked up a REAL ghost ship emerges from the fog and attacks the Invincible.
- In the ensuing mayhem, we escape our cell, find some creature named Pip (which we'd previously released from one of Luccia's cages), defeat the ghost ship's boss, thus driving it off.
- The captain, Fargo, tells us that Mount Pyre is really, really hot (temperature wise) so we'll need some sort of protection. He suggests visiting the Water Dragon, only nobody's really heard from the Water Dragon (or any of the other Dragons) is some time, so who knows what's up. Still, guess it's worth a shot.
- So we head over to Water Dragon Island, except that everything's dried up due to recent inclement weather, the dragon's lair is sealed off and the Water Dragon is apparently nowhere to be found.
- At a bit of a loss, Serge heads back to Guldove to check on Kid. It turns out that she's up and about. The Doc informs us that some anonymous benefactor from the mainland provided some hydra humour, so that's all resolved. But it doesn't help us with our missing dragon problem.
- Kid suggests that if Serge uses her amulet, he might be able to cross between dimensions, the theory being that the Water Dragon might still exist in th other world. Seems a bit dubious, but there aren't any other leads so it probably won't hurt... The Doc decides to tag along since he's bored.
- Serge returns to Opassa beach and finds a swirly thing in the sand. Using the amulet pulls us through the dimensional vortex to Serge's home world. Ducking into Arni village, one of the fishermen offers to take us to Water Dragon Isle for a small fee. How thoughtful.
- This version of Water Dragon Isle has lots of water and lilypads to jump on. Not all is well, though, as some beady-eyed, big-nosed dwarves are attacking the helpless fairies who live on the island. We retaliate by killing off every single last dwarf we can find.
- Pursuing the dwarves into the caves and slaughtering them mercilessly leads us to the Water Dragon who's just sitting around, frog-like, letting all this senseless slaughter occur. He seems to know what we want, however, and gives us his ice breath (how the heck do we carry breath around?) so that we can freeze the lava on Mount Pyre.
- We go back to the other world and head to mount Pyre. The Water Dragon's ice breath does the trick nicely and lets us freeze the lava so we can avoid burning our feet off.
- Pretty soon, we have another encounter with the comic relief duo of Solt and Peppor and they're still as dumb as always. After that we fight some random little red dragon guy and finally, just before the exit, we fight Karsh, Zoah and Marcy. Marcy doesn't seem to like us very much, but it doesn't really matter as we defeat them and go on our merry way.
- This brings us out into a plain in the middle of the mountains where stands Fort Dragonia which turns out to be that structure from Serge's dream way back at the start of the game. From the looks of it, the fort is going to be some annoying puzzle dungeon. Fun fun fun!
- Anyway, we manage to climb to the top of the tower - that floaty platform with the door from Serge's dream. As in the dream, the door bubbles out and Serge has that recurring vision of him with a bloody dagger in his hand standing over a prone Kid and looking awefully pleased about himself.
- Then the door opens, ominously. NO! DON'T GO IN THERE SERGE!! Unfortunately, his party members have a different idea.
- The Dragon Tear is on a pedistal in the middle of the room with General Viper and Lynx waiting for us. The General decides to give us a bit of a warm up, but he's old and not very tough. Then Lynx stabs Viper in the back and we fight him who, whilst acting intimidating, turns out to be only moderately dangerous.
- However, Lynx is resilient and starts babbling about how defeating him is like Serge denying his own existence. This is about when Kid bursts in demanding vengance for Lynx's past wrongdoings.
- It is, however, also when the Dragon Tear starts to go glowy again and Serge needs to get his migrane medication. There's a bit of a twist, though, as some morphing goes on in the reflection in the Dragon Tear, then Serge starts looking kinda evil.
- And then Serge talks, urging Kid to defeat Lynx, who backs away and says nothing. No this is officially very bad (tm). You know when the Silent Protagonist actually says something that it's a sign of the apocalypse or something. Serious stuff is about to go down.
- So, Kid and crew fight "Lynx", who really doesn't stand a chance. Three on one, afterall. Not even remotely fair.
- Then Evil Serge tries to goad Kid into finishing "Lynx" off by mocking her memories of Lucca (not Luccia), only Kid never told Serge about Lucca. Oh snap! Since Evil Serge has blown his cover, he does the only thing possible: he stabs Kid.
- In one last act of vandalism, Evil Serge blows up all the statues in the room and tells Serge-Lynx to come to the Sea of Eden if he wishes to learn what the hell is going on. Then things black out for a bit.
- Then Lynx wakes up in a dimensional vortex that looks like a wonky impressionist painting. He sneaks into the house of a green-skined goblin thing named Sprigg whilst she is out chasing nuts. She seems to take pity on him and allows him to stay the night.
- Sprigg decides to tag along the next morning since she thinks we might be able to help her escape the vortex. Also, she can let us into a tower, though she doesn't explain how.
- In the tower we encounter Harle who gives Lynx an existential lecture trying to convince him that he is, in fact, Lynx now and not Serge. Lynx doesn't fall for it and presses onward.
- Lynx enters a strange Escher-esque landscape and Harle decides to be helpful and join up after all. We soon find our way out of the vortex and wind up in the Hydra Marshes in Serge's home world. Sprigg seems happy to be back in some form of reality.
- Harle suggests we should go back to the distortion on Opassa Beach to begin our investigation, so we do, but it proves unresponsive. Harle claims this is because Lynx is not Serge, or something.
- At a loss for what to do next, Lynx decides to impose himself on his mother's hospitality. She seems willing to believe his story, but then Radius bursts in and demands Lynx to "step outside", identifying himself as a former Acacia Dragoon.
- Somewhere in there, Serge's mother tells us about how Leena's father, Miguel, and Serge's father got lost during a storm on a fishing trip and wound up in the Sea of Eden (now the Dead Sea). Miguel did not return.
- After beating Radius into the ground he decides we're not so bad after all. He seems to take hope in the fact that General Viper and Riddel are still active in the Other World and decides to join us, seemingly to help the General in this world. He demands we go to Termina, and, oh, maybe we'll find something to help our situation somewhere along the way.
- The Porre military has overrun Termina and seem to recognize Lynx, though the common folk don't seem to take too kindly to him. Snooping around town we add a couple new faces to our entourage: Zappa, the blacksmith who's shutting down his smithy and is also Karsh's father (who's missing in this world) and Van, son of Gogh, who tags along just because.
- We traipse on over to the ruins of Viper Manor, which nobody has apparantly thought to repair, to talk to the Porre Commander, Norris, who is hiding out in the basement (which we have to go through a well to get to)
- Norris seems willing to answer Radius' questions. The Porre Military had come to the manor because they thought the Frozen Flame was there, only it turned out not to be and they don't know the current whereabouts of the General.
- It is thought that the Frozen Flame and/or general might be in the general vicinity of the Dead Sea, only there's no known way in, though it is thought that the people of Marbule might have some connection. Norris also offers to tag along to learn if the Frozen Flame really exists or not.
- It's off to Marbule, then. The town is deserted except for some spooky ghost things and the great explorer Toma and his assistant. Toma gives a little history lesson and explains that the people of Marbule are now working on the S.S. Zelbess. We then decide to take a nap.
- At night, we overhear a mermaid weeping, but she flees. In the morning, she approaches, introducing herself as Irenes, and basically orders us to take her to the Zelbess. The nerve!
- Well, off to the S.S. Zelbess, I guess. It's a cruise ship and is this world's version of the prirate ship Invicible. What a difference! A ship belonging to the Magical Dreamers (that's Nikki's band) is sailing along side the Zelbess. Seems like a concert's in the works.
- On board we meet dynamite dancer Miki who claims the Magical Dreamers are about more than just looks. Sure, you believe that...
- Anyway, we try to locate the Sage of Marbule, only the guy is all mopey and depressed and pretends he doesn't know what we're talking about. We only learn the truth after he goes down to the lower level where you need the captain's permission to go.
- So we go talk to captain Fargo, only the others blab about our real reason for wanting access (shut up guys, sheesh!) and the captain turns out to have a grudge against the people of Marbule and denies permission, at least until he decides it would be more fun to gamble on it.
- Well, we lose, initially, but through a series of events that involve getting turned into cats for a brief spell by the hapless magician Sneff, we uncover Fargo's dirty secret: he's a cheater! We also find out that he's the father of Nikki and Marcy, their mother being Irene's deceased sister, Zelbess, the ship's namesake. Which, by the way, is the source of Fargo's gruge: he's emo and wants Marbule to die along with his deceased lover.
- (And, by the way, this world's version of Solt and Peppor are hanging around in Sneff's green room.)
- When we confront Fargo with his secret, he relents and lets us do as we please. Yay for blackmail!
- Down below, we find the Sage mopping floors. He tries to play hard-to-get at first, but we beat him up and he admits knowing about how to get into the Dead Sea and gives us a fiddler crab. Is this some kind of joke?
- We don't get a chance to pummel him for further information as Nikki decides to show up and convinces the Sage to teach him the Song of Marbule so they can restore the village. They go off to Nikki's ship and invite us along.
- On the ship, Nikki unveils his mad plan: they must somehow get the Zelbess within shouting distance of Marbule and play the song which will allow us to beat up those ghost things. Miki is behind the plan, but the only problem is it requires Fargo's cooperation and, so far, he's having none of that.
- Since Fargo won't oblige and move the ship, we give up for now and go looking for the entrance to the Dead Sea. Turns out that fiddler crab is an explosives expert or something as it manages to demolish a section of the coral reef around the sea revealing a passage.
- The passage, however, is blocked by the Masamune which is giving off seriously evil vibes. Masa and Mune must be pissed about something! According to Radius, the only thing that can counter the Masamune is the holy sword, Einlanzer.
- Flashback to Radius training with Garai and an expedition to the Isle of the Damned to retrieve the Masamune. Something is not quite right about Radius' story, but it seems we now have to take a field trip to the Isle of the Damned to get the damn sword back. Meaning the Einlanzer, of course.
- We navigate the Isle of the Damned and come to Garai's grave where Radius has a flashback to being overcome by the mind-altering powers of the Masamune (or so he claims) and killing Garai by stabbing him in the back. We then have to beat up a noticably cheesed off spirit of Garai, but after that we get the Einlanzer and all is happy and sunshine. Well, not really 'cause the Isle of the Damned is still made of piles of bones and is burning, burning, always burning!
- Anywho, we can now get into the Dead Sea which... is very interesting looking. It looks like ruins from the future are locked in a frozen sea. We wander through the ruins, half expecting to see Johnny of the Robo Gang, and find a terminal with data on our dear old friend, Lavos. Mayhap this is what the Frozen Flame is refering to. Hmmm...
- We get to the centre of the Dead Sea and the Tower of Geddon. In here it looks a bit like a shopping mall, but Serge-Lynx starts hallucinating about ghosts of three children who look familiar. Also, it seems this world's Acacia Dragoons came here and are now frozen in time. Or lost in time or something.
- After napping in an Enertron (still hungry), we find ourselves in what seems to be the ruins of Leene's Square where the ghostly visages of child versions of Chrono, Lucca and Marle accuse Serge-Lynx of destroying the future they worked so hard to save.
- Then, a guy steps out from behind the decrepit remains of Lenne's Bell and gives us a quick summary of Chrono Trigger and explains that the future that was prevented in the first game is trying to reassert itself. This is Miguel (Leena's father) who has been stranded here since he and Serge's father stumbled upon the place when trying to find help for an injured Serge (though it was in better repair then).
- We then have to fight Miguel over the fate of the future. While he looks like he's just some guy, Miguel is no slouch, but we emerge victorious.
- Things start to get a bit shakey then. Miguel says that the ruined future is starting to disappear back into the void again, but he suggests that FATE is doing whatever it needs to do to prevent the Frozen Flame from being found, taking as if Fate is some sort of physical entity.
- Miguel tells us to run to save ourselves and, having a healthy dose of self-preservation, we do just that. However, things look grim but a silver dragon (the Sky Dragon) swoops down and saves us from certain doom. He (or perhaps it) tells us that if we wish to challenge FATE then we will need to seek the blessing of the six dragon gods of El Nido. Great, fetch quest time.
- Serge-Lynx's hangers on suggest trying to go back to the other world so we head to Opassa Beach and find that the dimensional portal is back in working order. Visiting Arni Village reveals that Lynx, in the guise of Serge (this could get confusing...) has been running amok and terrorizing the countryside.
- We wander up to Termina to find that the Porre military has invaded (the world seems to have gone to hell quickly in our absense) and also taken control of Viper Manor.
- In the back of the pub, Karsh and Zoah fill us in on what happend in Fort Dragonia after Serge and Lynx played switcheroo with their bodies. Seems the Dragoons burst in just as evil Serge disappeared with Kid. The dragoons then took the wounded Viper to Hermit's Hideaway along with the shards of the Dragon Tear.
- Serge-Lynx decides to team up with Karsh to invade Viper Manor and rescue Lady Riddel, leaving Zoah in Termina for, uh, delicate undercover work whilst Marcy is still at Hermit Hideaway protecting the General.
- Leaving Termina, we encounter this world's Norris who admits that siding with Lynx was not the brightest thing they've ever done. He offers to help as he apparently believes our story that this Lynx is not the real Lynx.
- The soldiers at the manor let us through with no problem since they think Lynx is Lynx. Following Norris' advice, we infiltrate the prison complex via the sewers and free the pirate captain Fargo (who went and got himself captured somehow) in the process.
- When we find Lady Riddel, she is about to be interrogated by the "Hell" cook, Orcha (the Manor's cook who has undergone some major Pavlovian conditioning). But we put a stop to that nonsense and free the General's daughter.
- Norris escorts Riddel out of the manor, but we get stuck fighting the bosses on the way out. Figures, leave us to do all the dirty work. This includes fighting the Porre Army's new killing machine cyborg thing, Grobryc. (And after defeating him he decides to tag along since he only takes orders from those "stronger" than him, ie. us.)
- After defeating all the bosses, we jump through the fancy stain glass window in the library (ala Nadia in Chrono Trigger) and land in the stables. We instigate a dragon stampede which we use as cover to flee the manor. And hey! There's a boat all nice and ready for us. Time to go sailing!
- Head on over to the Hermit's Hideaway where General Viper is recovering nicely. Riddel joins our party out of thanks for rescuing her, but then evil Serge and brainwashed Kid attack! Someone must have tipped them off to our whereabouts...
- Things look grim, but Fargo rescues us with his oversized parrot monster and takes us back to the S.S. Invincible, leaving evil Serge to shake his fist. "I'll get you next time!" or something.
- On the Invincible, Serge-Lynx mopes around and daydreams about Kid. Except he focuses on all her violent tendencies. Makes you wonder a bit about his "preferences."
- Below deck, Fargo and Viper are posing for a duel over some long running fued betwixt them that they don't have the courtesy to explain just yet. In light of the current situation, they decide to put aside their differences for the time being and both join our party. Then Marcy and Zoah (he of the tin can on the head variety) also join up. Wow, everyone's being so helpful...
- It's imperative to prevent evil Serge from getting to the Frozen Flame so we wander over to try to get into the Sea of Eden, but like its cross-dimensional counter part, it is sealed tight. Harle informs us the "Pearly Gates", as they seem to be called, require the blessing of the six dragon gods of El Nido and implies that Serge-Lynx has to regain his proper form to enter.
- Harle returns to the Invincible briefly where she decides to part ways with Serge-Lynx. Oh well, the party was starting to get a bit unwieldly anyway.
- So, off to track down those dragon gods. We wander over to Guldove to see if anything interesting is happening there and, oh look, some Porre Soldiers are being beat up by one of the local ladies.
- One of the soldiers recognizes Lynx and so the violent woman decides we must be an enemy as well (this could get annoying...) but we fight her off and convince the half-wit soldiers to leave her in our care.
- The woman, Orhla, along with the locals, buys into the story that Lynx is actually Serge and gives him a brooch so that she'll know its him when he gets his real body back at which point she promises to help out. Nothing else seems to be going on here at the moment so we resume searching for the dragon gods.
- Well, we know where the Water Dragon was hanging out since he gave us his breath earlier, so we go back to the appropriate island in Serge's home world and challenge him to a duel. Victory earns us his blessing in the form of the Blue Relic. One down, five to go.
- Poking around, we also find Earth Dragon Island where some explorers are wandering around on the surface with no idea of how to proceed. Being the intrepid adventurers we are, we walk into the quicksand without a second thought (or any sense of self-preservation) and let it suck is down.
- Under the surface, we soon run into some immovable objects. Returning to the surface, the astounded explorers set to work and tell us to come back later.
- So we go explore the El Nido triangle and find a star fragment which we take to Sky Dragon Isle where, after a brief fight, we are able to recruit the petit alien Starsky.
- We then return to Earth Dragon Island where the explorers have removed the blockage from the caverns allowing us to make our way to the Earth Dragon's chamber where he challenges us to a duel. Victory rewards us with the Yellow Relic. Two down, four to go.
- Next we go visit sissy-Fargo on the S.S. Zelbess. With pirate Fargo in our party, he tells off his sissy counterpart and takes control of the ship, rechristening it the S.S. Invincible. The ship gets steered over towards Marbule and Nikki and the Magical Dreamers get to put on their show.
- The show is a melodramatic reenactment of the meeting between a mermaid and lost sailor. Full of thees and thous and sappiness. Some neat muzak though. Anyway, this music renderes the ghostly monsters in Marbule into corporeal entities which we then have to beat up. Defeating them all wakes up the Black Dragon - in the other world. To punish him for taking
a nap at an inopportune time, we go and defeat him. Three down, three to go.
- While in the other world, we go visit the Red Dragon in Mount Pyre whom we encountered here earlier on our way to Fort Dragonia. But this is no fire side chat, we've come to beat up the pesky dragon and abscond with his pet salamander. Well, actually he gives it to us, but we'd rather just take it, so nya! Four down, two to go.
- Going back to Serge-Lynx's home world, we terrorize some innocent marshland creatures and ride a giant insect over to Gaea's Navel where we encounter what seems to be a chibi-Ayla. She's gotten separated from her tribe, though she doesn't know how - she's just a kid after all. Since she's never been taught not to go places with strangers she decides to tag along, but she carries an axe that's as big as she is so she can probably take care of herself.
- The ironic thing about Gaea's Navel, is that it's supposed to be this pristine island, untouched by humans, but to get to the Green Dragon, we've got to go an slaughter all the creatures on the island, destroying it's ecosystem. This coming after a big deal is made about the how the Hydra Marshes have suffered due to human actions. Oh well, the Dragons stand in our path so there's no time worry about moral quandries, we'll just kill things and take their stuff. Much simpler.
- After destroying the island's ecosystem we then burst in upon and defeat the Green Dragon. Five down, one to go.
- With his comrades defeated, the Sky Dragon now consents to our challenge and we show him who's boss and take his relic. Six down, none to go.
- Now that the dragons standing in the way of progress have all been defeated we can access the Sea of Eden, though the strange glowy things therein do not respond to us and Serge-Lynx's flunkies speculate that he needs to regain his human form. Never mind that Serge is getting used to being a large cat-man-thing. Oh well, them's the breaks.
- This means we'll need to go to Fort Dragonia again, but in order to do so we stop by Guldove in Serge's home world and speak to the priestess Steena. Now that we have all the dragon relics she is willing to hand over the Dragon Tear that unlocks the fort and she decides to tag along with our merry band of fools. As a side note, Steena also appears to have stolen Elvis' pants.
- Anyway, we go to home world's Fort Dragonia. Since we possess the Dragon Tear this time, it means that we don't have to mess around with the Fort's annoying puzzles (yay) but we still take a few moments to loot the fort before proceeding into the main elevator thing.
- When we do, it just so happens that evil Serge is waiting for us (how'd he get in here?) and is intent on preventing Serge-Lynx from defurryfication (yes, that's a word).
- Evil Serge is but a minor speed bump and we proceed up to the top of the tower, looting as we go, 'till we get to that floating platform with the bubbly door.
- Serge-Lynx enters the chamber by himself because the other two are too wussy to accompany him. There's no boss or anything inside, just a brief history lesson from the point of view of the Reptites up to the fall of their civilization with the coming of Lavos. They seem bitter.
- Serge-Lynx is then reborn as Serge by the Dragon Tear and he somehow manages to get his old clothes back too. When he emerges, Steena feeds him some line about Divine Dragon Falls and how the two parts of the Dragon Tear which he now posesses (remember kids, he's still got that one from the other world) could combine to form the legendary Chrono Cross. I dunno. Sounds kind of hoaky to me.
- So, in theory we could go to the Sea of Eden now, but instead we're going to go do some random side quests and collect some extra characters. Oh, and now that Serge is defurried, all the party members he had accumulated before becoming Serge-Lynx magically reappear. Bunch of fair weather band wagon riders.
- A trip to the Isle of the Damned in the Other World with Karsh in tow nets a confrontation with Solt and Peppor who aren't entirely comic relief this time and implies some disturbing things about Karsh's role in Dario's (Glenn's brother's) death. Of course he denies it - convenient that there were no witnesses.
- Returning to Serge's home world, we visit a small shack on a small island where this world's Dario is still alive, if forgetful. It turns out Karsh really did kill Dario's alternate self, but it was only because the Masamune had possessed Dario. The legendary sword just happens to appear and possesses this Dario as well, but we manage to fight him off and purge the evil from the Masamune. Then Masa and Mune (and Doreen) transform into the Mastermune, a weapon for Serge.
- As noted, we also run around collecting characters: skeletal clown Skelly, bunny-girl Janice, plant-thing Turnip, bartender Orlha and baby dragon Draggy. Many of these will never see action, but oh well!
- Finally, it's off to the Sea of Eden. There are 3 small islands surrounding some frozen triangle thing. If it were smaller, perhaps it would be a delectible dessert. But it's not, so we'll cry at our misfortune because it probably means trouble instead.
- We find the three Fate (Atropos, Clotho and Lechesis) on each of the small islands (one per) and on the last one, they combine to form a boss - a floating mask-thing. Well, we smash it's face in and doing so reveals a central island that was hiding under all that curiously frozen water.
- The central island is home to the Time Fortress Chronopolis which is populated by spooky ghost things. The Fortress is from the year 2400 A.D. and the ghosts talk about some sort of experiment they were running that would have allowed them to control time. It seems that, with Lavos eliminated, the people of the future started to develop a god-complex.
- Also of note, it seems that in the future from which Chronopolis hails, the sea of El Nido was empty except for the man-made island on which it was located. Curious. Most curious indeed.
- Snooping around, we learn that Chronopolis' super computer, FATE, has been observing and controlling the two parallel worlds via the "Record of Fate" (ie, save points) scattered around.
- Apparently, the experiment went awry and Chronopolis was thrown backwards in time by 10000 years. As a result, FATE terraformed the archipelago and the fortress' researches went out to populate it. Since then, FATE has been guiding things and preventing the outside world from influencing events in El Nido and vice versa. FATE also created the Element system.
- After messing around for a bit and pressing some random buttons, we eventually gain access to the inner chamber, the security system recognizing Serge as some sort of "Arbiter"
- Inside we find out what we've suspected all along: that the Frozen Flame is actually a fragment of Lavos. Which of course means that things could suddenly get very bad.
- Evil-serge appears and explains that when Serge was bitten by the panther-demon ten years ago and his father and Miguel came here (having been blown off course by a storm), Serge came in contact with the Flame which healed him and identified Serge as the new arbiter. This prevented FATE from being able to intervene directly with the two worlds.
- Lynx is also the phyical incarnation of FATE and needed Serge's form to regain access to the system. And now that that's been done, it's time to remove Serge from the picture, once and for all.
- FATE attacks (though a hidden circuit, known as Prometheus - attributed to the work of a certain Lucca - tries and fails to prevent it) but, naturally, we destroy it, 'cause that's what we do. Fisticuffs, yay!
- Kid, who has been present but unconscious up until now, wakes up and tries to make off with the Flame for her own nefarious purposes, but Harle decides to suddenly reappear and tells her to stop.
- However, it now turns out that the six dragon gods had been sealed by FATE and now that the meddling computer system is gone, they're back at full power and combine into one super dragon and blow the place up - or maybe it just made off with the flame. Also, Sky Dragond Island turns into some floating tower thing. Harle also disappears again.
- We somehow managed to escape the dragons' wrath and are back on the Invincible where all the grumpy old men are debating what to do next. It can be summed up thusly: this is kind of bad, we should do something about it, but we don't know what. Oh, and Kid is unconscious again - sleeping on the job and letting us do all the dirtly work. Figures.
- With the end of the world nigh there is only one logical thing to do: side quests and tieing up loose ends! Yippee!
- We drag Steena to Ancient Dragon Falls (which she alluded to earlier) and use the two versions of the Dragon Tear to create the legendary element known as "Crono Cross". Oooh, sparkly.
- Then we drag the alien Starsky to the El Nido Triangle in the Other World where his spaceship is more or less in tact and he pulls out the anti-gravity unit and attaches it to our boat, allowing us to travel to Terra Tower. (Ok, so we actually needed to do this so it's not a side-quest, per se)
- Then we pay a visit to Hermit's Hideaway where Kid is sleeping on the job. Masa and Mune refer to her as "The Princess" but seem to think they are unable to do anything about the situation. Doreen, however, bullies them into, well, doing stuff.
- Kid just happens to be holding a Time Egg (implied to have been made by Lucca which, presumably, is who Kid received it from) so Masa, Mune and Doreen use it to send Serge and his party into Kid's past.
- This turns out to be the orphanage where Kid grew up which is also Lucca's home. Except it's on fire. And Gato looks decidedly... broken (*sniff*). So we run around the burning house rescuing children and killing fire monsters until we find an unconscious Kid.
- Just past Kid are Lynx and Harle, looking evil. (You killed Lucca, you bastards!) They take off and Serge carries Kid out of the burning house.
- On the hill outside, Kid whines about being left alone. Serge, the fool that he is, promises not to leave her alone and then vanishes (seeing as he's got to return to his present and all that) leaving Kid by herself. This just proves that Serge is not to be trusted.
- Anywho, back in the present, Kid wakes up and joins the party for good, or so we assume. Radius informs us that Luccia wants to see her in Viper Manor. So we go there (we've got to pick up plant-thing NeoFio anyhow) and Luccia gives Kid a letter from Lucca which basically implies that Kid is Schala, if Masa and Mune's reaction to her wasn't enough of a clue.
- So, time to go save the world, I guess. We hike our way through Terra Tower and part way through that Prophet guy from way back near the start who was hanging out in the Viper Manor library hijacks us into some sort of recreation of said library.
- The Prophet wants to interrupt our journey for a little chat. Would have been nicer of he'd offered us scones, but can't win 'em all, I guess. Anywho, he is now calling himself Belthasar, Guru of Reason.
- He gives a breif summary of how he ended up in the future, thanks to Lavos. In the future, he discovered something about an entity called the Time Devourer in the distant future and established Chronopolis.
- However, their time experiments went bad, creating the Time Crash, drawing Chronopolis 10000 years in the past. At the same time, a city from an alternate dimension's future, Dinopolis (built by the descendants of the Reptites and is now known as Terra Tower) was pulled back in time as a sort of counter balance.
- The two cities warred and Chronopolis won. The super computer FATE divided and sealed the dragon god (a creation of the Reptites as a sort of biological machine) into six parts and locked down El Nido, guiding its development to ensure history stayed on course, more or less.
- On the night Serge came into contact with the Frozen Flame, the storm temporarily disabled FATE allowing the dragon gods enough time to create a seventh dragon which, it turns out, is Harle. This seventh dragon manipulated Lynx into getting access to FATE so that it could be destroyed, thereby releasing the seal on the dragons so they could seek their revenge. Um... big oops on our part, I guess.
- It also turns out that Lynx was originally Serge's father, remoulded by FATE, based loosely on the panther demon that had poisoned Serge. Somehow, I suspect that Serge is going to need a lot of therapy to work all this out.
- Anyway, we go on our merry way and eventually come to the top of the tower. Belthasar is waiting for us again (he's pretty quick for an old guy) and gives us a new Time Egg which he tells us to use to journey to the Darkness Beyond Time, but first we've got to defeat that pesky seventh dragon thing.
- Which, of course, we do. Terra Tower rumbles like it's going to fall apart, but instead it just does some weird final transformation thing before becoming inert.
- Well, to get to this ominous sounding Darkness Beyond Time we have to go back to where this whole thing started - back on Opassa Beach in Serge's homeworld.
- There, we find the ghostly visages of Chrono, Marle and Lucca, much like when we fought Miguel.
- Ghostly Lucca fills us in on a few details about Schala. It turns out, as the Ocean Palace was crumbling around her, Schala and Lavos merged into a single entity (ewww) which evolved into the Time Devourer and became trapped (more or less) in the Darkness Beyond Time.
- Serge's pathetic wailing when he was attacked by the panther demon got Schala's attention and earned her pitty. First, she created a clone of herself which is who Kid actually is (surprise!) and in her efforts to reach Serge she caused the storm that temporary disabled FATE.
- Schala left her pendant with her clone which was picked up and raised by Lucca. And things unfolded as they unfolded.
- So now it's up to Serge and company to use the Time Egg to travel to the Darkness Beyond Time and try to put an end to Lavos-Schala.
- Which is precisely whate we do by using that Chrono Cross element thing that we made a little earlier.
- Schala is freed from Lavos and, in return, she gets all philosophical about life, death and the nature of evolution. Well, I suppose she's probably had a long time to think about all this.
- Anyway, Schala then tells Serge he's not going to remember any of this now that the two worlds are merging back together again so, basically, from Serge's point of view it will all have been a dream.
- Then, Serge wakes up on Opassa Beach with Leena having apparently just blacked out after having mercilessly slaughtered all those Komodo Dragon Pups just so he could appease Leena and make her a silly necklace from their scales which she's probably just going to forget about after a day or two anyway.
- Serge babbles something half-remembered about his adventures but Leena has no idea what he's talking about and that, it seems, is that.
- We see some scenes that suggest that Schala/Kid is looking for and/or watching over Serge (stalker girl) and lastly we see her standing on Opassa Beach, now in a dress, a bit more Schala-like than the skimpy Kid outfit.
The End
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Work in Progress
For the graphics course I'm TAing this term, sometimes one or another of the TAs puts a shirt together with an image of the good puppets and ray tracer images. I'm currently attempting to create a t-shirt image and thought I'd show a preview of the work-in-progress. As I'm not adept at any 3D modelling packages, and there seems to be no good way to import the puppets into any such program (at least not in a reasonable time frame) I've decided to go with something that is, essentially, an exercise in image editing:
Not all the puppets are there because I have to get larger versions of the screen captures of them so I don't have to scale them up too much for the shirt image and I want to get different poses for some of them (including a couple of the ones already in the image).
The reason for the Tetris-like background is because the first assignment for the course is, essentially, Tetris (which I believe I mentioned in a previous post). I managed to fill an 8-by-8 grid of Tetris pieces and have associated each puppet with a piece that sort of, but not quite, approximates the shape of the puppet - or that's the idea, anyway. However, there is one extra piece since there were only 15 puppets so I think my evil snowman will be putting in an appearance to fill up the last one.
To those of my readers who are familiar with the FASS script for 2010, note that I have associated Luigi with an s-shaped piece.
I haven't decided what exactly I want to do with the background - if I should leave it white, use some uniform colour (like grey) or fill in each square according to the colour of the associated Tetris piece. I'll probably make a few different versions and see which I like best. The final image will also have four ray tracer images across the bottom.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Not all the puppets are there because I have to get larger versions of the screen captures of them so I don't have to scale them up too much for the shirt image and I want to get different poses for some of them (including a couple of the ones already in the image).The reason for the Tetris-like background is because the first assignment for the course is, essentially, Tetris (which I believe I mentioned in a previous post). I managed to fill an 8-by-8 grid of Tetris pieces and have associated each puppet with a piece that sort of, but not quite, approximates the shape of the puppet - or that's the idea, anyway. However, there is one extra piece since there were only 15 puppets so I think my evil snowman will be putting in an appearance to fill up the last one.
To those of my readers who are familiar with the FASS script for 2010, note that I have associated Luigi with an s-shaped piece.
I haven't decided what exactly I want to do with the background - if I should leave it white, use some uniform colour (like grey) or fill in each square according to the colour of the associated Tetris piece. I'll probably make a few different versions and see which I like best. The final image will also have four ray tracer images across the bottom.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Shooting Rays
The fourth assignment for the graphics course I'm TAing was due earlier this week. This assignment is a ray tracer and as part of it, students are supposed to create a "unique" scene. Unique in this case just indicates that the scene needs to be different from everyone else's, not that it needs to be creative. However, as with the puppet assignemtn, students receive bonus marks if they create an interesting raytracer scene.
As with previous assignments, I re-implemented the ray tracer to refresh my memory on the details and I ported my original snowman scene to the new ray tracer. Students are supposed to implement one extra feature of their choosing in addition to the basic features required by the assignment. Back when I originally did my ray tracer I implemented reflections. This time around, I also added in some anti-aliasing which makes the scene look nicer, but also renders a lot slower, which is not really a surprise since it involves shooting a lot more rays into the scene (five times as many for the way I implemented it).
Here is my new, improved, snowman scene:
And here is a link to the course gallery that has the better ray traced images from this term (they're up at the top): to the exhibit!
That's all for now.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
As with previous assignments, I re-implemented the ray tracer to refresh my memory on the details and I ported my original snowman scene to the new ray tracer. Students are supposed to implement one extra feature of their choosing in addition to the basic features required by the assignment. Back when I originally did my ray tracer I implemented reflections. This time around, I also added in some anti-aliasing which makes the scene look nicer, but also renders a lot slower, which is not really a surprise since it involves shooting a lot more rays into the scene (five times as many for the way I implemented it).
Here is my new, improved, snowman scene:
And here is a link to the course gallery that has the better ray traced images from this term (they're up at the top): to the exhibit!That's all for now.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Monday, November 2, 2009
Puppetry in Motion
Last week, the puppet assignment was due in the undergrad graphics course that I'm TAing this term. The main focus of the assignment is hierarchical modelling, but it tends to be referred to as the puppet assignment because part of the assignment includes creating a posable "puppet" model which can have it arms, legs and head moved.
From a programming point of view, it's actually one of the easier assignments in the course (or that's the way I found it, anyway). Most of the work comes in that students can get a bonus mark for making a fancy puppet, but doing so tends to take a lot of extra time.
A number of students usually do fancy puppets, though, which is nice 'cause I like seeing what people come up with, plus it's something interesting to look at while marking them. The puppets are located here, with this terms being at the top of the page.
The next assignment is the ray tracer which should also, hopefully, produce some interesting things to look at.
On an unrelated note, since it was Hallowe'en over the weekend, I wore my cape at school on Friday (I did not wear it on the way to/from school as it was wet out).
Freak Out,
-TFitC
From a programming point of view, it's actually one of the easier assignments in the course (or that's the way I found it, anyway). Most of the work comes in that students can get a bonus mark for making a fancy puppet, but doing so tends to take a lot of extra time.
A number of students usually do fancy puppets, though, which is nice 'cause I like seeing what people come up with, plus it's something interesting to look at while marking them. The puppets are located here, with this terms being at the top of the page.
The next assignment is the ray tracer which should also, hopefully, produce some interesting things to look at.
On an unrelated note, since it was Hallowe'en over the weekend, I wore my cape at school on Friday (I did not wear it on the way to/from school as it was wet out).
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Talking With Pictures
The various research groups in the CS department have been doing presentations about the research they've done and are doing so that other students and faculty in the department can have a chance to see what's going on. The graphics lab's presentation was yesterday. Ten of the students presented their research or, in some cases, research areas they were interested in. The format was 4-6 slides with no text. Each student talked about the first and last slide and another student talked about the middle slide. It was basically a whirlwind tour of stuff going on in the graphics lab.
For my slides, I basically converted my NSERC research proposal into comic format. They're shown below but, since there's no text, they might not make a whole lot of sense, but oh well.
That is all.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
For my slides, I basically converted my NSERC research proposal into comic format. They're shown below but, since there's no text, they might not make a whole lot of sense, but oh well.
That is all.Freak Out,
-TFitC
Saturday, October 10, 2009
'Tis the Season... Not
So, I was at the mall today to get some thank you cards to send to my references since they were pretty awesome about getting the reference letters in for the Vanier scholarship on such short notice. When I went into the card store I couldn't help but notice that they ALREADY HAD CHRISTMAS STUFF OUT. And it's only early October. I mean, cripes! I know capitalism/materialism is getting a bit out of hand these days, but still, couldn't they at least wait until after Thanksgiving? (*)
Sigh.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
(*) And by Thanksgiving, I mean Canadian Thanksgiving which is this weekend.
Sigh.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
(*) And by Thanksgiving, I mean Canadian Thanksgiving which is this weekend.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Showmanship and Other Ships
Coffee hour in the graphics lab is Friday afternoons. It doesn't actually involve coffee, but there are generally snacks. Today, one of the lab members came in wearing a chinese shirt with a book (it had "Bible" on the cover, but that's inconsequential to the story, really, but it did create an interesting image) which he then proceeded to open (the book, not the shirt) and which then burst into flames (doused upon closing it). It was certainly a flashy entrance. He also tried to do something similar with a wallet, but it didn't want to cooperate.
In non-fire related news, today I was asked by the computer science department to submit an application for the Vanier Canada Graduate scholarship (as a follow-up to my NSERC application which was submitted last week). This is a good thing. The Vanier is rather prestigious (not to mention valuable) and whilst I have no idea what my liklihood of getting one is, I think that this development bodes quite well for my NSERC application, if nothing else.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
In non-fire related news, today I was asked by the computer science department to submit an application for the Vanier Canada Graduate scholarship (as a follow-up to my NSERC application which was submitted last week). This is a good thing. The Vanier is rather prestigious (not to mention valuable) and whilst I have no idea what my liklihood of getting one is, I think that this development bodes quite well for my NSERC application, if nothing else.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Watch for Falling Blocks
I spent yesterday afternoon playing Tetris. Well, "tetrominos", but same diff. There was, actually, a good reason for this. The first assignment assignment (technically the second, actually, but the first one is just practice and doesn't count for anything) for the graphics course I'm TAing this term was due yesterday so the other TA and I spent much of the afternoon marking. The assignment is, basically, Tetris. The students don't actually have to implement any of the actual gameplay, they just have to render the results. Part of the marking invovles "playing" the game, hence why I say I spent much of yesterday afternoon playing Tetris.
I was also in the undergrad graphics lab earlier this week for the first time since I took the course nine years ago (not really a surprise or anything since I had no reason to be there until this term). It seemed nicer than I remembered, though that may be largely because all the computers are reasonably up-to-date with reasonably nice flat screen monitors, as opposed to the clunky octane workstations that were there when I took the course and which were kinda out of date even back then.
I'm finding I'm actually kind of liking the lab/office hour side of TAing, as opposed to just marking that I've done the past couple of terms. Of course, part of that might be because this is the graphics course and, hence, an area I'm reasonably familiar with. I may not like it as much if I had to do this for some random CS course.
Anyway, that's all for now.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
I was also in the undergrad graphics lab earlier this week for the first time since I took the course nine years ago (not really a surprise or anything since I had no reason to be there until this term). It seemed nicer than I remembered, though that may be largely because all the computers are reasonably up-to-date with reasonably nice flat screen monitors, as opposed to the clunky octane workstations that were there when I took the course and which were kinda out of date even back then.
I'm finding I'm actually kind of liking the lab/office hour side of TAing, as opposed to just marking that I've done the past couple of terms. Of course, part of that might be because this is the graphics course and, hence, an area I'm reasonably familiar with. I may not like it as much if I had to do this for some random CS course.
Anyway, that's all for now.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Musical Stylings
Update:
One of the violinists spontaneously broke into the Mario Brother's theme while warming up. And now the Godfather themem.
-TFitC
One of the violinists spontaneously broke into the Mario Brother's theme while warming up. And now the Godfather themem.
-TFitC
Those Wacky Russions
This week was the first rehearsal of the UW orchestra for the fall term which is the open rehearsal at which the newbies get to check things out and decide if they want to join or not. (It also seems to be traditional for me to mention it in my blog.)
We basically sight read two pieces at the rehearsal. One was an overture from some Verdi opera, the name of which escapes me at the moment. We've played this piece before during one of the summer terms. It's an easier piece and was used as a warm up (it's not one of the actual pieces we're playing this term).
The second piece, and one of the pieces we are playing for read were the 2nd and 3rd movements of a symphony by Shastakovitch (if I'm spelling that right). He's one of those crazy Russian composers. We've played a shorter piece by him in a previous term.
I'm not quite sure what I think of the Shastakovitch symphony just yet. It sounded... strange. Now, part of that is probably due to the fact that everyone was sight reading and I'm not at all familiar with it yet or how it's supposed to sound. Even so, it sounded fairly different from most of the other stuff we've played. If I had to try to describe it, I'd compare it to more atmospheric music or perhaps movie sound track-ish, perhaps even more "modern" (whatever that means) than other stuff we've played. Well, we'll see how it goes.
There were 9 cellos at the open rehearsal this term (down from our high of a whopping 13 over the summer) so it seems like a decent amount and, assuming everyone who came out decides to join, everyone will probably get it. If I recall correctly, we had 8 cellos during the most recent winter term. The most we've had during a non-summer term was 11. (Yes, the cellos went to 11 one term.)
On a related note, I am current doing some wrangling for some of the string auditions and have my trusty lap top to entertain me (hence this post).
That's all for now, so until next time,
Freak Out.
-TFitC
We basically sight read two pieces at the rehearsal. One was an overture from some Verdi opera, the name of which escapes me at the moment. We've played this piece before during one of the summer terms. It's an easier piece and was used as a warm up (it's not one of the actual pieces we're playing this term).
The second piece, and one of the pieces we are playing for read were the 2nd and 3rd movements of a symphony by Shastakovitch (if I'm spelling that right). He's one of those crazy Russian composers. We've played a shorter piece by him in a previous term.
I'm not quite sure what I think of the Shastakovitch symphony just yet. It sounded... strange. Now, part of that is probably due to the fact that everyone was sight reading and I'm not at all familiar with it yet or how it's supposed to sound. Even so, it sounded fairly different from most of the other stuff we've played. If I had to try to describe it, I'd compare it to more atmospheric music or perhaps movie sound track-ish, perhaps even more "modern" (whatever that means) than other stuff we've played. Well, we'll see how it goes.
There were 9 cellos at the open rehearsal this term (down from our high of a whopping 13 over the summer) so it seems like a decent amount and, assuming everyone who came out decides to join, everyone will probably get it. If I recall correctly, we had 8 cellos during the most recent winter term. The most we've had during a non-summer term was 11. (Yes, the cellos went to 11 one term.)
On a related note, I am current doing some wrangling for some of the string auditions and have my trusty lap top to entertain me (hence this post).
That's all for now, so until next time,
Freak Out.
-TFitC
Friday, September 4, 2009
And Now For Something A Bit Different...
Yay, it's experiment time! Click for the full-sized version. Oh, and my apologies in advance for making everyone read my hand writing.
Probably should have taken some extra time to ink it. Well, I'll keep that in mind if I do this again.
Probably should have taken some extra time to ink it. Well, I'll keep that in mind if I do this again.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Someting Weird's Going On
Yesterday I listened to nearly my entire collection of Weird Al CDs. The only one I didn't listen to was Straight Outta Lynwood, which was down in the car and I didn't feel like going to get it. That was 10 CDs that I listened to in total, which means I have 11 Weird Al CDs.
I did this for two reasons: one, because I hadn't listened to some of the CDs in a while and decided I wanted two, and two, to serve as background music whilst writing my latest FASS scene and doing other assorted chores.
It's interesting hearing not only how Weird Al has developed over the years, but how the popular songs and styles have changed over the years since each Weird Al CD more or less gives a snapshot of the popular musical stylings of the day.
Anyway, that is all.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
I did this for two reasons: one, because I hadn't listened to some of the CDs in a while and decided I wanted two, and two, to serve as background music whilst writing my latest FASS scene and doing other assorted chores.
It's interesting hearing not only how Weird Al has developed over the years, but how the popular songs and styles have changed over the years since each Weird Al CD more or less gives a snapshot of the popular musical stylings of the day.
Anyway, that is all.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Friday, August 21, 2009
Drawring Time
This is about a week and a half or so after the fact, but I sat down and did some drawing recently, which is something I'd not done in a while but had been meaning to do. There was a reason for this, beyond just wanting to draw. I've been reading "Understanding Comics" and "Making Comics" by Scott McCloud, recommended by my supervisor as part of background reading for my research. (Incidentally, I think it's incredibly cool to be in a field where I can read about comics and call it "research".) Anywho, I decided I wanted to try to make some observations on how I drew stuff, so I sat down to draw something:
I decided to deliberately leave the drawing unfinished as I think it gets the point across. The notes on the image are more or less legible (should be able to click on it for the full size) so I won't reiterate them here, except for the one marked with a star.
Star: this arrow is pointing at the fold in the sleeve. I had considerable difficulty figuring out how the sleeve should fold and, I'm quite sure, got it completely wrong. This did, however, make me wonder how good people are at recognizing when something like this isn't correct. How much, if any, innate understanding of how fabrics behave to people have? In other words, how many corners could you cut in simulating, rendering or animating fabric before people noticed that something was off?
Also, there's something called the "uncanny valley" when referring to near-photorealistic renderings of human faces. The basic idea is that there is a point where a computer generated image is very close to being realistic, but not quite fully realistic, and it starts looking creepy because humans are very good at recognizing faces so we start picking up on all the things that aren't quite right, but when things are a bit less realistic our brains are more willing to tolerate the imperfectoins, presumably because it's working at a more abstract level at that point. Do similar things exist with other things, like the folds in cloth?
I don't know the answers to any of this, but it was interesting to think about nonetheless.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
I decided to deliberately leave the drawing unfinished as I think it gets the point across. The notes on the image are more or less legible (should be able to click on it for the full size) so I won't reiterate them here, except for the one marked with a star.
Star: this arrow is pointing at the fold in the sleeve. I had considerable difficulty figuring out how the sleeve should fold and, I'm quite sure, got it completely wrong. This did, however, make me wonder how good people are at recognizing when something like this isn't correct. How much, if any, innate understanding of how fabrics behave to people have? In other words, how many corners could you cut in simulating, rendering or animating fabric before people noticed that something was off?
Also, there's something called the "uncanny valley" when referring to near-photorealistic renderings of human faces. The basic idea is that there is a point where a computer generated image is very close to being realistic, but not quite fully realistic, and it starts looking creepy because humans are very good at recognizing faces so we start picking up on all the things that aren't quite right, but when things are a bit less realistic our brains are more willing to tolerate the imperfectoins, presumably because it's working at a more abstract level at that point. Do similar things exist with other things, like the folds in cloth?
I don't know the answers to any of this, but it was interesting to think about nonetheless.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Monday, August 17, 2009
Continuing Adventures in Proctology
It's a week late, but last Monday I did my proctoring for the final exam for the course I was TAing this term. Now, as I've said before, proctoring is boring, but this was a 9AM exam and the proctors were supposed to arrive at 8:30AM which meant I had to wake up at around 6:30AM, ugh. I suppose I shouldn't complain as I tended to wake up at 6:30AM on weekdays when I was working full time, so it's not like I'm not used to it. The luxure to not have to wake up that early has just spoiled me, I guess. Anyway, point is, proctoring is still boring and it's even more boring when it's early in the morning.
In related news, it looks like I'll be TAing the undergrad graphics course for the fall term so I'm actually kind of looking forward to that.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
In related news, it looks like I'll be TAing the undergrad graphics course for the fall term so I'm actually kind of looking forward to that.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Friday, August 14, 2009
Sounds of Summer
As I was walking to school yesterday, I heard (or at least noticed) for the first time various insect noises and thought to myself: "It's finally summer!"
That is all.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
That is all.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Freak Band!
I recently had a chance to play Rock Band 2 and, I have to say, it was quite fun. Not really surprised there since I rather enjoy the Guitar Hero games, and it's essentially the same thing with some extra instruments added to the mix.
I found it quite interesting how they handled the singing. It doesn't match words, but it matches pitch and duration or, in the case of one song that I attempted to rap along to (badly), noise being made at the right moment. I did happen to score 100% for the rap (on medium), in the sense that I must have made noises at the right times, however anyone listening who didn't know what was going on would likely have tought I was drunk or somesuch.
Fun stuff.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
I found it quite interesting how they handled the singing. It doesn't match words, but it matches pitch and duration or, in the case of one song that I attempted to rap along to (badly), noise being made at the right moment. I did happen to score 100% for the rap (on medium), in the sense that I must have made noises at the right times, however anyone listening who didn't know what was going on would likely have tought I was drunk or somesuch.
Fun stuff.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Saturday, August 8, 2009
A Civilization of Freaks?
I had the urge to play Civilization recently. Not the original Civilization, as I've never actually played it. Rather, I decided to install Civ 4 onto my laptop. I'd gotten Civ 4, oh, probably not long after its release, though I don't really remember for sure, and for one reason or other, never really played it. Probably got distracted with other things, or something. So, like I said, I decided to install it Thursday night and play it for a bit.
And then a bit more.
And then some more...
Aaaaaand then for just a bit more.
You might be seeing where this is going. I ended up playing until about 4:30 AM. Lucky for me I didn't have to go anywhere so I could afford to sleep in. It's been a while since I'd played any version of Civilization so I'd forgotten how addictive it could be with that "just one more turn" effect.
So, yeah, generally a pretty good game, at least in my opinion.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
And then a bit more.
And then some more...
Aaaaaand then for just a bit more.
You might be seeing where this is going. I ended up playing until about 4:30 AM. Lucky for me I didn't have to go anywhere so I could afford to sleep in. It's been a while since I'd played any version of Civilization so I'd forgotten how addictive it could be with that "just one more turn" effect.
So, yeah, generally a pretty good game, at least in my opinion.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Sand, Surf and Freaks
The civic holiday was this past weekend. I don't really know what the civic holiday is supposed to be for, really - to me it's always just been a day off. But that's ok! I like days off.
On the Friday evening I saw the new Harry Potter movie (#6). I enjoyed it, though I thought they could have probably spent a bit more time on the backstory around Voldemort and the horcruxes since those will be important for The Deathly Hallows. Though, last I heard, the last book will be turned into two movies so I suppose there'll be plenty of time to cover those.
On Saturday I went to the beach with a couple of friends. This was really one of the first beach-worthy weekends we've had this summer. The drive was longer than I remembered, but it was definately I nice day for it. 'Twas a pleasantly lazy day at the beach.
The rest of my weekend was fairly uneventful, though I did get some project work done. Hopefully the rest of August will be nice and I'll have a chance to get out and do some more hiking and stuff - well, what passes for hiking around here, anyway. As I have often lamented, it's really just going for a stroll in the woods, compared to anything involving mountains.
Anyway, Freak Out,
-TFitC
On the Friday evening I saw the new Harry Potter movie (#6). I enjoyed it, though I thought they could have probably spent a bit more time on the backstory around Voldemort and the horcruxes since those will be important for The Deathly Hallows. Though, last I heard, the last book will be turned into two movies so I suppose there'll be plenty of time to cover those.
On Saturday I went to the beach with a couple of friends. This was really one of the first beach-worthy weekends we've had this summer. The drive was longer than I remembered, but it was definately I nice day for it. 'Twas a pleasantly lazy day at the beach.
The rest of my weekend was fairly uneventful, though I did get some project work done. Hopefully the rest of August will be nice and I'll have a chance to get out and do some more hiking and stuff - well, what passes for hiking around here, anyway. As I have often lamented, it's really just going for a stroll in the woods, compared to anything involving mountains.
Anyway, Freak Out,
-TFitC
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Music for the Soul
I caught an episode of The Simpsons last night (which I watch occasionally) and, without going into the episode details, got this little gem of wisdom from Homer which quite amused me that I wanted to share:
"He who tires of Weird Al, tires of life."
Freak Out,
-TFitC
"He who tires of Weird Al, tires of life."
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Potpourri
There hasn't really been anything that I've had a pressing need to blog about lately - not that there is ever really a pressing need for me to blog about anything, but less so over the past couple of weeks than normal, anyway - so I'm going to do an essentially random summary of recent events. Yay for recap episodes!
I gave my first tech talk at the weekly lab meeting last week. Everyone in the lab takes turns and, given the number of people in or attached to the lab, it seems to work out to about twice per year. Since I've not started any actual research yet, my talk was about my Masters' Thesis, essentailly the same talk I gave at Siggraph five years ago this summer. Seemed to go ok, especially since I basically hadn't looked at the stuff since Siggraph. Hopefully I'll have my PhD research started by the time my turns comes around again.
Also finished the first draft of the scene I'm writing for FASS 2010 last week. As expected it was on the long side, but it seems like some of the stuff will fit in one or another of the other scenes so there won't be too much that's actually lost when I start to trim things down. However, this means I have to restructure the first half of the scene and it's not quite as straight forward as I had thought. Oh well, I'll figure something out.
Been a bit lazy on my RPG editing tools lately, but got a little bit of work done on them this afternoon. I've been a little hung up on how to go about managing some data, but I think I've got a workable solution (though it may get changed later on) so I can start making some progress. Hoping to have it to the point where a player can walk around maps by the end of the summer so I've got to get moving if I plan to meet that goal.
And lastly, it looks like I may not be taking any courses again in the Fall term. So far, there's no graphics courses being offered and nothing else really catches my eye. I know there'll be at least one graphics course in the winter term, but for now I may just TA two courses for the fall if nothing else shows up.
Anyway, that, as they say, is that.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
I gave my first tech talk at the weekly lab meeting last week. Everyone in the lab takes turns and, given the number of people in or attached to the lab, it seems to work out to about twice per year. Since I've not started any actual research yet, my talk was about my Masters' Thesis, essentailly the same talk I gave at Siggraph five years ago this summer. Seemed to go ok, especially since I basically hadn't looked at the stuff since Siggraph. Hopefully I'll have my PhD research started by the time my turns comes around again.
Also finished the first draft of the scene I'm writing for FASS 2010 last week. As expected it was on the long side, but it seems like some of the stuff will fit in one or another of the other scenes so there won't be too much that's actually lost when I start to trim things down. However, this means I have to restructure the first half of the scene and it's not quite as straight forward as I had thought. Oh well, I'll figure something out.
Been a bit lazy on my RPG editing tools lately, but got a little bit of work done on them this afternoon. I've been a little hung up on how to go about managing some data, but I think I've got a workable solution (though it may get changed later on) so I can start making some progress. Hoping to have it to the point where a player can walk around maps by the end of the summer so I've got to get moving if I plan to meet that goal.
And lastly, it looks like I may not be taking any courses again in the Fall term. So far, there's no graphics courses being offered and nothing else really catches my eye. I know there'll be at least one graphics course in the winter term, but for now I may just TA two courses for the fall if nothing else shows up.
Anyway, that, as they say, is that.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Battle Through Time
Having recently finished the DS version of Chrono Trigger, it's time to share some, likely disorganized, thoughts on the game.
I first played Chrono Trigger one the SNES back in highschool, which would place it in 1995 or 1996, which puts it back a ways. I borrowed the game from a friend and loved the game back then and have since played it through several times on emulator. It's been quite some time since I last played it though (for some reason I never did play the version that came as part of the FF Anthology for PlayStation) so I was glad to have the chance to play it again on the DS.
First, I loved the game every bit as much as I did when I first played it. It's a great game. The graphics are spectacular and hold up really well - being 2D, it doesn't suffer from some of the problems of early 3D games such as the blocky characters in FF7. The sprites are large, backgrounds are detailed and it generally looks pretty wonderful. The music is great too and has some spectacular and memorable themes in it. I especially like the "music box" special feature on the DS version.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story for Chrono Trigger as well. The intricate way that things tied together across the different time periods, the sense of the inevitability of fate as things come crashing down in Zeal, and the big "shock" that happened there - all fantastic.
Chrono Trigger was shorter than other RPGs of the time, but the New Game+ feature and multiple endings made it easily replayable, and I replayed it a lot. I think the length helped make it a nice, tightly woven experience.
One of my few gripes about Chrono Trigger is that the artist was the Dragon Ball guy, and I've never liked his art. Fortunately, the sprites don't (and can't) reproduce his art style exactly so they still looked ok.
Anyway, Chrono Trigger was, and still is, a great game and I think it's certainly stood the test of time and will likely be considered a classic.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
I first played Chrono Trigger one the SNES back in highschool, which would place it in 1995 or 1996, which puts it back a ways. I borrowed the game from a friend and loved the game back then and have since played it through several times on emulator. It's been quite some time since I last played it though (for some reason I never did play the version that came as part of the FF Anthology for PlayStation) so I was glad to have the chance to play it again on the DS.
First, I loved the game every bit as much as I did when I first played it. It's a great game. The graphics are spectacular and hold up really well - being 2D, it doesn't suffer from some of the problems of early 3D games such as the blocky characters in FF7. The sprites are large, backgrounds are detailed and it generally looks pretty wonderful. The music is great too and has some spectacular and memorable themes in it. I especially like the "music box" special feature on the DS version.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story for Chrono Trigger as well. The intricate way that things tied together across the different time periods, the sense of the inevitability of fate as things come crashing down in Zeal, and the big "shock" that happened there - all fantastic.
Chrono Trigger was shorter than other RPGs of the time, but the New Game+ feature and multiple endings made it easily replayable, and I replayed it a lot. I think the length helped make it a nice, tightly woven experience.
One of my few gripes about Chrono Trigger is that the artist was the Dragon Ball guy, and I've never liked his art. Fortunately, the sprites don't (and can't) reproduce his art style exactly so they still looked ok.
Anyway, Chrono Trigger was, and still is, a great game and I think it's certainly stood the test of time and will likely be considered a classic.
Freak Out,
-TFitC
Chrono Trigger "Summary"
Chrono Trigger Plot Summary
=====================
- Crono's Mom wakes him rudely from slumber and shoves him out the door to go spend his day at the Millenial Fare (though she does at least give him his allowance first) where his friend, Lucca, is showing off her new invention.
- At the Millenial Faire, All sorts of carnival games are vieing to part fools from their money. Heading towards Lucca's invention, Crono is mercilessly assaulted by some girl who just plows into him, knocking him over. She seems more preoccupied with the whereabouts of her missing pendant than Crono's well being.
- Crono, ignoring the assault upon his person, picks up the pendant and returns it to the girl who calls herself Marle (despite having the opportunity to hawk it to the swordsmith Melchior) who then insists that Crono entertain her by letting her tag along after him around the Faire.
- So, Crono and Marle amuse themselves by running around the Faire for a bit, which includes returning a lost cat to its owner and fighting the robot Gato, another of Lucca's inventions.
- Eventually, Lucca's new masterpiece is ready to go. It's some sort of teleporter, but the crowd is all too sissy to give it a try so Crono bravely volunteers, probably expecting nothing will happen. Lucca and her father work the controls and Crono is, to the surprise of everyone (even Lucca's father) successfully transported from one platform of the contraption to the other.
- Marle then gets it into her head that she wants to give it a try so she gets up on the platform and Lucca and her father start things up again. But wait! The happy-go-lucky Millenial Fair music has now been replaced by an altogether more foreboding tune so you know something's up.
- The teleporter goes haywire, seeming to react to Marle's pendant, and a strange portal opens up between the two platforms which sucks Marle in.
- "Um, nothing to see here folks," Taban shoes the onlookers away as his daughter ponders what went wrong and wonders why Marle looks familiar.
- In the first of what is going to be a long line of foolish acts, Crono picks up Marle's pendant from the teleporter and volunteers to go after her. Lucca and Taban fire up the Teleporter and manage to send Crono into the portal, presumably in pursuit of Marle.
- The portal spits out Crono is some canyon like place. First thought: "Yay, I'm not dead!" Second thought: "Oh look, there are monsters here." Fortunately the monsters aren't too tough, allowing Crono to fight his way out, emerging into an eerily familiar place...
- Oh, look, it's that Truce place, but missing some buildings. Snooping around in private residences and talking to random people, Crono learns a couple of interesting tidbits: first, there's a war going on against the "Fiendlord" (hi, Magus) and Queene Leene is (or rather was) missing. That's right, it's the Middle Ages (600 AD).
- In the local pub, an explorer named Toma tells Crono that he had traced the Queen's whereabouts to the Cathedral in the woods, but when he finds out the Queen has recently been found he's, like, "oh, well, nevermind then"
- With a lack of other options at the moment (the Zenan bridge having been destroyed in the fighting) we go through Guardia Woods and into Guardia Castle. The guards don't like Crono's hairdo, but the Queen appears and tells them Crono is her friend and to let him through (strange since Crono's never been here before...)
- The King seems to have been lead to believe that Crono played a part in saving the Queen so gives him free reign of the castle. Time to snoop around and loot the place!
- Going up into the west tower, Crono comes across the Chancellor acting all mysterious and suspicious. Others in the castle claim he sneaks out to the Cathedral every night which means he's either very pious or the worst kind of evil, there is no in between in this situation.
- Then paying a visit to the Queen's tower, it turns out that the "Queen" is really Marle from the Fair. She chooses just that moment to experience a spontaneous existence failure and vanishes. Oh no!
- Sensing that it is good time to leave, Crono starts to make his escape, but as he's on his way out, Lucca shows up. Guess she managed to figure things out. When she finds out that Marle disappeared it confirms her suspicious that Marle is really Princess Nadia from present day Guardia.
- Princess Nadia has been mistaken for her ancestor, Queen Leene, and because of that the real Queen has not been rescued. Thus, in a pixelated explanation of the bird and the bees (thanks, I somehow had trouble visualizing it before that), Lucca explains that history has been changed and if the real Queen is not rescued then Princess Nadia will never be born. Of course, we sweep the messy issue of time paradoxes under the rug and hope nobody is watching too closely.
- Naturally, as the only ones present, Crono and Lucca must now go save Queen Leene in an attempt to fix history. This means one immediate course of action: to the Cathedral! Dun, dun dun!
- Over in the Cathedral, the nuns, or whatever they are, are saying somewhat ominous and not entirely nun-like things. When we go to pick up a hairpin off the floor (the pin having the Guardia royal crest on it), they reveal themselves to be a bunch of Naga and attack us!
- Oh well, so we defeat them, only one other one that was hiding around somewhere decides to make one last strike, but that's when this frog-thing with a sword drops in and saves the day - not that we couldn't have handled it. It introduces itself as Frog (well, at least it's easy to remember: hey, you, er, frog, thing) and offers to help save the Queen.
- Lucca, as it happens, has an aversion to frogs but manages to get over it to allow the amphibian to accompany us. So we descend to the depths of the Cathedral which we proceed to plunder. In the course of doing so, we rescue a couple of guards and find a room full of monsters singing praises to some guy named Magues. Well, a statue of him, anyway, as he's clearly important and probably wouldn't be caught dead fraternizing with the peons.
- In the end, we find the Chancellor about to off the Queen, but when we interrupt he turns out to be a monster by the name of Yakra, impersonating the Chancellor. In response to that revelation, we defeat him swiftly and surely.
- When the monster is dead, we find the real Chancellor tied up in a chest. When freed, he runs after the Queen declaring himself to be "undamaged". Not quite how I'd put it.
- That done, everyone traipses back to Guardia castle where Princess Nadia reappears exactly where she disappeared, no longer a victim of a time paradox. Everyone in the castle remarks how much she looks like the real Queen. Whilst everyone is rejoicing at the Queen's safe return, Frog blames himself for allowing the Queen to be captured and leaves for parts unknown. Turns out he's an emo frog.
- With the Guardia of 600 A.D in our debt we are free to come and go as we please and prepare to return to the present.
- The trip back through the time warp in Truce Canyon is uneventful and we arrive back by Lucca's teleporter pods. Lucca then runs off to crunch some numbers and tells Crono to take Marle back to the castle. But before leaving the Fair, Crono decides to eat some guy's lunch. Mwahaha. That'll teach him.
- Arriving in the castle, the Chancellor demonstrates his ability to jump to conclusions by assuming that Crono had kidnapped the princess and has him arrested, despite princess Nadia saying otherwise. The guy sure doesn't listen, does he?
- Crono is put on trial with the Chancellor prosecuting and some guy named Pierre defending. In the face of overwhelming evidence (mainly 'cause Crono helped some girl find her lost cat at the Fair), Crono is found not guilty by the jury. But the judge sentences Crono to three days in jail anyway for cavorting with the princess. Damn the aristocracy!
- When the Chancellor delivers Crono to the jail's warden, he goes on about impending executions, regardless of the actual verdict. The guy seems to really have it in for Crono.
- Well, Crono's not the sort to sit around and idly wait to be executed so he bangs on the bars to his cell until he annoys the guards enough that they bust in to forcibly shut him up. That's when they discover that Crono was NOT DISARMED!! Why has he still got his sword? Guards these days are stupid.
- Anyway, Crono makes his escape, though rescues another prisoner named Fritz and grabs some loot in the process. Just as he's nearly busted out and the warden is going for help, Lucca shows up to "rescue" him. A bit late for that, I guess, but at least she's helpful for destroying the Dragon Tank that the Chancellor sics on us.
- After destroying the tank, Crono and Lucca run through a gauntlet of guards for the castle exit. They're largely overwhelmed, until Princess Nadia shows up and tells the guards to stop. The actually listen for a bit.
- Then the Chancellor (who's taken the short way down from the tower, it seems) and the King show up. The King tries to convince Nadia to remain bored inside the castle rather than running off to do exciting things. Well, the Princess (henceforth refered to by her alter ego, Marle) would rather do the exciting things it seems so she runs off with Crono and Lucca.
- Still being chased by the guards, Crono, Lucca and Marle are backed into a corner. But wait, there's a time gate here! Just as the Chancellor thinks he has them cornered, his jaw drops to the ground as the three miscreants vanish into the gate. Take that, nya!
- Crono, Lucca and Marle emerge into the futuristic looking Dome Bangor. Since there's no point going back with the King's guards waiting, we may as well explore a bit.
- The world outside the dome is something of a wasteland. A bit to the south is Dome Trann. The rather dishevelled inhabitants of the Dome suggest we might have some luck finding food in Dome Arris past the Site 16 ruins, which are dangerous and full of mutants.
- The mutants in the ruins don't turn out to pose too much of a thread, but there are some annoying rat-things that steal my potions. Arg.
- In Dome Arris, the people are just as dishevelled as in Dome Trann, only there are more of them. According to the old man Doan (descendant of the original director of the Dome when it was actually a functioning information centre), the food stores are down below, along with a super computer, but the food is guarded by the security system. One of the Dome's inhabitants went down there recently but has not returned.
- Well, down we go. We smash the security system and its drones only to find that the food is all rotten and that one guy who came down here is dead. Oh well. But we do find a seed.
- While down here, we snoop around in the super computer where we locate another time gate off to the east in Proto Dome (past the ruins of Site 32). Then, Marle decides to mash some buttons which brings up a recording of the "Day of Lavos".
- Sometime in 1999, a fissure opens up and a big spikey thing emerges (presumably Lavos) and rains down destruction on the planet. This distresses Marle for some reason. She seems suddenly determined to change history. Lucca agrees, though reluctantly, and suggests the first order of business should be to return to their time and learn more about Lavos.
- The group returns to the Dome entrance where they give the seed to Doan and the inhabitants and give them a rousing pep talk about hope and all that. The inhabitants seem to be slightly cheered up and will try growing the seed. Doan also gives us the key to a jetbike he used to ride in Site 32.
- When we try to start up the jetbike, some robots try to interfere - it seems like a fight is about to break out, but that's when some human-motorcycle-cyborg-thing shows up, calling himself Johnny. The robots, it turns out, are his groupies, and Johnny challenges us to a bike race if we want to cross the ruins. Looks like we've got no choice! Cheesey racing sequence go! We win and go on our merry way.
- We find Proto Dome deserted except for a single, broken, humanoid robot. Girl genious Lucca decides she can fix him up and goes to work. When the repairs are complete, the robot activates and calls himself R-166 or something (his serial number) but we call him Robo instead.
- The gate seems to be past a door we can't open. Robo says the Dome's power is completely shut down but there's an emergency generate in the Derelict Factory just north of here, but someone has to stay behind to open the door since the power won't last long.
- With Robo in tow, we go to the old factory and eventually find a promising looking button to push, which we do. This causes the security system to go haywire so we beat a hasty retreat. On the way out, a bunch of R-series robots attempt to stop us and treat Robo as a traitor, thoroughly trashing him. We dispose of the evil robots and drag Robo's, uh, corpse back to Proto Dome.
- Fortunately, Lucca is able to repair Robo again. Robo then decides that there's nothing left for him here and that he wants to help us change history, so the four of us pile into the time gate and off we go!
- The gate gives off some unusual sparks and we find ourselves in a forlorn place with an old man standing under a street lamp.
- The old man tells us that this is the End of Time and spews out some technobabble about four people travelling at once overloading the time flux, or something, and ending up at the place of least resistance or somesuch. Anywho, looks like we can only move about as a group of three at a time.
- The old dude tells us we should hurry back to our own time before galavanting around the rest of history, but before we go we stick our noses into a neighbouring room and meet Spekkio, the master of war, who teaches us some magic, which some ancient kingdom used to use.
- Walking into the light, we warp to Medina village, 1000 AD, where (and when) we burst out of some poor unsuspecting imp's cupboard. Fortunately, the imps seem to be the live and let live type so it's all good. We are warned that the village, home of the "Fiends" (previously, Mystics) who followed Magus 400 years ago, won't proove too friendly and suggests we visit some old human guy to the west.
- Snooping around town, we find some Fiends in the town square singing praises to a statue of Magus and complaining how he failed to wipe out humans using Lavos when he had the chance. Hmmm. Also, the village mayor is Ozzie VIII, descendant of one of Magus' generals and he has no qualms about lording this fact over the townsfolk.
- Anyway, that old dude turns out to be Melchior from the Millenial Fair and he doesn't do much for us right now other than to offer to sell us some overpriced weaponry and inform us that we can get back to Truce through the cave to the north.
- So we journey into the cave, home of the fierce Hekran. Everything here is largely resistant to physical attacks so it's a good thing we just learned magic recently. Convenient, that. We eventually face off against the fiersome Hekran who basically tells us that Magus was responsible for creating Lavos, before we defeat him. Lucca suggests the obvious at this point: that we go back to the Middle Ages and stop Magus.
- Jumping into a whirlpool, we get washed up outside of Lucca's house then proceed through the Time Gate at the Fair to take us back to 600 AD. The word on the street is that the Fiendlord's armies are on the move, marching on Zenan Bridge, that the King was wounded in battle, but some legendary hero has appeared so it's all good.
- Visiting Guardia Castle, the King is recouperating from his wounds and the Head Chef has us deliver some rations to the soldiers at the bridge.
- So we deliver the rations just in time for the Fiendlord's armies to attack, lead by one of his generals, Ozzie. Ozzie seems to be a bit of a pansy as he just has a bunch of skeletons, and eventually a bigger skeleton Zombor, do his dirty work. None of these presents much of a problem for us 'cause we're, you know, the heros and all that, and Ozzie just runs away.
- Having repelled the attack we cross the bridge to Dorino village which, ominously, does not exist in the present. Not much going on here, people are just going on about the hero who's originally from Porre to the south (our next stop, most likely) and that some sword called the Masamune is supposedly the only thing that can kill the Fiendlord. Also, the village elder sends Toma off to search for the rainbow shell, despite misgivings about Toma's reliability.
- On the way south, we stop briefly at Fionna's Villa where Fionna is protecting a forest she and her husband planted whilst he is away at the war. She's not important now, but you know she will be sooner or later.
- In Porre, we learn two useful bits of information: a frog-thing has been seen lurking around, muttering about Queen Leene and the Masamune (why hello there, Frog) and the Hero, Tata, is said to be off in the Denodaro mountains searching for the legendary Masamune.
- The lead on the whereabouts of the Masamune seems more solid so we go sword hunting in the mountains. When we first get there, some kid, presumably Tata, runs off like a coward and tells us we should to the same. Pfft. Pressing on, we eventually come to a cave with a kid running around. Wooosh! I'm the wind.
- Under a conveniently placed beam of light is what appears to be a sword. Trying to take it, the kid, along with his brother who had been hiding, try to stop us. Masa and Mune turn into some sort of creature and eventually merge into one bigger thing, but we paid attention to some random dude in town that told us that wind slash dissipates whirlwind energy, so it's not too tough.
- Masa and Mune turn over the sword to us, but it turns out to be broken. They then, conveniently, return us to the foot of the mountain. Back in Porre, Tata fesses up that he just picked up the hero badge after a drunken frog-man dropped it. Which means its time to go hunt for Frog.
- Frog turns out to be lurking in a hidden hovel in the nearby Cursed Woods. He gets all mopey on us about not deserving to wield the Masamune, even if it were fixed. We also find the hilt of the broken sword when we loot his room. Letters on the hilt spell the name Melchior... curious.
- We return to Melchior's cabin in 1000 AD. He seems surprised to see the sword, but tells us he needs Dreamstone to repair it (since that's what the sword was made from) a rare, ancient mineral that he doubts we'll be able to find.
- Just to show him, we go off looking for some Dreamstone. The old dude at the End of Time suggests we go looking in the prehistoric era. Next stop: 65 million BC! But wait, the gate puts us halfway up a cliff. Aiiiieeee!
- We plummet and find ourselves surrounded by some lizard men. We fight some off, but there are too many. Just our luck that some prehistoric woman dressed up in a cat outfit comes to our rescue. She calls herself Ayla and seems to like strong people so has us follow her back to Iota village where she is chief.
- Ayla's people are fighting the Reptites for dominance, who are lead by Azala. There's another prehistoric village, Laruba, but they're all in hiding.
- Ayla throws us a party, with much dancing and drinking, and offers to give Crono some Dreamstone, but he must defeat her in a drinking contest. It turns out Crono is a good drinker. Also of note, during the festivities, Kino, another tribesman who has a curiously similar colour scheme to Ayla (both different from the rest of the prehistoric folk), meaning he must be important, seems a bit jealous of Crono.
- In the morning, Lucca walks up with a hangover and we discover that the gate key has been stolen! Ayla immediately suspects the Reptites and accompanies us south into the Forest Maze after a trail of footprints.
- Just inside the Maze we find Kino who admits to stealing the key out of jealousy, and Ayla baps him for it, but the Reptites then stole the key from Kino so we've still got to go chase it down.
- Through the Forest Maze we eventually come to the Reptite Lair. At the bottom of the Lair we find Azala pondering the Key. He demands to know what it's for, but doesn't believe us even when we tell him. Instead, he sics Nizbel, a triceritops on steroids, on us. He proves somewhat difficult, but ultimately we emerge triumphant. Azala is momentarily cowed, letting us have the key back, but vows that the planet belongs to the Reptits. Yeah, whatever buddy. We know differently.
- With the gate key recovered, we can now return to Melchior in 1000 AD. Again, he seems surprised that we managed to find it (better get used to that) and agrees to repair the sword. When done, it's as good as new so the next stop will be Frog's hovel back in 600 AD.
- We take the Masamune to Frog and he spends the night pondering things. He reminices on when he was a human named Glenn, adventuring with his old friend and mentor, Cyrus (the greatest knight in the kingdom, if the flashback can be believed): taking the Hero's Badge from the Frog King and encountering Magus and Ozzie while seeking the Masamune. Magus defeats Cyrus and does something to Glenn, causing him to fall off the cliff.
- In the morning, Frog decides its time to go pay Magus a visit. We go to the Magic Cave in some mountains to the east where Frog takes the Masamune and slices a cliff in two (now there's a sword for you), revealing the cave's entrance. The cave leads to the island where the Fiendlord's Keep is located. A bat starts following us when we enter the Magic Cave.
- In the Keep we meet Ozzie who says we'll have to beat him, Magus' other two generals, Flea and Slash, and all the beasts in the Keep if we want to stop Magus, and then disappears.
- First we encounter Flea, a cross-dressing male sorcerer and defeat him. Shortly thereafter we fight and defeat the swordsman Slash. After that, we pursue Ozzie through a series of ineffectual traps until he's cornered. At that point, the coward encases himself in some barrier, but we just open up a trap door under him to quickly dispose of the fool.
- Entering the Keep's intermost sanctum, we find the Fiendlord, Magus, in the centre of an elaborate magic circle, doing something distinctly dastardly and not nice. The Black Wind blows... And we have a friendly little duel with Magus. Well, perhaps friendly is not quite the right term, but we win so that's what's important.
- Then things start to go a little wonky. Magus complains that we've interrupted his summoning of Lavos... apparantly he didn't actually create the thing as we'd been led to believe. Instead, he was trying to summon Lavos from his slumber deep within the planet (where it's absorbing the planet's energy, supposedly), though he does not explain why. We've just managed to interrupt things at a bad time and now Lavos seems to be a little cranky.
- A massive gate forms sucking Crono's party along with Magus into its swriling maw, flinging us to some unknown time and place. Well, it turns out we wake up in Ioka village in 65 million BC. Ayla's there and tries to eat Frog (to no avail) and says she wants to find Laruba village to get them to help fight the Reptites and decide who gets the planet once and for all. That's when a villager comes in to say (or grunt) that there's a large fire to the north. Also, Magus appears to be nowhere to be found.
- Just to the north we find the smoking ruins of Laruba village, having just been attacked by the Reptites. A kid informs us that Kino's been kidnapped and Ayla is arguing with an old man and essentially informs him he's a pansy. Anyway, she gets his permission to take a Dactyl from the Dactyl's nest, 'cause apparantly they belong to the Laruba people.
- We go to the Laruba nest and insist on joining Ayla on her expedition to the Tyranno Lair, castle of the Reptites. As we take off, we notice a sparkly red thing up in the sky. Hmmm.
- Next we bust our way into the Tyranno Lair, free some villages and rescue Kino. With Kino sent back to Ioka, the rest of us continue through the Lair until we encounter our old pal Nizbel who insists on fighting us before we get to Azala (who is apparantly a she)
- We arrive at Azala's throne for the final showdown between Reptites and Humans. There is a might roar and Azala runs out a door behind the throne. Following, we come to a huge Black Tyranno with Azala pearched on its shoulder. Azala swears at the red star and the battle commences.
- Natrually, the victory is ours. Defeated, Azala curses fate, but that sparkling red thing turns out to be... Lavos, falling from the sky as a meteor. Uh oh, that's not going to be good. Kino shows up with some Dactyls so we can make a hastey getaway before the Tyranno Lair becomes ground zero for a huge meteor impact.
- Lavos crashes into the Tyranno Lair, obliterating it, leaving a smoking crater behind. By the time we get to the crash site, Lavos has already buried deep underground, but has left a gate behind in its wake. Something about stretching the fabric of time with its immense energy. But nevermind that, I wonder where the gate will take us?
- Because curiosity hasn't killed us yet, we step into the gate and find ourselves in a small cave that opens onto a bleak, snow covered world. There doesn't seem to be much choice other than to wander off and see what we can find and this eventually leads us to some sort of teleporter that takes us up to a floating landmass, above the clouds where everything is green and sunny.
- We find Enhasa, the city of dreams, where everyone is narcoleptic. This is part of the Magical Kingdom - no, not Disney, it's Zeal, ruled by Queen Zeal who has apparantly encouraged magical development, affording everyone a life of luxury, though she seems to be turning the Kingdom away from using the power of the sun to something else... but what? Also in Enhasa, we encounter some blue haired kid with a cat who says "The black wind blows..." before running off. Now where have we heard that recently? Must be a coincidence.
- Jumping back down to the surface then back up to another of the floating landmass, we briefly look at the Blackbird, a large airship, where we encounter some goof named Dalton (no, not the premier of Ontario) who goes on about some prophet. But that's not too important for now, as we stop in at the city of Kajar.
- Much as with Enhasa, the people of Kajar are going on about how great the Queen and the new energy source are, and how the old things are forbidden. They also have a large superiority complex with regards to the Earthbound ones (non-magic capable humans confined to the surface)
- Moving on to Zeal Palace itself. The music is certainly... ominous. And what's with everyone going on about how the power of Lavos and how great Lavos is? Shit, this is very not good.
- Word on the street is that the Kingdom's three Gurus have all mysteriously vanished, as do those who oppose the Queen. Sounds fishy to me. Also, there's talk of an Ocean Palace being constructed (by the blood, sweat and tears of the Earthbound Ones) under the sea (looks like this is a Magic Kingdom production after all) to better leech Lavos' energy.
- We snoop around in the royal bedrooms (really, shouldn't they have guards or something?) and find Princess Schala and her younger brother Janus (that blue haired kid from Enhasa) with his cat. They're talking about how the Queen has changed, but Schala has to do what she says anyway. A servant comes in to tell Schala that the Queen requests her presence and the princess runs off.
- We follow Schala and witness her going through a door with a seal on it that, oddly enough, we saw on a door in the distant future. The door reacts to the pendant she holds up and she is able to enter the Queen's audience chamber.
- People have been remarking how Marle's pendant looks alot like Schala's, but holding it up doesn't do squat to the door. So we run to the next chamber over where the Mammon Machine (a large machine thing that harnesses Lavos' power) and use it to charge up the pendant which is now able to open the sealed door. Also, the Mammon Machine requires someone with lots of magical power to control and Schala seems to be the only one who's up to the task these days.
- In the audience chamber, the Queen obviously calls us out as to just who we are and what the hell we're doing here. The prophet (wearing a long hooded robe, though there's a bit of blue hair sticking out) tells us we're the troublemakers he was warning her about so the Queen has Dalton deal with us. Dalton summons a golem which then mops the floor with us. Ouch. The Queen then reveals her sadistic side and has us imprisoned in some sort of energy field.
- Schala takes pity on us and comes to rescue us, hoping that we'll be able to help Melchior who's been imprisoned on the Mountain of Woe - wait, could this be the same Melchior that repaired the Masamune in 1000 AD? The prophet, however, discovers what Schala is up to and, while he agrees to spare our lives, drags us to the gate we travelled through to arrive in this time period and kicks us back in, forcing Schala to seal it behind us. Nuts.
- We then return to the End of Time and talk to the old guy there. He tells that we'll have to find a way to move through time more freely and that there was someone working on a Time Machine and it is further suggested that he can be found in the 2300 AD time period.
- So, it's back to the future. We go to the area around Death Peak via some old sewers and arrive at the Keeper's Dome where we find the memories of Belthsasar, Guru of Reason. Due to a cataclysm he was thrown into this era and learned that Lavos arrived during prehistoric time and had been feeding off the planet's energy since then. Now, Lavos nests in Death Peak and its spawn continue to ravage the planet.
- We then find a large device with some sort of cockpit. A Nu-like thing comes - Belthsasar has copied his memories into the thing and he tells us about his Time Machine, called the Epoch, with which we will be able to travel to pretty much any time period we wish.
- With the Epoch we now return to the Dark Ages where we wander up to a cave that was blocked off earlier. Oh look! A ladder has conveniently been left down for us. How thoughtful. This leads us to the village of Algetty where the Earthbound Ones live.
- A cave connected to Algetty takes us to the Mountain of Woe, a large floating mountain tethered to the earth by a giant chain. At the top, we find a crystaline thing and are attacked by the prerequisite guardian monster. Once it falls, the crystaline thing dissolves, releasing the Guru of Life, Old Man Melchior, who seems less fazed about being called an "old man" than being addressed by name by people he doesn't know.
- With the guardian creature defeated, the mountain crashes to earth, but we make it back to Algetty unscathed. Schala then comes in to tell Melchior that the Ocean Palace is now operational, however she has also decided that she will never activate the Mammon Machine again.
- Unfortnately, Dalton followed Schala and kidnaps her, planning to force her to activate the Mammon Machine. As Melchior says, this is bad, as it would awaken Lavos and cause unspeakable horror. However, Crono steps up and offers to save the day (without actually saying anything, strangely enough). That sort of heroic nonsense is going to land you in trouble one of these days, boy.
- Before we leave, Melchior gives us a knife made of the same red stone as the Mammon Machine which he thinks may be able to stop it.
- Run back to Zeal Palace to try to save Schala, but the Queen and her lackies have already gone to the Ocean Palace, leaving Dalton behind to guard the gate. He's stewing over the fact that he has to stay behind while the Prophet got to go and have fun. When he notices the trio intruding on his ennui, he decides he doesn't need to keep us around anymore, but he proves ineffective in combat and flees into the portal to the Ocean Palace.
- We follow Dalton's lead and teleport down to the Ocean Palace. After traversing its corridors and getting to the bottom level, we catch up with Dalton and he sics the Golem Sisters on us. After the battle, we proceed into the chamber where the Queen, Schala, the Prophet and various flunkies are gathered around the Mammon Machine.
- The Queen forces Schala to activate the Mammon Machine. Things don't look good as the Machine starts to go haywire. Good thing Crono and company are here, though, as we toss the knife at the Machine and ... it turns into a sword? The Masamune?
- Even that seems to be no good as Lavos awakes and swiftly pounds us into oblivion as the Queen watches and laughs. This is when the Prophet decloaks, revealing his true identiy: why hello Magus! He attempts to take on Lavos one-to-one, but is severely outmatched.
- As the Queen gloats, Crono decides it's time to end all this and tries to immitate Magus' one-on-one bout, but with more success. However... he just goes and gets himself dissintegrated by Lavos. Ooops. Oh well, can't say I didn't warn you.
- Things have gone from worse to totally crappy and the Ocean Palace seems to be falling apart around us, even as we mourn a lost comrade, and Schala uses the last of her pendant's power to send the survivors (and Magus) to what she hopes is safety.
- Lavos, however, has been woken up early and he's cranky. Very cranky. So he throws a temper tantrum and completely destroys Zeal in the process. So passes the Magic Kingdom in all its arrogant glory.
- The world is pretty much reduced to a single landmass of survivors. The Earthbound Ones and the survivors of Zeal are living together in a village, apparantly mending their differences since there's not much difference between them anymore, except the former Zealots are dressed better, at least for now.
- Just as we're talking with the village elder, Dalton appears, proclaiming himself King over the remaining rabble. Well, if he wants to rule a junk heap, that's his perogative, I guess. He doesn't like the thought of leaving our group roaming free to spread dissent against his rule so he pulls a dirty trick (look over there!) and takes us prisoner.
- And this time, they actually take our weapons away! And all our other stuff too. Remarkable, the villains actually have half a brain for once. Unfortunately for Dalton, Ayla fights with her fists, and since her hands weren't chopped off, we've still got a functional party member. Also unfortunately for them, they've neglected to weld the air vents shut. I did say the villains only had half a brain, after all.
- As we crawl through the air ducts, we discover we're aboard the Blackbird and that Dalton has taken the Epoch on board and is modifying it into his own personal air chariot. We also discover where our captors hid all of our equipment. Presumably they were planning on pawning it off somewhere...
- We crawl out onto one of the Blackbird's wings and encounter the Golem Overlord which turns out to be afraid of heights so it just cowers while we beat on it until it runs away. Then Dalton shows up - he's had wings attached to it so it can actually fly through space as well as time.
- Which is all very convenient for us (or will be shortly) since we plan to take the Epoch back, by force. Doing a crazy leap from the Blackbird onto the Epoch as it flies below us, Dalton tries to summon the Golem Overlord, only it doesn't come as it's already been scared off. Instead, Dalton gets sucked into a black vortex and we get our time machine back.
- Returning momentarily to the last remaining village, someone informs us that there was someone looking for us up on the north cape. Following this timely tip, we find good old Magus waiting for us and he's kind enough to share a flashback with us...
- See, Magus used to be Prince Janus when he was younger. At some point, presumably after Schala warped us out of the Ocean Palace (though perhaps before we got there), the three Gurus tried to talk the Queen down, only they got sucked into three different time portals. Melchior ended up in Medina village in 1000 AD, Belthasar in the ruined future circa 2300 AD and Gaspar in the End of Time.
- Janus was also present at this event and he also got sucked into a time gate, ending up in 600 AD where he was picked up by Ozzie and the mystics - a bad influence if there ever was one. Since then, he's been plotting revenge against Lavos by any means necessary and had just summoned him when Crono and crew arrived to interrupt things, the meddlesome kids that they are. The time gate resulting from the interrupted attempt at summoning Lavos sent Magus back to Zeal where he used his knowledge of the future to earn the Queens trust.
- And, as we know, Magus' attempt to destroy Lavos failed utterly and Zeal got wiped off the map anyway. Then he offers to come with us. Frog is a little put out about this idea at first, but ends up deciding that killing Magus now wouldn't really be all that sporting. Kicking a guy when he's down and all that. And so, Magus becomes part of the team.
- Magus mentions that Gaspar had been researching a way to restore lost time streams, implying that there may be a way to bring Crono back (way to string them along on a false hope there), so I suppose we should go visit him at the End of Time, now that we know who he really is.
- The old man at the End of Time plays coy, but gives us a time egg and suggests talking to Balthasar regarding its use. Balthasar mentions something about a power on Death Peak able to restore the lost, but we need a doll duplicate of the person we want to revive. One Dr. Bekkler is supposed to be an expert at this sort of thing, but he's off messing around at a festival somewhere, most likely.
- Back to the Millenial Fair, since that's the only festival going on any where, at any time, ever. Bekkler's got a tent set up and allows us to play a simon-says game to get a life size doll of Crono. Just where the good doctor got it from or what he was planning on using it for, well, probably best not to ask.
- Returning to Balthasar, he instructs us to take the doll and the egg to Death Peak and activates three, uh, puff-ball-like things that will give us a hand as we climb the mountain.
- So we go and climb the mountain, encountering some Lavos spawn on the way, and eventually reach the peak where we attempt to activate the egg, only to have the thing shatter on us. Lousy good for nothing...
- But then there's this nifty full eclipse of the sun (don't look directly at it!) and Death Peak is replaced by a tableau of the scene where Crono bit it - a time freeze. The obvious thing to do is exchange the real Crono for the life-sized doll of Crono so that it only looks like Crono gets dissolved by Lavos. In fact, it's so obvious that that is exactly what we do.
- With the switch made, we return to Death Peak, Crono slumped against the tree (which is inexplicably sparkling like a Christmas tree). Marle then throws herself at him and fills him in on some of the details that he's missed while he's been dead. Unfortunately, the other two party members don't exactly get the hint so that Crono and Marle don't get any "alone time".
- That done, everyone reconvenes at the End of Time where the old man finally admits that, yes, he was once called Gaspar. He then tells us we might as well go beat Lavos whenever we're feeling up to it, but incase we feel the need to beef up a bit, he gives us a laundry list of side quests we can go and pursue in the name of leveling up. Yay!
- We'll start by putzing around in the Middle Ages for a bit. There's a continent to the south east that was previously inaccessible, but we can conveniently now get to it since the Epoch had its makeover. So we fly down there and snoop around the sleepy town of Choras.
- In the tavern, we find Toma, the explorer, who still looking for the rainbow shell. He asks us to pour some spirits on his grave should anything happen to him. Also in the tavern is a carpenter who's lost his tools. His carpentry tools, that is.
- Warp ahead to the present and visit the cape where we find Toma's grave. Pouring some spirits on it, his ghost appears and tells us that the rainbow shell is on an island just to the northwest (the Giant's Claw), but it's mysteriously absent in the present so we'll have to go back to the Middle Ages to find it. While we're here, a lazy carpenter drinking away in the tavern lets us have his carpentry tools since they're not so good for drinking beer.
- Back to the Middle Ages, we give the tools to the non-lazy carpenter and he gets in gear and gets his assistants to help repair some old ruins to the north. We have to clear out monsters before they can complete the job, but eventually we discover Cyrus' grave. Cyrus' ghost appears and praises the knight Glenn has become and the Masamune powers up! Yay! This also allows us to freely plunder the ruins in the present, having been fixed up and all.
- Then, acting on ghost-Toma's tip we go to the Giant's Claw, which appears to be the ruins of the Reptite castle. After slaughtering the last remnants of the Reptites, we find the rainbow shell and haul it off to Guardia Castle for safe keeping.
- Zooming ahead to the present, the King of Guardia is on trial for, supposedly, absconding with a royal heirloom, ie, the rainbow shell. The Chancellor's farce of a trial is exposed, however, as the rainbow shell is safe and sound. Marle jumps into the courtroom through the big stainglass window with a shard of the shell as proof of the King's innocense. The Chancellor is revealed to be an imposter (not again...), Yakra XIII who is hell bent on revenge. He is, however, a wimp and is easily defeated. The real Chancellor is discovered stuffed inside a chest (again)
- The King then makes peace with Marle and we're no longer treated like wanted fellons. Melchoir puts in an appearance, offering to make some cool stuff out of the shell. We'll talk to him a bit later.
- Next we'll zip into the future for a bit of fun at Geno Dome where Robo meets his maker... sort of. His original name was Prometheus and this seems to have been the factory that produced him. We encounter another Robo-style robot named Atropos, only this one is *pink* so presumably it is meant to be female, or possibly a UW math student. Atropos has apparantly been reprogrammed to want to kill humans and has a one-on-one duel with Robo in which Robo is victorious. Defeat an imminent "death" brings Atropos back to her senses.
- The Mother Brain of the factory seems to have decided that humans are to be wiped out and that when Lavos' spawn eventually leave for other planets, the Robots shall inherit the earth. Well, we have a thing or two to say about that and promptly destroy the computer, shutting down the factory for good. Mission complete.
- While we're in the future, we pay a quick visit to the Sun Temple where we find an old sun stone that has lost its energy, making it a moon stone. So we take it back to prehistoric times and leave it in the Sun Shrine where it can bask in the sun and soak up energy for millions of years.
- The sun stone temporarily goes missing in the Present. A passing explorer took it to Porre where we find it in the mayor's house. Good thing we'd previously taught his ancestors the value of generosity as he decides to just hand it over. We return it to the shrine and then jump ahead to 2300 AD where we retrieve a fully charged sun stone.
- Lucca decides it would be a good idea to use the sun stone to make herself a new gun and then we take the leftovers to Melchior who makes the extremely over powered rainbow sword. This now gives Crono an 80% counter rate and 70% critical hit rate. What's not to like?
- There are still a couple of things to do in the Middle Ages so we go to Fionna's Villa in 600 AD where Fionna is attempting to replant a forest, but there are monsters underground that are making things difficult. We go in and clear things out (we should be professional exterminators or something) and then leave Robo behind so that he can spend 400 years of forced labour as he tends the forest.
- The rest of us get to skip all the tedious work and jump ahead to the present in 1000 AD where the desert is now a thriving forest, in the midst of which is Fionna's Shrine. A broken down Robo is on the pedastal so we just up and remove him. Funny that the shrine maidens don't try to stop us or anything seeing as we're basically making off with what could be considered a prized artefact.
- Lucca reactivates Robo and we celebrate our reunion. Well, Robo does anyway, since for everyone else there was hardly any intervening time. Everyone camps out in the woods as Lucca fixes up Robo and Robo explains that he had a lot of time to think and now believes that Lavos is not responsible for the time gates, but some other entity that either wishes us to see these events for some reason or is reliving important moments, like life flashing before ones eyes in the face of death. When asked if there is anything she would like to relive, Lucca is curiously silent.
- Whilst everyone sleeps, Lucca goes off a short ways and finds a special gate that deposits her in her home 10 years prior. Her mother gets herself caught in one of Taban's machines and has her legs injured, permanently crippling her. This is apparantly the motivation for Lucca to study machines and all that.
- Last up, Magus' generals are still sulking around in the Middle Ages and, while they don't seem to have harmed anyone, it's best to make a preemptive strike and make sure they don't get any ideas.
- Ozzie is still using his old lame traps while he, Flea and Slash put up a bit of a fight, they are ultimately defeated once and for all (or so we hope). This has the side effect of making the Mystics in the Present much more friendly towards humans.
- With all of that erratta out of the way, it is time to invade the Black Omen and put a stop to the Mad Queen's plans once and for all and to defeat Lavos. The Black Oman is quite large, but we eventually make it to Queen Zeal who is still determined to use the power of Lavos to attain immortality.
- The Queen attempts to feed us to the Mammon Machine, but we destroy it and then finally face off against the Queen herself. She's no pushover, but we emerge victorious and she is finally sent to her rest. This finally brings us to the big boy himself: Lavos.
- Lavos starts off by immitating many of the bosses we've faced so far, up to and including the Mountain of Woe boss. Fortunately, his immitations are no more powerful than the original versions and we've leveled up a bit so it's mostly pretty easy. Finally Lavos gets tired of the mime-thing and we get to fight the real version. Well, it's the "head", anyway, and beating it lets us penetrate into Lavos' shell.
- It's spooky inside that shell, but we find this kind of oddly humanoid cybernetic thing with tubes and stuff, so we what anyone would do in this situation: kill it.
- This is not the end, however. Inside, we find some humanoid in a space suit with a couple of acorn-looking things accompanying it. Yay for multi-stage bosses! Lucca perceives that this, the true face of Lavos, is a parasite that harvests DNA from the world it infests for as long as it can before sending its spawn to other planets to repeat the cycle. Unfortnately for Lavos, it has chosen the wrong planet to infest. A battle that warps through the different eras of history ensues and Lavos is finally destroyed, once and for all.
- Lenne's bell rings and Crono is woken up from sleep by a guard from the castle. He informs Crono that his stay of execution has been canceled and drags him off to face his fate, bringing him before King Guardia XXXIII.
- However, it all turns out to be a cruel, cruel joke engineered by Lucca as Doan, King Guardia XXII and Kino arrive (all brought there by Lucca - talk about screwing with the timeline) and the King congratulates Crono for saving history.
- The Moonlight Parade is held on the last night of the Mellenial Fair as Crono and Marle do a victory lap. Everyone seems duely impressed, except for Crono's Mom who wishes he'd spend more time helping around the house and looking after the cat.
- Finally, the group of time travelers gathers by Lucca's telepods and everyone departs for their own time. Just before the gate can close for good, Crono's cat, being chased by Crono's Mom, run by and into the gate. As the King dedicates a new bell (this being Nadia's bell) and Taban sets off some fireworks, Crono, Lucca and Marle pile into the Epoch to mess about in time, looking for Crono's Mom.
- The End
=====================
- Crono's Mom wakes him rudely from slumber and shoves him out the door to go spend his day at the Millenial Fare (though she does at least give him his allowance first) where his friend, Lucca, is showing off her new invention.
- At the Millenial Faire, All sorts of carnival games are vieing to part fools from their money. Heading towards Lucca's invention, Crono is mercilessly assaulted by some girl who just plows into him, knocking him over. She seems more preoccupied with the whereabouts of her missing pendant than Crono's well being.
- Crono, ignoring the assault upon his person, picks up the pendant and returns it to the girl who calls herself Marle (despite having the opportunity to hawk it to the swordsmith Melchior) who then insists that Crono entertain her by letting her tag along after him around the Faire.
- So, Crono and Marle amuse themselves by running around the Faire for a bit, which includes returning a lost cat to its owner and fighting the robot Gato, another of Lucca's inventions.
- Eventually, Lucca's new masterpiece is ready to go. It's some sort of teleporter, but the crowd is all too sissy to give it a try so Crono bravely volunteers, probably expecting nothing will happen. Lucca and her father work the controls and Crono is, to the surprise of everyone (even Lucca's father) successfully transported from one platform of the contraption to the other.
- Marle then gets it into her head that she wants to give it a try so she gets up on the platform and Lucca and her father start things up again. But wait! The happy-go-lucky Millenial Fair music has now been replaced by an altogether more foreboding tune so you know something's up.
- The teleporter goes haywire, seeming to react to Marle's pendant, and a strange portal opens up between the two platforms which sucks Marle in.
- "Um, nothing to see here folks," Taban shoes the onlookers away as his daughter ponders what went wrong and wonders why Marle looks familiar.
- In the first of what is going to be a long line of foolish acts, Crono picks up Marle's pendant from the teleporter and volunteers to go after her. Lucca and Taban fire up the Teleporter and manage to send Crono into the portal, presumably in pursuit of Marle.
- The portal spits out Crono is some canyon like place. First thought: "Yay, I'm not dead!" Second thought: "Oh look, there are monsters here." Fortunately the monsters aren't too tough, allowing Crono to fight his way out, emerging into an eerily familiar place...
- Oh, look, it's that Truce place, but missing some buildings. Snooping around in private residences and talking to random people, Crono learns a couple of interesting tidbits: first, there's a war going on against the "Fiendlord" (hi, Magus) and Queene Leene is (or rather was) missing. That's right, it's the Middle Ages (600 AD).
- In the local pub, an explorer named Toma tells Crono that he had traced the Queen's whereabouts to the Cathedral in the woods, but when he finds out the Queen has recently been found he's, like, "oh, well, nevermind then"
- With a lack of other options at the moment (the Zenan bridge having been destroyed in the fighting) we go through Guardia Woods and into Guardia Castle. The guards don't like Crono's hairdo, but the Queen appears and tells them Crono is her friend and to let him through (strange since Crono's never been here before...)
- The King seems to have been lead to believe that Crono played a part in saving the Queen so gives him free reign of the castle. Time to snoop around and loot the place!
- Going up into the west tower, Crono comes across the Chancellor acting all mysterious and suspicious. Others in the castle claim he sneaks out to the Cathedral every night which means he's either very pious or the worst kind of evil, there is no in between in this situation.
- Then paying a visit to the Queen's tower, it turns out that the "Queen" is really Marle from the Fair. She chooses just that moment to experience a spontaneous existence failure and vanishes. Oh no!
- Sensing that it is good time to leave, Crono starts to make his escape, but as he's on his way out, Lucca shows up. Guess she managed to figure things out. When she finds out that Marle disappeared it confirms her suspicious that Marle is really Princess Nadia from present day Guardia.
- Princess Nadia has been mistaken for her ancestor, Queen Leene, and because of that the real Queen has not been rescued. Thus, in a pixelated explanation of the bird and the bees (thanks, I somehow had trouble visualizing it before that), Lucca explains that history has been changed and if the real Queen is not rescued then Princess Nadia will never be born. Of course, we sweep the messy issue of time paradoxes under the rug and hope nobody is watching too closely.
- Naturally, as the only ones present, Crono and Lucca must now go save Queen Leene in an attempt to fix history. This means one immediate course of action: to the Cathedral! Dun, dun dun!
- Over in the Cathedral, the nuns, or whatever they are, are saying somewhat ominous and not entirely nun-like things. When we go to pick up a hairpin off the floor (the pin having the Guardia royal crest on it), they reveal themselves to be a bunch of Naga and attack us!
- Oh well, so we defeat them, only one other one that was hiding around somewhere decides to make one last strike, but that's when this frog-thing with a sword drops in and saves the day - not that we couldn't have handled it. It introduces itself as Frog (well, at least it's easy to remember: hey, you, er, frog, thing) and offers to help save the Queen.
- Lucca, as it happens, has an aversion to frogs but manages to get over it to allow the amphibian to accompany us. So we descend to the depths of the Cathedral which we proceed to plunder. In the course of doing so, we rescue a couple of guards and find a room full of monsters singing praises to some guy named Magues. Well, a statue of him, anyway, as he's clearly important and probably wouldn't be caught dead fraternizing with the peons.
- In the end, we find the Chancellor about to off the Queen, but when we interrupt he turns out to be a monster by the name of Yakra, impersonating the Chancellor. In response to that revelation, we defeat him swiftly and surely.
- When the monster is dead, we find the real Chancellor tied up in a chest. When freed, he runs after the Queen declaring himself to be "undamaged". Not quite how I'd put it.
- That done, everyone traipses back to Guardia castle where Princess Nadia reappears exactly where she disappeared, no longer a victim of a time paradox. Everyone in the castle remarks how much she looks like the real Queen. Whilst everyone is rejoicing at the Queen's safe return, Frog blames himself for allowing the Queen to be captured and leaves for parts unknown. Turns out he's an emo frog.
- With the Guardia of 600 A.D in our debt we are free to come and go as we please and prepare to return to the present.
- The trip back through the time warp in Truce Canyon is uneventful and we arrive back by Lucca's teleporter pods. Lucca then runs off to crunch some numbers and tells Crono to take Marle back to the castle. But before leaving the Fair, Crono decides to eat some guy's lunch. Mwahaha. That'll teach him.
- Arriving in the castle, the Chancellor demonstrates his ability to jump to conclusions by assuming that Crono had kidnapped the princess and has him arrested, despite princess Nadia saying otherwise. The guy sure doesn't listen, does he?
- Crono is put on trial with the Chancellor prosecuting and some guy named Pierre defending. In the face of overwhelming evidence (mainly 'cause Crono helped some girl find her lost cat at the Fair), Crono is found not guilty by the jury. But the judge sentences Crono to three days in jail anyway for cavorting with the princess. Damn the aristocracy!
- When the Chancellor delivers Crono to the jail's warden, he goes on about impending executions, regardless of the actual verdict. The guy seems to really have it in for Crono.
- Well, Crono's not the sort to sit around and idly wait to be executed so he bangs on the bars to his cell until he annoys the guards enough that they bust in to forcibly shut him up. That's when they discover that Crono was NOT DISARMED!! Why has he still got his sword? Guards these days are stupid.
- Anyway, Crono makes his escape, though rescues another prisoner named Fritz and grabs some loot in the process. Just as he's nearly busted out and the warden is going for help, Lucca shows up to "rescue" him. A bit late for that, I guess, but at least she's helpful for destroying the Dragon Tank that the Chancellor sics on us.
- After destroying the tank, Crono and Lucca run through a gauntlet of guards for the castle exit. They're largely overwhelmed, until Princess Nadia shows up and tells the guards to stop. The actually listen for a bit.
- Then the Chancellor (who's taken the short way down from the tower, it seems) and the King show up. The King tries to convince Nadia to remain bored inside the castle rather than running off to do exciting things. Well, the Princess (henceforth refered to by her alter ego, Marle) would rather do the exciting things it seems so she runs off with Crono and Lucca.
- Still being chased by the guards, Crono, Lucca and Marle are backed into a corner. But wait, there's a time gate here! Just as the Chancellor thinks he has them cornered, his jaw drops to the ground as the three miscreants vanish into the gate. Take that, nya!
- Crono, Lucca and Marle emerge into the futuristic looking Dome Bangor. Since there's no point going back with the King's guards waiting, we may as well explore a bit.
- The world outside the dome is something of a wasteland. A bit to the south is Dome Trann. The rather dishevelled inhabitants of the Dome suggest we might have some luck finding food in Dome Arris past the Site 16 ruins, which are dangerous and full of mutants.
- The mutants in the ruins don't turn out to pose too much of a thread, but there are some annoying rat-things that steal my potions. Arg.
- In Dome Arris, the people are just as dishevelled as in Dome Trann, only there are more of them. According to the old man Doan (descendant of the original director of the Dome when it was actually a functioning information centre), the food stores are down below, along with a super computer, but the food is guarded by the security system. One of the Dome's inhabitants went down there recently but has not returned.
- Well, down we go. We smash the security system and its drones only to find that the food is all rotten and that one guy who came down here is dead. Oh well. But we do find a seed.
- While down here, we snoop around in the super computer where we locate another time gate off to the east in Proto Dome (past the ruins of Site 32). Then, Marle decides to mash some buttons which brings up a recording of the "Day of Lavos".
- Sometime in 1999, a fissure opens up and a big spikey thing emerges (presumably Lavos) and rains down destruction on the planet. This distresses Marle for some reason. She seems suddenly determined to change history. Lucca agrees, though reluctantly, and suggests the first order of business should be to return to their time and learn more about Lavos.
- The group returns to the Dome entrance where they give the seed to Doan and the inhabitants and give them a rousing pep talk about hope and all that. The inhabitants seem to be slightly cheered up and will try growing the seed. Doan also gives us the key to a jetbike he used to ride in Site 32.
- When we try to start up the jetbike, some robots try to interfere - it seems like a fight is about to break out, but that's when some human-motorcycle-cyborg-thing shows up, calling himself Johnny. The robots, it turns out, are his groupies, and Johnny challenges us to a bike race if we want to cross the ruins. Looks like we've got no choice! Cheesey racing sequence go! We win and go on our merry way.
- We find Proto Dome deserted except for a single, broken, humanoid robot. Girl genious Lucca decides she can fix him up and goes to work. When the repairs are complete, the robot activates and calls himself R-166 or something (his serial number) but we call him Robo instead.
- The gate seems to be past a door we can't open. Robo says the Dome's power is completely shut down but there's an emergency generate in the Derelict Factory just north of here, but someone has to stay behind to open the door since the power won't last long.
- With Robo in tow, we go to the old factory and eventually find a promising looking button to push, which we do. This causes the security system to go haywire so we beat a hasty retreat. On the way out, a bunch of R-series robots attempt to stop us and treat Robo as a traitor, thoroughly trashing him. We dispose of the evil robots and drag Robo's, uh, corpse back to Proto Dome.
- Fortunately, Lucca is able to repair Robo again. Robo then decides that there's nothing left for him here and that he wants to help us change history, so the four of us pile into the time gate and off we go!
- The gate gives off some unusual sparks and we find ourselves in a forlorn place with an old man standing under a street lamp.
- The old man tells us that this is the End of Time and spews out some technobabble about four people travelling at once overloading the time flux, or something, and ending up at the place of least resistance or somesuch. Anywho, looks like we can only move about as a group of three at a time.
- The old dude tells us we should hurry back to our own time before galavanting around the rest of history, but before we go we stick our noses into a neighbouring room and meet Spekkio, the master of war, who teaches us some magic, which some ancient kingdom used to use.
- Walking into the light, we warp to Medina village, 1000 AD, where (and when) we burst out of some poor unsuspecting imp's cupboard. Fortunately, the imps seem to be the live and let live type so it's all good. We are warned that the village, home of the "Fiends" (previously, Mystics) who followed Magus 400 years ago, won't proove too friendly and suggests we visit some old human guy to the west.
- Snooping around town, we find some Fiends in the town square singing praises to a statue of Magus and complaining how he failed to wipe out humans using Lavos when he had the chance. Hmmm. Also, the village mayor is Ozzie VIII, descendant of one of Magus' generals and he has no qualms about lording this fact over the townsfolk.
- Anyway, that old dude turns out to be Melchior from the Millenial Fair and he doesn't do much for us right now other than to offer to sell us some overpriced weaponry and inform us that we can get back to Truce through the cave to the north.
- So we journey into the cave, home of the fierce Hekran. Everything here is largely resistant to physical attacks so it's a good thing we just learned magic recently. Convenient, that. We eventually face off against the fiersome Hekran who basically tells us that Magus was responsible for creating Lavos, before we defeat him. Lucca suggests the obvious at this point: that we go back to the Middle Ages and stop Magus.
- Jumping into a whirlpool, we get washed up outside of Lucca's house then proceed through the Time Gate at the Fair to take us back to 600 AD. The word on the street is that the Fiendlord's armies are on the move, marching on Zenan Bridge, that the King was wounded in battle, but some legendary hero has appeared so it's all good.
- Visiting Guardia Castle, the King is recouperating from his wounds and the Head Chef has us deliver some rations to the soldiers at the bridge.
- So we deliver the rations just in time for the Fiendlord's armies to attack, lead by one of his generals, Ozzie. Ozzie seems to be a bit of a pansy as he just has a bunch of skeletons, and eventually a bigger skeleton Zombor, do his dirty work. None of these presents much of a problem for us 'cause we're, you know, the heros and all that, and Ozzie just runs away.
- Having repelled the attack we cross the bridge to Dorino village which, ominously, does not exist in the present. Not much going on here, people are just going on about the hero who's originally from Porre to the south (our next stop, most likely) and that some sword called the Masamune is supposedly the only thing that can kill the Fiendlord. Also, the village elder sends Toma off to search for the rainbow shell, despite misgivings about Toma's reliability.
- On the way south, we stop briefly at Fionna's Villa where Fionna is protecting a forest she and her husband planted whilst he is away at the war. She's not important now, but you know she will be sooner or later.
- In Porre, we learn two useful bits of information: a frog-thing has been seen lurking around, muttering about Queen Leene and the Masamune (why hello there, Frog) and the Hero, Tata, is said to be off in the Denodaro mountains searching for the legendary Masamune.
- The lead on the whereabouts of the Masamune seems more solid so we go sword hunting in the mountains. When we first get there, some kid, presumably Tata, runs off like a coward and tells us we should to the same. Pfft. Pressing on, we eventually come to a cave with a kid running around. Wooosh! I'm the wind.
- Under a conveniently placed beam of light is what appears to be a sword. Trying to take it, the kid, along with his brother who had been hiding, try to stop us. Masa and Mune turn into some sort of creature and eventually merge into one bigger thing, but we paid attention to some random dude in town that told us that wind slash dissipates whirlwind energy, so it's not too tough.
- Masa and Mune turn over the sword to us, but it turns out to be broken. They then, conveniently, return us to the foot of the mountain. Back in Porre, Tata fesses up that he just picked up the hero badge after a drunken frog-man dropped it. Which means its time to go hunt for Frog.
- Frog turns out to be lurking in a hidden hovel in the nearby Cursed Woods. He gets all mopey on us about not deserving to wield the Masamune, even if it were fixed. We also find the hilt of the broken sword when we loot his room. Letters on the hilt spell the name Melchior... curious.
- We return to Melchior's cabin in 1000 AD. He seems surprised to see the sword, but tells us he needs Dreamstone to repair it (since that's what the sword was made from) a rare, ancient mineral that he doubts we'll be able to find.
- Just to show him, we go off looking for some Dreamstone. The old dude at the End of Time suggests we go looking in the prehistoric era. Next stop: 65 million BC! But wait, the gate puts us halfway up a cliff. Aiiiieeee!
- We plummet and find ourselves surrounded by some lizard men. We fight some off, but there are too many. Just our luck that some prehistoric woman dressed up in a cat outfit comes to our rescue. She calls herself Ayla and seems to like strong people so has us follow her back to Iota village where she is chief.
- Ayla's people are fighting the Reptites for dominance, who are lead by Azala. There's another prehistoric village, Laruba, but they're all in hiding.
- Ayla throws us a party, with much dancing and drinking, and offers to give Crono some Dreamstone, but he must defeat her in a drinking contest. It turns out Crono is a good drinker. Also of note, during the festivities, Kino, another tribesman who has a curiously similar colour scheme to Ayla (both different from the rest of the prehistoric folk), meaning he must be important, seems a bit jealous of Crono.
- In the morning, Lucca walks up with a hangover and we discover that the gate key has been stolen! Ayla immediately suspects the Reptites and accompanies us south into the Forest Maze after a trail of footprints.
- Just inside the Maze we find Kino who admits to stealing the key out of jealousy, and Ayla baps him for it, but the Reptites then stole the key from Kino so we've still got to go chase it down.
- Through the Forest Maze we eventually come to the Reptite Lair. At the bottom of the Lair we find Azala pondering the Key. He demands to know what it's for, but doesn't believe us even when we tell him. Instead, he sics Nizbel, a triceritops on steroids, on us. He proves somewhat difficult, but ultimately we emerge triumphant. Azala is momentarily cowed, letting us have the key back, but vows that the planet belongs to the Reptits. Yeah, whatever buddy. We know differently.
- With the gate key recovered, we can now return to Melchior in 1000 AD. Again, he seems surprised that we managed to find it (better get used to that) and agrees to repair the sword. When done, it's as good as new so the next stop will be Frog's hovel back in 600 AD.
- We take the Masamune to Frog and he spends the night pondering things. He reminices on when he was a human named Glenn, adventuring with his old friend and mentor, Cyrus (the greatest knight in the kingdom, if the flashback can be believed): taking the Hero's Badge from the Frog King and encountering Magus and Ozzie while seeking the Masamune. Magus defeats Cyrus and does something to Glenn, causing him to fall off the cliff.
- In the morning, Frog decides its time to go pay Magus a visit. We go to the Magic Cave in some mountains to the east where Frog takes the Masamune and slices a cliff in two (now there's a sword for you), revealing the cave's entrance. The cave leads to the island where the Fiendlord's Keep is located. A bat starts following us when we enter the Magic Cave.
- In the Keep we meet Ozzie who says we'll have to beat him, Magus' other two generals, Flea and Slash, and all the beasts in the Keep if we want to stop Magus, and then disappears.
- First we encounter Flea, a cross-dressing male sorcerer and defeat him. Shortly thereafter we fight and defeat the swordsman Slash. After that, we pursue Ozzie through a series of ineffectual traps until he's cornered. At that point, the coward encases himself in some barrier, but we just open up a trap door under him to quickly dispose of the fool.
- Entering the Keep's intermost sanctum, we find the Fiendlord, Magus, in the centre of an elaborate magic circle, doing something distinctly dastardly and not nice. The Black Wind blows... And we have a friendly little duel with Magus. Well, perhaps friendly is not quite the right term, but we win so that's what's important.
- Then things start to go a little wonky. Magus complains that we've interrupted his summoning of Lavos... apparantly he didn't actually create the thing as we'd been led to believe. Instead, he was trying to summon Lavos from his slumber deep within the planet (where it's absorbing the planet's energy, supposedly), though he does not explain why. We've just managed to interrupt things at a bad time and now Lavos seems to be a little cranky.
- A massive gate forms sucking Crono's party along with Magus into its swriling maw, flinging us to some unknown time and place. Well, it turns out we wake up in Ioka village in 65 million BC. Ayla's there and tries to eat Frog (to no avail) and says she wants to find Laruba village to get them to help fight the Reptites and decide who gets the planet once and for all. That's when a villager comes in to say (or grunt) that there's a large fire to the north. Also, Magus appears to be nowhere to be found.
- Just to the north we find the smoking ruins of Laruba village, having just been attacked by the Reptites. A kid informs us that Kino's been kidnapped and Ayla is arguing with an old man and essentially informs him he's a pansy. Anyway, she gets his permission to take a Dactyl from the Dactyl's nest, 'cause apparantly they belong to the Laruba people.
- We go to the Laruba nest and insist on joining Ayla on her expedition to the Tyranno Lair, castle of the Reptites. As we take off, we notice a sparkly red thing up in the sky. Hmmm.
- Next we bust our way into the Tyranno Lair, free some villages and rescue Kino. With Kino sent back to Ioka, the rest of us continue through the Lair until we encounter our old pal Nizbel who insists on fighting us before we get to Azala (who is apparantly a she)
- We arrive at Azala's throne for the final showdown between Reptites and Humans. There is a might roar and Azala runs out a door behind the throne. Following, we come to a huge Black Tyranno with Azala pearched on its shoulder. Azala swears at the red star and the battle commences.
- Natrually, the victory is ours. Defeated, Azala curses fate, but that sparkling red thing turns out to be... Lavos, falling from the sky as a meteor. Uh oh, that's not going to be good. Kino shows up with some Dactyls so we can make a hastey getaway before the Tyranno Lair becomes ground zero for a huge meteor impact.
- Lavos crashes into the Tyranno Lair, obliterating it, leaving a smoking crater behind. By the time we get to the crash site, Lavos has already buried deep underground, but has left a gate behind in its wake. Something about stretching the fabric of time with its immense energy. But nevermind that, I wonder where the gate will take us?
- Because curiosity hasn't killed us yet, we step into the gate and find ourselves in a small cave that opens onto a bleak, snow covered world. There doesn't seem to be much choice other than to wander off and see what we can find and this eventually leads us to some sort of teleporter that takes us up to a floating landmass, above the clouds where everything is green and sunny.
- We find Enhasa, the city of dreams, where everyone is narcoleptic. This is part of the Magical Kingdom - no, not Disney, it's Zeal, ruled by Queen Zeal who has apparantly encouraged magical development, affording everyone a life of luxury, though she seems to be turning the Kingdom away from using the power of the sun to something else... but what? Also in Enhasa, we encounter some blue haired kid with a cat who says "The black wind blows..." before running off. Now where have we heard that recently? Must be a coincidence.
- Jumping back down to the surface then back up to another of the floating landmass, we briefly look at the Blackbird, a large airship, where we encounter some goof named Dalton (no, not the premier of Ontario) who goes on about some prophet. But that's not too important for now, as we stop in at the city of Kajar.
- Much as with Enhasa, the people of Kajar are going on about how great the Queen and the new energy source are, and how the old things are forbidden. They also have a large superiority complex with regards to the Earthbound ones (non-magic capable humans confined to the surface)
- Moving on to Zeal Palace itself. The music is certainly... ominous. And what's with everyone going on about how the power of Lavos and how great Lavos is? Shit, this is very not good.
- Word on the street is that the Kingdom's three Gurus have all mysteriously vanished, as do those who oppose the Queen. Sounds fishy to me. Also, there's talk of an Ocean Palace being constructed (by the blood, sweat and tears of the Earthbound Ones) under the sea (looks like this is a Magic Kingdom production after all) to better leech Lavos' energy.
- We snoop around in the royal bedrooms (really, shouldn't they have guards or something?) and find Princess Schala and her younger brother Janus (that blue haired kid from Enhasa) with his cat. They're talking about how the Queen has changed, but Schala has to do what she says anyway. A servant comes in to tell Schala that the Queen requests her presence and the princess runs off.
- We follow Schala and witness her going through a door with a seal on it that, oddly enough, we saw on a door in the distant future. The door reacts to the pendant she holds up and she is able to enter the Queen's audience chamber.
- People have been remarking how Marle's pendant looks alot like Schala's, but holding it up doesn't do squat to the door. So we run to the next chamber over where the Mammon Machine (a large machine thing that harnesses Lavos' power) and use it to charge up the pendant which is now able to open the sealed door. Also, the Mammon Machine requires someone with lots of magical power to control and Schala seems to be the only one who's up to the task these days.
- In the audience chamber, the Queen obviously calls us out as to just who we are and what the hell we're doing here. The prophet (wearing a long hooded robe, though there's a bit of blue hair sticking out) tells us we're the troublemakers he was warning her about so the Queen has Dalton deal with us. Dalton summons a golem which then mops the floor with us. Ouch. The Queen then reveals her sadistic side and has us imprisoned in some sort of energy field.
- Schala takes pity on us and comes to rescue us, hoping that we'll be able to help Melchior who's been imprisoned on the Mountain of Woe - wait, could this be the same Melchior that repaired the Masamune in 1000 AD? The prophet, however, discovers what Schala is up to and, while he agrees to spare our lives, drags us to the gate we travelled through to arrive in this time period and kicks us back in, forcing Schala to seal it behind us. Nuts.
- We then return to the End of Time and talk to the old guy there. He tells that we'll have to find a way to move through time more freely and that there was someone working on a Time Machine and it is further suggested that he can be found in the 2300 AD time period.
- So, it's back to the future. We go to the area around Death Peak via some old sewers and arrive at the Keeper's Dome where we find the memories of Belthsasar, Guru of Reason. Due to a cataclysm he was thrown into this era and learned that Lavos arrived during prehistoric time and had been feeding off the planet's energy since then. Now, Lavos nests in Death Peak and its spawn continue to ravage the planet.
- We then find a large device with some sort of cockpit. A Nu-like thing comes - Belthsasar has copied his memories into the thing and he tells us about his Time Machine, called the Epoch, with which we will be able to travel to pretty much any time period we wish.
- With the Epoch we now return to the Dark Ages where we wander up to a cave that was blocked off earlier. Oh look! A ladder has conveniently been left down for us. How thoughtful. This leads us to the village of Algetty where the Earthbound Ones live.
- A cave connected to Algetty takes us to the Mountain of Woe, a large floating mountain tethered to the earth by a giant chain. At the top, we find a crystaline thing and are attacked by the prerequisite guardian monster. Once it falls, the crystaline thing dissolves, releasing the Guru of Life, Old Man Melchior, who seems less fazed about being called an "old man" than being addressed by name by people he doesn't know.
- With the guardian creature defeated, the mountain crashes to earth, but we make it back to Algetty unscathed. Schala then comes in to tell Melchior that the Ocean Palace is now operational, however she has also decided that she will never activate the Mammon Machine again.
- Unfortnately, Dalton followed Schala and kidnaps her, planning to force her to activate the Mammon Machine. As Melchior says, this is bad, as it would awaken Lavos and cause unspeakable horror. However, Crono steps up and offers to save the day (without actually saying anything, strangely enough). That sort of heroic nonsense is going to land you in trouble one of these days, boy.
- Before we leave, Melchior gives us a knife made of the same red stone as the Mammon Machine which he thinks may be able to stop it.
- Run back to Zeal Palace to try to save Schala, but the Queen and her lackies have already gone to the Ocean Palace, leaving Dalton behind to guard the gate. He's stewing over the fact that he has to stay behind while the Prophet got to go and have fun. When he notices the trio intruding on his ennui, he decides he doesn't need to keep us around anymore, but he proves ineffective in combat and flees into the portal to the Ocean Palace.
- We follow Dalton's lead and teleport down to the Ocean Palace. After traversing its corridors and getting to the bottom level, we catch up with Dalton and he sics the Golem Sisters on us. After the battle, we proceed into the chamber where the Queen, Schala, the Prophet and various flunkies are gathered around the Mammon Machine.
- The Queen forces Schala to activate the Mammon Machine. Things don't look good as the Machine starts to go haywire. Good thing Crono and company are here, though, as we toss the knife at the Machine and ... it turns into a sword? The Masamune?
- Even that seems to be no good as Lavos awakes and swiftly pounds us into oblivion as the Queen watches and laughs. This is when the Prophet decloaks, revealing his true identiy: why hello Magus! He attempts to take on Lavos one-to-one, but is severely outmatched.
- As the Queen gloats, Crono decides it's time to end all this and tries to immitate Magus' one-on-one bout, but with more success. However... he just goes and gets himself dissintegrated by Lavos. Ooops. Oh well, can't say I didn't warn you.
- Things have gone from worse to totally crappy and the Ocean Palace seems to be falling apart around us, even as we mourn a lost comrade, and Schala uses the last of her pendant's power to send the survivors (and Magus) to what she hopes is safety.
- Lavos, however, has been woken up early and he's cranky. Very cranky. So he throws a temper tantrum and completely destroys Zeal in the process. So passes the Magic Kingdom in all its arrogant glory.
- The world is pretty much reduced to a single landmass of survivors. The Earthbound Ones and the survivors of Zeal are living together in a village, apparantly mending their differences since there's not much difference between them anymore, except the former Zealots are dressed better, at least for now.
- Just as we're talking with the village elder, Dalton appears, proclaiming himself King over the remaining rabble. Well, if he wants to rule a junk heap, that's his perogative, I guess. He doesn't like the thought of leaving our group roaming free to spread dissent against his rule so he pulls a dirty trick (look over there!) and takes us prisoner.
- And this time, they actually take our weapons away! And all our other stuff too. Remarkable, the villains actually have half a brain for once. Unfortunately for Dalton, Ayla fights with her fists, and since her hands weren't chopped off, we've still got a functional party member. Also unfortunately for them, they've neglected to weld the air vents shut. I did say the villains only had half a brain, after all.
- As we crawl through the air ducts, we discover we're aboard the Blackbird and that Dalton has taken the Epoch on board and is modifying it into his own personal air chariot. We also discover where our captors hid all of our equipment. Presumably they were planning on pawning it off somewhere...
- We crawl out onto one of the Blackbird's wings and encounter the Golem Overlord which turns out to be afraid of heights so it just cowers while we beat on it until it runs away. Then Dalton shows up - he's had wings attached to it so it can actually fly through space as well as time.
- Which is all very convenient for us (or will be shortly) since we plan to take the Epoch back, by force. Doing a crazy leap from the Blackbird onto the Epoch as it flies below us, Dalton tries to summon the Golem Overlord, only it doesn't come as it's already been scared off. Instead, Dalton gets sucked into a black vortex and we get our time machine back.
- Returning momentarily to the last remaining village, someone informs us that there was someone looking for us up on the north cape. Following this timely tip, we find good old Magus waiting for us and he's kind enough to share a flashback with us...
- See, Magus used to be Prince Janus when he was younger. At some point, presumably after Schala warped us out of the Ocean Palace (though perhaps before we got there), the three Gurus tried to talk the Queen down, only they got sucked into three different time portals. Melchior ended up in Medina village in 1000 AD, Belthasar in the ruined future circa 2300 AD and Gaspar in the End of Time.
- Janus was also present at this event and he also got sucked into a time gate, ending up in 600 AD where he was picked up by Ozzie and the mystics - a bad influence if there ever was one. Since then, he's been plotting revenge against Lavos by any means necessary and had just summoned him when Crono and crew arrived to interrupt things, the meddlesome kids that they are. The time gate resulting from the interrupted attempt at summoning Lavos sent Magus back to Zeal where he used his knowledge of the future to earn the Queens trust.
- And, as we know, Magus' attempt to destroy Lavos failed utterly and Zeal got wiped off the map anyway. Then he offers to come with us. Frog is a little put out about this idea at first, but ends up deciding that killing Magus now wouldn't really be all that sporting. Kicking a guy when he's down and all that. And so, Magus becomes part of the team.
- Magus mentions that Gaspar had been researching a way to restore lost time streams, implying that there may be a way to bring Crono back (way to string them along on a false hope there), so I suppose we should go visit him at the End of Time, now that we know who he really is.
- The old man at the End of Time plays coy, but gives us a time egg and suggests talking to Balthasar regarding its use. Balthasar mentions something about a power on Death Peak able to restore the lost, but we need a doll duplicate of the person we want to revive. One Dr. Bekkler is supposed to be an expert at this sort of thing, but he's off messing around at a festival somewhere, most likely.
- Back to the Millenial Fair, since that's the only festival going on any where, at any time, ever. Bekkler's got a tent set up and allows us to play a simon-says game to get a life size doll of Crono. Just where the good doctor got it from or what he was planning on using it for, well, probably best not to ask.
- Returning to Balthasar, he instructs us to take the doll and the egg to Death Peak and activates three, uh, puff-ball-like things that will give us a hand as we climb the mountain.
- So we go and climb the mountain, encountering some Lavos spawn on the way, and eventually reach the peak where we attempt to activate the egg, only to have the thing shatter on us. Lousy good for nothing...
- But then there's this nifty full eclipse of the sun (don't look directly at it!) and Death Peak is replaced by a tableau of the scene where Crono bit it - a time freeze. The obvious thing to do is exchange the real Crono for the life-sized doll of Crono so that it only looks like Crono gets dissolved by Lavos. In fact, it's so obvious that that is exactly what we do.
- With the switch made, we return to Death Peak, Crono slumped against the tree (which is inexplicably sparkling like a Christmas tree). Marle then throws herself at him and fills him in on some of the details that he's missed while he's been dead. Unfortunately, the other two party members don't exactly get the hint so that Crono and Marle don't get any "alone time".
- That done, everyone reconvenes at the End of Time where the old man finally admits that, yes, he was once called Gaspar. He then tells us we might as well go beat Lavos whenever we're feeling up to it, but incase we feel the need to beef up a bit, he gives us a laundry list of side quests we can go and pursue in the name of leveling up. Yay!
- We'll start by putzing around in the Middle Ages for a bit. There's a continent to the south east that was previously inaccessible, but we can conveniently now get to it since the Epoch had its makeover. So we fly down there and snoop around the sleepy town of Choras.
- In the tavern, we find Toma, the explorer, who still looking for the rainbow shell. He asks us to pour some spirits on his grave should anything happen to him. Also in the tavern is a carpenter who's lost his tools. His carpentry tools, that is.
- Warp ahead to the present and visit the cape where we find Toma's grave. Pouring some spirits on it, his ghost appears and tells us that the rainbow shell is on an island just to the northwest (the Giant's Claw), but it's mysteriously absent in the present so we'll have to go back to the Middle Ages to find it. While we're here, a lazy carpenter drinking away in the tavern lets us have his carpentry tools since they're not so good for drinking beer.
- Back to the Middle Ages, we give the tools to the non-lazy carpenter and he gets in gear and gets his assistants to help repair some old ruins to the north. We have to clear out monsters before they can complete the job, but eventually we discover Cyrus' grave. Cyrus' ghost appears and praises the knight Glenn has become and the Masamune powers up! Yay! This also allows us to freely plunder the ruins in the present, having been fixed up and all.
- Then, acting on ghost-Toma's tip we go to the Giant's Claw, which appears to be the ruins of the Reptite castle. After slaughtering the last remnants of the Reptites, we find the rainbow shell and haul it off to Guardia Castle for safe keeping.
- Zooming ahead to the present, the King of Guardia is on trial for, supposedly, absconding with a royal heirloom, ie, the rainbow shell. The Chancellor's farce of a trial is exposed, however, as the rainbow shell is safe and sound. Marle jumps into the courtroom through the big stainglass window with a shard of the shell as proof of the King's innocense. The Chancellor is revealed to be an imposter (not again...), Yakra XIII who is hell bent on revenge. He is, however, a wimp and is easily defeated. The real Chancellor is discovered stuffed inside a chest (again)
- The King then makes peace with Marle and we're no longer treated like wanted fellons. Melchoir puts in an appearance, offering to make some cool stuff out of the shell. We'll talk to him a bit later.
- Next we'll zip into the future for a bit of fun at Geno Dome where Robo meets his maker... sort of. His original name was Prometheus and this seems to have been the factory that produced him. We encounter another Robo-style robot named Atropos, only this one is *pink* so presumably it is meant to be female, or possibly a UW math student. Atropos has apparantly been reprogrammed to want to kill humans and has a one-on-one duel with Robo in which Robo is victorious. Defeat an imminent "death" brings Atropos back to her senses.
- The Mother Brain of the factory seems to have decided that humans are to be wiped out and that when Lavos' spawn eventually leave for other planets, the Robots shall inherit the earth. Well, we have a thing or two to say about that and promptly destroy the computer, shutting down the factory for good. Mission complete.
- While we're in the future, we pay a quick visit to the Sun Temple where we find an old sun stone that has lost its energy, making it a moon stone. So we take it back to prehistoric times and leave it in the Sun Shrine where it can bask in the sun and soak up energy for millions of years.
- The sun stone temporarily goes missing in the Present. A passing explorer took it to Porre where we find it in the mayor's house. Good thing we'd previously taught his ancestors the value of generosity as he decides to just hand it over. We return it to the shrine and then jump ahead to 2300 AD where we retrieve a fully charged sun stone.
- Lucca decides it would be a good idea to use the sun stone to make herself a new gun and then we take the leftovers to Melchior who makes the extremely over powered rainbow sword. This now gives Crono an 80% counter rate and 70% critical hit rate. What's not to like?
- There are still a couple of things to do in the Middle Ages so we go to Fionna's Villa in 600 AD where Fionna is attempting to replant a forest, but there are monsters underground that are making things difficult. We go in and clear things out (we should be professional exterminators or something) and then leave Robo behind so that he can spend 400 years of forced labour as he tends the forest.
- The rest of us get to skip all the tedious work and jump ahead to the present in 1000 AD where the desert is now a thriving forest, in the midst of which is Fionna's Shrine. A broken down Robo is on the pedastal so we just up and remove him. Funny that the shrine maidens don't try to stop us or anything seeing as we're basically making off with what could be considered a prized artefact.
- Lucca reactivates Robo and we celebrate our reunion. Well, Robo does anyway, since for everyone else there was hardly any intervening time. Everyone camps out in the woods as Lucca fixes up Robo and Robo explains that he had a lot of time to think and now believes that Lavos is not responsible for the time gates, but some other entity that either wishes us to see these events for some reason or is reliving important moments, like life flashing before ones eyes in the face of death. When asked if there is anything she would like to relive, Lucca is curiously silent.
- Whilst everyone sleeps, Lucca goes off a short ways and finds a special gate that deposits her in her home 10 years prior. Her mother gets herself caught in one of Taban's machines and has her legs injured, permanently crippling her. This is apparantly the motivation for Lucca to study machines and all that.
- Last up, Magus' generals are still sulking around in the Middle Ages and, while they don't seem to have harmed anyone, it's best to make a preemptive strike and make sure they don't get any ideas.
- Ozzie is still using his old lame traps while he, Flea and Slash put up a bit of a fight, they are ultimately defeated once and for all (or so we hope). This has the side effect of making the Mystics in the Present much more friendly towards humans.
- With all of that erratta out of the way, it is time to invade the Black Omen and put a stop to the Mad Queen's plans once and for all and to defeat Lavos. The Black Oman is quite large, but we eventually make it to Queen Zeal who is still determined to use the power of Lavos to attain immortality.
- The Queen attempts to feed us to the Mammon Machine, but we destroy it and then finally face off against the Queen herself. She's no pushover, but we emerge victorious and she is finally sent to her rest. This finally brings us to the big boy himself: Lavos.
- Lavos starts off by immitating many of the bosses we've faced so far, up to and including the Mountain of Woe boss. Fortunately, his immitations are no more powerful than the original versions and we've leveled up a bit so it's mostly pretty easy. Finally Lavos gets tired of the mime-thing and we get to fight the real version. Well, it's the "head", anyway, and beating it lets us penetrate into Lavos' shell.
- It's spooky inside that shell, but we find this kind of oddly humanoid cybernetic thing with tubes and stuff, so we what anyone would do in this situation: kill it.
- This is not the end, however. Inside, we find some humanoid in a space suit with a couple of acorn-looking things accompanying it. Yay for multi-stage bosses! Lucca perceives that this, the true face of Lavos, is a parasite that harvests DNA from the world it infests for as long as it can before sending its spawn to other planets to repeat the cycle. Unfortnately for Lavos, it has chosen the wrong planet to infest. A battle that warps through the different eras of history ensues and Lavos is finally destroyed, once and for all.
- Lenne's bell rings and Crono is woken up from sleep by a guard from the castle. He informs Crono that his stay of execution has been canceled and drags him off to face his fate, bringing him before King Guardia XXXIII.
- However, it all turns out to be a cruel, cruel joke engineered by Lucca as Doan, King Guardia XXII and Kino arrive (all brought there by Lucca - talk about screwing with the timeline) and the King congratulates Crono for saving history.
- The Moonlight Parade is held on the last night of the Mellenial Fair as Crono and Marle do a victory lap. Everyone seems duely impressed, except for Crono's Mom who wishes he'd spend more time helping around the house and looking after the cat.
- Finally, the group of time travelers gathers by Lucca's telepods and everyone departs for their own time. Just before the gate can close for good, Crono's cat, being chased by Crono's Mom, run by and into the gate. As the King dedicates a new bell (this being Nadia's bell) and Taban sets off some fireworks, Crono, Lucca and Marle pile into the Epoch to mess about in time, looking for Crono's Mom.
- The End
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