Normally, this is the part of the game where I’d start bulldozing my way through Chrono Cross‘ story without a second thought. It’s no wonder that I continually found myself missing out on content and characters on so many of my New Game + playthroughs, because there’s a lot of side stuff at this point in the game that you can stumble upon by just wandering around and taking a “I wonder what this does” approach to things. Chrono Cross is definitely a game that rewards experimentation and curiosity. There’s very little main story stuff to get into this time around, but several new characters can be recruited into the party, and it’s beginning to become more clear how one could optimize the strange leveling system.

[Click here to start from Part 1 of this Chrono Cross Retrospective Let’s Play]

Kid wakes up and is back to 100% before long, which technically means that Serge has no reason to stick around anymore. After all, he’s now able to travel between the two worlds, and there really isn’t a pressing crisis that requires his attention. Kid asks if he’d really be happy turning his back on everyone, though, which causes him to have a flashback to the vision he had of an exploding building (possibly a city) when encountering Lynx for the first time. Whatever we choose, we’re pretty much locked into this adventure at this point. It’s far too late to back out now.

That just leaves the lesser issue of Mel having stolen Kid’s stuff. Korcha explains that he’ll catch Mel and return the stuff later while everyone else continues on, but it’s not like we have anything better to do, and it’d be a shame to potentially miss out on content. After insisting (twice) that getting Kid’s stuff back ASAP is important, we’re able to wander around Guldove looking for her. It doesn’t take long to corner Mel and get everything back, though in the process we discover two things: she’s Korcha’s adopted sister, and she’s also romantically interested in him.

Let’s pretend that all of that never happened and just go back to Termina

Termina’s element shop has refreshed its stock with some more powerful stuff, including HealAll (basically the same thing as RecoverAll, though I’m not 100% sure how their healing properties stack up against each other) and third-level attack elements of different colors. All of this extra healing and specific-colored attack power will come in handy in case another Hydra difficulty spike situation arises in the future.

When the party goes to leave Termina, a cutscene plays where they eavesdrop on Glenn talking about how most of the Acacia Dragoons shipped out to Fort Dragonia and that they expect the nation of Porre to invade based on the rumors about the Frozen Flame. Kid is still gunning for Lynx and recognizes that all kinds of rituals are performed at the fort, and that means giving chase. Glenn, meanwhile, overhears and recognizes everyone from descriptions of how the Radical Dreamers who broke into Viper Manor were dressed. The situation almost results in violence, but the flower peddler Glenn visits snaps him out of it, and he decides that he has bigger fish to fry in his pursuit to figure out what’s happening. He also gives the party some advice, recommending that they go visit a retired dragoon who lives alone before trying to take on Fort Dragonia.

And now, visiting Chrono Cross‘ locations one at a time to find secrets

My first stop is back in Arni to give the Book of Poems to the Another World waitress who gave up on poetry. Since this book was written (and autographed) by her alternate self, she recognizes what’s happening and decides not to give up on her dream after all, rewarding the party with a Rainbow Shell. The smithy’s wife in Termina mentions the Rainbow Shell being a legendary material when you talk to her early in the game, and it also shares its name with the material from Chrono Trigger that’s used for that game’s best weapons and armors. It’s a little weird that a waitress in a tiny town would happen to have this sitting around in her pocket, but I suppose it does little good to look a gift poet in the mouth.

Not all of my attempts to find secrets pan out, naturally. I thought for sure that entering Another World’s Hydra Marsh and using the Beeba Flute in an open space would lead to something, but the guy who gave the party the Safety Gear tells you not to use it. If you ignore his advice, the game just outright tells you that you can’t use it in that location. This might be something to try again later if these people end up leaving, though.

Now that the dragoons have shipped out, Viper Manor’s front gate can be opened, and there’s a decent amount of stuff to discover here. For one thing, Luccia is up on the balcony, and you can recruit her into the party if you talk to her and then run back downstairs to her lab to talk to her again. She mentions something about a Life Sparkle in Another World’s Hydra Marsh when you first talk to her on the balcony, but right now there’s a mutated plant that blocks the way forward regardless of whether Luccia is in the party or not. This is probably content for later.

There are also some things that either couldn’t be unlocked on the first visit to Viper Manor or that I simply missed, including a TurnWhite in the room with the prophet of time (you have to press a button near a ladder you can’t reach to reach the chest). More substantially, there’s a Parlor Key item you can pick up by taking the stairs down from the cage trap and checking the leftmost wall. This unlocks a door with a chest that has a Daemon Charm in it, which grants protection against AntiBlack. That could definitely be helpful later on when we’re stuck with a certain character.

Last but certainly not least, there are two characters worth visiting. The first is the dishwasher Porre spy, who got caught in the treasure room trap that sticks you in Luccia’s cage. I chose to let him out, personally. The second character you can visit is Riddel, who refused to leave the manor because of her memories of Dario (who she was romantically involved with); Riddel recognizes that Kid saved her, though bringing Kid along doesn’t result in any new dialogue. Still, it’s nice that she recognizes what happened. Riddel will eventually become a playable character.

Viper Manor also has a shortcut to the Shadow Forest that you can explore. The route you take to enter the manor differs based on who you choose to guide you, but you’ll eventually reach a point where you’re blocked by something large that you can’t see. I was curious enough that I left Viper Manor and entered the Shadow Forest from the map, and the blockage is actually a sleeping monster you have to wake up and then fight. There’s a nearby cave with instructions for how to wake up the monster, as well as one of Skelly’s missing bones, and I’m blown away by how many I’ve managed to find. This bone in particular is one that I always miss in my rush to progress the story. I might actually reassemble him.

Korcha technically left the party when he dropped everyone off, but Serge and Kid recognize that they need a boat after Glenn’s advice and don’t exactly know any other boat-owners. Korcha offers to loan his to them on two conditions: that they give him the Dragon’s Tear if they ever find it, and that Kid marries him. No one technically agrees to the first, and Kid gives a halfhearted “I’ll think about it” in response to the second. This is still enough to convince him, however, so the boat is ours, opening up a whole bunch of islands and such to explore for more content.

Before leaving, however, I make a point to stop by Termina’s smithy to show off the Rainbow Shell. The smith, Zappa, remarks that the only way he could possible work with it is if there were somehow two of him, which means that we can’t do anything with our gift from the poet until we recruit Zappa’s Home World incarnation. That’s not possible at the moment, as Home World’s Fossil Valley is temporarily closed off by Porre soldiers (who someone in Arni explains took over Termina years prior in the Acacia Dragoons’ absence). Yet another possibility for later.

Everyone’s first stop is Marbule, which is described by some demi-humans in Guldove as a place for those of their kind who hate humans. It certainly lives up to its reputation, with most people either yelling at the party or demanding that they leave, but there’s a trader who sells Turn[Color] elements in addition to those that increase/decreases various different stats during battle. Marbule’s chief also explains that there’s a Dragon God present in the village—a sleeping black dragon who can’t wake up. You can walk right up to it and everything.

There are some minor things of interest on the various islands (including another Skelly Bone, some chests with Iron in them on Water Dragon Isle, and Mythril that can be stolen and won from tough enemies on Earth Dragon Isle—one would expect this to come in handy for crafting powerful weapons down the line), but most islands are dead ends without any real reason to visit them. I still make a point to visit Guldove again to check whether anything has changed, though, and visiting Mel results in her and Kid having a girls-only private chat. Kid promises not to get involved with Korcha, and in return, Mel joins the party. You’re even given a new style of text window to choose from, though I always stick with the default. These new frames can be acquired throughout the game, including one I got by talking to someone in Termina on my first visit.

All right; back to Radius and your regularly scheduled story progress

Having exhausted all obvious side content, I decide to push the story forward and finally visit the retired dragoon. Everything is burned to the ground when we get there, and Harle shows up to explain that she did so on the orders of Lynx. He also ordered her to slow Serge down, so she engages the party in battle. It’s not much of a fight, but Kid manages to steal an extra PhotonBeam off of her. That’s a stronger white attack element than most we currently have, and Harle drops a second after the battle. Not too shabby for a comically easy 1-minute fight.

Harle retreats with a warning to Serge about Kid being bad news, and then the dragoon shows up and deduces what happened, allowing the party into the untouched underground portion of his hideaway. His name is Radius, and he implies that General Viper likely intends to overthrow the militaristic Porre using the power of the Frozen Flame, but that’s merely speculation. The trip isn’t entirely meaningless, though, as Radius mentions something about a ghost ship. For some reason, jRPGs almost always have ghost ships in them, and Chrono Cross is no exception.

Radius isn’t a new character, but I absentmindedly neglected to visit him early in the game or talk about who he is before this point. In Serge’s home world, Radius is actually the chief of Arni Village, while a character named Gonji is just a random guy in the village. In Another World, however, Gonji is the chief of Arni and Radius is instead on this island. Effectively, we’re learning some things about our home village’s enigmatic chief by viewing his slightly different Another World incarnation. On a hunch, I started using key items on the pink dog running around in the background (who I remembered being recruitable, but not how to accomplish it), and the Heckran Bone that I picked up from a room adjacent to the bar in the very same village and universe worked to recruit the dog, Poshul. It probably could have been recruited at the very beginning.

Having Poshul around provides a nice example of between-boss level-ups, though. Basically, it doesn’t matter how difficult the enemy you’re facing is; finishing a battle seems to be the only requirement to get these mini-levels, and they run out after awhile to make grinding impossible. The ideal way of playing, then, appears to be running back to groups of easy enemies after each boss, swapping out the characters in your party so that they can all be boosted by these mini-levels. That way, almost everyone will be combat-viable should using them become necessary.

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