I told myself that it was imperative to avoid putting up another 3¾ hours of gameplay video because of how cluttered that made the formatting last time, only to end up recording 4½ hours of video anyway. In my defense, though, Chrono Cross suddenly tells you to go visit the different dragons, and I wanted to keep all of the dragon stuff together. Also, I made sure to split up the videos so that it’s not necessary to write 4-5 paragraphs under each one. This is the point in Chrono Cross where it becomes obvious that it could benefit from some kind of HD remake or remaster—while my trust in Square-Enix is virtually nonexistent (remember, these classic jRPGs were made by Squaresoft, which was consumed by Enix and no longer exists outside of a name), the triggers for actions often require such maddening precision that they’re borderline broken. Several of these dragon encounters could be fixed up to be less random and tedious, too, with the Green Dragon in particular being just awful.
[Click here to start from Part 1 of this Chrono Cross Retrospective Let’s Play]
When I went into Viper Manor’s underground to save Riddel at the end of part 9, I made sure to double back to where the underground entrance is in Home World. There are some bars there that block your passage into the Shadow Forest, but you can interact with those bars to scare an enemy sitting on a chest on the other side, knocking the chest down in the process. Before moving on, I make sure to grab the Deluge attack element inside that chest by cutting through the Shadow Forest. This thing will come in handy since it’s a 5th-level blue attack that targets all enemies. You can also climb up the well back into Viper Manor territory, and while no one will allow you inside, you find out that Norris’ Riddel-torturing jerk commander has returned to the mainland. None of the remaining guards attack, having apparently been left out of the loop.
After we helped Riddel escape Viper Manor, she fled to Hermit’s Hideaway, and pretty much all of the remaining Acacia Dragoons are there: Zoah, Marcy, Karsh, the Radius who isn’t in our Party, and General Viper. I make sure to enter the hideout with Radius in the party because the fun of parallel worlds lies mostly in seeing how people react to their other-world counterparts. Riddel joins the party once talked to, which is great since she’s only the second innate white elemental we have in the party after Starky. She asks the party if they want to rest, and when they do, they’re woken up by a ruckus outside. General Viper has since recovered and recognizes that they’re being attacked by Lynx-Serge and his minions.
He’s joined by a familiar voice, too: a seemingly brainwashed Kid is determined to avenge Lucca by killing Lynx—the history between these three gets explored in more depth later—and doesn’t seem to remember that there was a body swap. Like so many other characters, there’s something going on with her memory. Lynx-Serge gloats a bit about having the area surrounded, but Fargo swoops in with his fat parrot, Polly (who we fought back when we first met him), and allows everyone to escape back to the S.S. Invincible. Then Serge-Lynx mopes a bit about Kid while some sappy piano music plays in the background. That music is borrowed directly from Radical Dreamers, where it was arguably used more effectively.
On the S.S. Invincible, General Viper and Fargo are preparing to Fight about something (which I vaguely remember relating to Zelbess’ death), only for Viper to take Serge-Lynx aside and explain that Lynx-Serge is pursuing the Frozen Flame in the Sea of Eden, then join the party to help stop him. Fargo follows suit since we’ve now saved him on multiple occasions, with Marcy and Karsh also running up and joining the party. That means that we now have all 3 living Devas of the Acacia Dragoons, a former Deva (Radius), and their commander. Not too shabby.
When we give chase to the Sea of Eden/Dead Sea, we suddenly hit a wall. Literally. Whereas Home World’s Dead Sea was blocked off by the Masamune, Another World’s version has the Pearly Gates. Long story short, the entrance has been sealed by the dragons, and we need relics from all 6 dragons to proceed. Harle explains that the real entrance lies in Home World, that the dragons will be scattered throughout both worlds, and that Lynx-Serge is already inside because his appearance is that of Serge. Apparently being Serge (in one form or another) is important, while it’s not possible to enter where we’re headed as Lynx. Harle vaguely hints that we’ll have to use the Dragon Tear to remedy the situation. Then she asks if we’d prioritize her or the world if we had to choose, and I like to choose her, if only as a parting gift; Harle gets a followup cutscene where Starky finds her crying on the ship and being enigmatic, and then she stops being a usable party member. It was fun while it lasted, Harle.
The demi-humans in Another World’s Marbule treat you horribly if you enter the village with a human in your party, but what if you enter with a party of demi-humans? Using a party of Lynx, Irenes, and Funguy, I entered Marbule and everyone was suddenly friendly. This doesn’t make much of a difference or reveal any useful new information, but the greeter gives you a new frame. Even if you enter with humans, however, it’s worth visiting Another World’s Marbule again because there’s a new merchant who sells trap elements for high-level attacks. I make sure to buy 3 of every trap, remembering that the dragons have to be fought to obtain their blessings, but not remembering which attacks they use.
Many characters join the party with the best weapons you can buy for them at the time, but Riddel is an exception. Most playable characters are now rocking outdated equipment, too, and when I use the Smith Spirit to check how many characters need new weapons, I realize that I’d need 12 pieces of Denadorite just for weapon upgrades. There’s only one place I know of to obtain Denadorite right now, so it’s back to Home World’s S.S. Zelbess for some good old-fashioned gambling. Of course, “gambling” assumes that there’s no skill behind it, which is incorrect since it’s a timing minigame. My strategy (pressing X as soon as the red part of the spinning compass passes just right of the bottom for the second time) pays off, but gambling is tedious and it’s inevitable that Denadorite will end up becoming as common as Mythril has, so I give up after obtaining 5 pieces.
That turns out to be the right call, as I totally spaced on checking the price of defensive equipment. After buying Riddel a Denadorite weapon and some Denadorite armor, I can’t afford anything else. That’s enough to bump up her defense quite a bit, though, which should allow her to be immediately useful. Since Riddel is an innate white elemental, I make sure to unequip Irenes’ HolyLight and give it to her instead. Sadly, the HydraShadow attack obtained from the De-Hydrate doesn’t belong to her, either. This attack is becoming quite the mystery.
Since we have Another World’s Fargo in our party now, it’s worth visiting Home World’s Fargo to see his reaction. This ends up being the trigger for part 8’s Marbule concert quest to continue, as our Fargo takes over the ship and has it sail off of the coast. That starts the concert, which it turns out is a retelling of how both Fargos met Zelbess in the first place (so the blue dancer is likely playing the role of Irenes). The party sneaks off the ship to start killing the now-physical monsters in Marbule, with Toma and his assistant running off after explaining that they probably belong to some kind of sleeping dragon. This is a pretty blatant way of explaining that beating the monsters wakes up the Black Dragon in the other world.
Defeating the monsters sucks. They’re almost exclusively a monster called Lagoonate who spams an attack called Just4Kicks, and the whole process is just slow. Since it’s a blue elemental attack, however, I make sure to experiment with the FrogPrince summon—while I hadn’t been able to select this attack up to this point, making the entire field blue (which requires three blue element attacks in a row) allows it to be used. Don’t worry if you don’t know what field color does, because neither do I and that’s never been an obstacle. Basically, each attack’s color is imparted to a 3-part meter at the top-left that acts as a kind of recent element history, and certain attacks can be used when the field is all one color. Field color might impact the damage of attacks, too, but I apparently missed a tutorial that explains all of this. Or maybe one doesn’t exist? Using a summon attack reminded me of why I’ve never relied on these types of elements, though; the party’s star total instantly goes down by one (35:30) after using FrogPrince, and while I don’t know if that impacts anything stat-wise, it messes with my OCD enough that I typically steer clear.
After Marbule is cleared, a dragon’s roar can be heard, indicating that the Black Dragon is awake in the other world. The Magical Dreamer band is given some vacation time, and Miki can subsequently be found and recruited on the S.S. Zelbess. I’ve never used her seriously, but Irenes is still missing a whole bunch of 90% and up attacks, so I decide to swap her with Miki. It never hurts to have an innate red elemental in the party.
While we’re in Home World, we might as well visit the Water Dragon since we know exactly where it is. There are some enemies littered around the area, but all of them can be avoided with the exception of a giant crab enemy blocking the door. It doesn’t pose much of a threat. That just leaves the Water Dragon, who asks you what you want, If you respond that you don’t want anything, it says something vague about the “three mutual powers” that destroyed the Dead Sea being known as the god of fate, who is confusingly known as “FATE.” Okay, then.
When you instead ask for its blessing, it challenges the party to a fight. As an innate blue elemental, Miki will both do and take more damage during this fight, and it has some full-party attacks that put her at risk. Thankfully, Riddel has a MagNegate equipped (which can only be used by innate white elementals), and this temporarily makes a party member dodge all magical attacks from enemies while still allowing you to heal them. Using MagNegate on Miki and focusing on healing the party makes it easy to outlast the Water Dragon, and it grants the party a BlueRelic key item once defeated. You also get a BlueWhale summon element as post-fight spoils, and each dragon will give us a new summon like that.
I also make sure to visit Home World’s Earth Dragon Isle to check in on the researchers, and it turns out that they finally got around to clearing the object that blocked the way forward. It’s actually an enemy, one that provides you with Denadorite after the fight, and you need to grab an Explosive key item from the researcher who moved it. The goal of the following screen is to block 3 sand boils with enemy shells in order to funnel the pressure to a sand boil that’ll shoot you up to a platform, and this mostly makes sense: one enemy has to be beaten near a ledge and subsequently knocked down, and another is immobile and gets knocked into a boil using the Explosive. The third and final enemy, however, is a pain; you’re told to push it into the boil, but it refuses to move no matter what. Weirdly enough, you can only push it via text prompt, and that prompt only shows up at a frustratingly specific angle. I can’t think of a single reason for designing this in such a player-hostile way.
For some reason, I remembered the Earth Dragon fight being somewhat difficult. It isn’t. Mostly, it just uses physical attacks that can be easily healed. I even wasted a ThundaStorm trap element thinking that the Earth Dragon would eventually use some awesome attack element that never happened. Really, the only thing you need to be aware of is that dragons can apparently be healed by elements of the same color as them, but even that doesn’t make the Earth Dragon remotely threatening. Once it’s beaten, you get the ThundaSnake summon attack and Yellow Relic key item, and the only other thing of note is that one of the researchers outside randomly gives you a Rainbow Shell if you talk to him twice.
The Sky Dragon has returned to Another World’s Sky Dragon Isle, but refuses to fight the party until they’ve beaten the other 5 dragons first.
Reaching the Fire Dragon in Another World’s Mount Pyre is one of the more infuriating experiences I’ve had thus far. There’s no obvious way down from the main path, but there really is a door you can enter by taking the side path. I had thought that there was an object blocking this path, but that door is instead on a hidden lower path and the perspective had fooled me into not noticing it. I love the overall colorfulness of the visuals in Chrono Cross, but it’s remarkably easy to make incorrect assumptions about the environment’s layout that serve to hinder your exploration.
It turns out that the giant dragon-looking thing isn’t the Fire Dragon, but instead its pet (who we get as a Salamander summon after the dragon fight). The real Fire Dragon is the Mini Dragon we fought on our first trek through Mount Pyre, though it has a transformation into a bona fide full-sized dragon shortly into the fight. Otherwise, it’s pretty unremarkable; it uses an attack called FieryBreath that does something like 3 points of damage to Riddel, and Miki is an innate red elemental who can similarly shrug off fire attacks. Afterward, we get the Red Relic key item.
Since we’re in Another World now, we might as well go fight the Black Dragon in Marbule. This is the kind of dragon fight that I can get behind: you just run through the village and fight it without any need for messing around with awkward puzzles or anything. The Black Dragon has a tendency to use AntiWhite whenever you hit it with a white elemental attack, but none of these successfully landed on anyone (in part thanks to Riddel having an item equipped that defends against her white elements being blocked). Riddel is particularly at risk during this fight, having low HP and an opposite innate element as the dragon, but she also has her MagNegate in addition to an innate elemental ability called SnakeSkin that increases her magic defense. The only real threat to anyone comes at the end when the Black Dragon uses a SealAll before spamming the party with attacks, because that disables everyone’s green HealAll elements, but Riddel can still use white elements including her innate SnakeEyes healing ability to keep everyone afloat. With the dragon defeated, the party gets a GrimReaper summon and a Black Relic key item.
That just leaves the Green Dragon and Sky Dragon, and since the latter insists on fighting us last, it’s obvious that we need to figure out where the former is hiding. There’s one spot on the map that the party can’t access by boat, Gaia’s Navel, but someone on the S.S. Invincible suggests that there’s a Wingapede in Hydra Marsh that regularly flies to that area. Also on the ship is Pip, whose memory seems unaffected by Lynx-Serge’s brainwashing (or whatever it is). Pip doesn’t appear too bothered by the whole body change thing and rejoins the party without a fuss.
Thus begins what’s quite possibly the worst sequence in the entire game. Since we killed the Wingapede in Home World, I visit Another World’s Hydra Marsh and come across a Beeba named BubbaBeeba who gives the party an Ancient Fruit key item in return for saving it from some monsters. I try using both the Ancient Fruit and Beeba Flute in different areas, but no Wingapede ever shows up. Frustrated, I travel to Home World’s Hydra Marsh, only to fight that world’s BubbaBeeba and have it explain that there’s another Wingapede that travels to Gaia’s Navel in return for Ancient Fruit. It would have been nice if someone explained which world we needed to be in, or that there are multiple Wingapedes.
Ugh. The Wingapede then takes the party to Gaia’s Navel, where they encounter a young girl named Leah whose hairstyle, attacks, and sense of fashion all suggest that she’s from Chrono Trigger‘s 65,000,000 B.C. era. She’s pretty much a 3D take on Chrono Trigger‘s Ayla character. Anyway, she joins the party and then you’re flying blind. No one tells you how to proceed, and there’s a barrier blocking your path to the Green Dragon. Believe it or not, the only way forward is to beat every enemy on every screen, and that includes slogging through fights against a bunch of little tribal guys who have a long attack that causes your party members to become frenzied (or whatever it’s called in this game—they become CPU-controlled and attack both allies and enemies). The whole thing is a giant waste of time to such a degree that I had to pause the game at 50:38 and make a save state to come back to later. I ended up stitching the two videos together, and all because I ran out of time to record.
This whole thing is just padding. Once everything is beaten, though, returning to the main screen results in a Tyrano boss attacking. This isn’t a hard fight, but what’s interesting is that the post-fight boss screen shows 34/34 stars where before it had been 32/33. Apparently stars can regenerate. Leah runs off after the fight to where the Green Dragon is, and Lynx and Riddel chase after her, only to get stuck on that screen. There’s no running back to save between fights. The Green Dragon tries to make the party lunch and acts a bit like an Oscar/Malboro in Final Fantasy, which is to say that it has a BadBreath attack and others that can inflict status effects/disable certain element colors, but it doesn’t have many actual attacks. That having been said, it frequently uses a GreenField element that turns the field color entirely green in a single swoop, and I get the impression that it was doing so to use some high-level green attack elements. Without a pre-fight save, though, I continually use non-green elements to keep it from ever being able to, which trivializes the fight. Afterward, the party gets a Genie summon and Green Relic key item.
That just leaves the Sky Dragon, which I incorrectly refer to as the “White Dragon” in the video title above. Video names/images get cached for performance, though, and fixing it is a pain, so I’m just going to leave it like that. In my defense, the dragons in Chrono Cross are named very inconsistently. The Sky Dragon is an innate white elemental, which means that it’s most dangerous to Serge-Lynx, and it has full-party attacks like HolyBreath that hit him for over 300 points of damage. That means that using HealAlls to keep everyone at or near their maximum HP is crucial.
The fight was going well, all things considered, when the Sky Dragon randomly decided to drop an UltraNova on everyone. That’s a 6th-level white attack element that Riddel would get a lot of mileage out of, so I revived/healed Serge-Lynx, set down an UltraNova trap element, and even healed the Sky Dragon to increase the likelihood that it’d use the attack before dying. It finally did at 16:00, and it turns out that the healing made all the difference: afterward, Riddel did 55 damage over two attacks and the Sky Dragon toppled over. It would have died before using UltraNova again if I hadn’t healed it. That was 100% luck, though the “close to death” animations help you determine how much more damage an enemy can survive.
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