Mission Chrono Trigger: Kicking Ass and Riding the Weird Waves of Time

Boy, did I play a TON of Chrono Trigger last month. Seriously, I don’t even know what to do with myself. In fact, I don’t even know how to start off this post, because I’ve got a shitload of game to get through here. So welcome back, and let’s get going!

By the end of last month’s post, I was chasing General Ozzie through Magus’s Castle. The path to his battle was fraught with traps, and I’ll admit that, in my rush and with my bad eyesight, I fell into a number of them. Luckily, they all led back to the same place, and that place led to Ozzie himself. If I hadn’t been so excited to finally kick him in his dumb face, I might have remembered to take a better screenshot. But all I got was this.

The excitement. Can you feel it?

Needless to say, the battle with Ozzie turned out be be very easy, as it mostly involved hitting a bunch of switches around him rather than him. But go figure that the General would have been a pushover, considering how many more formidable foes he previously pit against Crono. Alas, poor Ozzie, I knew him well.

With Ozzie dispatched, the team made its way further into Magus’s castle. And it wasn’t long before the ran right into the demon king himself!

Um…okay…? Hello? Anyone there?

I was actually a little surprised to encounter Magus so soon, and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe because the game had built him up so much to this point that he felt like a final boss. The battle that ensued was difficult (and sorry, I was so enthralled that no screenshots were taken during the fight. 😦 ). I ended up dying once before figuring out the strategy to take him down, which was to hit him with the same magic attacks that he doled out. Magus eventually succumbed.

Yeah, that’s right! Kneel, bitch!

And then things got weird, as Magus started talking to “himself…”

Okaaay…? Did I hit you on the head too hard, or something?

…and then a time portal or sort opened up, sucking everyone into nothingness.

Whooooaaaaaaa nellie!

And then, all of a sudden, Crono was home. Home, in his own time apparently, taking a little snooze, because, y’know, time travel and shit. But it’s not like he could sleep f-o-r-e-v-e-r. So Marle was thankfully there to be his alarm clock.

What? What? What? What? What? What? OMFGWHAT!!

But it was a freaky “dream “as it turned out, because upon being so lovingly awakened, Chrono and Marle (and Frog, who failed to show up in Crono’s house sequence) actually woke up back in 65,000,000 B. C. In Ayla’s EVIL CLUTCHES! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Okay, not so evil. C’mon, it’s Ayla.

Is everyone rightly confused now? Good.

She’s just a silly ol’ cavewoman, for goodness sakes!

Poor Frog. He’s had a rough go of it.

Why in the world Crono ended up here I couldn’t imagine, until it was revealed that Azala, that evil head of the Reptites, had burned down the clan’s forest. Ayla ended up in the thick of it, but promised to make things right.

Geez, have a heart, will ya?

While Ayla went off to help her clan, Crono, Frog, and Marle traveled to the Dactyl Nest. But eventually Crono’s and Ayla’s paths crossed once again, and Ayla rejoined everyone to face off with Azala once and for all.

Hey Ayla. What you got hiding there?

With the assistance of flight thanks to a group of Dactyls, we all rode off to the Tyrano Lair, Azala’s home. During the travels to Azala’s throne room, Crono, Ayla, and Marle encountered a number of imprisoned people from Ayla’s clan, including her somewhat hapless boyfriend Kino. Being the nice guy that he is, Crono helped free everyone. It would have been a nice time for all if it hadn’t for the intense creepiness of Azala’s castle. (Yeah, Magus’s castle should be been the strangest of the strange, but for some reason the bone-themed decor Azala had going on was shiver-worthy. Or maybe I was playing with too much coffee in my system…)

And then, finally, there we were, ready to take on Azala.

In which much ass-kicking will commence.

Or…not so ready, as he had a giant dinosaur under his command! Black Tyrano!

Yup, that’s a big dinosaur.

I’m not sure that I had faced a tougher battle up to this point, and I attempted it several times before finally getting it right. It made sense to attack Azala first, but while I was busy doing that, Black Tyrano let loose with some pretty powerful attacks. (As an aside, this battle really helped  me see Ayla’s potential as a powerful teammate. Her techs proved vicious and helped win the fight, decidedly.)

It sucked a little seeing a creature like Black Tyrano fade into oblivion, but somebody had to lose, and it wasn’t going to be Crono. Strangely, the whole thing ended on a very sour note, with Azala spouting some rather depressing rhetoric about how the world had no future.

Well, yes. And there’s no use bitching about it now.

But the gang had better thing to do than worry about the future (not that this is a game about TIME TRAVEL, or anything…), so off everyone went on the backs of the Dactyls to return to the forest.

Is it going to be so bright that I have to wear shades?

But the fun wasn’t over yet, as a scene then played showing Lavos crashing directly into the Tyrano Lair. Huh. Guess Azala was right about that no-future stuff. But in the wake of destruction, a time portal appeared, because a time travelers’ work is never done.  Crono, Ayla, and Marle jumped right in and ended up in…

Zeal.

Time traveling is weird.

Folks, this place threw me for a loop! It was so bizarrely different from every other place in the game so far that I had to take my time in exploring. And still, I know missed plenty of secrets. (I think this is where I used up most of my several hours of play of the month.)

But moving on with life, Zeal is where we first met the odd Janus and his sister, the sweet Schala – both offspring of the evil Queen that ruled Zeal.

Janus is the one with the cat.

Ans it’s also the place the we discovered the secret of Marle’s pendant.

Don’t get any ideas there, missy!

Or rather, we discovered first that Schala had a similar pendant that she could use it to open magically sealed doors. Crono tried the same with Marle’s pendant, but got dick in return, so thanks, game.

Though of course things turned out in Crono’s favor, for in Zeal was the Mammon Machine, a crazy bio-mechanical device created by Melchoir (the dude who helped fix the Masamune.) And when Crono got close to the machine with Marle’s pendant, magic happened!

Interesting, but this better not be a trap, dammit…

And it was a trap, sort of. Because after charging up the pendant and having Crono open up a nearby magic door, he met another meany, Dalton, and battled with a monster called Golem. This battle did not go well, and Crono, Ayla, and Marle, all of whom had passed out during the fight, were thrown back to 65,000,000 B. C. by the evil Queen, who had also sealed the time portal that brought the gang to Zeal in the first place. Just awesome.

Except, that it was awesome! Well, a little bit awesome, because having the pendant and access to other time portals meant that Crono could access both magic doors and a number sealed chests that we had all previously ignored. (I got some good stuff going back to some of them!)

Bouncing back and forth through time in search of goodies was fun enough, but eventually I had to get back on track. Only through sheer stumbling around in the apocalyptic future of 2300 A. D. did I find my way. There Crono met up with the disembodied someone who I thought was going to have something special in store for everyone. But instead, we all had to take a trip to the sewers.

Seriously, could you BE any more vague?!

And in the sewers were plenty of creepy-crawlies, including the aptly named and caterpillar-like Sir Krawlie. I had to fight him or something, but really, I just like that name: Sir Krawlie. It makes me smile.

Crono never backs down from a challenge, Sir *chuckles* Krawlie! *gigglegigglegiggle*

Thankfully, the trip through the sewers led to something special, in this case a meet and greet with another disembodied soul and another guru, Belthasar.

And now you are stars…how game-like.

Belthasar had a bone to pick with the Queen of Zeal, who had banished him to the future. And there he lost his mind a little and had all his knowledge  transferred into “records.” Listening to the records revealed that Belthasar had created a time machine of his very own, which Crono found in a nearby room. Yep, just an actual time machine, hanging out in a room, gathering dust. The Epoch.

Ooooo, a new toy!

This meant no more searching for time portals, which I could never remember the locations of anyway, so WOO HOO!

Nothing more need be said.

Without further ado, everyone loaded into the Epoch and traveled to the one time period we had yet to visit. 12,000 B. C.  – The Dark Ages.

Which was dark, but not “dark” dark.

Crono ended up on a place called Algetty, the earth-like home for everyone who was not lucky enough to have been born in the perfectly perfect sky kingdom of Zeal. But just because they’re stuck below and impoverished, doesn’t mean the population isn’t informed. Oh no, they know all about their “heavenly” rulers.

And that’s saying something…I think.

And so it is that Crono remains with the Earthbound Ones, ready do discover whatever secrets lay ahead. It seems things are building up towards a few exciting showdowns. I imagine that the evil Queen must be put in her place. And then, whatever became of Magus? Did he get sucked into the portal as well, cause its not like he woke up with Crono and Marle. So many questions, and with plenty of game to come!

That’s gonna do it for this month’s Mission Chrono Trigger. I’m 18 hours in, and there’s absolutely no turning back. More mysteries and reveals surely lay in wait.