Mission Chrono Trigger: Mama Weer All Crazee Now

Invoking Slade’s classic tune about a drunken bit of enthusiasm is only natural when it comes to recounting my most recent adventured in Chrono Trigger, because seriously, everyone’s drunk with power and batshit crazy! I mean…it’s just that…it’s like…AUUUGGGH I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS REAL ANYMORE!!! So maybe we should just get on with it.

When we last left Crono, he had just travelled to Algetty, home of the “Earthbound Ones.” Turns out these these folks were once part of the beautiful Sky Kingdom of Zeal but were cast out at some point to live a humble and poor life on the ground. Still, they seemed like nice enough folks, but after a bit of conversing and wandering and fighting off some beasts, we ended up at the Mountain of Woe. Accompanied by Ayla and Marle, Crono fought his way up the mountain to reach a cave that contained a crystalline capsule — somewhere we were to find the Guru of Life. Only, it’s not like he could simply appear without something happening first, and that some something turned out a be a battle with the big, nasty Giga Gaia.

It’s hard to convey “drama” through screenshots, but this fight, despite the fact that it looks like everyone’s just standing around, was very dramatic.

It took a couple tries, but once we had dispatched Giga Gaia to the nether reaches of the universe, Melchoir introduced…errr, re-introduced?…himself.

Talk about deju vu that’s not really deja vu, but kinda is.

Melchior returns to Algetty with the crew, were he does some more ‘splaining about Lavos. (It was helpful, but I still don’t get what Lavos is. Is “it” a creature? A device like the Mammon Machine? A metaphysical representation of the world itself??  I JUST DON’T GET IT.)

Can we be a little more clear about this “Lavos?” I know we’re some dozen and some hours in, but indulge me, please. PLEASE.

Eventually, Schala joins the party to enlist everyone’s help in taking down her loopy and mad mother, Queen Zeal. The plan somehow involves the Mammon Machine and diving deep into the ocean, because OF COURSE.

But…you’re still gonna help us help you. Right?

In any event, the first part of the plan to defeat Queen Zeal involves going back to Zeal Palace, where Crono faces off with the powerful henchman Dalton.

Like, “history” history? Or future “history?” This is Chrono Trigger, after all, and I am confused all the time.

The fight with Dalton goes well enough, and it seems like we defeat him…but then…

You and everyone else ever in an action-adventure medium.

Well, whatever becomes of Dalton, he’s no longer in the palace. And in his place he let a time gate, so into that is were we went. It led to the Ocean Palace, which is where we’re supposed to run into the actual Mammon Machine! FINALLY!

YES THIS IS HAPPENING CORRECTLY…right?

Traversing the Ocean Palace was lengthy and weird, so I’m opting to skip it because I know once I start writing about it, things are going to get lengthy and weird. I will say that of all the places in the game, it was the most oddly beautiful. All modern and shiny with Tron-like lights filtering through the walls and floors, with plenty of peculiar enemies to fight along the way. And all the end of it all was the Mammon Machine.

The Mammon Machine! I don’t know what I was expecting, but okay.

Now once we got to the device, things got really strange and escalated quickly, because all of a sudden, we were fighting off Queen Zeal and Lavos. Like the ACTUAL LAVOS!

To quote Keanu Reeves: “Whoa.”

I say Crono was “fighting off” Zeal and Lavos, but in reality, the whole situation was royally fucked. At one point, Magus appeared (ye who had sworn to defeat Lavos), but it was no use. Lavos was way too powerful and it pretty much destroyed Zeal and everything, but not everyone. Schala managed to get Magus, Marle, and Ayla to safety.

Well, not till the actual end of the game, at least.

But what of Crono?

… … …

Folks, I’ve heard that Chrono Trigger was a pretty ballsy game for its time, but I had no idea just how solid its cajones were until Marle and Ayla woke up in Algetty.

My thought exactly.

Jaw, meet floor.

Crono was nowhere to be found. As such, everyone came to the conclusion that he had died thanks to Lavos.

And that was that…the main protagonist of the game was dead. I was speechless. Thems some balls on the part of the Square.

But of course there was no time to get all sad and shit, because Crono simply couldn’t be dead. But, in another big curveball, as Marle and Ayla try to make sense of things with the citizens of Algetty, Dalton reappears and captures them. As if things couldn’t get any wackier, everyone comes out of the fog to discover that they are on a airship.

Surprise!

It’s the Blackbird! That ship that was hanging out on the edge of the Zeal! It’s Dalton’s ship, and he’s turned loony and become bent on taking over the world and all that.

But it’s not like Marle, Ayla, and Frog (taking Crono’s place) can just wander around the ship all willy-nilly. They are still prisoners, and all their stuff has been confiscated. Which meant that they had to break out and find all their stuff. This led to some rather amusing moments with the cast.

This little scene, with Frog admonishing himself, led me to LOL on the subway. If everyone had known what was going on, they’d have LOLed to.

But breaking out of the Blackbird proved no easy task, as it involved lots of sneaking around guards and sentry robots. During all the stealthiness, the gang stumbled upon the Epoch, which Dalton was altering to suit his own nefarious plans.

Um…maybe you should have just stuck with “Epoch?”

In a twist of events that could only happen in  a video game, Marle, Ayla, and Frog end up fighting Dalton on and for the Epoch. It was a fairly easy fight, and really…I now don’t know what I’d do without Ayla. She’s just the best.

Anyway, with Dalton really, really gone (I think), Marle takes the reigns of the Epoch, and we all head back to Algetty. Seems someone there has been looking for us. Can you guess who that is??

Yep…it’s MAGUS!

A commentor on a earlier MCT post tipped me off to the fact that at some point, I’d face off against Magus directly, and that I shouldn’t fight him. Heeding this advice despite Frog’s strong desire to beat up Magus all by himself (because that’s Frog’s calling), and after listening to Magus tell everyone all about his childhood and still offering up a battle, I said “no.” And with that, Magus was one of us!

Wow. That was…simple. And weird. Everything in this game is weird. And wonderful.

So with Magus joining the team (giving Ayla a rest), what could possibly be next??  Well, it turns out that the craziness hadn’t ended with the Ocean Palace, as it rose out of the ocean and became the very fearsome and bizarre-looking Black Omen.

Holy crap, yo.

Scary though it looked, it wasn’t enough to keep the gang away. (Hell, I was curious myself!) There everyone met face-to-face with Queen Zeal…again. And she couldn’t have been more out of her mind.

Sure, whatever you say.

To prove it, she set a very powerful monster on the team, the Giga Mutant, which didn’t look as formidable as some of the previous bosses, but it packed a wallop!

What’s that they say about the best things coming in small packages? Well, it’s bullshit.

 

I gave it my best with Frog, Marle, and Magus, but the thing proved much too powerful for the team. Eventually, I decided to abandon the Black Omen in favor of a place more serene…the End of Time. It was a good decision, as it led to a great story reveal and the gang obtaining the “Chrono Trigger.” Yep, it’s an actual thing that aids in time travel.

Sounds good to me…now GIMME!

And so we are, all at the End of Time figuring our where to go next. Right now, I can’t get the Giga Mutant fight out of my head, so I’d like to regroup and head back to the Black Omen. Plus, Crono’s still DEAD! That’s still the cray-cray-craziest thing of all, and there’s simply got to be a way to get him back. And I bet it’s through TIME TRAVEL. I just bet it is. I’m going to find out, and I’ll regale you all with the results of my hopes in next month’s Mission Chrono Trigger post.

It ain’t over yet!

Pretty sure that the past 3 hours of play were more exhausting than the first 18.

P. S. Got any tips for fighting the Giga Mutant? And how about Lavos? I mean, his battle has GOT to be close, yes?