The Shrine

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '><img src="http://www.chronocompendium.com/wiki/im ... elines.png">

<b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/gam ... tml">Click on Chronology FAQ</a>

Hey, check out the Chronology FAQ. I didn't realize just how complex the storyline for Chrono Trigger/Cross was. Seems like its on par with NGE.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The complexity of Chrono Cross did very little for the gameplay. Actually, it probably hurt it. It's neeedlessly confusing and doesn't serve any real purpose. The only important point of the entire mess was that Another was the correct dimension, and Home was the dimension where Lavos eventually destroyed everything (hence Miguel guards the destroyed Nadia's Bell in 23XX of Home) and Reptites somehow evolved to become the Dragons.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>"Convoluted" is a better word. I've heard the same thing said about a host of other games. And yet, somehow, no one but the fans themselves think these videogame plots deserve serious consideration.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Well that's because most games are convoluted just for the sake of being confusing. Though to be fair, it's not like most fans are sophiscated enough to appreciate meaningful plot</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>The difference being that NGE was GOOD : )</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Was Square so threatened by NGE that they had to throw alternate universes onto a plot that involved an already difficult subject? Sure. And while were at it, why don't we just create a new world in the future, and reveal that all the main characters from CT are dead. Oh, except for one. We'll kill him later.

One of the things I liked about CT was it's simplicity. Yeah, it had a lot of time travel paradoxes, but it was easy enough to suspend belief because the characters were more likeable. CC may have had around 40 characters, but most of them were pretty dismal (except for Mojo and Harle). I guess they wanted to throw a little Suikoden into the mix.

Thank you Square, for desecrating one of my favorite SNES games in your quest to write an "epic storyline." Didn't you learn from Xenogears? Leave the writing to Yasumi Matsuno and his henchmen.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>No it wasn't :) I'll say it was better than the Chrono plot, though.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It surely is based on what Lucca said about how although they saved this dimension in this process they deserved another future and that they have to repent for this act. Let's see, Crono and others saved the world from getting harvested by Lavos and later reigned by machines and their prize for saving the world was getting machine gunned by Lynx-backed regime in Porre? While we're at it why don't we start having equal rights for villians too? Think about all those goblins that you killed to build up your character, don't they have a right to live as well?

And actually CC's plot was very transparent, all the way to the improbable identity of Kid, which is very simple because since there was no way she could possibly be Schala, so she had to be Schala.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Despite some of the more simple aspects of video game storylines, it makes up for it by being longer and more detailed. You're involved with the character for a good 30-60 hours, instead of a 2 hour movie.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Hmmm...and you didn't like the story in XG?</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>I did, but I got the feeling that they were trying too hard to give it depth.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Kid saved Serge from Lynx in 1010, which caused the dimensional split for Home/Another. Although, this really had nothing to do with Crono and his gang getting killed. In Crono's timeline (Keystone T-1), Guardia existed for ages, including the years in 23XX. (Remember Doan?) In Keystone T-2, Porre dominates.

For that, you could blame the Time Crash, which Lavos helped pull back in time. Lavos was trying to find a way to disrupt the timeline, and despite FATE's control to prevent that from happening, it worked; Porre rose to power, destroys Guardia, and probably kills Crono in the process. (After all, if Crono marries the Princess of Guardia, one would think that they and their royal family would be the first to go in a war between kingdoms.)

Lynx had nothing to do with Guardia's fall. This happened in 1005, and Lynx didn't exist until he tried to kill Serge in 1010. So, in a way, Crono's team and Belthasar (who helped build FATE and Chronopolis) succumbed to their own fate by their own actions. Blaming Serge for this is misleding. Though his presence may have started a renewed power struggle between FATE and the Dragon God, which probably would have led to another Lavos-like disaster in the future, he didn't led the future to Guardia downfall.

In the end, he did fix things with the Lavos/Time Devourer situation. On that timeline, though, Crono's group was probably still dead. One cannot expect, in where you have an infinate number of timelines, that a group of people still be alive in every timeline. They still live happily ever after in Keystone T-1. They can thank themselves for killing themselves in Keystone T-2 by, ironically, defeating Lavos.

Also, Kid was already explained with the daughter-clone thing. She's not Schala. She's a clone of Schala. And no, Marle is not Schala or Kid.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Kid saved Serge from Lynx in 1010, which caused the dimensional split for Home/Another. Although, this really had nothing to do with Crono and his gang getting killed. In Crono's timeline (Keystone T-1), Guardia existed for ages, including the years in 23XX. (Remember Doan?) In Keystone T-2, Porre dominates.

For that, you could blame the Time Crash, which Lavos helped pull back in time. Lavos was trying to find a way to disrupt the timeline, and despite FATE's control to prevent that from happening, it worked; Porre rose to power, destroys Guardia, and probably kills Crono in the process. (After all, if Crono marries the Princess of Guardia, one would think that they and their royal family would be the first to go in a war between kingdoms.) More on this whole Porre situation <a href="http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Th ... e">here</a>.

Lynx had nothing to do with Guardia's fall. This happened in 1005, and Lynx didn't exist until he tried to kill Serge in 1010. So, in a way, Crono's team and Belthasar (who helped build FATE and Chronopolis) succumbed to their own fate by their own actions. Blaming Serge for this is misleading. Though his presence may have started a renewed power struggle between FATE and the Dragon God, which probably would have led to another Lavos-like disaster in the future, he didn't led the future to Guardia downfall.

In the end, he did fix things with the Lavos/Time Devourer situation. On that timeline, though, Crono's group was probably still dead. One cannot expect, in where you have an infinite number of timelines, that a group of people still be alive in every timeline. They still live happily ever after in Keystone T-1. They can thank themselves for killing themselves in Keystone T-2 by, ironically, defeating Lavos.

Also, Kid was already explained with the daughter-clone thing. She's not Schala. She's a clone of Schala. And no, Marle is not Schala or Kid.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>It's certainly better than a majority of RPG storylines. I'd rather have complexity than your standard save-the-princess bullshit storyline.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>XG's plot was the most heavy-handed, faux-philosophical piece of garbage I have ever seen in a game.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I'll give you that the TV ending sucked, but the film made up for it.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>More "detail" (really, more extraneous junk) does not equal greater quality. There is not a single character in a single RPG with the kind of focused character development one finds in more respectable story-telling mediums (i.e, films, plays, novels, etc.).</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Precisely. It's a case of amateurs evaluating the work of amateurs.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>XG also had a ton of dumb religious. "Hey look this is the Zohar Emulator, but we got it call Jesus (or actually Son of Maria), because we can, and we got Earth, but we call it Lost Jeruslaem, because Earth is the center of universe."</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Serge was a completely unimportant guy. It just happened that Schala ran into him during the dimensional storm (yeah convenient plot device) and he touched the Frozen Flame so he had the power to link the dimensions together. He was supposed to have died in both dimensions, but the dimensional storm brought him to Another, and because he had to survive since he's the Arbiter of Chronopolis that's why FATE didn't just kill him back there and restore the dimensions like the way it should be.

Kid didn't save Serge, it was his father and Miguel who took him to the Dead Sea and ended up in Chronopolis. Kid doesn't even know about Serge at this point because she's born in the Another dimension (and there's no Kid in the Home dimension). It's after Serge touched the Frozen Flame and contacts Lavos that Schala becomes aware of his presence and sent Kid to guide him to her, never mind Lucca somehow also knows (extra dimensional communication?) about this so she went along with Project Kid.

Lynx was working for Porre and the only logical conclusion was that he supplied Porre with 23XX technology to overpower Guardia (Guardia was destroyed by Porre) unless you believe that in five year the peaceful town of Porre suddenly developed gun technology and managed to kill a hero who once defeated Lavos.

The Crono kids fault Serge for the eventual outcome of Another/Home... though not like the game is necessarily even consistent with itself, since the Crono kids don't have a problem helping you at the end.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>XG also had a ton of dumb religious stuff too.  "Hey look this is the Zohar Emulator, but we got it call Jesus (or actually Son of Maria), because we can, and we got Earth, but we call it Lost Jeruslaem, because Earth is the center of universe."</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>XG also had a ton of dumb religious stuff too.  "Hey look this is the Zohar Emulator, but we call it Jesus (or actually Son of Maria), because we can, and we got Earth, but we call it Lost Jeruslaem, because Earth is the center of universe."</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>And I don't mean just bad voice acting, I mean acting, period. There's no reason why a game character has to be less developed than a character from a movie, or even a play. Certainly the amount of writng of a game exceeds that of a movie easily, and on certain games it can exceed a play quite easily too (Xenogears comes to mind, 300+ pages of script of just the important dialogues). In this day with CG graphics, motion capture and the works, the characters in a game still don't even have facial expressions. If you want to name the most remembered villian most people still say Sephiroth. Was he a really deep character? Not necessarily (but at least everything about him made sense). Remember the scene where he walked out of the fire and looked as if he thoroughly enjoyed it? The effects of that CG is certainly outdated now, but it is still what I remember the most about any villian, because Sephiroth was a good actor. He looked like he really did enjoy burning the town to the ground, and the fire fits the atmosphere more than any high tech extra dimensional sparkles.

Or even take a fairly mundane game like Lunar. Yes it's just about 10 facial expression recycled over and over again, but it's still better than nothing. Heck, you can even get away with just one expression. In Kenshin there's a character (Soujiro I think?) who always smiles, and that's still enough to portray the character he's supposed to be. But in games we get this generc emotion-less, combat-ready sway. It doesn't matter if you're just saying hi to Joe Average or the world if about to get blown up, everyone's always swaying and getting ready for combat.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>FFX?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I thought the movie was pretty stupid and lacked creativity, they just ripped off the book of Revelation and injected it into their own existing world to pass it off as an anime movie plot.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Though science fiction is generally considered to be a low brow literary sub-genre. That label I believe is not justified since I have read some fairly well done science fiction work. I can see where the argument comes from, there is a lot of poor writing in science fiction.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>They were trying to merge a bunch of classic science fiction stories into one, I felt they did a great job.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>You're forgetting one key point, FF7 world wide has sold better than any console RPG. If you take another game with a heavily used villain like Final Fantasy III and multiply its sales by 4 then I bet Kefka would instantly be at least as popular as Sephiroth.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I agree here, the "acting" in that game is probably the best I've seen. But I still felt Yuna was boring =)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>FFX had really good acting yes, except for the girls, but Rikku was at least tolerable (and way overdone in FFX2).</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Kefka was just an insane clown. Even if FF6 sold 50 million copies it won't change that. No matter how many copies sold, FFX2's Rikku and Yuna are both retarded actors.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Kefka was just an insane clown.  Even if FF6 sold 50 million copies it won't change that.  No matter how many copies sold, FFX2's Rikku and Yuna are both retarded actors. The sad truth is that most of video game's totally artificial actors can't act if their life depended on it.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>I think people interested in writing good videogame stories would do well to study very carefully what works and what doesn't work in other dramatic mediums and adapt those lessons to suit the particular requirements of game plots. The elements of good drama don't change from one medium to another; only the mode of presentation does. It's a classic example of shaping universal content to fit the requirements of different forms. A videogame story, in my view, is mainly a combination of cinematic (visual) and textual (script) forms that reveal plot and character intermittently over the course of the gameplay (which remains, of course, the most vital element in any videogame). Some day, perhaps, someone will develop a compelling synthesis of these elements, resulting in the first "game story" that can legitimately be compared to the great literary and cinematic works. One can only dream...</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>I think people interested in writing good videogame stories would do well to study very carefully what works and what doesn't work in other dramatic mediums and adapt those lessons to suit the particular requirements of game plots. The elements of good drama don't change from one medium to another; only the mode of presentation does. It's a classic example of shaping universal content to fit the requirements of different forms. A videogame story, in my view, is mainly a combination of cinematic (visual) and textual (script) forms that reveal plot and character intermittently over the course of the gameplay (which remains, of course, the most vital element in any videogame). Some day, perhaps, someone will develop a compelling synthesis of these elements, resulting in the first "game story" that can withstand comparison to the great literary and cinematic works. One can only dream...</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Kefka was evil, but he wasn't exactly what I'd define as cool.....</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>Seph was just as disturbed, just in a quiet sort of way. Both guys have their unique traits that made them more than your average villain. For my vote, i did like Kefka as final boss better.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>A great deal of the movie was based on a far-ranging *interpretation* of Revelation, but you can hardly say they "ripped it off." The context, the ending, and Shinji's self-exploration and ultimate decision had little to nothing to do with the Book.

Besides, if the movie was just a rip-off of Revelation, then the TV ending was just a rip-off of 2001, and I'd rather see authors taking material from a book written 2 millenia ago than from a movie made just a few decades ago. At least the former's been around long enough to merit some posterity.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Kefka is slightly overrated, after you enter the world of ruin you don't hear from him until you assemble your entire party again and go beat him. And you're neglecting the coolness factor again.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I kind of always saw Sephiroth as just a ripoff of Magus/Kefka. The coolest villain is Cervantes from Soul Calibur.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It could be called interpretation or whatever, but I generally feel that it lacked creativity. In a way I just sort of find the plot gimmicky, it is not like science fiction writers have never ripped off revelation before. I just don't like it when religious stuff is added into things, it is WAY over done. We've been trying to get away from religion and religious allegory in literature (which carries over into media) for over 200 years now.

Anyways, if you want to make a discussion out of this, move it to Ruminations. This is the first time we've actually had Gamethought discussions and not just news + opinions in who knows how long. =P</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>That's because Kefka's God at that point. Sephiroth was WAY overused in my opinion, chasing Sephiroth around the world is one of the most boring things I can remember doing in an RPG, well, chasing Kuja around the world might be even worse (that's what I'm doing now).</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Hey! I loved Rikku! =) But Wakka was my favourite character in the game by far, one of the funniest characters in RPG history.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Oh come it was cool chasing him from the moment your cell was broken and you saw the trail of blood to the Shin-ra president having a sword in his back, the giant snake being impaled, not to mention the reunion and Aeris's death. Since when does villian interaction = bad?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>When you spend 15+ hours chasing someone around the world, it gets really boring, and I mean REALLY boring. That's not my idea of fun. The part with the Shinra was cool, but the rest was lame.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Ah! Finally! Harle was from Chrono Cross, somehow I had it in my head that she was from Mario RPG, Wild Arms, or Breath of Fire III, and I couldn't remember which =)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Yeah, I disliked that game and I know that I'm not alone... I guess on its own it was decent, but as a sequel to CT? C'mon, it's not even comparable.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Kefka was a fucking joke of a villian. I don't even know why this would be a serious consideration.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>What? The fake Mexican thug accent?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '><i>=>920 A.D.

-Zenan mainlanders first began colonizing the El Nido Archipelago.
-Viper Manor is built.
-Dragonians begin to reach extinction, while some El Nido natives and
demihumans are driven to the outlying islands.

=>1003 A.D.

*Serge is born.

=>1004 A.D.

*With the threat of her mind becoming dominantly hateful, Schala clones herself
and sends the copy to this year.
-Schala imparts her pendant to Kid. The pendant was altered so that if Kid were
ever found in a dangerous situation, it would rewind time a bit to a more safer
situation.
-Kid is found by Lucca.

=>1005 A.D.

*The Kingdom of Guardia falls to Porre.

=>1006 A.D.

-Serge is attacked by a panther demon.
-Serge's father, Wazuki, and Leene's father, Miguel, set out for Marbule
to seek medical help.
-After hearing Serge's crying in 12,000 B.C., Schala attempts to make contact
with this time, causing a huge magnetic storm.
-The storm blows Wazuki and Miguel off-course, and causes the sytems of
Chronopolis to go offline.
-Wazuki and Miguel lose consciousness and wake to find themselves in the Sea
of Eden.
-After landing at Chronopolis, Wazuki is instructed by the Flame to bring Serge
to her.
-Contact with the Flame heals Serge and designates him as the arbiter.
-Wazuki is corrupted by the Flame.
-Harle is created by the Dragons in the appearance of an 18 year old girl while
Chronopolis' power is down.
-Chronopolis's systems power back up, and will only grant access to the Flame
to the Arbiter, Serge. This can be attributed to the Prometheus circuit.
-Miguel is captured by FATE.

=>Pre-1010 A.D.

-Lucca proposes that time travel is possible with a Time Egg, which utilizes
miniature black holes. The first Chrono Trigger was a Time Egg.
-Lucca knows of Kid's heritage, somehow.
-Lucca composes a letter to Luccia and leaves it with her.
*Lucca, at some points, demonstrates the ability to construct incomplete Time
Eggs.

=>1010 A.D.

-Wazuki attempts to kill Serge, thus totally losing it in the process and
becoming Lynx.
-The dimensions split depending on the outcome (see Home, Another timelines).
-Home/Another splitting is possibly caused by Kid's time traveling and the
gravity of Serge's life/death on the continued existence of reality, which is
threatened by the Time Devourer.</i>

Therefore, Lynx did not exist to influence Porre, but Chronopolis did (which was a part of El Nino). They had 85 years for influences from El Nino to take place and produce an effect on Porre, especially magic. To quote the <a href="http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Th ... re-Element theory</a>:

<i>I don't think this has been said yet, but we can't forget that Elements were introduced to the timeline as a result of the time crash. Dragonians were still forging them atop Divine Dragon Falls at the time of Porre's discovery of the islands around 900-920 AD. The Porre sailors, or perhaps later colonists, took the Elements back to the mainland, thus introducing the world to a form of magic it didn't have previously. This could have been very critical in how Porre would rise up to be a military power.

Also it is said that Luccia used to work in a lab in Porre. It is also said that while on El Nido she traveled to Fort Dragonia to work on and repair some of the robotics found within. It then stands to reason that perhaps earlier other scientists had explored the ruins and gained futuristic technology as a result, which also was brought to the mainland. This is probably why Porre has so many cyborgs and robots on its side during the present while before the Time Crash the only real robot in existence was Gato.

I believe both of this could be said to be influences from outside the flow of time, as originally they came from the Reptite timeline.lements are the Dragonian version of magic, so initially they are from the other timeline. They utilize "Power Spots" where the earth's energies gather, sort of like the draw points in FF8. There the Dragonians can forge the Elements that harness a particular aspect of nature. The Dragon God sort of regulated this:

A living accumulation of the planet's energy! Originally it was a biological machine used to control the powers of nature in the future society of the Reptites. In order to control the natural energy itself, FATE divided the one Dragon God entity up into 6 weaker plasma life-forms...

...as Belthasar says. So it seems that Elements are a direct result of the Time Crash.

These new-found powers would certainly give Porre an edge over the rest of the planet, which had not been exposed to, nor prepared to defend against such magic</i></div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>On its own it a complete of waste of time. As a sequel to Chrono Trigger it was a tragedy.</div>