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1
Chrono News / Yoshinori Kitase mentions possible Chrono Trigger remake on podcast
« on: February 28, 2024, 03:14:40 pm »
See here.
"Kitase described three different routes for a potential Chrono Trigger remake: a port, a graphical remaster or a remake of the scope of Final Fantasy VII Remake. Parkin shared his view on the matter, stating that he appreciated what Nintendo did with its remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. Kitase responded by thanking Parkin for his great input."
"Kitase described three different routes for a potential Chrono Trigger remake: a port, a graphical remaster or a remake of the scope of Final Fantasy VII Remake. Parkin shared his view on the matter, stating that he appreciated what Nintendo did with its remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. Kitase responded by thanking Parkin for his great input."
2
Site Updates / 2023 Update! Mathew Valente's Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers Restoration!
« on: December 11, 2023, 02:33:06 am »
We kick things off with the realization that Mathew Valente (or as you may know him, tssf from the Chrono Trigger Resurrection progress) finished his Synthetic Origins restoration of Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers music! Restorations involve tracking down the original high-quality source samples that companies downsized for use in games, with a loss of fidelity. This restoration sounds just incredible. Check out the FF4, FF5, and FF6 restorations too! You can find them all right now right here. The Compendium will keep a backup of these.
Welcome to the 2023 update! We've got a bitter pill to lead this one off, as we've got a new article by me soapboxing about the problems with Chrono Cross's story. This effort was motivated by one last round of Q&A with Masato Kato on Square's Twitter (see links below the jump). If you want to check out the article immediately, hit this mysterious thumbnail!
[INTERVIEWS] First up is a Chrono Cross remake interview with Hiromichi Sakamoto, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Masato Kato, brought to us by Trig! Check it out here. Though it's mostly about music, Kato confirms that he wrote Radical Dreamers completely as an original story, before declaring that it linked to Chrono Trigger at the end of the process. Which...sigh... [2] The much-maligned Kato/Mitsuda Q&A by Square on Twitter had one final update, which further evidenced that Cross's creative team truly did not plan the plot in detail. Brand new problems from this interview include: 1) Kid apparently remembers Serge saving her at the orphanage when they first meet in 1020 A.D., which...of course, hasn't happened yet! 2) The question of how the Masamune came to be corrupted was once again totally dodged; I'm ready to assume there's simply no story for this. 3) It's confirmed that Serge loses his memories of Chrono Cross after it's done, and that Kid is searching for him across timelines, which...he's right there in Arni, in 1020 A.D.! Go look him up!! 4) The Kingdom of Guardia receiving Schala's pendant, despite her being sucked into the DBT from the Ocean Palace, is explained by speculating that Serge, Kid, and other Cross party members visited Zenan early in Marle's life to give her the pendant. Predestination paradoxes galore.
[HACKS] wakkoswami has released a revision of the original KWhazit translation, building on the prior work by DoctorL and LethargicOwl; check it out here! Thanks to everyone who spent time getting this up to speed as the definitive SNES retranslation. [2] The Turkish Chrono Trigger translation project has released another incremental update; they are now on version 0.8. Let's cheer as they get closer to the finish line! Grab this update here. [3] You're well-acquainted with it already, but I still wanted to note that Chrono Trigger Soundtrack Expansion v3.2 finally has the correct accoutrement on the Modification page as written by PowerPanda; grab it here if you haven't already as it's an amazing piece of work! [4] In case you prefer listening to your own tunes while playing Chrono Trigger, you can grab the No Music Patch by Readmit and Pseudoarc. [5] Last but not least (and long overdue), Reld's fork of Temporal Flux, 3.04 R1, has been made the recommended download on the Modification section for TF as well. Again, if you haven't already, swipe it here.
[PLUGINS and GUIDES] Mauron has updated Warrior Workshop; grab it here. Mauron also made some fixes to Hi-Tech, the tech editor; grab it here. [2] TheMage has written an awesome field map tile editing guide; check it out here. [3] Mauron has made a available a spreadsheet indexing overworld graphic packets across the NA, JP, and Prerelease versions of the game; find it here.
[OCREMIX] [ 'A Battle across Time' by jnWake, Gamer of the Winds, Ivan Hakštok, Lucas Guimaraes ][ Treasure Beyond Dreams' by AzureKevin ][ 'Tyrano's Stash' by Lucas Guimaraes, Brandon Harnish, Cory Johnson, ImAFutureGuitarHero, ThisIsJayC ][DWELLING OF DUELS][ 'Donkey! Bobonga!' by cacomistle, The Beauty of Grind ][ 'Yet Another Time's Scar Cover' by Cyril the Wolf ][ 'Goodnight, Dear Friends' by valence ][ 'Eh?!' by Triple B Music ][ 'Longing of the Wind' by Nemo, Michelle Dreyband ][ 'Tyrano's Stash' by Lucas Guimaraes, Cory Johnson, ImAFutureGuitarHero, Brandon Harnish, ThisIsJay ][ 'Chicken Sauce' by bjkmenu ][ 'Finding the Frozen Flame' by Ivan Hakštok ][ 'A Battle across Time' by jnWake, Ivan Hakštok, Lucas Guimaraes, GameroftheWinds ][ 'Chronossienne' by EndlessRepeat ][ 'Corridors of Time - Enhasa Theme' by Ian Martyn, TriacFox ][ '書っかでも着けどこ' by Ian Martyn ][ 'Gods? There Are None.' by Lucas Guimaraes ][ 'The Black Wind Howls at the Showdown with Magus' by The Rocket Knights, Travis Snowberger ][ 'The Revolution Will Be Dooted' by donut, lobby ] [COMPENDIUM] [ Arni Village Trigger Style by Maguzar ][ Radical Dreamers English Version 2.0 by Maguzar ][RESTORATIONS] [ Corridors of Time by Jammin' Sam Miller ]
[FAN ART & FICTION] [ Lucca and Robo by Ema ][ Zeal Ascendancy by KSera ][ Asocksual: Ayla - Frog - Frog 2 ]
Welcome to the 2023 update! We've got a bitter pill to lead this one off, as we've got a new article by me soapboxing about the problems with Chrono Cross's story. This effort was motivated by one last round of Q&A with Masato Kato on Square's Twitter (see links below the jump). If you want to check out the article immediately, hit this mysterious thumbnail!
[INTERVIEWS] First up is a Chrono Cross remake interview with Hiromichi Sakamoto, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Masato Kato, brought to us by Trig! Check it out here. Though it's mostly about music, Kato confirms that he wrote Radical Dreamers completely as an original story, before declaring that it linked to Chrono Trigger at the end of the process. Which...sigh... [2] The much-maligned Kato/Mitsuda Q&A by Square on Twitter had one final update, which further evidenced that Cross's creative team truly did not plan the plot in detail. Brand new problems from this interview include: 1) Kid apparently remembers Serge saving her at the orphanage when they first meet in 1020 A.D., which...of course, hasn't happened yet! 2) The question of how the Masamune came to be corrupted was once again totally dodged; I'm ready to assume there's simply no story for this. 3) It's confirmed that Serge loses his memories of Chrono Cross after it's done, and that Kid is searching for him across timelines, which...he's right there in Arni, in 1020 A.D.! Go look him up!! 4) The Kingdom of Guardia receiving Schala's pendant, despite her being sucked into the DBT from the Ocean Palace, is explained by speculating that Serge, Kid, and other Cross party members visited Zenan early in Marle's life to give her the pendant. Predestination paradoxes galore.
[HACKS] wakkoswami has released a revision of the original KWhazit translation, building on the prior work by DoctorL and LethargicOwl; check it out here! Thanks to everyone who spent time getting this up to speed as the definitive SNES retranslation. [2] The Turkish Chrono Trigger translation project has released another incremental update; they are now on version 0.8. Let's cheer as they get closer to the finish line! Grab this update here. [3] You're well-acquainted with it already, but I still wanted to note that Chrono Trigger Soundtrack Expansion v3.2 finally has the correct accoutrement on the Modification page as written by PowerPanda; grab it here if you haven't already as it's an amazing piece of work! [4] In case you prefer listening to your own tunes while playing Chrono Trigger, you can grab the No Music Patch by Readmit and Pseudoarc. [5] Last but not least (and long overdue), Reld's fork of Temporal Flux, 3.04 R1, has been made the recommended download on the Modification section for TF as well. Again, if you haven't already, swipe it here.
[PLUGINS and GUIDES] Mauron has updated Warrior Workshop; grab it here. Mauron also made some fixes to Hi-Tech, the tech editor; grab it here. [2] TheMage has written an awesome field map tile editing guide; check it out here. [3] Mauron has made a available a spreadsheet indexing overworld graphic packets across the NA, JP, and Prerelease versions of the game; find it here.
[OCREMIX] [ 'A Battle across Time' by jnWake, Gamer of the Winds, Ivan Hakštok, Lucas Guimaraes ][ Treasure Beyond Dreams' by AzureKevin ][ 'Tyrano's Stash' by Lucas Guimaraes, Brandon Harnish, Cory Johnson, ImAFutureGuitarHero, ThisIsJayC ][DWELLING OF DUELS][ 'Donkey! Bobonga!' by cacomistle, The Beauty of Grind ][ 'Yet Another Time's Scar Cover' by Cyril the Wolf ][ 'Goodnight, Dear Friends' by valence ][ 'Eh?!' by Triple B Music ][ 'Longing of the Wind' by Nemo, Michelle Dreyband ][ 'Tyrano's Stash' by Lucas Guimaraes, Cory Johnson, ImAFutureGuitarHero, Brandon Harnish, ThisIsJay ][ 'Chicken Sauce' by bjkmenu ][ 'Finding the Frozen Flame' by Ivan Hakštok ][ 'A Battle across Time' by jnWake, Ivan Hakštok, Lucas Guimaraes, GameroftheWinds ][ 'Chronossienne' by EndlessRepeat ][ 'Corridors of Time - Enhasa Theme' by Ian Martyn, TriacFox ][ '書っかでも着けどこ' by Ian Martyn ][ 'Gods? There Are None.' by Lucas Guimaraes ][ 'The Black Wind Howls at the Showdown with Magus' by The Rocket Knights, Travis Snowberger ][ 'The Revolution Will Be Dooted' by donut, lobby ] [COMPENDIUM] [ Arni Village Trigger Style by Maguzar ][ Radical Dreamers English Version 2.0 by Maguzar ][RESTORATIONS] [ Corridors of Time by Jammin' Sam Miller ]
[FAN ART & FICTION] [ Lucca and Robo by Ema ][ Zeal Ascendancy by KSera ][ Asocksual: Ayla - Frog - Frog 2 ]
3
Chrono News / Chrono Break (99%) confirmed to have been used for Final Fantasy Dimensions II
« on: December 10, 2023, 02:24:44 am »
Last year, I found a recently-abandoned Japanese Chrono site that archived links to Chrono series interviews. They had a link to this Another Eden interview with a note that Masato Kato discussed Chrono Break as part of it. Today, I was able to use OpenAI's Whisper tool to transcribe the Japanese, and sure enough, he talks about the game! By feeding the transcription into DeepL, it appears that:
We'd already found an interview from Takashi Tokita where he mentioned, as machine-translated, that certain story details were reused this way for FFD2. But this interview sounds much more definitive, and DeepL is suggesting that the main story idea itself became the basis for the game. We've tried put together a summary of FFD2's story at this thread, but there's just hardly information available in English. You can already draw parallels between Lavos and FFD2's "flare"-type weapon raining fire from the heavens.
What we really need now is someone who understands spoken Japanese to translate this interview snippet! We'll be in our eternal debt. Anyone who's also familiar with FFD2's plot is encouraged to add details and reply to that thread as well. If you know someone who might be able to translate, I've excerpted the relevant part of the interview here: Masato Kato Discusses Chrono Break. Pass that link on!
- He started brainstorming ideas for a new Chrono game shortly after Cross's release around 2000, with the idea that it would be a PS2-era game.
- It really is intended to be titled "Break", not "Brake", as he was imagining a story about time literally breaking somehow (DeepL says, "And the title was something like, 'That's when it all goes to shit.'")
- Preproduction was in session around 2000/2001 (including the registration of the trademark).
- Final Fantasy Dimensions II ended up recycling the main scenario of the story!
We'd already found an interview from Takashi Tokita where he mentioned, as machine-translated, that certain story details were reused this way for FFD2. But this interview sounds much more definitive, and DeepL is suggesting that the main story idea itself became the basis for the game. We've tried put together a summary of FFD2's story at this thread, but there's just hardly information available in English. You can already draw parallels between Lavos and FFD2's "flare"-type weapon raining fire from the heavens.
What we really need now is someone who understands spoken Japanese to translate this interview snippet! We'll be in our eternal debt. Anyone who's also familiar with FFD2's plot is encouraged to add details and reply to that thread as well. If you know someone who might be able to translate, I've excerpted the relevant part of the interview here: Masato Kato Discusses Chrono Break. Pass that link on!
4
Site Updates / Massive Interview Update via DeepL
« on: November 24, 2022, 08:45:35 pm »
We have just completed using DeepL (where possible) to translate certain interviews. Please note, this doesn't include the majority of Chrono Trigger's Prerelease coverage, or V-Jump coverage (including its Dream Team Player's Guide interview), as DeepL has a hard time with vertical Japanese text. Check out Supporting Material Translation for what's been completed. A summary of juicy tidbits is below. If you've recently played Chrono Trigger DS, by the way, help us out with this question. Now, on to the findings...
[CT MYSTERY INTERVIEW] The exterior of Magus's Lair and the Blackbird, as well as the Courtroom in Guardia Castle were all added after the expansion from 24 Mb to 32 Mb, as this enabled much more art and detail to be added to the game. Hironobu Sakaguchi possibly originated the sapling plot with Fiona's Forest. [KEIZO KOKUBO 2008] He explained that the Dream Team used an intricate debugger when testing Chrono Trigger's events (part of the Active Time Event Language), which, when a softlock occurred, would pinpoint which event was the last executed, and how many actors were waiting on further input. [TORISHIMA 2016] Where to begin? Torishima claims he arranged for Enix to lend Yuji Horii to Squaresoft for developing Chrono Trigger, and that he co-pioneered the basic concept of the game with Hironobu Sakaguchi as a fusion between Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. He also states that the first revision of the game did not see much involvement from Sakaguchi, who'd delegated it to staff; Sakaguchi later scrapped this revision and restarted development from scratch via his personal involvement after fearing Toriyama would be displeased. This story is extremely unlikely and farfetched, of course. [MITSUDA XENOBLADE] Mitsuda had a job doing sound effects for plays; his mentor worked for Enix. While flipping through a video game magazine, Mitsuda saw an ad for help wanted at Squaresoft, and his mentor encouraged him to apply.
[2015 SHUESHIA] Square ran a "Chrono Trigger Training Camp" in an opulent hotel in Roppongi Hills, allegedly to impress Yuji Horii. During the camp, Sakaguchi and Horii determined that an interplanetary parasite, Lavos, would be the final boss. [2016 SAKAGUCHI] FF6's development team was folded into Chrono Trigger's team after FF6's release, which caused rifts and disagreements between the groups. Sakaguchi's solution was to make the teams have an hour lunch together every day to build camaraderie. [CT DEV TWEETS] The floating glass platform screenshot from 1994 was planned for a location in antiquity, but was scrapped as they just could not get it to work correctly. ~~ Toriyama drew Marle casting fire magic because someone forgot to tell him that her powers are water/ice-based. ~~ Takashi Tokita took a personal interest in writing the resolution of Frog and Magus's enmity. ~~ "Grand Dream" was rejected as the name of the game due to copyright fears over a separate company whose names translates to Landream in Japan. ~~ In the earliest drafts of the story, the heroes are children from 1999 A.D. who disperse into different eras during the apocalypse, where they grow older and train to eventually defeat Lavos. It was planned to require the team to defeat Lavos simultaneously in all time periods. [MITSUDA 2083] While working on the music for Zeal, Mitsuda got into a massive argument with Kato in Kato's cubicle over the setup of a scene featuring Schala, which concluded with Mitsuda wadding up a piece of paper and throwing it at Kato. Kato claims he doesn't remember this encounter at all.
[1999 MITSUDA] Mitsuda apparently tried to warn Masato Kato that he should save the Radical Dreamers ROM somehow, to preserve it for posterity after Satellaview stopped broadcasting. The team discussed adding it as a bonus to Chrono Cross, but did not for whatever reason. [2010 MIWA IKUTA] Miwa Ikuta wrote the Mirror of Whispers in Radical Dreamers, and mentioned that at least one magazine reviewer felt the mirror's story was beautifully sad. [MITSUDA CC 20TH] Lots of details about Scars of Time, including a chart of the song's progression. [MITSUDA 2015 TO FAR AWAY TIMES] For the arrange album, Mitsuda initially wanted to write a conclusion for Kid's story, which was left hanging at the end of Chrono Cross via the scenes showing her searching for Serge through time. (He's literally...RIGHT THERE, IN ARNI, IN 1020 A.D....AUGH). Unfortunately, the final lyrics shed virtually no light on either Kid or Serge's fate, except that they get together (which we already knew). [MITSUDA AND KATO BRINK OF TIME] Kato was crushed by the negative feedback to Chrono Cross; particularly, he did not understand the backlash against featuring so many characters, especially from fans who complained that multiple playthroughs were required to recruit them all. It soured him on being a video game designer for some time. Secondly, Mitsuda revealed that he had a lot of arguments with Kalta Ohtsuki and the other jazz musicians while recording the Chrono Trigger Brink of Time Jazz arrange album.
[CCDEMO SCRIPT] NeoFio's prototype name was 改良ラブルー. The Quadffid dialogue portrait is a placeholder for Neo-Fio, and the Nu/Beach Bum portrait is a placeholder for Pip. [MISSING PIECE] Missing Piece states that the Acacia Dragoons were allied with Porre and presumably played a role in the Fall of Guardia. The "first time around" (before the Time Crash occurs, but after ''Chrono Trigger''), the Acacia Dragoons presumably would've stayed on the Zenan mainland (as they did in the continuity of Radical Dreamers), and still would have been fighting for Porre. Shifting gears, Tanaka and Kato revealed that for half of Chrono Cross's development, the default party was always Serge, Leena, and Mojo. Hiromichi Tanaka intervened to stop Mojo from being recruited so early, fearing that players would think the game is too quirky. Kato later commented that his preferred party is Serge, Mojo, and Starky.
[CROSS DEV TWEETS] Not all of the character designs were done by Nobuteru Yuuki; Kato designed some characters, like Starky. [2011 YOSHIYUKI MIYAGAWA] He recounted that the deadline for Chrono Cross's development was too short, requiring Final Fantasy 8's team to be brought in two months before the Japanese release date to hurriedly finish the game. While proud of the game's art style, he did worry that it would be compared to doujinshi (fan-made works). Chrono Cross's programming became the basis for Final Fantasy 11's engine. [CC ULTIMANIA PLOT] You don't want to know. Apparently, any Arbiter can possibly merge with Lavos to become the Time Devourer; the Arbiter is supposed to heal conflict between lifeforms. How does this work with Lavos?! He's always going to destroy the planet and harvest humans' DNA after straight-up murdering them. What is there to mediate?! Ultimania also states that Home World's future reflects a future in which Serge merges with the Time Devourer, which makes zero sense (it hasn't happened yet, for one; for two, the Time Devourer threatens all time, not just Home World, and not just post-1999 A.D.). Sigh. I am done carrying water for Chrono Cross.
[CT MYSTERY INTERVIEW] The exterior of Magus's Lair and the Blackbird, as well as the Courtroom in Guardia Castle were all added after the expansion from 24 Mb to 32 Mb, as this enabled much more art and detail to be added to the game. Hironobu Sakaguchi possibly originated the sapling plot with Fiona's Forest. [KEIZO KOKUBO 2008] He explained that the Dream Team used an intricate debugger when testing Chrono Trigger's events (part of the Active Time Event Language), which, when a softlock occurred, would pinpoint which event was the last executed, and how many actors were waiting on further input. [TORISHIMA 2016] Where to begin? Torishima claims he arranged for Enix to lend Yuji Horii to Squaresoft for developing Chrono Trigger, and that he co-pioneered the basic concept of the game with Hironobu Sakaguchi as a fusion between Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. He also states that the first revision of the game did not see much involvement from Sakaguchi, who'd delegated it to staff; Sakaguchi later scrapped this revision and restarted development from scratch via his personal involvement after fearing Toriyama would be displeased. This story is extremely unlikely and farfetched, of course. [MITSUDA XENOBLADE] Mitsuda had a job doing sound effects for plays; his mentor worked for Enix. While flipping through a video game magazine, Mitsuda saw an ad for help wanted at Squaresoft, and his mentor encouraged him to apply.
[2015 SHUESHIA] Square ran a "Chrono Trigger Training Camp" in an opulent hotel in Roppongi Hills, allegedly to impress Yuji Horii. During the camp, Sakaguchi and Horii determined that an interplanetary parasite, Lavos, would be the final boss. [2016 SAKAGUCHI] FF6's development team was folded into Chrono Trigger's team after FF6's release, which caused rifts and disagreements between the groups. Sakaguchi's solution was to make the teams have an hour lunch together every day to build camaraderie. [CT DEV TWEETS] The floating glass platform screenshot from 1994 was planned for a location in antiquity, but was scrapped as they just could not get it to work correctly. ~~ Toriyama drew Marle casting fire magic because someone forgot to tell him that her powers are water/ice-based. ~~ Takashi Tokita took a personal interest in writing the resolution of Frog and Magus's enmity. ~~ "Grand Dream" was rejected as the name of the game due to copyright fears over a separate company whose names translates to Landream in Japan. ~~ In the earliest drafts of the story, the heroes are children from 1999 A.D. who disperse into different eras during the apocalypse, where they grow older and train to eventually defeat Lavos. It was planned to require the team to defeat Lavos simultaneously in all time periods. [MITSUDA 2083] While working on the music for Zeal, Mitsuda got into a massive argument with Kato in Kato's cubicle over the setup of a scene featuring Schala, which concluded with Mitsuda wadding up a piece of paper and throwing it at Kato. Kato claims he doesn't remember this encounter at all.
[1999 MITSUDA] Mitsuda apparently tried to warn Masato Kato that he should save the Radical Dreamers ROM somehow, to preserve it for posterity after Satellaview stopped broadcasting. The team discussed adding it as a bonus to Chrono Cross, but did not for whatever reason. [2010 MIWA IKUTA] Miwa Ikuta wrote the Mirror of Whispers in Radical Dreamers, and mentioned that at least one magazine reviewer felt the mirror's story was beautifully sad. [MITSUDA CC 20TH] Lots of details about Scars of Time, including a chart of the song's progression. [MITSUDA 2015 TO FAR AWAY TIMES] For the arrange album, Mitsuda initially wanted to write a conclusion for Kid's story, which was left hanging at the end of Chrono Cross via the scenes showing her searching for Serge through time. (He's literally...RIGHT THERE, IN ARNI, IN 1020 A.D....AUGH). Unfortunately, the final lyrics shed virtually no light on either Kid or Serge's fate, except that they get together (which we already knew). [MITSUDA AND KATO BRINK OF TIME] Kato was crushed by the negative feedback to Chrono Cross; particularly, he did not understand the backlash against featuring so many characters, especially from fans who complained that multiple playthroughs were required to recruit them all. It soured him on being a video game designer for some time. Secondly, Mitsuda revealed that he had a lot of arguments with Kalta Ohtsuki and the other jazz musicians while recording the Chrono Trigger Brink of Time Jazz arrange album.
[CCDEMO SCRIPT] NeoFio's prototype name was 改良ラブルー. The Quadffid dialogue portrait is a placeholder for Neo-Fio, and the Nu/Beach Bum portrait is a placeholder for Pip. [MISSING PIECE] Missing Piece states that the Acacia Dragoons were allied with Porre and presumably played a role in the Fall of Guardia. The "first time around" (before the Time Crash occurs, but after ''Chrono Trigger''), the Acacia Dragoons presumably would've stayed on the Zenan mainland (as they did in the continuity of Radical Dreamers), and still would have been fighting for Porre. Shifting gears, Tanaka and Kato revealed that for half of Chrono Cross's development, the default party was always Serge, Leena, and Mojo. Hiromichi Tanaka intervened to stop Mojo from being recruited so early, fearing that players would think the game is too quirky. Kato later commented that his preferred party is Serge, Mojo, and Starky.
[CROSS DEV TWEETS] Not all of the character designs were done by Nobuteru Yuuki; Kato designed some characters, like Starky. [2011 YOSHIYUKI MIYAGAWA] He recounted that the deadline for Chrono Cross's development was too short, requiring Final Fantasy 8's team to be brought in two months before the Japanese release date to hurriedly finish the game. While proud of the game's art style, he did worry that it would be compared to doujinshi (fan-made works). Chrono Cross's programming became the basis for Final Fantasy 11's engine. [CC ULTIMANIA PLOT] You don't want to know. Apparently, any Arbiter can possibly merge with Lavos to become the Time Devourer; the Arbiter is supposed to heal conflict between lifeforms. How does this work with Lavos?! He's always going to destroy the planet and harvest humans' DNA after straight-up murdering them. What is there to mediate?! Ultimania also states that Home World's future reflects a future in which Serge merges with the Time Devourer, which makes zero sense (it hasn't happened yet, for one; for two, the Time Devourer threatens all time, not just Home World, and not just post-1999 A.D.). Sigh. I am done carrying water for Chrono Cross.
5
Chrono Trigger DS Analysis / Question on a Magus line
« on: November 24, 2022, 12:28:58 am »
Does this appear in-game? I'm steadily going through CT Ultimania to see if they expand on any of the new areas, but so far, there's been no new info (not even on the "Space-Time Institute"). However, this appears in the Dream Devourer section.
魔王
さらなる脅威が眠る世界
太古にこの星に降り立ち、 未来に破滅の運命をもたら すラヴォスを、時空を超えて打ち倒し、 星がたどるはず の歴史を変える一我らがやろうとしているのは、つま りは選択の数だけ存在する可能性のひとつをつかみ取る 行為にすぎん。
ならば、 我らに選ばれなかった別の歴史は消え失せて しまうのか? そうではあるまい。 数かぎりなくわかれて いく無数の“可能性”の世界は、この世界とは次元のずれ た時空に重なり合って存在しつづけるだろう。 そこはラ ヴォスを止められなかった世界・・・・・・あるいは、 もっとや っかいな魔物に踏みにじられた世界もあるやもしれぬ。
そのいずれでも、 私は戦い、 あらがっているはずだ。 どれだけ過酷な運命のもとでも、かならず・・・・・・!
Magus:
A world where more threats lie in wait.
What we are trying to do is merely to seize one of the many possibilities that exist, as many choices as there are.
So, will the other histories that were not chosen by us vanish? Not at all. The countless worlds of "possibilities" will continue to exist, overlapping in a time-space that is out of dimension with this world. There may be a world where Lavos could not be stopped ・・・・・・, or a world where he was trampled by a more dangerous monster.
In each of these worlds, I will fight and rise above. No matter how harsh the fate, I will always be there ・・・・・・!
魔王
さらなる脅威が眠る世界
太古にこの星に降り立ち、 未来に破滅の運命をもたら すラヴォスを、時空を超えて打ち倒し、 星がたどるはず の歴史を変える一我らがやろうとしているのは、つま りは選択の数だけ存在する可能性のひとつをつかみ取る 行為にすぎん。
ならば、 我らに選ばれなかった別の歴史は消え失せて しまうのか? そうではあるまい。 数かぎりなくわかれて いく無数の“可能性”の世界は、この世界とは次元のずれ た時空に重なり合って存在しつづけるだろう。 そこはラ ヴォスを止められなかった世界・・・・・・あるいは、 もっとや っかいな魔物に踏みにじられた世界もあるやもしれぬ。
そのいずれでも、 私は戦い、 あらがっているはずだ。 どれだけ過酷な運命のもとでも、かならず・・・・・・!
Magus:
A world where more threats lie in wait.
What we are trying to do is merely to seize one of the many possibilities that exist, as many choices as there are.
So, will the other histories that were not chosen by us vanish? Not at all. The countless worlds of "possibilities" will continue to exist, overlapping in a time-space that is out of dimension with this world. There may be a world where Lavos could not be stopped ・・・・・・, or a world where he was trampled by a more dangerous monster.
In each of these worlds, I will fight and rise above. No matter how harsh the fate, I will always be there ・・・・・・!
6
Site Updates / 2022 Update! Radical Dreamers Edition, Interviews, Remixes, and ROM Hacking!
« on: November 22, 2022, 11:43:15 pm »
It's November! The buzz around the Radical Dreamers Edition may be slowly dying down, but we've got a massive update covering all three games and more. This update will be followed by the great DeepL renaissance (covering interviews), and afterwards, an update for the albums and doujins section of the encyclopedia. The dream of Zeal is alive!
[TRIGGER] Reld has produced some insanely detailed scans of Chrono Trigger art, now happily on our Official Art page. Seriously, this is the best resolution we've ever had these in; find them in the V-Jump section. [PRERELEASE] Reld has also scanned a ton of new magazine coverage and has also made several new comparisons of different areas during CT's development. Head to this post to catch up on everything! [GENDAI PLUS] Vehek found an episode of Gendai Plus with a section showing some work on Chrono Trigger, including the tile editor for the exterior of Magus's lair, as well as possible proposed titles for the game. Find it here; we need someone who understands spoken Japanese to translate, if you're feeling charitable!
And now, some other odds and ends from the new material... [SECRET HD SCENE] There is a secret credits scene if one beats Chrono Cross and Radical Dreamers; see the transcription here (thanks to AcaciaSgt). It appears to confirm that Guile is Magus with his memories erased, although it's, as expected, written so vague as to almost be useless. It's a shame that this is all Square could muster to close out some of the canon's questions. [AE and FFBE TRAILERS] All have been mirrored on the Compendium here. [AE, FFBE, AND RD ART] Art from Square's Twitter and Another Eden's other press releases has been added to the Chrono Cross (Official Art) page. Sprite art from Final Fantasy Brave Exbius has been added as well (thanks to AcaciaSgt). [MUSIC VIDEOS] The music videos for the Radical Dreamers Edition of Chrono Cross can be downloaded here.
Interviews abound! [KATO Q&A] Kato, Mitsuda, and Yuuki did a Q&A for a while on Twitter. Vehek graciously saved all the responses, translated with DeepL and viewable here. Unfortunately, the majority of the answers are deeply unsatisfying, with a handful outright contradicting prior canon. Join the sad discussion here. The encyclopedia has been updated here and there accordingly. [DEV COMMENTS] Masato Kato, Yasunori Mitsuda, Hiromichi Tanaka, and Nobuteru Yuuki all left comments on release day, explaining the light polishing work they did on the remaster. Check them out here. [AE INTERVIEW] Kato did another interview for Famitsu before Complex Dream debuted; find it here. The only interesting detail is that at one point, Serge was going to be able to recruit Mojo and Poshul both before meeting Leena, before Hiromichi Tanaka intervened. [SAKAMOTO] Producer Koichiro Sakamoto was also interviews, describing some of the technical challenges of the remaster; find it here.
[RADICAL DREAMERS] RainOnMars has ripped and given us the full script to the official translation of Radical Dreamers, in all languages presented! This is an incredible contribution. Download it here! [ANALYSIS] A read-through of the script revealed two gems missed in the original fan translation. First, Lynx wants Lucca's Time Egg to correct certain mistakes in the past (by combining its power with the Frozen Flame); this tidbit about his motivation was previously omitted. Second, it's clarified that Kid was asked by Lucca to bury the Frozen Flame in Marle's grave, not in Crono's grave. It's also explained that Lucca's "mates" were married, but died shortly after, which apparently confirms that Crono/Marle both survived Chrono Trigger, but died in the Fall of Guardia (whereas we previously thought that Radical Dreamers came from a timeline where Crono wasn't revived). This also confirms that Kid's Time Egg is not THE Chrono Trigger, which would've been previously used to revive Crono; rather, it's likely an incomplete Time Egg made by Lucca, analogous with her ability to create them in Chrono Cross. Lastly, the script does indeed clarify that the Frozen Flame (called "the stone" in Kid's recollection) is what took pity on her, didn't want her to die, and de-aged her and sent her to the modern age as a baby to be found by Lucca. Why does Lavos/the Frozen Flame suddenly show pity on her? Who fucking knows?! Alas, woe that these plot revelations have only spurred more questions!
[CHRONO CROSS] AcaciaSgt compiled all the character bios released by Square leading up to the HD remaster; find them here. They'll also be added to the encyclopedia. Some revelations are that Glenn was indeed named after Frog; General Viper earned his title while fighting in wars on the continent; Turnip is the continued life of a soldier who perished in the Dead Sea in Home World; Leah indeed is from 65,000,000 B.C.; and more. Many thanks for compiling. [WEAPONS] Beach Bum wrote a guide on the arduous process of getting a sorted weapons list in Chrono Cross's inventory; check it out here. We've also added it to the encyclopedia under Features. [ENDING ENIGMA] Morao has posted some ideas about how the bogus Kid rumors started for the Chrono Cross programmer's ending; check out the list here. [STARKY] Reliable as ever, AcaciaSgt has delivered the goods on what Starky's mini-quest reveals in Another Eden (written by Masato Kato). Apparently, Starky's home planet was destroyed by a member of Lavos's species, causing his race to depart across the galaxy to find another planet to terraform. The party must defeat his manager's terraforming equipment, as well as a transformed version of his manager who uses Lavos energy (as channeled through the still-corrupted Masa and Mune) to grow in size and power. Sadly, the last update came out a few months ago, so we're unsure if more Chrono Cross characters are on the way. [S.O.T.] PowerPanda has begun a retelling of Chrono Cross to address its flaws (such as having too many characters, and losing the plot as the game goes on). Check it out here; it's already generating some buzz!
[CT+] Chrono Trigger + has been updated to version 2.5.2; grab it here! [BATTLE THEME] PowerPanda has innovated a way via ASM to control (based on your story progress) which default battle theme plays in Chrono Trigger. Check out the tutorial here. [TURKISH CT] The Hot Coffee Turkish translation of Chrono Trigger has updated to version 0.7; find it here. [CT DS] G-bit has released a small patch for Chrono Trigger DS that changes "Fiends" back to "Mystics", with some other minor graphical tweaks included; grab it here. [TUTORIAL] TheMage completed a tutorial on decompressing tilesets; find it here.
[CROSS FONT] Dabitto has found a way to restore the old-style Chrono Cross fonts in the Radical Dreamers edition; check here. [CROSS 60FPS] Marcelo20XX tried overclocking ePSXe's Cross emulation to 240% to get 60fps gameplay, but this causes softlocks due to the 09 opcode in the fieldscript. Head to this thread if you have any ideas for workarounds. I suspect, based on a certain mod at the Chrono Cross Nexus, that he's found a solution since then. [ENCYC] Other encyclopedia updates for new notes: [ Offset 2535 ]
[MUSIC SAMPLES] A better sample list for game music has been launched at this link, now featuring Chrono Cross! We've saved a backup to the Compendium and are hosting the link on the Music page in the encyclopedia. [ORANGEC] OrangeC has completed more Chrono Trigger restorations via finding the original samples used in the game! [ Secret of the Forest ][ Boss Battle 2 ][ Battle with Magus ][ Schala's Theme ][ Epoch ~ Wings that Cross Time ][ Remains of the Factory ]
OCREMIX [ Joyful Forest by RebeccaETripp et. al. ][ Neons of Time by Neon X ][ Presdestination by ABG ][ Protector in Green by MkVaff ][ The Secret was Clarinet by Multiplayer Big Band ][ Vision of Hades by RebeccaETripp ] DWELLING OF DUELS [ Burned to the Death by Development of Avoid ][ Johnny B. Fool' by Unknown Pseudoartist ][ Battle with Magus by BadHairlineProductions ][ Ayla, Queen of the Prehistoric Age by Sly ][ Is Loscann É by Na Daoine Laghairt, et. al. ][ Final Confrontation by Ian Martyn ]
DOD Mitsuda Month [ Run to Forever by Ivan Hakštok ][ Chrono Trigger Warning by BadHairLine Productions, et. al. ][ A Synonym for Death by minusworld, p4p3r ][ Khrono Kong by Biggoron, Newmajoe ][ A Vow of Wind and Dreams by Triple B Music et. al. ][ Corrido of Time by Hat, Surbhu Samdani ][ Go! Go! Shin Gato Robo by Jett Swole ][ Policing my Dreams by Shea's Violin, Baron ][ Deep Blue by Maldivir Dragonwitch ][ Scars of Time (Broken Memories Will Mend)' by Mule Parking, et. al. ][ Big Black Omen by CRGuitar ][ u]Corridors of Time - This Really Isn't a Paradise[/u] by Ian Martyn ][ Before, In Those Peaceful Days by valence ][ Cafe of Time by Luna Rabbit ][ u]Whispers of the Wind[/u] by Cyril the Wolf ][ Beyond, a Far Green Country by Newmasonic, evilsonic, Newmajoe ][ Arc Impulse by Unknown Pseudoartist, et. al. ][ Radical Dreamer by celtzcaneddie ][ Wind Scene by Izzy ][ Undersea Palace (This Goth Club Endeavor)' by ButcherShoppe ][ No Bone Roomies ][ Can't Help Feeling at Peace by cacomistle ][ Wait for Slurp by Biggoron ][ Requiem - Dream Shore by celtzcaneddie ][ Epilogue - To Good Friends by Ian Martyn ][ A Synonym for Death (Instrumental) by minusworld, p4p3r ][ Er...Hu Is Schala by Shea's Violin ][ You knew It Was Coming by Unknown Pseudoartist, Newmajoe ][ Frogificator by Unknown Pseudoartist, et. al. ][ Lavos Delaverno (Big Fire of Hell) by Unknown Pseudoartist ][ KazooNo Trigger by zeonicfreak ]
FAN ART [ Chrono Cross Wallpaper (Updated) by Beach Bum ][ No Komodo Is Safe by Tirion ][ Chrono Trigger Poster by DanjisDesign ]
Last but not least, we are indebted to many contributors for combing the entire Internet and finding all the material that we've gathered here. We have new Gurus! We would like to extend our thanks to Reld (Life) for finding and scanning prerelease coverage with incredible quality, plus making comparison images illuminating the development of Chrono Trigger; to PowerPanda (Time) for blowing open Chrono Trigger music hacking (including the recent developments of ASM hacking different battle themes by map or era); to Zakyrus (Time) for the numerous Temporal Flux videos; and lastly, to AcaciaSgt (Reason), for steadfastly keeping track of the tons of random content that flooded the world with the Radical Dreamers Edition. We also have to thank Vehek for gathering the Q&A transcriptions, along with several others (glennxserge, inuksuk, IHBP, Mauron, grobycftw, TheMage, Sailor Phantom, itoikenza, Beach Bum, MrBekkler, tirion, trig and the old usual suspects I'm recalling as I type this) for keeping things alive. The RDE brought a lot of old faces back temporarily, including Radical_Dreamer!
[TRIGGER] Reld has produced some insanely detailed scans of Chrono Trigger art, now happily on our Official Art page. Seriously, this is the best resolution we've ever had these in; find them in the V-Jump section. [PRERELEASE] Reld has also scanned a ton of new magazine coverage and has also made several new comparisons of different areas during CT's development. Head to this post to catch up on everything! [GENDAI PLUS] Vehek found an episode of Gendai Plus with a section showing some work on Chrono Trigger, including the tile editor for the exterior of Magus's lair, as well as possible proposed titles for the game. Find it here; we need someone who understands spoken Japanese to translate, if you're feeling charitable!
And now, some other odds and ends from the new material... [SECRET HD SCENE] There is a secret credits scene if one beats Chrono Cross and Radical Dreamers; see the transcription here (thanks to AcaciaSgt). It appears to confirm that Guile is Magus with his memories erased, although it's, as expected, written so vague as to almost be useless. It's a shame that this is all Square could muster to close out some of the canon's questions. [AE and FFBE TRAILERS] All have been mirrored on the Compendium here. [AE, FFBE, AND RD ART] Art from Square's Twitter and Another Eden's other press releases has been added to the Chrono Cross (Official Art) page. Sprite art from Final Fantasy Brave Exbius has been added as well (thanks to AcaciaSgt). [MUSIC VIDEOS] The music videos for the Radical Dreamers Edition of Chrono Cross can be downloaded here.
Interviews abound! [KATO Q&A] Kato, Mitsuda, and Yuuki did a Q&A for a while on Twitter. Vehek graciously saved all the responses, translated with DeepL and viewable here. Unfortunately, the majority of the answers are deeply unsatisfying, with a handful outright contradicting prior canon. Join the sad discussion here. The encyclopedia has been updated here and there accordingly. [DEV COMMENTS] Masato Kato, Yasunori Mitsuda, Hiromichi Tanaka, and Nobuteru Yuuki all left comments on release day, explaining the light polishing work they did on the remaster. Check them out here. [AE INTERVIEW] Kato did another interview for Famitsu before Complex Dream debuted; find it here. The only interesting detail is that at one point, Serge was going to be able to recruit Mojo and Poshul both before meeting Leena, before Hiromichi Tanaka intervened. [SAKAMOTO] Producer Koichiro Sakamoto was also interviews, describing some of the technical challenges of the remaster; find it here.
[RADICAL DREAMERS] RainOnMars has ripped and given us the full script to the official translation of Radical Dreamers, in all languages presented! This is an incredible contribution. Download it here! [ANALYSIS] A read-through of the script revealed two gems missed in the original fan translation. First, Lynx wants Lucca's Time Egg to correct certain mistakes in the past (by combining its power with the Frozen Flame); this tidbit about his motivation was previously omitted. Second, it's clarified that Kid was asked by Lucca to bury the Frozen Flame in Marle's grave, not in Crono's grave. It's also explained that Lucca's "mates" were married, but died shortly after, which apparently confirms that Crono/Marle both survived Chrono Trigger, but died in the Fall of Guardia (whereas we previously thought that Radical Dreamers came from a timeline where Crono wasn't revived). This also confirms that Kid's Time Egg is not THE Chrono Trigger, which would've been previously used to revive Crono; rather, it's likely an incomplete Time Egg made by Lucca, analogous with her ability to create them in Chrono Cross. Lastly, the script does indeed clarify that the Frozen Flame (called "the stone" in Kid's recollection) is what took pity on her, didn't want her to die, and de-aged her and sent her to the modern age as a baby to be found by Lucca. Why does Lavos/the Frozen Flame suddenly show pity on her? Who fucking knows?! Alas, woe that these plot revelations have only spurred more questions!
[CHRONO CROSS] AcaciaSgt compiled all the character bios released by Square leading up to the HD remaster; find them here. They'll also be added to the encyclopedia. Some revelations are that Glenn was indeed named after Frog; General Viper earned his title while fighting in wars on the continent; Turnip is the continued life of a soldier who perished in the Dead Sea in Home World; Leah indeed is from 65,000,000 B.C.; and more. Many thanks for compiling. [WEAPONS] Beach Bum wrote a guide on the arduous process of getting a sorted weapons list in Chrono Cross's inventory; check it out here. We've also added it to the encyclopedia under Features. [ENDING ENIGMA] Morao has posted some ideas about how the bogus Kid rumors started for the Chrono Cross programmer's ending; check out the list here. [STARKY] Reliable as ever, AcaciaSgt has delivered the goods on what Starky's mini-quest reveals in Another Eden (written by Masato Kato). Apparently, Starky's home planet was destroyed by a member of Lavos's species, causing his race to depart across the galaxy to find another planet to terraform. The party must defeat his manager's terraforming equipment, as well as a transformed version of his manager who uses Lavos energy (as channeled through the still-corrupted Masa and Mune) to grow in size and power. Sadly, the last update came out a few months ago, so we're unsure if more Chrono Cross characters are on the way. [S.O.T.] PowerPanda has begun a retelling of Chrono Cross to address its flaws (such as having too many characters, and losing the plot as the game goes on). Check it out here; it's already generating some buzz!
[CT+] Chrono Trigger + has been updated to version 2.5.2; grab it here! [BATTLE THEME] PowerPanda has innovated a way via ASM to control (based on your story progress) which default battle theme plays in Chrono Trigger. Check out the tutorial here. [TURKISH CT] The Hot Coffee Turkish translation of Chrono Trigger has updated to version 0.7; find it here. [CT DS] G-bit has released a small patch for Chrono Trigger DS that changes "Fiends" back to "Mystics", with some other minor graphical tweaks included; grab it here. [TUTORIAL] TheMage completed a tutorial on decompressing tilesets; find it here.
[CROSS FONT] Dabitto has found a way to restore the old-style Chrono Cross fonts in the Radical Dreamers edition; check here. [CROSS 60FPS] Marcelo20XX tried overclocking ePSXe's Cross emulation to 240% to get 60fps gameplay, but this causes softlocks due to the 09 opcode in the fieldscript. Head to this thread if you have any ideas for workarounds. I suspect, based on a certain mod at the Chrono Cross Nexus, that he's found a solution since then. [ENCYC] Other encyclopedia updates for new notes: [ Offset 2535 ]
[MUSIC SAMPLES] A better sample list for game music has been launched at this link, now featuring Chrono Cross! We've saved a backup to the Compendium and are hosting the link on the Music page in the encyclopedia. [ORANGEC] OrangeC has completed more Chrono Trigger restorations via finding the original samples used in the game! [ Secret of the Forest ][ Boss Battle 2 ][ Battle with Magus ][ Schala's Theme ][ Epoch ~ Wings that Cross Time ][ Remains of the Factory ]
OCREMIX [ Joyful Forest by RebeccaETripp et. al. ][ Neons of Time by Neon X ][ Presdestination by ABG ][ Protector in Green by MkVaff ][ The Secret was Clarinet by Multiplayer Big Band ][ Vision of Hades by RebeccaETripp ] DWELLING OF DUELS [ Burned to the Death by Development of Avoid ][ Johnny B. Fool' by Unknown Pseudoartist ][ Battle with Magus by BadHairlineProductions ][ Ayla, Queen of the Prehistoric Age by Sly ][ Is Loscann É by Na Daoine Laghairt, et. al. ][ Final Confrontation by Ian Martyn ]
DOD Mitsuda Month [ Run to Forever by Ivan Hakštok ][ Chrono Trigger Warning by BadHairLine Productions, et. al. ][ A Synonym for Death by minusworld, p4p3r ][ Khrono Kong by Biggoron, Newmajoe ][ A Vow of Wind and Dreams by Triple B Music et. al. ][ Corrido of Time by Hat, Surbhu Samdani ][ Go! Go! Shin Gato Robo by Jett Swole ][ Policing my Dreams by Shea's Violin, Baron ][ Deep Blue by Maldivir Dragonwitch ][ Scars of Time (Broken Memories Will Mend)' by Mule Parking, et. al. ][ Big Black Omen by CRGuitar ][ u]Corridors of Time - This Really Isn't a Paradise[/u] by Ian Martyn ][ Before, In Those Peaceful Days by valence ][ Cafe of Time by Luna Rabbit ][ u]Whispers of the Wind[/u] by Cyril the Wolf ][ Beyond, a Far Green Country by Newmasonic, evilsonic, Newmajoe ][ Arc Impulse by Unknown Pseudoartist, et. al. ][ Radical Dreamer by celtzcaneddie ][ Wind Scene by Izzy ][ Undersea Palace (This Goth Club Endeavor)' by ButcherShoppe ][ No Bone Roomies ][ Can't Help Feeling at Peace by cacomistle ][ Wait for Slurp by Biggoron ][ Requiem - Dream Shore by celtzcaneddie ][ Epilogue - To Good Friends by Ian Martyn ][ A Synonym for Death (Instrumental) by minusworld, p4p3r ][ Er...Hu Is Schala by Shea's Violin ][ You knew It Was Coming by Unknown Pseudoartist, Newmajoe ][ Frogificator by Unknown Pseudoartist, et. al. ][ Lavos Delaverno (Big Fire of Hell) by Unknown Pseudoartist ][ KazooNo Trigger by zeonicfreak ]
FAN ART [ Chrono Cross Wallpaper (Updated) by Beach Bum ][ No Komodo Is Safe by Tirion ][ Chrono Trigger Poster by DanjisDesign ]
Last but not least, we are indebted to many contributors for combing the entire Internet and finding all the material that we've gathered here. We have new Gurus! We would like to extend our thanks to Reld (Life) for finding and scanning prerelease coverage with incredible quality, plus making comparison images illuminating the development of Chrono Trigger; to PowerPanda (Time) for blowing open Chrono Trigger music hacking (including the recent developments of ASM hacking different battle themes by map or era); to Zakyrus (Time) for the numerous Temporal Flux videos; and lastly, to AcaciaSgt (Reason), for steadfastly keeping track of the tons of random content that flooded the world with the Radical Dreamers Edition. We also have to thank Vehek for gathering the Q&A transcriptions, along with several others (glennxserge, inuksuk, IHBP, Mauron, grobycftw, TheMage, Sailor Phantom, itoikenza, Beach Bum, MrBekkler, tirion, trig and the old usual suspects I'm recalling as I type this) for keeping things alive. The RDE brought a lot of old faces back temporarily, including Radical_Dreamer!
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Chrono News / Chrono Cross Remaster and Radical Dreamers Localization Announced!
« on: February 09, 2022, 10:55:49 pm »
You heard right. The Radical Dreamers localization is new, too, as spotted by our beloved Lucy Romana. Get ready to suddenly have to change the name of every Radical Dreamers character in the encyclopedia, lmao.
Here's a tweet comparing graphics: Link
But we can't leave Chrono Trigger out of this auspicious news. I'm happy to report that eezzzz has acquired another Japanese prerelease magazine! Check it out here! We'll get it on the Compendium soon. And of course, if you can translate, there are literally tons of these scans hiding Chrono Trigger development secrets, just waiting to be rendered into English...
Here's a tweet comparing graphics: Link
But we can't leave Chrono Trigger out of this auspicious news. I'm happy to report that eezzzz has acquired another Japanese prerelease magazine! Check it out here! We'll get it on the Compendium soon. And of course, if you can translate, there are literally tons of these scans hiding Chrono Trigger development secrets, just waiting to be rendered into English...
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Site Updates / 2021 Remix Update and CT Restorations
« on: November 27, 2021, 10:09:48 pm »
[OCREMIX] [ 'The Journey to the Darkest Depths' by Schneider Souza ][ 'Terminal Funk' by Deedubs ][ 'Zeal' by ymK ][ 'Another World' by Moiré Effect,Viking Guitar,Vivian Reeves ][ 'All I Am' by Moiré Effect,Viking Guitar ][ 'Serenity and Grace' by timaeus222 ] [COMPENDIUM] [ 'The Girl Who Stole the Stars (Sega Genesis)' by TheLegendofRenegade ][ 'Frozen Flame (Sega Genesis)' by TheLegendofRenegade ][ 'Secret of the Forest Superloop with Rain Sounds' by Retro Revue ][ 'Longing of the Wind' by Gaspar XR ][ 'Scars of Time' by Gaspar XR ][ 'A Strange Happening' by Gaspar XR ] [OCRWIP] [ 'Corridors of Time' by HarlemHeat360 ][ 'Corridors of Time' by JollyPls ]
[DWELLING OF DUELS] [ 'Fate and the Dreamer' by Ivan Hakstok ][ 'A Shot through Time' by Powellman ][ 'Another World' by Moiré Effect, SuprMelO, BluuMonk, VikingGuitar, Vivian Reeves ][ 'Beat to Relax or Battle to' by FlextoneJunkie ][ 'Metal Domes' by Harjawaldar, Ludvig, Markus ][ 'Lamppost Fantaisie' by Harpsibored ][ 'An Damhsa Laghairt' by Na Daoine Laghairt, Ian Martyn, atomic-guy, evilsonic, Andromeda ][ 'Fields of Time' by BadHairlineProductions ][ 'Schala's Theme' by BadHairlineProductions ][ 'Dancefloors of Time' by Ivan Hakstok, Sixto Sounds ][ 'Gatito's Song' by Unknown Pseudoartist ]
[OrangeC Chrono Trigger Restorations] [ Chrono Trigger ][ Guardia Millennial Fair ][ Battle 1 ][ Manoria Cathedral ][ Boss Battle 1 ][ Robo's Theme ][ Corridors of Time ][ Undersea Palace ][ Last Battle ] [tssf Chrono Trigger Restorations] [ Longing of the Wind ][ Battle 1 ][ Corridors of Time ][ Schala's Theme ][ Epoch ~ Wings that Cross Time ][ To Far Away Times ]
[DWELLING OF DUELS] [ 'Fate and the Dreamer' by Ivan Hakstok ][ 'A Shot through Time' by Powellman ][ 'Another World' by Moiré Effect, SuprMelO, BluuMonk, VikingGuitar, Vivian Reeves ][ 'Beat to Relax or Battle to' by FlextoneJunkie ][ 'Metal Domes' by Harjawaldar, Ludvig, Markus ][ 'Lamppost Fantaisie' by Harpsibored ][ 'An Damhsa Laghairt' by Na Daoine Laghairt, Ian Martyn, atomic-guy, evilsonic, Andromeda ][ 'Fields of Time' by BadHairlineProductions ][ 'Schala's Theme' by BadHairlineProductions ][ 'Dancefloors of Time' by Ivan Hakstok, Sixto Sounds ][ 'Gatito's Song' by Unknown Pseudoartist ]
[OrangeC Chrono Trigger Restorations] [ Chrono Trigger ][ Guardia Millennial Fair ][ Battle 1 ][ Manoria Cathedral ][ Boss Battle 1 ][ Robo's Theme ][ Corridors of Time ][ Undersea Palace ][ Last Battle ] [tssf Chrono Trigger Restorations] [ Longing of the Wind ][ Battle 1 ][ Corridors of Time ][ Schala's Theme ][ Epoch ~ Wings that Cross Time ][ To Far Away Times ]
9
Site Updates / 2021 Update! Music, Interviews, and More!
« on: November 26, 2021, 05:54:49 pm »
As we simmer and boil over these Chrono Cross remaster rumors, let's check out what the community has been up to over the last several months! We'll lead things off with...
Masato Kato's full interview in Mas alla Tiempo has been translated by r66y, as previously noted; check it out here! [RESEARCH] If you haven't checked out our prerelease coverage page lately, stop on by. We have a ton of scans up courtesy of Reld's sleuthing, and have added placeholders for many more magazines that are yet to be obtained or properly scanned. Special credit goes out to this website for creating their massive catalogue of works. [SHOSHINKAI] A new addition to that page is Nintendo Power Vol. 68's coverage of the 1994 Space World event; find the page here. [V-JUMP VIDEO] We have a better rip of the 1995 V-Jump special and its interviews. We've backed it up on the Compendium (349 MB, MKV) at this link. [E3] Cross fans rejoice! Square's E3 2000 art asset disc has been recovered and dumped online, and there's some high-quality art and logos available for Chrono Cross (as well as several other RPGs). We've linked it on the new Chrono Cross Prerelease Coverage page, where you can download the ISO (with the logos in original PSD format) or access the art in a gallery.
Here's some miscellaneous news! [TRIGGER] For the first time in ages, the Chrono Trigger SPC archive has been updated with Reld's amazing recreations of 1) a version of Frog's theme with the intro added; 2) a better version of the Unknown Fanfare with the drum table fixed; and 3) One Sunny Day When We Met. Grab it here. [THERE'S MORE...] If you'd like to play Chrono Trigger with the full version of Frog's theme added, use this IPS patch. [2] A very high-quality scan of Toriyama's "Resting at Lucca's" artwork was made by Heritage Auctions as part of its sale through the website. We've got it on the Compendium now; check it out here. [CROSS] Kodokami brings us a mostly incomplete Chrono Cross sound effect pack, with a few effects; grab it here. If you can help us find a better pack or rip the sounds from the game, please post in the forums! [DREAMERS] More pictures of the old Radical Dreamers Music Box have been added to its merchandise page here, in case you were curious what it looks like up close.
[TRIGGER MODDING] Fauntleroy's Chrono Trigger: Schala Edition is now at version 2.1! If you haven't checked it out yet, read more here! [2] From C-Dude comes Reptite Redraw, which slightly edits the Reptite sprites to match their PSX cutscene appearances. [3] belthegor has released a patch that removes the extra copyright text in the US version of the game's pendulum screen to match the Japanese version; find it here. [4] Lastly, phi has output a stat tab hack for Chrono Trigger which allows modification of base Stamina! Check it out here. NOTE: This patch may break when PCs level. Check out this thread for a fix. [TRANSLATIONS] ExtraOrdinary has finished a new Chrono Trigger translation into Arabic! Check it out here. The Turkish translation project also has a new release (version 0.6); check it out here.
[CROSS MODDING] legaiaflame has put together a great guide for installing the Chrono Cross HD texture upscale project; check it out here. [2] Saiferoth has provided some helpful notes on working with Chrono Cross's videos, and has also alerted us to jpsxdec, a powerful tool for PSX games. Check out the work here! [3] AwesomeHairo's helpful notes on using Terminus Traduction have been added to the Utilities (PSX) page. Now I can stop randomly pinging Yazoo, heh...A helpful note has also been added at the top of that page to remind users that most PSX tools should not be run on .bin images of games. [4] Dark_Ansem's written a helpful guide on how to change songs played in the Steam version of Chrono Trigger; see it here. [5] Grobycftw has put together an awesome tutorial for turning Dario into a player character! I've backed it up with all his tools at this page.
[OTHER MODIFICATION] Encyclopedia updates have been made to: Tech Data Notes (updated with Layer 3 packets); Modification (Temporal Flux section updated with troubleshooting tip for NET 3.0); ATB Code and Delay (new article from Pseudoarc); Enemy AI (note on what Action 12 does) by inuksuk; and SPC Commands (Drum Table) by Reld. [CROSS] Cross Fieldscript Notes by Grobycftw, who explained five commands; Chrono Cross shop pricing research by grobycftw; 1925-1930 Bend of Time notes by grobycftw; Game Mechanics by glennxserge and hexhexhex; Chrono Cross Enemy Stats (HP research) by glennxserge;
[MERCHANDISE] A couple old Wayback machine links have been dug up showing Square and Digicube's online shops around the time of Chrono Cross's release: [ SquareShop ][ ShopCube ] [2] Thanks to an Ebay listing, we've got better images of what the Yamaha Chrono Trigger Electone music book and diskette looked like; check it out here.
[OEKAKI] The old Oekaki has been archived at Oekaki Archive. [FAN ART] Punch Girl Bartenders by Manly Man ][ Several pieces by Prince Janus ][ 83 Elemental Books and 84 Prophet Janus by mysticalpha ][ 'Bout to X-Strike by Ema ][ Rad-ical Dreamer by SileniaDream ] Lastly, we have a special collection of archived works by Sakutarou556, wonderfully collected by hekset (as the original links are all dead). Find them in this thread (they've also been added to the encyclopedia).
[FAN FICTION] Crimson Cold War: Agency by Doc Cigarette ][ Graven and Shadows of Schala by Kitt ][ Friendlord by Prince Janus ] [AFFILIATES] We've added a new affiliate, Gamepad Music; go check it out!
Masato Kato's full interview in Mas alla Tiempo has been translated by r66y, as previously noted; check it out here! [RESEARCH] If you haven't checked out our prerelease coverage page lately, stop on by. We have a ton of scans up courtesy of Reld's sleuthing, and have added placeholders for many more magazines that are yet to be obtained or properly scanned. Special credit goes out to this website for creating their massive catalogue of works. [SHOSHINKAI] A new addition to that page is Nintendo Power Vol. 68's coverage of the 1994 Space World event; find the page here. [V-JUMP VIDEO] We have a better rip of the 1995 V-Jump special and its interviews. We've backed it up on the Compendium (349 MB, MKV) at this link. [E3] Cross fans rejoice! Square's E3 2000 art asset disc has been recovered and dumped online, and there's some high-quality art and logos available for Chrono Cross (as well as several other RPGs). We've linked it on the new Chrono Cross Prerelease Coverage page, where you can download the ISO (with the logos in original PSD format) or access the art in a gallery.
Here's some miscellaneous news! [TRIGGER] For the first time in ages, the Chrono Trigger SPC archive has been updated with Reld's amazing recreations of 1) a version of Frog's theme with the intro added; 2) a better version of the Unknown Fanfare with the drum table fixed; and 3) One Sunny Day When We Met. Grab it here. [THERE'S MORE...] If you'd like to play Chrono Trigger with the full version of Frog's theme added, use this IPS patch. [2] A very high-quality scan of Toriyama's "Resting at Lucca's" artwork was made by Heritage Auctions as part of its sale through the website. We've got it on the Compendium now; check it out here. [CROSS] Kodokami brings us a mostly incomplete Chrono Cross sound effect pack, with a few effects; grab it here. If you can help us find a better pack or rip the sounds from the game, please post in the forums! [DREAMERS] More pictures of the old Radical Dreamers Music Box have been added to its merchandise page here, in case you were curious what it looks like up close.
[TRIGGER MODDING] Fauntleroy's Chrono Trigger: Schala Edition is now at version 2.1! If you haven't checked it out yet, read more here! [2] From C-Dude comes Reptite Redraw, which slightly edits the Reptite sprites to match their PSX cutscene appearances. [3] belthegor has released a patch that removes the extra copyright text in the US version of the game's pendulum screen to match the Japanese version; find it here. [4] Lastly, phi has output a stat tab hack for Chrono Trigger which allows modification of base Stamina! Check it out here. NOTE: This patch may break when PCs level. Check out this thread for a fix. [TRANSLATIONS] ExtraOrdinary has finished a new Chrono Trigger translation into Arabic! Check it out here. The Turkish translation project also has a new release (version 0.6); check it out here.
[CROSS MODDING] legaiaflame has put together a great guide for installing the Chrono Cross HD texture upscale project; check it out here. [2] Saiferoth has provided some helpful notes on working with Chrono Cross's videos, and has also alerted us to jpsxdec, a powerful tool for PSX games. Check out the work here! [3] AwesomeHairo's helpful notes on using Terminus Traduction have been added to the Utilities (PSX) page. Now I can stop randomly pinging Yazoo, heh...A helpful note has also been added at the top of that page to remind users that most PSX tools should not be run on .bin images of games. [4] Dark_Ansem's written a helpful guide on how to change songs played in the Steam version of Chrono Trigger; see it here. [5] Grobycftw has put together an awesome tutorial for turning Dario into a player character! I've backed it up with all his tools at this page.
[OTHER MODIFICATION] Encyclopedia updates have been made to: Tech Data Notes (updated with Layer 3 packets); Modification (Temporal Flux section updated with troubleshooting tip for NET 3.0); ATB Code and Delay (new article from Pseudoarc); Enemy AI (note on what Action 12 does) by inuksuk; and SPC Commands (Drum Table) by Reld. [CROSS] Cross Fieldscript Notes by Grobycftw, who explained five commands; Chrono Cross shop pricing research by grobycftw; 1925-1930 Bend of Time notes by grobycftw; Game Mechanics by glennxserge and hexhexhex; Chrono Cross Enemy Stats (HP research) by glennxserge;
[MERCHANDISE] A couple old Wayback machine links have been dug up showing Square and Digicube's online shops around the time of Chrono Cross's release: [ SquareShop ][ ShopCube ] [2] Thanks to an Ebay listing, we've got better images of what the Yamaha Chrono Trigger Electone music book and diskette looked like; check it out here.
[OEKAKI] The old Oekaki has been archived at Oekaki Archive. [FAN ART] Punch Girl Bartenders by Manly Man ][ Several pieces by Prince Janus ][ 83 Elemental Books and 84 Prophet Janus by mysticalpha ][ 'Bout to X-Strike by Ema ][ Rad-ical Dreamer by SileniaDream ] Lastly, we have a special collection of archived works by Sakutarou556, wonderfully collected by hekset (as the original links are all dead). Find them in this thread (they've also been added to the encyclopedia).
[FAN FICTION] Crimson Cold War: Agency by Doc Cigarette ][ Graven and Shadows of Schala by Kitt ][ Friendlord by Prince Janus ] [AFFILIATES] We've added a new affiliate, Gamepad Music; go check it out!
10
Characters, Plot, and Themes / Xenogears vs. Chrono Cross, Connections
« on: November 26, 2021, 02:37:36 am »
Someone already covered this pretty well: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/199365-xenogears/68321666
Now that we've got positive proof that Xenogears initially started out as Chrono Trigger 2, what plot conventions were shared or re-used between them?
Now that we've got positive proof that Xenogears initially started out as Chrono Trigger 2, what plot conventions were shared or re-used between them?
Quote
Philosopher1701 7 years ago#1
Have you ever noticed these similarities between Xenogears and Chrono Cross?
Fei - The Contact, the person who made contact with the Zohar, which is part of the Deus System.
Elly - Part of the "will" of the Wave Existence, created to help free itself from the Deus system.
Wave Existence - A being from a higher universe that is trapped within the Deus system.
Deus - A sentient weapon that contains the Wave Existence and is considered a "god".
Now Chrono Cross:
Serge - The Arbiter, the person who made contact with the Frozen Flame, a piece of Lavos.
Kid - Part of Schala, created to help free herself from the Time Devourer.
Schala - A powerful human who has unwillingly merged with Lavos to become the Time Devourer.
Time Devourer - A fusion of Schala and Lavos that threatens to devour all space-time (god-like).
There are also obvious links between Xenogears and Chrono Trigger, like Lavos and Deus and their "creation" of humanity, the theme of defying fate, etc.
Edit: Even the save points are important to the story. In Xenogears, they are Memory Cubes that were created by Solaris, the country that controls the world. In Chrono Cross, they are Records of Fate that were created by FATE, the computer system that controls El Nido.
11
The Great To-Do List / [2000] Figure out who composed the "extra tracks" for Chrono Trigger PSX
« on: November 26, 2021, 02:35:12 am »
In https://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Procyon_Studio_Question_and_Answer_Forms.html, one of the earliest things Mitsuda mentions in the 1999-2000 Q&A is that Tsuyoshi Sekito only composed the music for the CT PSX cutscenes, NOT the "extra tracks". Mitsuda states that these were done by the in-house composer at the "company that converted Chrono Trigger to Playstation" (Bird Studios?), and he was given no notice or warning. He states that he was really angry about it.
This begs the question; who was Toei's in-house composer in 1999?
This begs the question; who was Toei's in-house composer in 1999?
12
Site Updates / Interview Update! Xenogears x Chrono Trigger 2 Connection Found!
« on: November 25, 2021, 02:55:29 am »
Thanks to the amazing blogspot Squareference, we've completed a massive scrub of developer tweets and Japanese interviews. We've added them all to the Compendium, though they're untranslated. As machine translation has come a long way in the last few years (especially with DeepL), I've fed some of these through to try and glean interesting insights. In the meantime, we just have to reveal that the holy grail of interviews was among them. Tetsuya Takahashi stated in June 2003 (interview here that Xenogears was originally started as Chrono Trigger 2, before changing to an original title early in development. We've heard rumors for years that this was the case (see this page), and it's exhilarating to finally have it confirmed. No doubt, we should now begin endlessly speculating which parts of Xenogears setting or plot were originally intended for Chrono Trigger 2!
All these recovered interviews and tweets have been added to Material Requiring Translation, as well as the encyclopedia. Interesting facts are highlighted below the jump. [INTERVIEWS] [ Procyon Studio Question and Answer Forms ][ 2001 RocketBaby Yasunori Mitsuda ][ 2010 Mida Showa's Memoirs on Radical Dreamers ][ 2019 Yasunori Mitsuda CC 20th ][ 2011 Yoshiyuki Miyagawa's Chrono Cross Memoirs ][ 2008 Interview with Kenichi Nishi ][ 2007 Yoshitaka Hirota Interview ][ 2009 Keizo Kokubo Interview ][ 2014 Xenoblade Interview with Yasunori Mitsuda ][ 2014 Interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yoshinori Kitase ][ 2015 Shueshia Interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yuji Horii ][ 2015 Interview with Yasunori Mitsuda, 2083 ][ 2015 Famitsu Interview with Yasunori Mitsuda ][ 2016 Creative Village Interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi ][ Denfa Minico Kazuhiko Torishima Interview ][ Developer Tweets ][ Procyon Studio Q&A ]
[Dream Team]
* Principal brainstorming by the Dream Team was held at a "Chrono Trigger Training Camp" at the ANA Hotel in Roppongi (now the ANA Intercontinental Hotel Tokyo), where they decided the final boss would be a parasite on the planet.
* Akira Toriyama drew the original key art, and then the look and feel of the game was fleshed out afterwards by Square. Toriyama's editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, joked that Hironobu Sakaguchi was originally upset with this approach, but realized it would work well.
* Torishima takes credit for nudging the team with the original idea of time travel, which Yuji Horii eagerly pushed for. Sakaguchi remarked to him that he wanted the game to be a perfect fusion of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
* Sakaguchi insisted that party members would remain "the same people" even if they were out of the party when you changed time, paving the way for "Time Traveler's Immunity" as a story concept!
* Hironobu Sakaguchi held daily morning huddles and strove to have the teams spend an hour lunch with each other outside the office each day; he remarked that Chrono Trigger's development was very stressful.
* Part of this arose from Sakaguchi's merger of the Chrono Trigger team with Final Fantasy 6's team (after FF6's release), which caused tension, as the FF6 team was exhausted and close to burnout after working on that game.
* Torishima (Toriyama's editor) notes that he was perceived as a shadowy figure who was feeding ideas to both Square and Enix, and disputes rumors in the Japanese press about him taking illicit royalties from the sales of their games.
* Interestingly, Torishima (Toriyama's editor) states that at one point, Sakaguchi had a mostly finished ROM, which Torishima rejected. Sakaguchi discarded it and had the team rebuild the Chrono Trigger concept from scratch.
* It's easy to assume that the discarded ROM was the "24-bit" version with the radically different overworld, but the fact that this version was shown at V-Jump 1994 makes the discarded version seem like an even earlier build. This is an extremely mysterious story.
[Other Developers]
* Per Shinichiro Okaniwa's tweet (he worked on field graphics), Chrono Trigger was to be called "Grand Dream", with the heroes all coming from other planets destroyed by Lavos, who in their last moments sent the heroes into the dimensional seas to find their way to the Chrono Trigger planet. The game would have also required the party to defeat Lavos simultaneously in each era.
* We know from other translated interviews that Secret of Mana had the "Chrono Trigger" codename first before it was transferred to the game we know and love, lending credence to an alternate working title.
* Kenichi Nishi, field map designer for CT, spent a year at Square with nothing to work on until suddenly being thrust onto the Dream Team.
* Yoshitaka Hirota experimented with a vocoder to create Robo's voice.
* When the developers were planning the player characters' personalized dialogue in response to events, Masato Kato took over all of Magus's reactions while Takashi Tokita did Frog's.
* Keizo Kokubo developed event code system for Chrono Trigger, internally known as "Active Time Event Language" (ATEL) and later used for FF7.
* Side note: this is why Chrono Trigger DS and the Steam version have "atel_XXXX.dat" naming conventions. (Thanks Mauron.)
* Based on inference, the subquest where Lucca saves her mother's legs was added last in the development cycle by Yoshinori Kitase. A Marle subplot was also added by Tokashi Takita, but the interview does not identify which event.
* Mida Showa came up with the idea for the Mirror of Whispers in Radical Dreamers.
* Tetsuya Takahashi, Graphics Director for Chrono Trigger, states in June 2003 that Xenogears was originally the sequel to Chrono Trigger! After development difficulties, the team requested (and Sakaguchi approved) a change to an original title.
* Yoshiyuki Miyagawa states that Chrono Cross's engine was retooled to become the engine for Final Fantasy 11.
[Yasunori Mitsuda]
Here's what we gleaned about Yasunori Mitsuda. A lot of these points come from the godlike 2083 interview. Seriously, kudos to 2083 for asking all the right questions!
* Yasunori Mitsuda had been doing sound effects at Square until he talked to Hironobu Sakaguchi, who allowed him to work on Chrono Trigger.
* Mitsuda composed by printing out copies of Masato Kato's story notes, which he studied for opportunities to support events with unique songs.
* Mitsuda clarified that per Masato Kato, the true Japanese name of "Longing of the Wind" is "Kaze no shoukei" (“かぜのしょうけい”). (Unsurprisingly, this directly translates to "Longing of the Wind".)
* Mitsuda wrote "To Faraway Times" in high school in memory of a friend who passed away. To adapt it for the game, he incorporated the sound of the pendulum and the Chrono Trigger theme.
* Mitsuda chose acid jazz for the "The Brink of Time" arrangement based on inspiration from Jamiroquai. He acknowledged criticism for this style, reflecting that if Twitter had been around in 1995, he would have "gone up in flames."
* "The Brink of Time" was recorded at Studio GREENBIRD, a very large, spacious studio. The footsteps in the intro of Chrono Trigger were recorded live. At one point during the album's recording, a guitar amplifier caught fire.
* The photography for the Brink of Time's CD jacket was done in the studio. Mitsuda joked in his Procyon Q&A that any failed attempts at cooking the eggs were eaten by the studio assistant.
* Mitsuda composed the soundtrack for Radical Dreamers while working on Gun Hazard.
* Per Mitsuda, the original composition data for the Radical Dreamers soundtrack was lost by Square, and this is part of the reason why it has never been released. He also noted that he doesn't own the copyright; Square would have to do it.
PSX Era:
* Mitsuda claims that Tsuyoshi Sekito only arranged the PSX cutscene music, not the four additional tracks. These were done by the in-house composer at the company that converted Chrono Trigger to work on the Playstation. (Anyone know who that would've been? Someone at Bird Studios?)
* Mitsuda noted that due to rights issues, he could not release a guitar arrangement book for Chrono Trigger or Xenogears.
* Mitsuda composed Scars of Time to very closely match the Chrono Cross intro FMV, and considers the song arguably his most memorable.
* Mitsuda bought a guitar during the recording of Chrono Cross after being frustrated with his lack of technical ability, as he wanted the instrument to feature prominently in the soundtrack.
* Mitsuda demanded that programmers find a way to disable the "Victory" fanfare after beating Miguel in the Dead Sea, as he felt it completely destroyed the mood set by the "Prisoners of Fate" music.
* Mitsuda stated that "Lizard Rock" (Dance the Tokage) is explicitly NOT related to "Guardia Millennial Fair".
* The Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross music boxes sold by Square was Mitsuda's idea.
* Mitsuda wanted to remove his unused tracks from Chrono Trigger DS, but Intelligent Systems overrode him, considering them too important to omit.
* The "To Faraway Times" arrangement album was originally going to feature a story about Kid written by Masato Kato, before Mitsuda decided to include Chrono Trigger tracks.
At some point in the future, I will add DeepL translations to those interview pages and get the notable facts cited in the Wikipedia articles for the games. In the meantime, we'll leave you with two other Youtube interviews that supposedly talk about the development of Chrono Trigger, as well as Chrono Break (the Another Eden video). If you know any fluent Japanese speakers willin to sit through these and give us the gist of the Chrono parts, you know where to reach us...
* アナデンまつり2018春アナザーエデン超感謝！祝リリース1周年生放送 (supposedly, Kato talks about Chrono Break on this one)
* FFXI もぎたてヴァナディール！第45回 （テスト放送付き）
All these recovered interviews and tweets have been added to Material Requiring Translation, as well as the encyclopedia. Interesting facts are highlighted below the jump. [INTERVIEWS] [ Procyon Studio Question and Answer Forms ][ 2001 RocketBaby Yasunori Mitsuda ][ 2010 Mida Showa's Memoirs on Radical Dreamers ][ 2019 Yasunori Mitsuda CC 20th ][ 2011 Yoshiyuki Miyagawa's Chrono Cross Memoirs ][ 2008 Interview with Kenichi Nishi ][ 2007 Yoshitaka Hirota Interview ][ 2009 Keizo Kokubo Interview ][ 2014 Xenoblade Interview with Yasunori Mitsuda ][ 2014 Interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yoshinori Kitase ][ 2015 Shueshia Interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yuji Horii ][ 2015 Interview with Yasunori Mitsuda, 2083 ][ 2015 Famitsu Interview with Yasunori Mitsuda ][ 2016 Creative Village Interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi ][ Denfa Minico Kazuhiko Torishima Interview ][ Developer Tweets ][ Procyon Studio Q&A ]
[Dream Team]
* Principal brainstorming by the Dream Team was held at a "Chrono Trigger Training Camp" at the ANA Hotel in Roppongi (now the ANA Intercontinental Hotel Tokyo), where they decided the final boss would be a parasite on the planet.
* Akira Toriyama drew the original key art, and then the look and feel of the game was fleshed out afterwards by Square. Toriyama's editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, joked that Hironobu Sakaguchi was originally upset with this approach, but realized it would work well.
* Torishima takes credit for nudging the team with the original idea of time travel, which Yuji Horii eagerly pushed for. Sakaguchi remarked to him that he wanted the game to be a perfect fusion of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
* Sakaguchi insisted that party members would remain "the same people" even if they were out of the party when you changed time, paving the way for "Time Traveler's Immunity" as a story concept!
* Hironobu Sakaguchi held daily morning huddles and strove to have the teams spend an hour lunch with each other outside the office each day; he remarked that Chrono Trigger's development was very stressful.
* Part of this arose from Sakaguchi's merger of the Chrono Trigger team with Final Fantasy 6's team (after FF6's release), which caused tension, as the FF6 team was exhausted and close to burnout after working on that game.
* Torishima (Toriyama's editor) notes that he was perceived as a shadowy figure who was feeding ideas to both Square and Enix, and disputes rumors in the Japanese press about him taking illicit royalties from the sales of their games.
* Interestingly, Torishima (Toriyama's editor) states that at one point, Sakaguchi had a mostly finished ROM, which Torishima rejected. Sakaguchi discarded it and had the team rebuild the Chrono Trigger concept from scratch.
* It's easy to assume that the discarded ROM was the "24-bit" version with the radically different overworld, but the fact that this version was shown at V-Jump 1994 makes the discarded version seem like an even earlier build. This is an extremely mysterious story.
[Other Developers]
* Per Shinichiro Okaniwa's tweet (he worked on field graphics), Chrono Trigger was to be called "Grand Dream", with the heroes all coming from other planets destroyed by Lavos, who in their last moments sent the heroes into the dimensional seas to find their way to the Chrono Trigger planet. The game would have also required the party to defeat Lavos simultaneously in each era.
* We know from other translated interviews that Secret of Mana had the "Chrono Trigger" codename first before it was transferred to the game we know and love, lending credence to an alternate working title.
* Kenichi Nishi, field map designer for CT, spent a year at Square with nothing to work on until suddenly being thrust onto the Dream Team.
* Yoshitaka Hirota experimented with a vocoder to create Robo's voice.
* When the developers were planning the player characters' personalized dialogue in response to events, Masato Kato took over all of Magus's reactions while Takashi Tokita did Frog's.
* Keizo Kokubo developed event code system for Chrono Trigger, internally known as "Active Time Event Language" (ATEL) and later used for FF7.
* Side note: this is why Chrono Trigger DS and the Steam version have "atel_XXXX.dat" naming conventions. (Thanks Mauron.)
* Based on inference, the subquest where Lucca saves her mother's legs was added last in the development cycle by Yoshinori Kitase. A Marle subplot was also added by Tokashi Takita, but the interview does not identify which event.
* Mida Showa came up with the idea for the Mirror of Whispers in Radical Dreamers.
* Tetsuya Takahashi, Graphics Director for Chrono Trigger, states in June 2003 that Xenogears was originally the sequel to Chrono Trigger! After development difficulties, the team requested (and Sakaguchi approved) a change to an original title.
* Yoshiyuki Miyagawa states that Chrono Cross's engine was retooled to become the engine for Final Fantasy 11.
[Yasunori Mitsuda]
Here's what we gleaned about Yasunori Mitsuda. A lot of these points come from the godlike 2083 interview. Seriously, kudos to 2083 for asking all the right questions!
* Yasunori Mitsuda had been doing sound effects at Square until he talked to Hironobu Sakaguchi, who allowed him to work on Chrono Trigger.
* Mitsuda composed by printing out copies of Masato Kato's story notes, which he studied for opportunities to support events with unique songs.
* Mitsuda clarified that per Masato Kato, the true Japanese name of "Longing of the Wind" is "Kaze no shoukei" (“かぜのしょうけい”). (Unsurprisingly, this directly translates to "Longing of the Wind".)
* Mitsuda wrote "To Faraway Times" in high school in memory of a friend who passed away. To adapt it for the game, he incorporated the sound of the pendulum and the Chrono Trigger theme.
* Mitsuda chose acid jazz for the "The Brink of Time" arrangement based on inspiration from Jamiroquai. He acknowledged criticism for this style, reflecting that if Twitter had been around in 1995, he would have "gone up in flames."
* "The Brink of Time" was recorded at Studio GREENBIRD, a very large, spacious studio. The footsteps in the intro of Chrono Trigger were recorded live. At one point during the album's recording, a guitar amplifier caught fire.
* The photography for the Brink of Time's CD jacket was done in the studio. Mitsuda joked in his Procyon Q&A that any failed attempts at cooking the eggs were eaten by the studio assistant.
* Mitsuda composed the soundtrack for Radical Dreamers while working on Gun Hazard.
* Per Mitsuda, the original composition data for the Radical Dreamers soundtrack was lost by Square, and this is part of the reason why it has never been released. He also noted that he doesn't own the copyright; Square would have to do it.
PSX Era:
* Mitsuda claims that Tsuyoshi Sekito only arranged the PSX cutscene music, not the four additional tracks. These were done by the in-house composer at the company that converted Chrono Trigger to work on the Playstation. (Anyone know who that would've been? Someone at Bird Studios?)
* Mitsuda noted that due to rights issues, he could not release a guitar arrangement book for Chrono Trigger or Xenogears.
* Mitsuda composed Scars of Time to very closely match the Chrono Cross intro FMV, and considers the song arguably his most memorable.
* Mitsuda bought a guitar during the recording of Chrono Cross after being frustrated with his lack of technical ability, as he wanted the instrument to feature prominently in the soundtrack.
* Mitsuda demanded that programmers find a way to disable the "Victory" fanfare after beating Miguel in the Dead Sea, as he felt it completely destroyed the mood set by the "Prisoners of Fate" music.
* Mitsuda stated that "Lizard Rock" (Dance the Tokage) is explicitly NOT related to "Guardia Millennial Fair".
* The Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross music boxes sold by Square was Mitsuda's idea.
* Mitsuda wanted to remove his unused tracks from Chrono Trigger DS, but Intelligent Systems overrode him, considering them too important to omit.
* The "To Faraway Times" arrangement album was originally going to feature a story about Kid written by Masato Kato, before Mitsuda decided to include Chrono Trigger tracks.
At some point in the future, I will add DeepL translations to those interview pages and get the notable facts cited in the Wikipedia articles for the games. In the meantime, we'll leave you with two other Youtube interviews that supposedly talk about the development of Chrono Trigger, as well as Chrono Break (the Another Eden video). If you know any fluent Japanese speakers willin to sit through these and give us the gist of the Chrono parts, you know where to reach us...
* アナデンまつり2018春アナザーエデン超感謝！祝リリース1周年生放送 (supposedly, Kato talks about Chrono Break on this one)
* FFXI もぎたてヴァナディール！第45回 （テスト放送付き）
13
Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / The article introducing CT to Brazil in 1995
« on: November 22, 2021, 12:31:13 am »
Another lurker sent this in via e-mail: http://osarcofago.blogspot.com/2020/11/a-reportagem-que-me-apresentou-chrono.html
He mentioned that this article (appeared 10/22/1995 in Planeta Globo) exposed a ton of gamers to Chrono Trigger and kickstarted the fandom there.
Quote
RPG ON TV
"Crono Trigger" is the most praised RPG in video games history. It leads the Top-50 lists from American specialized magazines. It's breaking all retails and rental records. In short, it is mind-blowing gamers around the world.
This the story: Crono, the hero, goes back in time to hunt Lavos, a villain who plans to kill every terrestrial life form. His mission is to prevent the douche-bag from fulfilling his plan.
Our hero is not alone on this adventure. He's aided by an inventor, a frog (?!), a neanderthal woman, a little robot and a princess.
The game features nothing less than ten different endings. Developed by Square, the same company that developed "Final fantasy" and "Secret of Mana" - two spine-tingling RPGs - "Crono Trigger" mixes fast paced action and dialogs. The level of detail is startling: you're gonna hear even the sounds of the animals in the forest.
Jokes are a good addition too: almost every dialog has a bit of humor. Finally, pay attention on special effects: they are blockbusters. You cannot let "Crono trigger" pass you by. Play it using a bib.
He mentioned that this article (appeared 10/22/1995 in Planeta Globo) exposed a ton of gamers to Chrono Trigger and kickstarted the fandom there.
14
The Great To-Do List / [2500] Obtain and get better scans of Square Press #4 (Chrono Cross)
« on: March 22, 2021, 11:52:41 am »15
The Great To-Do List / [5000] Acquire and scan Japanese magazine issue "The PlayStation" Vol. 170
« on: March 11, 2021, 01:40:22 pm »
https://twitter.com/29kyu/status/1370040578482708488
Shows unseen Magus artwork from Akira Toriyama. What else might it contain? We need to identify the book first, and then can grab a copy.
Shows unseen Magus artwork from Akira Toriyama. What else might it contain? We need to identify the book first, and then can grab a copy.