Chrono Trigger Inquiries/Review

[Swordmaster]

Before we get too caught onto the idea that the earthquakes in 1000 AD are caused by Lavos, I have an alternate theory.  What if the earthquakes are caused by the Sand Monster that is defeated to create Fiona's forest?  Could somebody check that one individuals statement after the Zombor look alike is destroyed?

I have checked this and the statement do not change after the Fiona sidequest.

At last the Compendium came back, because i have a question.

[Zenan Bridge, 600 A.D.]

[Soldier]
   This bridge is being fixed because
   Magus's Army trashed it.
   But until Sir Cyrus returns, we'll fight
   Magus's Army, tooth and nail!

Why Magus trashed Zenan Bridge if it were the only passage to the north continent?
Its seems something the Guardia army would do to stop the invaders.

[ZeaLitY]

They probably had a battle there that got out of hand. Also, they might have needed to cut off Guardia so they could conquer Southern Zenan. Since most troops come from Guardia itself, it would be a convenient way to render Porre and Dorino helpless.

[ZeaLitY]

It all began aeons ago, when man's
ancestors picked up a shard of a
strange red rock...

Its power, which was beyond human
comprehension, cultivated dreams...
In turn, love and hate were born...

Only time will see how it all ends.

If you've played Chrono Cross, this screams out 'humans contacted the Frozen Flame in 3,000,000 B.C. and were evolved as a species into beings with greater capacity for higher thought and emotion.' Unfortunately, it is generally accepted that Chrono Trigger, as a new series, was groundbreaking, and that Chrono Cross had hardly been thought up at the time of its production. Thus, this would be referring to Dreamstone, if not the Frozen Flame. Before you continue, know that Dreamstone is not equal to the Frozen Flame. Dreamstone was an abundant, naturally occurring 'mineral,' right out of Gaspar's mouth, while the Frozen Flame is a mere shard of Lavos that broke off when he landed. This quote is problematic because it implies that Dreamstone advanced humans. I've two theories on the subject:

~

Red-Zeal Theory
ZeaLitY

The book in Kajar is merely stating that the wonder and advancement of Zeal came about through the use of Dreamstone, which, at that time, was considered part of the planet's power, as Lavos had not yet been discovered.

Support

ZeaLitY: The Royal Family seemed to consolidate the red rock early on, as the Mammon Machine was built from its supply.

Kato-Idea Theory
ZeaLitY

I propose that at the time of this line's entry into Trigger, Masato Kato had not yet decided on the history of the world, but maintained ideas about the Frozen Flame and human evolution as caused by Lavos. It thus may be plausible that he implied something that would later be contradicted.

[Swordmaster]

They probably had a battle there that got out of hand. Also, they might have needed to cut off Guardia so they could conquer Southern Zenan. Since most troops come from Guardia itself, it would be a convenient way to render Porre and Dorino helpless.

Sure had soldiers in Southern Zenan as Fiona state that his husband was at war

FIONA: My husband Marco hasn't
   returned from the war.

   But these woods mean a lot to us, so
   I'll guard them until he returns.

But what is strange lies in the fact that there's no damage in the citys in southern Zenan, only peoples with fear.

[ZeaLitY]

Good points, Swordmaster.

I'm going to archive something here; a way to obtain even lower levels:

Go right corner:

Took me a while to find where I put the information, but I found it.

The reason you can get the levels a little lower is because Crinkles is incorrect in his reasoning that you should always use your highest-level character to absorb exp from a battle. The flaw in this is that characters out of party still absorbs 75% of exp, but only gain at most 1 level. So if you have 2 or more characters who are around the same levels, it might pay to distribute the exp more evenly amongst them.

In particular, note that Robo, Frog and Lucca have similar levels by the time you reached Medina Village, and in particular there are a whole stretch of battles where you can either choose to have Robo fight and absorb exp (and so Lucca, out of party, absorbs 75%), or have Lucca absorbs exp (and so Robo absorbs 75%). I wrote a program to check all combinations of Robo/Lucca usages and found a few combinations that are better than using Robo throughout.

In particular, I verified (thru playing) that this combination works:

-use Crono,Marle,Lucca with Heckran
-use Crono,Marle,Lucca with Deceasedx3 (2nd battle on Zenan bridge)
-use Crono,Marle,Lucca with Zombar
-use Crono,Marle,Lucca with the Reptites when you first go to 65000000 BC

Use Crono,Marle,Robo for the other battles just as Crinkles suggested.

This caused something good to happen: right before the battle with Magus, both Robo and Lucca are at level 14, with Robo having 120 exp to next, and Lucca 1270 to next.

In addition:

-use Crono,Frog,Robo for the Magus battle. This one is weird. First of all, don't level up Frog to 14 before this battle as you would have to do w/ Crinkle's method.

Here's the deal: proceed as usual until Magus enters his DarkMatter phase. Frog, being level 13, will not survive DarkMatter, but Robo can! So revive Robo just before Magus' first DarkMatter. From that point on, whittle out Magus' HP with Robo, healing as necessary.

But don't let Robo deal the final blow! Instead, when Magus' nearly defeated, after a DarkMatter immediately have Robo revive Frog and give Frog a barrier (you can get one in Magus' Castle), and restore Frog's HP to full. Then during Magus' next DarkMatter, Robo will be dead but Frog will barely survived, then quickly have Frog finish off Magus before the next DarkMatter.

I think you also need to make sure to give the SilverErng to Frog, and the Speed Belt/Dash Ring/whatever to Robo. Anyway, by doing it this way, Robo absorbs 0 exp, and although Marle absorbs exp, since she's out of party she only gained one level, to level 5. So you end up with the following levels:

Crono 1, Marle 5, Lucca,Frog,&Robo 14

Finally, for the battle with Nizbel II, use Crono/Marle/Ayla. It's very tedious and hard but possible, but be prepared to use like 80 midtonics and 30 revives (or something along that line). Have Ayla absorb the exp of course. After this battle and then the Azala battle (same strategy as in the FAQ), you end up with the final levels as I've stated.

You also have to purposely lose the battle with Golem, otherwise Lucca,Frog,Robo,and Ayla would all level up by 1.

Then you get the wallet and from that point on just follow the FAQ.

[Swordmaster]

Another question:  
Why is there a strange fog in 600 A.D atmosphere, while in 1000 A.D it is  sunny?

[Leebot]

It was a cloudy day in 600 AD, and a sunny day in 1000 AD.

[Swordmaster]

What about the possibility that the fog was a result of forests being set on fire because of the war?

[V_Translanka]

Well, wouldn't it be smoke then...not fog?

[Swordmaster]

Forest and agricultural burning release chemical compounds and particulate matter into the atmosphere. Although most of this material contributes to visibility reductions through haze and provldes chemical constituents available for reactions with other atmospheric pollutants, there are occasions when smoke is entrapped locally and combines with water vapor to produce zero visibility smoke/fog or super-fog. Super-fog threatens transportation when it drifts over roadways - a problem in the South, especially at night.

[V_Translanka]

Well, that quite DOES say 'locally'...Could said phenomenon (or whatever) occur over the entire face of a planet?

[Swordmaster]

Was discussed before that the planet is bigger than just the region shown in CT and with certain wind conditions could be possible hold the smoke/fog in a place. There are other things like blue/purple haze, smog , etc

But more importantly is the lenght of the burned forest. If Fiona's forest was near the lenght of the replanted one , can you imagine the quantity of matter in the atmosphere?

[Leebot]

Was discussed before that the planet is bigger than just the region shown in CT and with certain wind conditions could be possible hold the smoke/fog in a place.

This is a pretty safe assumption in almost any RPG that has a world map of some kind. Chrono Cross is, ironically, an exception to this. Within the boundaries of the El Nido Archipelago, we see everything that exists there. In CT, we can pretty safely assume that there are a lot of other cities and settlements that the designers faded into the background for our convenience.

[Swordmaster]

When you look to the map of 600 A.D, it's very dark comparing with 1000 A.D, probably, because the smog block the luminosity from the sun. And adding the massive use of undeads,  this make me think that all this was planed by the Mystic .

[V_Translanka]

Leebot, do you mean inside of the area in Trigger that we can see? Or are you saying the map is actually bigger than what we can see? I believe the first to be logically plausible...but the second just seems silly...I believe the world map, I also believe the map you travel on (not necessarilly the world map, which is viewed by pressing Start) is a representation of what's mainly on said map. I mean, they obviously must have a school somewhere and acres of plantation or fields of some kind, right? These things such as farmlands are not shown because they are not relevent...or possibly because they are not prominant.