Chrono Cross Demo

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General Information

Before the official release of Chrono Cross, Square Enix marketed a PlayStation release of Chrono Trigger and attached a demo of the game to it and Legend of Mana. The demo included several scenes which later were released as a preview video by American reviewers (such as IGN and Gamespot), ending with the famous tag line "THE CLOCK RESTARTS 1999". This demo has allowed a short look into the late stages of the development of Chrono Cross, offering a few prizes such as a scrapped facial portrait of Kid and missing playable characters. The entire experience is presented here, along with unused art for the game posted by Yasuyuki Honne (the art director) on his blog.

Introduction and Gameplay

The demo was packed in a demo disc containing previews of Vagrant Story, Front Mission 3, and Dewprism (better known to English audiences as Threads of Fate). Players who loaded the disc would find this selection screen:

Cross Beta Title.png

Upon selecting Chrono Cross, the player would be greeted by Mitsuda's Beginning of a Dream with the classic underwater sequence. However, it segues to an overall shot of El Nido for the actual title screen.

Cross Beta Title2.png

Pressing start brings the player to a short introductory sequence with two screens of text. Below are images of the first screen with and without the background and the second screen.

Cross Beta Title Text.png

One can see slightly different portraits of Razzly, Glenn and Leena. These only differ by a pixel or two, or by the perspective. However, Kid's portrait is markedly different.

Cross Beta Kid.png Cross Beta Glenn.png Cross Beta Leena.png - Other Leena - Razzly

The journey begins in Fort Dragonia. Kid and Glenn (and it is always Glenn) go through the usual motions. The crystal in the protective room is white, rather than purple, and a Cat Burglar harasses the party along with Cybots. Both these enemies can run faster than usual to catch the party as it tries to pass them.

Cross Beta Team.png

Serge's Swallow is tinted green and looks like the Mastermune.

Defending the white crystal is a Sidesteppa.

In combat, the Elements appear to have less sophisticated animations. For instance, Serge's MeteorShower summons two simple white orbs. Between Life and Death plays in all battles, regular or boss.

Once the Fort Dragonia sequence is concluded, Serge wakes up in Arni and is instructed to find Leena as usual. Una has no portrait, hampering the suggestion that she was once planned to be a playable character.

The fisherman stops Serge from accessing Radius.

Cross Beta Radius.png

Outside Arni, one cannot access the Divine Dragon Falls. Cape Howl is seemingly unchanged, and two Porre sergeants block off Fossil Valley.

The Hydra Marshes seem unguarded as first, as in the normal game a man from Arni blocks access. However, if one tries to enter, Razzly appears and speaks at length. The marshes are also slightly different in that a waterfall exists to the upper left of the initial screen.

At Lizard Rock, Kid and Glenn join the party upon Serge's entrance to help collect scales.

Opah Fish replace BeachBums in certain areas.

Glenn and Kid provide help along the way.

Once the scales are collected, Serge will encounter a Mama Komodo only if he attempts to leave Lizard Rock. Following its defeat, Glenn and Kid withdraw.

Demo Scenes

As Serge and Leena sit on Opassa Beach, Kid calls across the dimensions as usual. Just before the crossing begins, the game transitions to an extended series of scenes. These scenes were later recorded and used as a preview movie by certain reviewers and gaming sites. Of note, Riddel is in the Viper Manor library, Lucca's portrait is slightly different, and Gato cannot be found in the burning orphanage.

~

Characters and Graphical Differences

More information is available upon examining the game's textures.

The most glaring difference is the presence of a seemingly new character in Pierre's slot. Since Pierre's dialogue icon was already in its final state, it's probable that this was an earlier design for Pierre. One suggestion is that it's based off an adult version of Tata, who Masato Kato revealed in an interview to be the inspiration for Pierre (a whacked-out fake hero). Nikki has a slightly visible nipple (gone in the final), and some of the characters appear only as rough sketches or alternate versions (including Orlha, Skelly, and Turnip). On the other hand, some characters appear as black and white sketches (Starky and Orcha), but in their final art form (just without color). By comparing to the order of the art textures in the final version, we find that

  • Macha was stuck in between Fargo and Glenn
  • 23 - Janice
  • 24 - Draggy
  • 27 - Mojo
  • 29 - Neo-Fio
  • 32 - Funguy
  • 33 - Irenes
  • 35 - DELETED, or perhaps Macha's old position
  • 39 - Steena
  • A prototype Pierre or completely different character is occupying Pierre's slot
  • Pip was not yet planned

We can then examine the dialogue art.

It seems possible that slot 29 (Neo-Fio in the final) may have originally been a Quadffid. Also, a Beach Bum or Nu appears at the end of the player character images (before the "null" symbol). Interestingly, a crazy old man seemingly in El Nido garb is in Belthasar's place. Perhaps Belthasar was originally stationed at Guldove, and tried to fit in with the locals or pass himself off as an El Nido prophet? At any rate, he's missing his trademark eyebrows. Lisa the Elements trader appears as a sketch. Much of the other colored, rough art appears in Missing Piece in full form. Examining and totaling the other icons and art, the characters below may have been planned and scrapped at one time for Chrono Cross. Remember that this is speculation, as these characters may have just been planned to have dialogue art as NPCs (which was later scrapped).

  • Prototype Pierre / Tata / Unknown
  • Strange old man / Belthasar prototype
  • Quadffid
  • Nu
  • Ketchop

Slot Machine

See Chrono Cross Slot Machine.

Unused Art

Yasuyuki Honne is the artist of the Chrono series, and made some background art that was never used in the final game. They strangely appeared in a GamePro online guide to the game which was later taken down; a couple examples also appear on Honne's blog. We were able to rescue four pics from the Wayback machine's archive of page 2 of the guide, but page 1 is lost. Honne does not specifically note that the examples from his page were intended for Cross, but the style matches up, and one of the pieces was used in the GamePro guide. A big thanks goes to Blik for researching this.

From Honne's Blog

Blogtes002.jpg

050916 002.jpg

050916 001.jpg

From the Guide

6400-5-1.jpg

6400-6-1.jpg

6400-7-1.jpg

6400-8-1.jpg

A piece of art that strongly resembles the style of Chrono Cross's works appeared in magazines as a recruiting advertisement for Monolith Soft. It featured a blurb about Project X (Xenosaga), and a large vista resembling Cape Howl.

From: Games