Category: Chrono Cross

Time Devourer: That’s Not Schala

Leave a comment

I promised my players in Chrono Bolt that there would be two major twists from Chrono series canon. The first was just revealed.

That girl merged with the Time Devourer? It’s not Schala.

“Janus. Lucca. Many people came to believe that this girl was you – Schala. That you had merged with Lavos and become this entity that would destroy existence. This girl is probably who encouraged Janus to erase his memory. She would have wanted distance from anyone who knew her.” Gaspar explains slowly, sitting the tea biscuits down on the table forgotten, “Belthasar used FATE to keep Melchior and I from getting involved.”

“That ignores the most obvious explanation of the girl’s identity. There was another Zeal royal who had in fact merged with Lavos before its defeat and who was cast with it into the Darkness beyond Time.” Gaspar continues, “I’m also old enough to recall that your mother’s natural hair color was blond before she dyed it blue to match your father’s.”

“Belthasar shunted Chronopolis from 2,400AD to 12,000BC. Melchior and I believe that his goal was to rescue Queen Zeal from within the Time Devourer and save Zeal from it’s demise. Why else would he select those time coordinates?” The old man continues, “There’s much, much more. Belthasar’s plan is very complex but you should know that core to it is a young woman named Kid and a young man named Serge. Kid is a time clone of the girl in the Time Devourer and Serge…a time clone of your father, the late King Zeal.”

Gaspar, Chrono Bolt Chapter 2: Since BELTHASAR crashed time!

Even though this is a twist from canon I think that it could actually work as canon. It doesn’t actually make a lot of sense that Schala was merged with Lavos and Queen Zeal does just disappear after battle – perhaps being thrown to the Darkness Beyond Time? Chrono Cross also never really explains why Serge as a baby is so important to Schala that, despite being merged with Lavos, she helps him reach Chronopolis from across space and time.

This departure from canon certainly puts a new spin on the Chrono Cross ending where Kid plots to conquer the world!

Why Chrono Cross failed as a sequel

Leave a comment

I have a deep appreciation for Chrono Cross and consider it one of the best games of it’s era. Despite that it was still, in my mind, a failure as a sequel. There are a number of reasons why but I think it’s crucial mistake was how it treated it’s playable characters.

  • Passive Protagonist: Serge is a passive protagonist in Chrono Cross. He rarely has clear motivation, goals, or will. The one exception to this is his relationship to Lynx but even then Serge is always reactive.
    • Sidenote: This was not true of Serge in Radical Dreamers. He had clear motivation and comes across as a very different character.
  • Companions: Serge’s numerous companions are transient and wield minor influence on the plot. They may be of importance to the plot, sure, but they have little to no agency over events in the game. It was a neat idea to include 45 recruitable characters but a side effect of that decision is that they feel expendable.

Compare this to Chrono Trigger, in which the three core characters – Lucca, Marle, and Crono – see a distant desolate future and decide to change it. There’s a moment in Chrono Trigger where the characters theorize that, perhaps, the time gates were created by an entity (heavily implied to be the planet itself) that’s reliving it’s memories before death; like a person’s life flashing before its eyes. Even if this entity is responsible for time travel, it’s still the playable characters who refuse to accept this ending and decide to change the future.

In Chrono Cross, Serge defeats ‘FATE’ as he was preordained to do by Belthasar. Off screen for most of the game, Belthasar emerges as the one whose decisions shaped the plot for the good. Belthasar and the final boss (who, as a composite character, has complicated influence) seem to be the only characters with the agency to change the plot in any meaningful way. There’s no sense that Serge, his companions, or even his opponents are anything but pawns in the chess game between these two.

It’s not just a departure thematically, it’s a complete reversal and that makes it difficult to reconcile the two games.