Game - Chrono Trigger, Time Checkpoint IV
Hours Played/Hours Total - 4-1/2 hrs / 14-1/2 hrs
Starting Point - 65,000,000 B.C.
Current Goal - Jump into the new Gate and find out where it leads us. Defeat Lavos and save the world!
What Happened - Let's see if I can crank this post out a little faster. I honestly should have had Chrono Trigger beaten by now (or at least another post or two), but life is what life is... Going to do my best to speed this process up though. Now let's see where we left off...
We know now that Lavos landed on the planet a loooooong time ago, but we can't deal with him here and now. Time for me to jump into this mysterious Gate and find out more about Lavos. The Gate takes us a small jump forward in time... but not as far as you'd think! When we drop out, we're still in the past of 12,000 B.C. (We don't even get a stop by the End of Time.) Welp, might as well explore this new world with my friends Lucca and Robo.
Leaving the cave we ended up in, we find ourselves in a massive frozen wasteland of sorts. There's not much to see or do here at the moment. I happen upon a strange building called the Skyway though. Inside, I step into a magic circle and am whisked away into the sky! Up here, everything looks pretty and nice. Then... I hit another magic circle back down to the surface. (Okay then.) Move around the area a bit and find another Skyway. Back up into the sky!
Okay, now there's some actual towns to explore here. I head into the nearest one and learn that it is... Kajar! There's quite a bit of information gleamed from talking to all the NPCs here, but I'll try to limit it down to the most important stuff. (Which is actually a lot so... bear with me.) This place is ruled by a Queen named Zeal. She has two heirs, Schala and Janus. Schala has great magical power and potential, but her brother, Janus, doesn't seem to have quite as much potential. There are people living on the surface below, but they seem to be referred to as the "Earthbound Ones". There's something called the Sun Stone that used to be a source of their power, but they've locked it up and forgotten about it.
One of the biggest deals around seems to be the construction of the Ocean Palace. It's the big project that the people believe will not only greatly benefit all but apparently grant them eternal life as well! It's to be a symbol of Queen Zeal's power as well. There's a large, fancy airship called the Blackbird as well. As we go to see that, someone named Dalton comes by and mentions something about our arrival and a foretold prophecy. Huh... I guess it's time to head for that fancy place, the Zeal Palace.
Upon arrival, I've got a loooot more information to go over. (This part is very... ENLIGHTENING! The people who can use magic and live in the sky refer to themselves as the Enlightened.) Masa and Mune make an appearance in this time period, and they even make mention of Melchior. One lady even throws out the name Lavos as being a power of hope and dreams for them. There are a trio of "Legendary Gurus" in this time period who are wise men of great knowledge and ability. Unfortunately, they have all recently and mysteriously disappeared. Gaspar, the Guru of TIme, is said to be creating some sort of Chrono Trigger or Time Egg on a deserted island.
Let's see... What else was there. (Seriously, its a huge pile of information.) There's a device called the Mammon Machine, and it seems to be the focus of their rise to power. It draws the near infinite energy from Lavos. They use this as a power source to live their fancy and comfortable lives. There are plans to move the Mammon Machine from its place in the sky to the Ocean Palace down below. It's being built to move the machine closer to Lavos. They believe once they do, the energy will be so great that they can live forever! Of course, anybody who seems to get directly involved with the machine or opposes it seems to disappear.
After talking to basically every NPC I can, I finally wander around to figure out... what do I actually need to do. After looking about, I meet with Schala and Janus. Schala gives her special pendant to Janus and says it will protect him. Janus claims that the Queen isn't their mother anymore because of how much has changed about her recently. As Schala goes to respond to this, she's suddenly called away by the Queen. She leaves, and I attempt to follow after her... but she goes through a mysterious locked door. It seems familiar somehow though... One of the nearby people mentions that our pendant we have greatly resembles the one held by the Schala's. It seems that our pendant has a strange reaction when nearby the Mammon Machine as well.
I head over to see the Mammon Machine in person. Crono holds up the pendant, and it gains a strange charge from the machine. Now I head back over to the mystery door, and it opens up for me this time. We head through, and it leads us straight to the throne room. The Queen is surprised to see us here, but it seems that her new "Prophet" has warned her of our arrival. She commands Dalton to deal with us, and he calls in a Golem to deal with us. As the Golem is summoned in, the rest of the group leaves. BOSS BATTLE TIME!
A giant golden robot golem thing with a giant teeth-y mouth is brought in. And I can't really go into details because this battle was clearly made to beat your face off. It might be possible to win it, but I didn't have the power, level, strategy, or patience to do it. It only used one of two attacks here, but they're both pretty devastating. The first attack is an Iron Orb that drops on a single character to half their HP. The second attack is this laser-blast-thing that does a whopping 400 or more damage to a single character! The combo of the two was too devastating to recover, and my characters were quickly wiped out.
Upon our defeat, the Queen has us imprisoned and plans to deal with us later on. We aren't in prison for too long though, and Schala comes to free us. Upon doing so, she seems to have a request for our team. She wants us to go out and find Melchior, one of the Legendary Gurus. He was banished to the Mountain of Woes for going against the Queen. However, before we get too far, she's caught by the Prophet. He intends to turn us in, but then Schala begs for our lives. He says that he'll spare us if she cooperates in the Ocean Palace plans.
Schala agrees to his terms, but then he demands that we show him how the group even got here. Then we're taken back to the Gate where we initially came in. We're thrown into the Gate and sent back. Then Schala is forced to seal it behind us. And now we're back to where we were... in the Prehistoric Times (65 Million BC). However, we at least have a better idea of how to stop Lavos. It seems that The Dark Ages (12,000 BC) is a point of time quite directly involved with the monster.
With that Gate sealed though, we need to figure out another way back to that time period. The only thing we've got going for us is the mysterious door that opened with the pendant. We just need to remember where we saw one of those last... The group believes they saw a few of those doors in the future. On top of that, when I go to the End of Time, the man there says that someone in the future was working on a "Wings of Time". It's the only way we'll be able to reach the Land of Magic. He warns us that the man seemed to have lost his mind due to how long he had been working on the device though. TO THE FUTURE IT IS! (2300 AD)
Upon returning to the future, I have to start exploring all over to find the door. When I finally do, it seems that there are multiple doors around. The first couple of doors I visit are a bust (sorta) and only offer up some items for me, including a few Magic Tabs. Then I'm not sure where else to go... But then I remember a path I neglected earlier. THE SEWER ACCESS! I head over to that future building and plunge downward into the sewers.
The first things I ran into are a few mutants who freak out upon seeing us and then run off to warn a "Sir Krawlee". The exploration here is pretty quick and easy. Just have to work out the path to take that doesn't involve the bridges here because they're all up and unavailable at this time. The sewer does have an interesting area partway through though. You have to walk along this path without touching any of the various objects lying around. Doing so will cause a sound and alert the hidden enemies here. The best part is that there's even a Save Point here, but I'm pretty sure it also alerts the enemies if you use it. (I didn't test it out though because I was avoiding them.)
As I make my way through to the end of the sewers, I run into this "Sir Krawlee' guy for... ALMOST BOSS BATTLE TIME! I say it like that because I ended up beating Krawlee in two hits. (Dual Tech followed by an attack.) So... now that he's out of the way, I leave the sewers. RIght next to us is the Keeper Dome, so I figure that's our stop. Aaaand I was right! There's one of those fancy doors you need the pendant to unlock, and then it's time to get more story! (Yeah, this post is going to be a lot of story details... but that's a good thing.) I follow this path as it moves around to the back. Little bits of light along the way inform me of the happenings up to this point.
It seems that the Guru of Reason (Legendary Guru), Belthasar, was here. He was working on a time travel device and once lived in the Kingdom of Zeal. A great even happened in the past and threw him into this distant future. He's surprised to find Lavos existed in this time and suspected he existed elsewhere. He believes (and we can confirm) that Lavos descended from the heavens eons ago and burrowed deep below the planet's surface to consume all the energy from within. Throughout time, Lavos has only appeared briefly when he was summoned during the year 600 by a wizard at the time. By 1999, Lavos lives high atop Death Peak and continues to replicate and consume the world.
Belthasar was trapped in this time, but he began to research Lavos as he could. Unfortunately, his old age is starting to catch up to him. He was starting to have a hard time keeping sane. He decided to safeguard his data and ultimate creation behind the door like he did. Upon this writing, he was too frail and old to even use the device at this point, but he leaves it in the hands of those who opened the door. He believes that time is in our hands how, and being the heroes we are, we need to use his creation the "Wings of Time" to save time and defeat Lavos.
Before I go any further... Doesn't that mean Belthasar took a hell of a chance here? He left all the chances on a random group of people happening to open the door. I mean you could argue that only someone with the fancy pendant (Like Schala's or Marle's... although I'm pretty sure they're one in the same) can get through the door. It's still possible that someone could get in there one way or another though. Putting a lot of things at risk here.... especially with what lies behind the door. (Spoilers, it's a time machine.)
Upon seeing his Wings of Time in person... It doesn't have much of a "Wings' thing to it. It's a sight to behold nonetheless. The group is looking at it right now with not much of a response. Nothing seems to be happening right now, so I turn around to leave when a creature (called a Nu) comes up and starts talking. He reveals himself to be Belthasar! Or... well, it's Belthasar's memories placed into the Nu. He explains that this machine can take us anytime we want to. However, before we take off, he asks us to name the machine, and the game goes with... EPOCH! Next stop? The Dark Ages at 12,000 BC!
ANIMATED CUTSCENE TIME! Crono is getting in the Epoch and flies through time! But doesn't actually fly or seem to change position. Without the wings, we can't actually move it very much it seems. We head back through time and find ourselves in 12,000 BC. The Skyway seems closed off to us, so we can only head one other direction. Onwards to the nearby Terra Cave!
This cave is a home to the Earthbound Ones and their village of Algetty. I start off by visiting the shops there, but I don't get too far because I quickly run out of funds. After that, I speak with everybody to get updates on the happenings. It seems that the Guru of Life (Melchior) is trapped on the Mountain of Woes. Thus we're still on the right track in this time.
A few other interesting things are passed along while I'm heading through Algetty. The Guru of Life says that Janus actually has stronger powers than even Schala. It seems that Janus might be using her and the Queen to get to Lavos. (That's how I understood them at least.) Also... I guess that's all I really got for extra information. Continuing on.
It seems that I need to go through the "Beast's Cave" to reach the place of chains that leads to the Mountain of Woe. The Beast's Cave is accessible enough, and I only have to fight a few monsters before I reach this "place of chains." However, I'm not getting up to the mountain THAT easily because an imp comes down with a few bull-like beasts for BOSS BATTLE TIME!
There's two bulls (a red and a blue) as well as the imp, and as I quickly find out, each bull has a specific element (red is fire, blue is water), and this makes quite a difference in this battle. I used Lucca and Robo, and while Lucca worked great, Robo didn't seem to add much. Using Fire on the Blue Bull worked fantastically, so I was able to quickly eliminate it. Attacking the imp isn't a solution here either as every attack at him causes him to counter with the bulls. This lessens once you eliminate one of the bulls, but it's still pretty bad.
The attacks that occur here are...
- Imp throws rocks at me (minimal damage)
- Imp throws rocks at bulls (hurts them) and then bull charges me (medium)
- Imp counters attacks by having both bulls charge (medium)
- Bulls attack on their own ever so often
- Imp heals group slightly
After you get past the two bulls here, the Imp is really limited on attacks and is basically no challenge. Just need to eliminate the bulls and do more damage than the Imp can heal. Realistically, the best characters to assist Crono would be Lucca and Marle (or Frog), but even without the elemental advantage, it's not an overly tough boss fight. And with the monsters defeated, I'm able to climb the chain up to the Mountain of Woe.
The first thing I run into up on the Mountain is a strange "Rubble" enemy. Upon the start of the battle, he immediately disables the character's Tech abilities and items. He doesn't seem to attack himself though, but he has a massive evasion. Thus... He's probably worth a lot of experience and tech points. If you don't kill him quickly, he will run away. On top of that, he won't respawn either. (I managed to kill two of them, but I can see why they don't want them respawning.) Beyond the Rubble creature, nothing else gives me much trouble while climbing up the mountain. There's these gargoyle guys and a few Imp+Bird combos, but they're really not worth mentioning.
Climbing up the mountain is mostly just monsters while crossing chains and a few fancy items inbetween it all. When I finally reach the top, we come face-to-face with a strange block of ice. It seems that Melchior is trapped in there, but first we're going to have to deal with BOSS BATTLE TIME! And this one... is a problematic. Giga Gaia. Unlike anything before this point, he's a pretty good challenge. Let's see if I can arrange these details right...
Giga Gaia is a massive beast and composed of three parts. A body, a left arm, and a right arm. Now, as long as he has both arms, he'll strike out with a duo of super attacks... RIGHT IN A ROW. If you aren't prepared for those attacks, they can easily wipe out your entire party. Destroying one of the arms puts a stop to the double super takedowns, but the arms will regenerate after so much time. While solo, the left arm lashes out with powerful strikes while the right arm heals Giga Gaia. My strategy was to simply destroy a single arm and fight Giga Gaia while the other arm regenerates. However, later on, this didn't really seem so effective. The arm respawn time seems about the same regardless of destroying one or both. So in the end, you can either destroy one then just focus on the body, or you can take time to destroy both. (Both methods have their advantages really.)
Now as for how I did.... I didn't do well. My first attempt with Frog and Lucca went pretty well, but then things went south incredibly fast and dead. I swapped out Lucca for Robo (Frog, Robo), and that... didn't do much better at first. I almost immediately lost the next few rounds. I was starting to get frustrated here, but on the... fourth or fifth try, I finally got my foot in the door. At that point, all I could do was just keep up my HP with all the healing. (Frog and Robo both have a group heal Tech.) Basically, focus on killing an arm then change my focus to the body to deal out the damage. I usually left the fighting arm behind rather than the healing one. That means I had to keep healing my group even as I was damaging it, but I didn't have to work against the grain of its own healing. With a lot of effort and plenty of Techs, I finally brought Giga Gaia to its true death!
With Giga Gaia gone, the strange block of ice reappears and out of it pops... MELCHIOR!?! It seems that not only is it Melchior, but it's the younger/earlier version of him who hasn't met us yet. He finds it strange that we seem to know him while he doesn't know us. However, we don't have time to talk now because the Mountain of Woe seems to be falling apart now. The group escapes the mountain, and it comes crashing into the ground. Upon returning to the village, Melchior tells us that the Queen's Spirit is being corrupted by Lavos through the Mammon Machine. On top of that, the machine is accelerating Lavos's return to power. If the it is allowed to be placed in the Ocean Palace, Lavos will gain enough strength to be summoned.
As he's explaining all of this to us, Schala and Janus show up. Schala says that the machine can't run without her, and she doesn't plan to help any longer. However, then the Dalton guy comes in and beats up everybody before kidnapping Schala. Now we have to go and rescue Schala in order to stop the Queen's plans.
After all the mountain climbing, I figured it was time for another team change. I pick Lucca and Ayla to accompany me from. My first thought here is... Not completely sure where to go. Schala mentioned reopening the Skyway, so I figure that's my first stop. Heading back through the Skyway... and now I'm back at Zeal Palace. I head to the Queen's throne room (because where else?), and we run into Dalton once again. Looks like it might be... BOSS BATTLE TIME! Of course, it's barely that since Dalton doesn't ever directly attack here. He just counters with Iron Orbs for 1/2 HP of damage. After so much damage, he coughs up a dark cloud which hurts the group.
With my victory, Dalton ends up running away. He opens up a warp hole and jumps through it. We follow him once again, and it leads us straight to the Ocean Palace. Upon arrival, I'm given a glimpse at what's happening to Schala right now. Once again, she's being forced to make the Mammon Machine run. While turning the machine on, the Queen demands that it be turned up to full power. So... we best hurry up!
As I'm exploring the Ocean Palace though, I'm not really sure what I should be doing. There's a central room with several adjoining rooms surrounding it. None of those really lead anywhere, but there's a bunch of fancy weapons and armor littered throughout this area. There's a couple different kinds of enemies around here, but the only interesting ones to mention are these colored magical imps. Each one is either red, yellow, or blue. You can attack them physically, but they have a pretty good resistance. This leaves you with using magic, but each of the colored Imps can only be attacked with the same color of element as they are. (Fire on red, lightning on yellow, etc) Failure to comply with that results in them absorbing the attack and countering for some pretty major damage.
Now, if you explore all of the rooms surrounding the center room, you find new weapons for every character. I think I missed one or two, but I managed to find the rest so it's all good. With all the new weapons, I figure it's time to move down. And downwards is exactly where I needed to go! The southern exit from this large room leads to a set of stairs, and that's where I needed to go. I... spent more time than I'd care to admit not being sure of where to go.
Heading down the stairs is a bit more than a walking task though! I had to fight through quite a few enemies down here, but they weren't anything too rough. As we descend further and further into the Ocean Palace, we run into a familiar face here. Masa appears before us and mentions a red rock that has been passed down throughout the ages. From that rock, a knife and a pendant were crafted. (Most likely... It's the royal pendant we have and the Masamune.) Now, for most of the trip down, I've been using Marle and Lucca because of the magical imps. However, I decided to change it up and make use of my favorite team (so far) of Frog and Robo.
We eventually run into an elevator and ride it even FURTHER down. (Seriously, this is going waaaay waaay too far down. How deep does this dang palace go!?) The elevator ride also comes with a trio of battles against monsters. Quite a group I have to fight here, but I'm able to strategize with my new group here. When we reach the bottom, I have to hit a couple of switches to raise a bridge, but then all that's left is right ahead of me. First up? Another BOSS BATTLE TIME! (Damn Hard Edition)
As we enter this large room, Dalton appears in front of us and summons in the Golem Twins. (Remember that weird golden tooth-y golem from earlier? That times two.... crap.) If I thought Giga Gaia was hard, he was a cake walk compared to this one. The golem fights much like before, but now there are two of them. On top of this, the golems have gained a new ability. They absorb whatever type of attack is thrown towards them and then are able to throw a copied version towards you. (Example? Using fire on them causes them to counter with a fire attack.) It doesn't sound dangerous, but this is in combination with the Iron Orb attack and their powerful physical strike. (The one that does like 400ish or more damage? Yeah, still really devastating.)
I easily repeated this battle four or five times. I even looked up a few guides to figure out a good strategy to use. I wasn't really capable of pulling them all off. Many suggested a specific attack Crono uses, but I didn't have it yet. Magic and Tech work well on the Golems, but you have to worry about whatever counter comes from them. Physical attacks end in the worst ways. Lightning did quite a bit coming back, so I can suggest avoiding that. The best suggestion I found suggested using Lucca's Hypno Wave to put them both to sleep. (I switched out Robo for Lucca but kept Frog.) After putting them both to sleep, you simply focus on a single golem from here. As long as you focus on one and don't touch the other, it'll remain asleep.
That's honestly the best I have to offer with that. There were a few more strategies, but this worked best for me and my current status. With one asleep, I had Lucca focus on healing and casting Protect while Crono and Frog made use of their Dual Techs. Now, I actually went through this strategy twice. My first time seemed okay, but then it all fell apart when I started up on the second Golem. On my second attempt with this, I made sure to prep my characters before waking up the second Golem. If you do it right, you can get through it fairly unharmed. Be sure to just keep on your toes and be ready to get slammed in the face. Also, upon death, each Golem finishes with a "Dalton Attack" where they release that dark gas energy like he did. Not much damage but just be ready for it.
Dalton is surprised to see we defeated the Golems, but he has another ace up his sleeve with... KING GOLEM! Or so he said, but then a strong energy comes flying from behind us. He realizes that the Mammon Machine is in full gear now, and that Lavos is coming soon. He bids us farewell and runs to the next room to bask in the energy or glory or whatever. I go chase after Dalton!... after I run back to save. (Seriously, screw doing that Golem fight again.) In the final room, the Mammon Machine is going crazy now. Not sure if we can stop it, but we're going to try. Melchior gave us a mysterious knife back there, so I figure it's time to use it. Crono throws it at the Mammon Machine, and that seems to do something! (Also Frog recognizes the "knife" as the Masamune.)
However, it seems we are too late. Lavos is summoned regardless and brings its ugly, powerful face to fight us. BOSS BATTLE TIME!... and we're dead. No seriously. It did a single strike for like 1,000 damage across the board and completely wiped out our party. This is followed by a couple different reveals. It seems that the mysterious Prophet was Magus in disguise. As it turns out though, he did all of this to fight Lavos and take his revenge on it! (Doesn't explain what for right now though.) He strikes out at Lavos, but it seems even he doesn't have the power to take it down. Lavos attacks him, and Magus is out for the count.
Then Queen Zeal makes her appearance here and takes to Lavos's side. She claims to be using Lavos to live forever and such, and then Lavos starts to try and suck everybody into itself. However, Crono gets up despite his horrible injuries and charges at Lavos... then Sadness. We get a horrible cutscene that shows Crono attempting to fight Lavos again, and then it blasts him into nothingness! With the scene over, Lavos is starting to rampage, but it seems the Ocean Palace wasn't built for this. It begins to come apart as the group is recovering. Schala is able to use her powers to send us all to the surface, Magus included.
Unfortunately, the surface isn't safe from Lavos's wraith either. With it's revival, Lavos Lasers come shooting up from the ground and strike all the floating islands in the sky. They puncture all over the sky islands and bring it down to the ground. They come crashing into the planet and cause a massive tidal wave. The Earthbound Ones manage to reach safety from the waves, but the land itself is quite trashed from the wave and falling islands. When the group awakes, only a small pocket of society seems to have survived. It's mostly the Earthbound Ones, but a few Enlightened have survived as well.
The Village Elder says that he found us washed up on the shore. However, Crono wasn't among us, but our ship, the Epoch, seems to have survived as well! Strangely enough, Marle's Pendant (that was always with Crono) was found with us as well. He mentions that Melchior and Janus both were sucked into a strange portal and disappeared some time ago. The group figures that his description fits that of a Time Gate... but would could it possibly mean? (I have theories, but I'm not speaking yet.) All I can say now is... What does the group do?!
And here ends another Chrono Trigger post. I'd like to say... I'm definitely liking where the game is going. I know I'm getting closer and closer to the ending of the game, and I'm going to go for one of the more true-r endings available. I know there are multiple endings, but they involve facing Lavos at earlier times. ANYWAYS! I figure I've got one more big post after this, and then I'll be done with Chrono Trigger! Stay tuned and look forward to it! Thanks for reading... RECURRING FANTASY! Until next time...
Ending Point - 12,000 BC. The Dark Ages.
Current Party -
- Lucca - Level 33
- Frog - Level 33
- Robo - Level 33
Rest of the Party
- Marle - Level 34
- Ayla - Level 33
Goals Accomplished - Explored the Dark Ages (12,000 BC). Learned more about Lavos. Obtained the time machine, the Epoch. Made it to the Ocean Palace but failed to stop Queen Zeal. Survived the Ocean Palace incident but lost Crono. (Sad boosh...)
Next Goals - Figure out what the group should do next. Stop Lavos and save time!
~May the Crystals Guide Me~
