@53:00, I have been playing this game for 25 years and I had never thought of this...but it totally makes sense. And the idea of schala being the entity. Wow, that just changed my entire perception of this game. It adds yet another layer of beauty
I could write several books about this game as it's my favorite of all-time, but I'll just mention how cool it is that basically every single boss adds a new mechanic, and that many of the mechanics can be spoiled or seen elsewhere beforehand. Yakra - Counterattacks if at range, the opposite of Gato from the fair who counterattacks when close Dragon Tank - Multiple targets, Head heals and is immune to fire/lightning, spoiled by reading the note by the desk just before Guardian - Counterattacks if Bits are still alive R Series - Counterattacks if 3 or less are alive Heckran - Enters a counterattack "phase", as spoiled by his own dialogue Zombor - Top and bottom have different elemental weaknesses Masa & Mune - Only one has to die to win Masamune - Can use Slash to disable his charging, spoiled by a villager Nizbel - Must use lightning to lower defense (until the energy is released), spoiled by a villager and probably using lightning often on other reptites Flea - Status effects (Poison, Chaos, Blind) Slash - Moves around to take advantage of lines for his slashes to hit multiple party members Ozzie - Have to check for other targets or get counterattacked (like Guardian) Magus - Switches elemental weaknesses which are triggered by your attacks, charges up for super attack, 2 phases Nizbel II - Same as before, except this time it still attacks while its defense is lowered, and its defense is boosted after every non-lightning attack Azala/Black Tyrano - Have to kill or disable Azala before the Tyrano becomes vulnerable, gains power over successive fire breath uses Golem - Switches attacks/elements it uses based on what was last used to hit it I'll stop here but you get the idea. M E T I C U L O U S L Y C R A F T E D
I'd love to hear you cover Chrono Cross, considering how much it comes up in this video. Really enjoyed the thoughts and in-depth analysis. These are things that I would never notice but really appreciated.
Good sir Lorerunner, kind sir Lorerunner... God bless us, every one. :') A remarkable rumination and surprise holiday treat indeed. You've inspired me to fire up the Epoch for another spin over the holiday break - which I hope treats you and yours kindly!
Thank you for this Gem lore. Amazing video as always. Your old videos are gold don't ever think they are not very special I've been here from near the very beginning and still go back and watch them sometimes for the memories.
I'm actually in the early stages of developing a SNES-style Multiplayer JRPG, and these in-depth analyses are amazingly invaluable. You don't get these kinds of insights in other reviews. Thanks!
I always saw the Lavos fight as a "higher being" trying to make sense of the entity -the characters- that's challenging it. The fight itself takes place in this weird plane that's similar to the time travel portals, so one could argue that it isn't reality as we've seen it in the rest of the game. I mean, when you enter the shell, you go into a mountain environment? That doesn't make sense. I saw it as the being (Lavos) warping this plane in which it exists, to understand and face the attacker. That's why it would go from a "monster-shell" shape, into a semi-humanoid shape, into a full human-like form. All occurring in this alternate plane of reality.
I've always seen Lavos' arrival as a coincidence in a way. Basically that he was in the system looking for something to eat and a base to reproduce in, and was making his way towards Chrono-Earth (I forgot what if anything the game world is called) when he heard the call. In my opinion he would have landed on the planet either way, the call of the Reptite Queen just accelerated the process by basically confirming the presence of advanced life and cutting the big L's search time significantly. Lavos remains by far my favorite RPG villain, with Sin/Yevon coming in second. Maybe because both entities are more an indifferent process than actual 'bad guys'. Lavos was a planet-eater just doing what he do with little regard for the life he was consuming in the process, and Sin was the result of a hurt and broken individual trying to remake what they had lost and pulling everybody else into the Spiral of Death as a consequence. As always it's great to hear you talk for hours about this stuff Lore. I always like your longer ruminations because they are usually about something you enjoy and thus have spent a lot of time thinking about, and your insight never fails to inspire me to think as deeply about the media I enjoy and create. I hope the holidays are treating you well and I look forward to enjoying more of your content.
One other thing, the Black Omen exists in 3 timelines and can be beaten in all of these. When you reach the Lavos fight and don't go inside, you can back off, get the Epoch again, go to a different time and beat the Black Omen there too. It is pretty much the same sequence of fights each time, so you are doing it purely for the high xp, tech and items available. Do all 3 and you'll level to a point that you can nearly step on Lavos (especially if you've been fighting everything to this point).
This took me three days to watch. Really busy life at the moment. Regardless, it was the best video about CT I ever seen. I have watched a lot of your videos, especially about Final Fantasy, and I really like the way you talk about the games. About the entity, I always though that we, the players, were this entity, and we wanted to the characters to see all the stuff.
1:18:07 While the name of the historical Masamune is up for some debate, within the text of the original Japanese script is very clear in how it's intended to be pronounced: "Granleon". Edit: Chrono Cross isn't type 3 time travel. its dimensional shenanigans based on the fact that space is time's lazier little brother. The issue is that the inciting event of the dimensional shenanigans in Chrono Cross is the destruction of a near-divine magical creature (Lavos) or the combination of a near-divine magical creature and one of the greatest sorceress to ever live. It could be either one. Also, I believe that Chrono Trigger is purely type II just far more understated in the first half. The heroes are not completing history at any point. There is a concrete timeline of events that happens without any interference of Chrono and the gang and they are not involved in that timeline at all. They're on a guided your of time and forcing their way into the events but the outcome of those events are unchanged from what initially happened all the way until the ocean palace. Chrono, the gang, and the prophet were not there when Lavos was called by the overuse of the Mamon Machine. We even see that the flashback scene. The flashback was radically different. Instead of being sent away by Lavos they were teleported off the palace by Schala. Then when you talk to the survivors they say that the sages and Janus were sucked away by black portals, either some mechanic of time travel or the entity finishing their time loops.
I'm amazed at how naturally Lore speaks about the entirety of the game from start to finish. If magic in the Chrono Trigger universe has it origin in Lavos, then why is it elemental? Of course, the reason is that the elements are staples of magic systems but I'd be curious as to what the in-universe explanation could be.
I think it's no coincidence that the elements of Chrono Trigger don't include Earth... the power of our world has nothing to do with the magic that fell from the stars in the form of Lavos. Ayla and debatably Robo could be considered Earth-elemental creatures, which is why neither can learn magic from Spekkio.
Thanks a ton for your hard work! I can't wait to listen to this on my iPod. I eagerly await the MP3 upload on the website. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas, dude! I also still eagerly wait for the day that you take over the world! (evil laughter)
There is a theory because of the biblical references that the entity is God. There is some weight behind this if you interpret Chrono's death as a Christ like sacrifice. Crono uses the rainbow sword as his ultimate weapon and also has the spell life despite being a heavy attacker. It's just interesting at least that there are quite a bit of biblical references if nothing else.
Have you ever heard the piano medly by OstilMusic? It's an amazing rendition of some of the major songs. I love it personally and I know you love music so..
Clicked this Rumi entirely by accident...now I'm replaying CT instead of getting anything else done this weekend. Thanks a lot, Lore! *Wink* God the game is easy-mode on NewGamePlus. Basically nothing gets any harder, other than maybe Spekkio and Lavos. On the other hand, because I didn't remember all the secrets of the game, about an hour into my game, I managed to walk into the Lavos battle at the fair, before even recruiting Lucca. I beat his initial form with just Crono and Marle, but couldn't make it through the robot version, just due to action economy and limited heals. So that hour was wasted and I had to start again, but now I've powered through the Magus fight in less than a day, before losing interest in continuing.
Firstly, "I look at robot lavos, and all I have are questions." Needs to be memed immediately. Secondly, what are your thoughts on the dream devourer from the DS remake?
A great video as always but one thing you said isn't quite accurate to the story. Azala doesn't summon Lavos in any timeline, she never affected its descent. The line where she asks the red star to "come" and usher in the ice age isn't her literally calling it, it's her resigning herself to the fact that it will destroy the reptites and render the planet uninhabitable to them. She's not ordering Lavos down rather she's accepting her and her civilization's inevitable demise. The reptites have no magic to affect Lavos, magic is explicitly a product of Lavos' interference after its crash. You're right in that you're not affecting time, not because you're completing some kind of self-fulfilling loop but because there's nothing that any character is capable of doing that can prevent Lavos from crashing into the planet in the first place.
I just want to mention that Chrono Trigger wasn't some one-off thing, basically the entire team (except the composer, Yoko Shimamura was for that instead) made another game called Live A Live the previous year that is a far more experimental game than Chrono Trigger in format but is also a game about timelines.
I love your videos! Here is some help: Ma sa mu ne A ki ra Ta ka hi shi Na ru ka mi Ka n ji All vowels and the sound for n can be one single syllable, but generally in japanese you can see that every word is split into two letter syllables. If you look at a basic Hiragana chart it will make more sense. Most people struggle with japanese because they try and use english pronunciation rules. Mune sounds like dune with an M in english But in japanese it's: Mu and Ne, completely separate.
I think the earthquake mentioned in the beggining of the game is actually a reference to the dinossaur lair that is open in 1000 a.d. but not on 600 a.d.. Remember that the explorer guy from 600 locates the lair but never got inside it
10 second lesson on Japanese pronunciation: Vowels: a = ah, e = eh, i = ee, o = oh, u = ü (as in goo or moo). Every consonant starts a new syllable. Syllables are pronounced independent of other syllables. There are, of course, more nuances, but that's enough to tell you how to pronounce Mah Sah Mü Neh.
My theory on Lavos core is that the world and Lavos are all one environment now. Lavos' presence shapes human history, and human development, in turn, shapes the development of Lavos itself. It gets a mechanical shell inside in response to human's developing machinery; it is assimilating the world's technological distinctiveness... and it has a humanoid part of the core because "you are what you eat"; it is assimilating human biological distinctiveness as well. Of course, the main part of the core is not that humanoid bit (which is a brilliant gameplay misdirect, I love it), but humanoid isn't the only life on the planet. That right bit may very well be the main remnant of the original alien, if not the "brain", perhaps the instinctive accumulation of magic that keeps the rest coordinated. insert technobabble lol. BTW is it just me or does the trial scene really remind you of Star Trek VI's trial scene too?
I agree with your assessment that Lavos is internally morphing according to its data about the planet, and would just like to add that, maybe in the same vein as Shin Godzilla, it decides to conjure a humanoid form and split into three separate units in an effort to mirror the party. Lore has speculated before that Lavos doesn't become aware of the party until its final form, but perhaps it's possible that this realization comes one phase sooner. Its internal "mechanical" form recognizes the party as a threat, attempts to neutralize it, and then decides to use their methods against them. His final form, after all, is capable of double and triple techs. Other multi-foe battles and bosses utilize these, but Lavos is only prompted to do so after witnessing the party's fighting style.
Just started playing Chrono Trigger for the 2nd time A few days ago. I stopped playing the 1st time right after playing through though FF 6 and Link to the Past and struggled to get into it but have fallen in love with the game.
Thank you Lore for another video.Ive been rewatching your videos of ff7 rumination and proper remake for sometime.I think im the ff geek that watch your video to gain knowledge about ff.Im a late comer for the ff series yet i really love ff7 and ff10.I hope you do a proper remake rumination of ff7
To be fair to Cyrus, wasn't the Masamune already damaged from attacking the Mammon Machine? Then it broke fighting Magus. That's my head cannon. And for the record I think Masa-Mune (Masah Mooneh) is my pronunciation.
At the risk of being "that guy", and to make it clear I'm trying to be helpful: Based upon my understanding of Japanese pronunciation the key aspect of pronouncing "Masamune" is the "ay" sound at the end. Not sure if you're familiar with the anime Ranma 1/2 but it features a good example with a character named Akane, which is pronounced ay-khan-ay, rather than something like "a cane". To be sure, I googled it and the pronunciation as far I can figure is "mass-a-moon-ay". Of course the tricky part is putting the emPHAsis on the correct sylAbles, which in my opinion is slightly less important.
My complaints about Chrono Trigger: Maybe I just didn't know what I was doing, but on my first playthrough I found that I wasn't able to skip a lot of the encounters. I had heard about how great it was that the encounters in CT were optional, only to find that most (obviously not all) of the encounters were actually mandatory to progress through an area...making it not that different from my experience playing games with random encounters in terms of encounter rate. I'm sure the encounters are much easier to skip if you know exactly where to step, but from a new player's perspective, not really. For example, before you get the Epoch, it was annoying to have to fight those enemies right across the bridge in Truce Canyon 600 AD every time I wanted to go back there. And as far as I'm aware, there's no item or equipment you can use to make these mandatory encounters disappear. So idk, I think this aspect of CT is a bit oversold. I guess you can escape encounters, at least. I'm also not sure I get how CT characters are customizable beyond using stat boosts like Speed Tabs etc, and there are a limited number of those in the game. Otherwise, each character's leveling is extremely linear. They gain levels that increases their innate stats, they can each only equip their specific type of weapon, you can equip them with different equipment that has certain properties like halving fire damage or something, and then they eventually learn all of their specific Techs/Magic that each individual character can learn and no one else. Actually, this isn't really a complaint. I'm totally fine with each character being unique. It's a nice change from other RPGs where you can basically give every character everything and make them all OP if you want. But there is added enjoyment to being able to customize which is lacking here. I thought that the idea of having enemies positioned a certain way so that using certain Techs is more effective was an amazing idea--but I wish they utilized it more often. After you get magic, I feel like a lot of the enemies are too spaced out for stuff like line techs or circle proximity techs to matter, so you're just encouraged to use level 2 magic or techs that affect all enemies. And those techs/magic usually do a lot more damage anyway. The fight animations were pretty slow. (I'm also kind of an impatient person.) This isn't something that putting the battle speed all the way up fixes. If it weren't for the auto-battle feature that speeds up time on the PC version, I would have been a lot more frustrated. Tbh I used this feature just to speed up animations, not to auto battle. Some of the songs get a little repetitive/annoying. This is specific to the PC/DS version, but the Lost Sanctum side quests are kind of boring. Everything else is great. Great sprite art, character designs, music, battle system, gameplay, dungeons are mostly simple and linear but they're pretty, some of the dungeons are really well designed. Story and characters were cute, short and sweet, solid, but not super impressive or anything. Frog's arc was particularly good, along with Marle's arc with her father. However, I love how colorful (literally and figuratively) the story and characters are in this game. It feels very Toriyama in a way. I do feel like I got the most out of the game in the first couple hours, where the magic really captured me the most. After that, my experience wasn't necessarily improved at any point, like it didn't blow me away (except when Corridors of Time plays for the first time, that's the one exception). That's not a bad thing, I'm just saying. It's a great game, but I think it was overhyped to me too much, so when I played it as an adult for the first time I was expecting more.
Maybe the Entity is whatever soul or conscience or childhood innocence that Queen Zeal long abandoned. Or it's the mind that was evicted from her body so that Lavos could take it over. That might explain why the Entity does its thing in the first half, because it's Zeal the original power hungry but sane aristocrat, who has mourned and festered for all these centuries, but now has the chance to try and fix things. And in the course of doing so, she comes to bond with Lucca, the only one of the characters who has kind of a similar personality, with her ambition and creativity and being slightly isolated from her family. Hence why, in her ultimate degree of redemption, she personally helps Lucca, and only Lucca, to have a happier home to come back to after the world is saved.
Marle disappears at the precise moment that Yakra killed Leene; before that, it was possible based on random events that Leene might be saved, even though the probably went way down when everyone except Kaeru stopped trying to save her. But the moment the new timeline became unambiguously true, time caught up and cessated her. Of course, the idea of her winding up somewhere still makes no sense. (It's probably somewhere at the end of time, but not near Gaspar's little waystation, which probably only initially gathers groups of 4+ for whatever reason; I like to think that Feral Adult Keiko and other such cessated characters all wind up in such an unplace, until the Prophets recruit them for a mission).
Late on commenting, but! Would love to see a chrono cross rumination. Its my preferred of the two. I admit that is entirely due to exposure. I had a genesis , not a snes. Played cross well before I ever even heard of trigger.
1:18:00 - the pronunciation of "masamune" in the chrono series is entirely irrelevant as the only reason it got the name was Ted Woolsey. The sword is not a Japanese-style sword, so you can call it a baseball bat for all I care.
2:24:05 ...or, they started as type two and were manipulated so as to create an apparent infinite type one loop, expect they were always type two. The first time they were created they were type two literally establishing a training sequence necessary to create heroes strong enough to defeat the enemy, but after that, because you're not the only party that can time travel, they evolved to something akin to type one. Think of it like this. You invent time travel. Travel back in time and give young Lore the time machine plans. Young Lore builds the machine and masters it and the returns to young Lore his copy of the time machine plans. The new young lore builds the time machine and masters it, then he returns to young Lore and gives his copy of the plans to the time machine to this, let's say Lore 4. You keep on going and sooner or later you end up with something that looks remarkably like By His Bootstraps. It's not, but depending on when you jump into the story it might as well be.
People have used that basic idea to argue that time travel will always end up at type one (or no time travel at all) - if you change the timeline, then in the new timeline you no longer have the same reason to time travel, so you don't, or you do for some other reason and make different changes, which leads to the timeline changing until either you end up converging on a stable loop, or time ends up changed in a way that prevents your time travel (and doesn't rely on your time travel happening to sustain itself because not going back in time when history has you having appeared after going back in time is itself a change...) At which point I usually quote Austin Powers: "Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed"
He said it, we're gonna fund a CT lorerun right? Edit: don't know if you respond to these comments but, I'm curious, other than the fact to see what happens if you dont save Lara, have you ever not saved her more than once? I tried but I could never bring myself to do it, that scream was always just too much for me to ever attempt to not do it more than once.
I disagree completely that the game story is a closed loop. There is a undisturbed timeline of events that is implied while we play. Lavos' fall on pre-historic times kills the reptites. The only alteration that the team causes is that Kino almost dies with the reptites. Remember that Kino is only captured because he is jealous of Crono and tries to prove himself to Ayla. Azala feels that the red star is a good omen, but that is just because he does not understands Lavos. Zeal was going to try to harness Lavos' power and die, but the team inteference makes Lavos realize that there is someone capable of challenging him, so he allies with Zeal and creates the Black Omen. In 600, Magus' ritual give him a chance at facing Lavos but he loses. If dies or goes to pose as the Prophet without the team interference is unclear, but meaningless, because the point is Magus can't beat Lavos alone. So the player team don't manage to change much, but actually make things worse by causing the creation of the Black Omen. The team only triumphs because they involve and develop themselves as individuals, increase their strength and the state of the world in the optional quests in the third act. (English is a second language to me. Please forgive any mistakes.)
Those little sparkles that come out of the factory? I think those are the tabs. All the tabs throughout the game were shipped back in time to make humans stronger and smarter and faster, since the mother brain hates humanity as they are, wants to kill them in the present, but also wants to make them better in the past, so they'll be less contemptible, and eventually might not all deserve to die. So instead of genocide, we can have cannibalism! Yay ...
Gotta watch that TAS. Doing one (somewhat) myself with a DS and cheat device. I just want to see how far I can push endgame equipment, so I have everyone at their base levels with the workman's wallet. I think I might've hit a brick wall with Magus as a single counter from him one shots my entire party.
If Crono and party get their magic from Spekkio, then who really is Spekkio (in reference to Lavos giving the world magic)???? BTW, my assumption is that the "Entity" are either the developers of the game or the players.
The idea that Azala summoned Lavos comes off to me as reading way too deep into a few lines. Azala can teleport rocks, sure, but now she can call down ancient space parasites hurtling through the cosmos? And for what purpose, to annihilate her own race? If it's an act of spite in order to doom humanity as well, Lavos was already on its way down by the time you fly to the Tyrano Lair, leaving the only possible justification for Azala's defeatism to be the Gate Key. She nuked the whole planet over that? More importantly, if the early game is our guided tour in which we complete history, why would the Entity EVER want us to SUMMON Lavos? Especially if the Reptites are the naturally dominant species. The much simpler interpretation is that Lavos just happened to fall that day and forever alter Earth's history, just as the meteor in real life happened to wipe out the dinosaurs. Azala's line "Red star, FALL!" and subsequent battle is nothing but a defiant last stand, a refusal to go quietly into the night. This would also reinforce the notion that you are changing nothing: just as it doesn't really matter whether Frog originally fought Magus in 600 AD because Lavos's summoning would have ended the war regardless, it doesn't matter if Ayla stormed the Tyrano Lair alone or never even went, because Lavos was always going to obliterate it.
I think Chrono Trigger would make more sense if 1999 AD was more like 1199 AD at latest. It's weird to think that the knights of Guardia Castle are in armor in 600, then modern looking cloth uniforms in another 400 years, which don't change at all in another 999 years. This flaw gets worse if you accept Lore's theory about Lucca bringing back futuretech, since we see little evidence of 1999 having had 2300 tech for 1000 years.
The scene where Taban brings his day's wages home to Lara doesn't suffice to prove that Lara is crippled; in relatively prosperous and modern homes, it's pretty typical to have a woman who stays home all day doing domestic chores (which could include just sitting in a chair and knitting or the like), while her husband earns money and then keeps little of it himself. In the Middle Ages, it'd be a little harder to explain a household where both people don't work.
Time travel plot-hole. The Seed. They have access to time travel, so why not just run back to 600ce and grab bags of seeds and grain etc and drop it off in whichever dome?
I disagree with you about the "type of time travel" we have in Chrono Trigger. For me it's always Type 2. It's a much simpler and lighthearted take. It's exactly like in Back to the Future. Nevertheless, your analysis is awesome. Congratulations!
I lice chrono cross. It doesn't get enough love. I believe that it was cursed by its namesake. It would be more well lived if it didn't have chrono in the name. Even the actual story connections would have been a good surprise for fans if only cross didn't have chrono in the name.
"The Entity" is the Player who is playing Chrono Trigger. It always seemed to me it was a clear example of metalanguage in that part around the campfire. "The different events over time, that we have witnessed. It is almost as if some entity wanted to relive its past." It's either the Player, who is playing the game, or the Game Designers, wich created the story.
Actually, Lavos may have been the one inspired by Jenova despite the fact that the former's game predates the release of the latter's one. FFVII's production was halted so that a chunk of the staff could be moved to work on CT, and it's been noted how some concepts conceived for FFVII bled into the development of Chrono Trigger. It's quite possible that the similarities shared among these Square titles stem from early Jenova concepts. And yes, The Thing parallels are recognized also. :P
A fine thought, until you realize that is its name only in the English Version. In Jaanese the blade is called Grandleon (In Chrono Cross it becomes the Grand Dream). It was not meant to be a reference to a Japanese swordsmith, but Woolsey chose that name, so it stuck.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
@53:00, I have been playing this game for 25 years and I had never thought of this...but it totally makes sense. And the idea of schala being the entity. Wow, that just changed my entire perception of this game. It adds yet another layer of beauty
Lavos is so Lovecraftian that even when you see what it really is, you understand it less than you did before.
My ex says this is true of my lovemaking.
I could write several books about this game as it's my favorite of all-time, but I'll just mention how cool it is that basically every single boss adds a new mechanic, and that many of the mechanics can be spoiled or seen elsewhere beforehand.
Yakra - Counterattacks if at range, the opposite of Gato from the fair who counterattacks when close
Dragon Tank - Multiple targets, Head heals and is immune to fire/lightning, spoiled by reading the note by the desk just before
Guardian - Counterattacks if Bits are still alive
R Series - Counterattacks if 3 or less are alive
Heckran - Enters a counterattack "phase", as spoiled by his own dialogue
Zombor - Top and bottom have different elemental weaknesses
Masa & Mune - Only one has to die to win
Masamune - Can use Slash to disable his charging, spoiled by a villager
Nizbel - Must use lightning to lower defense (until the energy is released), spoiled by a villager and probably using lightning often on other reptites
Flea - Status effects (Poison, Chaos, Blind)
Slash - Moves around to take advantage of lines for his slashes to hit multiple party members
Ozzie - Have to check for other targets or get counterattacked (like Guardian)
Magus - Switches elemental weaknesses which are triggered by your attacks, charges up for super attack, 2 phases
Nizbel II - Same as before, except this time it still attacks while its defense is lowered, and its defense is boosted after every non-lightning attack
Azala/Black Tyrano - Have to kill or disable Azala before the Tyrano becomes vulnerable, gains power over successive fire breath uses
Golem - Switches attacks/elements it uses based on what was last used to hit it
I'll stop here but you get the idea. M E T I C U L O U S L Y C R A F T E D
I'd love to hear you cover Chrono Cross, considering how much it comes up in this video. Really enjoyed the thoughts and in-depth analysis. These are things that I would never notice but really appreciated.
I 2nd this!
Yes!
The pinnacle of quality content in RUclips, right here. Thanks Lore !
Good sir Lorerunner, kind sir Lorerunner... God bless us, every one. :')
A remarkable rumination and surprise holiday treat indeed. You've inspired me to fire up the Epoch for another spin over the holiday break - which I hope treats you and yours kindly!
Your old vids are among my favorites to this day.
The videos on Mass effect 3 ending are still some of your best analysis.
Thank you for this Gem lore. Amazing video as always. Your old videos are gold don't ever think they are not very special I've been here from near the very beginning and still go back and watch them sometimes for the memories.
I'm actually in the early stages of developing a SNES-style Multiplayer JRPG, and these in-depth analyses are amazingly invaluable. You don't get these kinds of insights in other reviews. Thanks!
I’m curious about your project :O what should I look up for details?
I always saw the Lavos fight as a "higher being" trying to make sense of the entity -the characters- that's challenging it. The fight itself takes place in this weird plane that's similar to the time travel portals, so one could argue that it isn't reality as we've seen it in the rest of the game. I mean, when you enter the shell, you go into a mountain environment? That doesn't make sense. I saw it as the being (Lavos) warping this plane in which it exists, to understand and face the attacker. That's why it would go from a "monster-shell" shape, into a semi-humanoid shape, into a full human-like form. All occurring in this alternate plane of reality.
I've always seen Lavos' arrival as a coincidence in a way. Basically that he was in the system looking for something to eat and a base to reproduce in, and was making his way towards Chrono-Earth (I forgot what if anything the game world is called) when he heard the call. In my opinion he would have landed on the planet either way, the call of the Reptite Queen just accelerated the process by basically confirming the presence of advanced life and cutting the big L's search time significantly. Lavos remains by far my favorite RPG villain, with Sin/Yevon coming in second. Maybe because both entities are more an indifferent process than actual 'bad guys'. Lavos was a planet-eater just doing what he do with little regard for the life he was consuming in the process, and Sin was the result of a hurt and broken individual trying to remake what they had lost and pulling everybody else into the Spiral of Death as a consequence.
As always it's great to hear you talk for hours about this stuff Lore. I always like your longer ruminations because they are usually about something you enjoy and thus have spent a lot of time thinking about, and your insight never fails to inspire me to think as deeply about the media I enjoy and create. I hope the holidays are treating you well and I look forward to enjoying more of your content.
One other thing, the Black Omen exists in 3 timelines and can be beaten in all of these. When you reach the Lavos fight and don't go inside, you can back off, get the Epoch again, go to a different time and beat the Black Omen there too. It is pretty much the same sequence of fights each time, so you are doing it purely for the high xp, tech and items available. Do all 3 and you'll level to a point that you can nearly step on Lavos (especially if you've been fighting everything to this point).
This took me three days to watch. Really busy life at the moment. Regardless, it was the best video about CT I ever seen. I have watched a lot of your videos, especially about Final Fantasy, and I really like the way you talk about the games.
About the entity, I always though that we, the players, were this entity, and we wanted to the characters to see all the stuff.
What a great early Christmas gift
I subscribed years ago, when you were at 6000 subs, ive really enjoyed your content all this time. Thanks for doing what you do bro
Apparently, Nomura did the backgrounds/art assets for the courtroom and Magus' castle. Pretty wild.
Ahhhhhhh!!!!! Almost 3 hrs of Chrono Trigger talk!!! I’m in heaven! You made my week!
Loved this remake. Love your old videos all the same! Much love this holiday Lore/Arche
1:18:07 While the name of the historical Masamune is up for some debate, within the text of the original Japanese script is very clear in how it's intended to be pronounced: "Granleon".
Edit:
Chrono Cross isn't type 3 time travel. its dimensional shenanigans based on the fact that space is time's lazier little brother. The issue is that the inciting event of the dimensional shenanigans in Chrono Cross is the destruction of a near-divine magical creature (Lavos) or the combination of a near-divine magical creature and one of the greatest sorceress to ever live. It could be either one.
Also, I believe that Chrono Trigger is purely type II just far more understated in the first half. The heroes are not completing history at any point. There is a concrete timeline of events that happens without any interference of Chrono and the gang and they are not involved in that timeline at all. They're on a guided your of time and forcing their way into the events but the outcome of those events are unchanged from what initially happened all the way until the ocean palace. Chrono, the gang, and the prophet were not there when Lavos was called by the overuse of the Mamon Machine. We even see that the flashback scene. The flashback was radically different. Instead of being sent away by Lavos they were teleported off the palace by Schala. Then when you talk to the survivors they say that the sages and Janus were sucked away by black portals, either some mechanic of time travel or the entity finishing their time loops.
I'm amazed at how naturally Lore speaks about the entirety of the game from start to finish.
If magic in the Chrono Trigger universe has it origin in Lavos, then why is it elemental? Of course, the reason is that the elements are staples of magic systems but I'd be curious as to what the in-universe explanation could be.
I think it's no coincidence that the elements of Chrono Trigger don't include Earth... the power of our world has nothing to do with the magic that fell from the stars in the form of Lavos. Ayla and debatably Robo could be considered Earth-elemental creatures, which is why neither can learn magic from Spekkio.
I saw this in my sub feed and was, like, "oh God how long is this video going to be?" I wasn't disappointed. I'll watch the entire thing later though
[sees 3 hour long new rumination and smiles]
What a treat! Thank you lore love your ruminations merry Christmas
Thanks a ton for your hard work! I can't wait to listen to this on my iPod. I eagerly await the MP3 upload on the website. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas, dude!
I also still eagerly wait for the day that you take over the world! (evil laughter)
Lore, IMO this is the best of your game ruminations i hav eyet viewed.
There is a theory because of the biblical references that the entity is God. There is some weight behind this if you interpret Chrono's death as a Christ like sacrifice. Crono uses the rainbow sword as his ultimate weapon and also has the spell life despite being a heavy attacker. It's just interesting at least that there are quite a bit of biblical references if nothing else.
Have you ever heard the piano medly by OstilMusic? It's an amazing rendition of some of the major songs. I love it personally and I know you love music so..
Clicked this Rumi entirely by accident...now I'm replaying CT instead of getting anything else done this weekend. Thanks a lot, Lore! *Wink*
God the game is easy-mode on NewGamePlus. Basically nothing gets any harder, other than maybe Spekkio and Lavos. On the other hand, because I didn't remember all the secrets of the game, about an hour into my game, I managed to walk into the Lavos battle at the fair, before even recruiting Lucca. I beat his initial form with just Crono and Marle, but couldn't make it through the robot version, just due to action economy and limited heals. So that hour was wasted and I had to start again, but now I've powered through the Magus fight in less than a day, before losing interest in continuing.
Thank you so much for this. I love your videos so much.
Did this dude ever looked at I Am Setsuna? Really curious about his insights on the parallels with Chrono Trigger
Firstly, "I look at robot lavos, and all I have are questions." Needs to be memed immediately.
Secondly, what are your thoughts on the dream devourer from the DS remake?
A great video as always but one thing you said isn't quite accurate to the story. Azala doesn't summon Lavos in any timeline, she never affected its descent. The line where she asks the red star to "come" and usher in the ice age isn't her literally calling it, it's her resigning herself to the fact that it will destroy the reptites and render the planet uninhabitable to them. She's not ordering Lavos down rather she's accepting her and her civilization's inevitable demise. The reptites have no magic to affect Lavos, magic is explicitly a product of Lavos' interference after its crash. You're right in that you're not affecting time, not because you're completing some kind of self-fulfilling loop but because there's nothing that any character is capable of doing that can prevent Lavos from crashing into the planet in the first place.
I just want to mention that Chrono Trigger wasn't some one-off thing, basically the entire team (except the composer, Yoko Shimamura was for that instead) made another game called Live A Live the previous year that is a far more experimental game than Chrono Trigger in format but is also a game about timelines.
I think his point was that as an intellectual property it wasn’t made with the idea of sequels
I love your videos! Here is some help:
Ma sa mu ne
A ki ra
Ta ka hi shi
Na ru ka mi
Ka n ji
All vowels and the sound for n can be one single syllable, but generally in japanese you can see that every word is split into two letter syllables.
If you look at a basic Hiragana chart it will make more sense. Most people struggle with japanese because they try and use english pronunciation rules.
Mune sounds like dune with an M in english
But in japanese it's:
Mu and Ne, completely separate.
> Almost 3 hours of Chrono Trigger rumination?
F*** YEAH!
I think the earthquake mentioned in the beggining of the game is actually a reference to the dinossaur lair that is open in 1000 a.d. but not on 600 a.d.. Remember that the explorer guy from 600 locates the lair but never got inside it
10 second lesson on Japanese pronunciation: Vowels: a = ah, e = eh, i = ee, o = oh, u = ü (as in goo or moo). Every consonant starts a new syllable. Syllables are pronounced independent of other syllables. There are, of course, more nuances, but that's enough to tell you how to pronounce Mah Sah Mü Neh.
Let's give it up for the real MVP: Lore's washing machine.
My theory on Lavos core is that the world and Lavos are all one environment now. Lavos' presence shapes human history, and human development, in turn, shapes the development of Lavos itself. It gets a mechanical shell inside in response to human's developing machinery; it is assimilating the world's technological distinctiveness... and it has a humanoid part of the core because "you are what you eat"; it is assimilating human biological distinctiveness as well.
Of course, the main part of the core is not that humanoid bit (which is a brilliant gameplay misdirect, I love it), but humanoid isn't the only life on the planet. That right bit may very well be the main remnant of the original alien, if not the "brain", perhaps the instinctive accumulation of magic that keeps the rest coordinated. insert technobabble lol.
BTW is it just me or does the trial scene really remind you of Star Trek VI's trial scene too?
I agree with your assessment that Lavos is internally morphing according to its data about the planet, and would just like to add that, maybe in the same vein as Shin Godzilla, it decides to conjure a humanoid form and split into three separate units in an effort to mirror the party. Lore has speculated before that Lavos doesn't become aware of the party until its final form, but perhaps it's possible that this realization comes one phase sooner. Its internal "mechanical" form recognizes the party as a threat, attempts to neutralize it, and then decides to use their methods against them. His final form, after all, is capable of double and triple techs. Other multi-foe battles and bosses utilize these, but Lavos is only prompted to do so after witnessing the party's fighting style.
Just started playing Chrono Trigger for the 2nd time A few days ago. I stopped playing the 1st time right after playing through though FF 6 and Link to the Past and struggled to get into it but have fallen in love with the game.
im just relieved you love this game, as any patrician should
Here we go! This is going to be great!!
Thank you Lore for another video.Ive been rewatching your videos of ff7 rumination and proper remake for sometime.I think im the ff geek that watch your video to gain knowledge about ff.Im a late comer for the ff series yet i really love ff7 and ff10.I hope you do a proper remake rumination of ff7
ive been watching all of 10 minutes and i wanna play this on SNES SO SO damn much. awesome job sir
EDIT: a DS is fine too
The nu in the hunting range is the perfect place to farm tech points quickly if you partrol his possible spawning points when it rains also
Anyone know where the actual lore run of Chrono Trigger went to? The videos have disappeared.
To be fair to Cyrus, wasn't the Masamune already damaged from attacking the Mammon Machine? Then it broke fighting Magus. That's my head cannon. And for the record I think Masa-Mune (Masah Mooneh) is my pronunciation.
I really enjoyed this video, but i'm still hungry
At the risk of being "that guy", and to make it clear I'm trying to be helpful: Based upon my understanding of Japanese pronunciation the key aspect of pronouncing "Masamune" is the "ay" sound at the end. Not sure if you're familiar with the anime Ranma 1/2 but it features a good example with a character named Akane, which is pronounced ay-khan-ay, rather than something like "a cane". To be sure, I googled it and the pronunciation as far I can figure is "mass-a-moon-ay". Of course the tricky part is putting the emPHAsis on the correct sylAbles, which in my opinion is slightly less important.
I see what you did there....
My complaints about Chrono Trigger:
Maybe I just didn't know what I was doing, but on my first playthrough I found that I wasn't able to skip a lot of the encounters. I had heard about how great it was that the encounters in CT were optional, only to find that most (obviously not all) of the encounters were actually mandatory to progress through an area...making it not that different from my experience playing games with random encounters in terms of encounter rate. I'm sure the encounters are much easier to skip if you know exactly where to step, but from a new player's perspective, not really. For example, before you get the Epoch, it was annoying to have to fight those enemies right across the bridge in Truce Canyon 600 AD every time I wanted to go back there. And as far as I'm aware, there's no item or equipment you can use to make these mandatory encounters disappear. So idk, I think this aspect of CT is a bit oversold. I guess you can escape encounters, at least.
I'm also not sure I get how CT characters are customizable beyond using stat boosts like Speed Tabs etc, and there are a limited number of those in the game. Otherwise, each character's leveling is extremely linear. They gain levels that increases their innate stats, they can each only equip their specific type of weapon, you can equip them with different equipment that has certain properties like halving fire damage or something, and then they eventually learn all of their specific Techs/Magic that each individual character can learn and no one else. Actually, this isn't really a complaint. I'm totally fine with each character being unique. It's a nice change from other RPGs where you can basically give every character everything and make them all OP if you want. But there is added enjoyment to being able to customize which is lacking here.
I thought that the idea of having enemies positioned a certain way so that using certain Techs is more effective was an amazing idea--but I wish they utilized it more often. After you get magic, I feel like a lot of the enemies are too spaced out for stuff like line techs or circle proximity techs to matter, so you're just encouraged to use level 2 magic or techs that affect all enemies. And those techs/magic usually do a lot more damage anyway.
The fight animations were pretty slow. (I'm also kind of an impatient person.) This isn't something that putting the battle speed all the way up fixes. If it weren't for the auto-battle feature that speeds up time on the PC version, I would have been a lot more frustrated. Tbh I used this feature just to speed up animations, not to auto battle.
Some of the songs get a little repetitive/annoying.
This is specific to the PC/DS version, but the Lost Sanctum side quests are kind of boring.
Everything else is great. Great sprite art, character designs, music, battle system, gameplay, dungeons are mostly simple and linear but they're pretty, some of the dungeons are really well designed. Story and characters were cute, short and sweet, solid, but not super impressive or anything. Frog's arc was particularly good, along with Marle's arc with her father. However, I love how colorful (literally and figuratively) the story and characters are in this game. It feels very Toriyama in a way. I do feel like I got the most out of the game in the first couple hours, where the magic really captured me the most. After that, my experience wasn't necessarily improved at any point, like it didn't blow me away (except when Corridors of Time plays for the first time, that's the one exception). That's not a bad thing, I'm just saying.
It's a great game, but I think it was overhyped to me too much, so when I played it as an adult for the first time I was expecting more.
2 hour rumination... challenge accepted
closer to 3 :)
I just bought the DS copy for my collection, I haven't played it yet, but now I want to.
Maybe the Entity is whatever soul or conscience or childhood innocence that Queen Zeal long abandoned. Or it's the mind that was evicted from her body so that Lavos could take it over. That might explain why the Entity does its thing in the first half, because it's Zeal the original power hungry but sane aristocrat, who has mourned and festered for all these centuries, but now has the chance to try and fix things. And in the course of doing so, she comes to bond with Lucca, the only one of the characters who has kind of a similar personality, with her ambition and creativity and being slightly isolated from her family. Hence why, in her ultimate degree of redemption, she personally helps Lucca, and only Lucca, to have a happier home to come back to after the world is saved.
Marle disappears at the precise moment that Yakra killed Leene; before that, it was possible based on random events that Leene might be saved, even though the probably went way down when everyone except Kaeru stopped trying to save her. But the moment the new timeline became unambiguously true, time caught up and cessated her. Of course, the idea of her winding up somewhere still makes no sense. (It's probably somewhere at the end of time, but not near Gaspar's little waystation, which probably only initially gathers groups of 4+ for whatever reason; I like to think that Feral Adult Keiko and other such cessated characters all wind up in such an unplace, until the Prophets recruit them for a mission).
Late on commenting, but! Would love to see a chrono cross rumination. Its my preferred of the two. I admit that is entirely due to exposure. I had a genesis , not a snes. Played cross well before I ever even heard of trigger.
1:18:00 - the pronunciation of "masamune" in the chrono series is entirely irrelevant as the only reason it got the name was Ted Woolsey. The sword is not a Japanese-style sword, so you can call it a baseball bat for all I care.
2:24:05 ...or, they started as type two and were manipulated so as to create an apparent infinite type one loop, expect they were always type two. The first time they were created they were type two literally establishing a training sequence necessary to create heroes strong enough to defeat the enemy, but after that, because you're not the only party that can time travel, they evolved to something akin to type one.
Think of it like this. You invent time travel. Travel back in time and give young Lore the time machine plans. Young Lore builds the machine and masters it and the returns to young Lore his copy of the time machine plans. The new young lore builds the time machine and masters it, then he returns to young Lore and gives his copy of the plans to the time machine to this, let's say Lore 4. You keep on going and sooner or later you end up with something that looks remarkably like By His Bootstraps. It's not, but depending on when you jump into the story it might as well be.
People have used that basic idea to argue that time travel will always end up at type one (or no time travel at all) - if you change the timeline, then in the new timeline you no longer have the same reason to time travel, so you don't, or you do for some other reason and make different changes, which leads to the timeline changing until either you end up converging on a stable loop, or time ends up changed in a way that prevents your time travel (and doesn't rely on your time travel happening to sustain itself because not going back in time when history has you having appeared after going back in time is itself a change...)
At which point I usually quote Austin Powers: "Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed"
This is the one game that Arch pronounces all the characters' names the same way I do.
He said it, we're gonna fund a CT lorerun right? Edit: don't know if you respond to these comments but, I'm curious, other than the fact to see what happens if you dont save Lara, have you ever not saved her more than once? I tried but I could never bring myself to do it, that scream was always just too much for me to ever attempt to not do it more than once.
I've never not-saved her more than the first time way back in the SNES days, no. I couldn't bare to.
I disagree completely that the game story is a closed loop. There is a undisturbed timeline of events that is implied while we play.
Lavos' fall on pre-historic times kills the reptites. The only alteration that the team causes is that Kino almost dies with the reptites. Remember that Kino is only captured because he is jealous of Crono and tries to prove himself to Ayla. Azala feels that the red star is a good omen, but that is just because he does not understands Lavos.
Zeal was going to try to harness Lavos' power and die, but the team inteference makes Lavos realize that there is someone capable of challenging him, so he allies with Zeal and creates the Black Omen.
In 600, Magus' ritual give him a chance at facing Lavos but he loses. If dies or goes to pose as the Prophet without the team interference is unclear, but meaningless, because the point is Magus can't beat Lavos alone.
So the player team don't manage to change much, but actually make things worse by causing the creation of the Black Omen. The team only triumphs because they involve and develop themselves as individuals, increase their strength and the state of the world in the optional quests in the third act. (English is a second language to me. Please forgive any mistakes.)
I'm surprised you've never done Crimson echoes or Seiken Densetsu 3. They're quite a glorious games..
Those little sparkles that come out of the factory? I think those are the tabs. All the tabs throughout the game were shipped back in time to make humans stronger and smarter and faster, since the mother brain hates humanity as they are, wants to kill them in the present, but also wants to make them better in the past, so they'll be less contemptible, and eventually might not all deserve to die. So instead of genocide, we can have cannibalism! Yay ...
Gotta watch that TAS. Doing one (somewhat) myself with a DS and cheat device. I just want to see how far I can push endgame equipment, so I have everyone at their base levels with the workman's wallet. I think I might've hit a brick wall with Magus as a single counter from him one shots my entire party.
If Crono and party get their magic from Spekkio, then who really is Spekkio (in reference to Lavos giving the world magic)???? BTW, my assumption is that the "Entity" are either the developers of the game or the players.
Did he say his 2nd favourite boss is a red knight? I don't remember that boss.
Retinite, the boss of the Fiona side quest
What a gem 😁👍
Thanks Lore
The thing about the whole time travel erasing Marle thing always bugged me because it should have erased Robo the moment you won the final battle!
200 IQ frustration
The idea that Azala summoned Lavos comes off to me as reading way too deep into a few lines. Azala can teleport rocks, sure, but now she can call down ancient space parasites hurtling through the cosmos? And for what purpose, to annihilate her own race? If it's an act of spite in order to doom humanity as well, Lavos was already on its way down by the time you fly to the Tyrano Lair, leaving the only possible justification for Azala's defeatism to be the Gate Key. She nuked the whole planet over that?
More importantly, if the early game is our guided tour in which we complete history, why would the Entity EVER want us to SUMMON Lavos? Especially if the Reptites are the naturally dominant species.
The much simpler interpretation is that Lavos just happened to fall that day and forever alter Earth's history, just as the meteor in real life happened to wipe out the dinosaurs. Azala's line "Red star, FALL!" and subsequent battle is nothing but a defiant last stand, a refusal to go quietly into the night.
This would also reinforce the notion that you are changing nothing: just as it doesn't really matter whether Frog originally fought Magus in 600 AD because Lavos's summoning would have ended the war regardless, it doesn't matter if Ayla stormed the Tyrano Lair alone or never even went, because Lavos was always going to obliterate it.
I think Chrono Trigger would make more sense if 1999 AD was more like 1199 AD at latest. It's weird to think that the knights of Guardia Castle are in armor in 600, then modern looking cloth uniforms in another 400 years, which don't change at all in another 999 years. This flaw gets worse if you accept Lore's theory about Lucca bringing back futuretech, since we see little evidence of 1999 having had 2300 tech for 1000 years.
Needed this
wait here is the baby lavos in chrono cross?
is this not the third or fourth version of basically this title/video?
Christmas came early this year 😳
The scene where Taban brings his day's wages home to Lara doesn't suffice to prove that Lara is crippled; in relatively prosperous and modern homes, it's pretty typical to have a woman who stays home all day doing domestic chores (which could include just sitting in a chair and knitting or the like), while her husband earns money and then keeps little of it himself. In the Middle Ages, it'd be a little harder to explain a household where both people don't work.
Time travel plot-hole. The Seed.
They have access to time travel, so why not just run back to 600ce and grab bags of seeds and grain etc and drop it off in whichever dome?
Maybe Spekkio can somehow filter magic so Lavos can no longer drain it.
Christmas came early!
I disagree with you about the "type of time travel" we have in Chrono Trigger. For me it's always Type 2. It's a much simpler and lighthearted take. It's exactly like in Back to the Future. Nevertheless, your analysis is awesome. Congratulations!
I lice chrono cross. It doesn't get enough love. I believe that it was cursed by its namesake. It would be more well lived if it didn't have chrono in the name. Even the actual story connections would have been a good surprise for fans if only cross didn't have chrono in the name.
What's your favorite game :O ? If Chrono Trigger is the 2nd?
ff6
Could you do rumination on xenogears.
Every rumination is paid for by Patrons, he doesn't take requests from comments like these.
It is remarkable how you feel, emphatize with fictional characters.
So lorerunner and pat holleman colab when?
3 reptites disliked this video
"The Entity" is the Player who is playing Chrono Trigger. It always seemed to me it was a clear example of metalanguage in that part around the campfire.
"The different events over time, that we have witnessed. It is almost as if some entity wanted to relive its past."
It's either the Player, who is playing the game, or the Game Designers, wich created the story.
I always thought the entity was the played haha
Yes.
Did you know lavos inspired ff7 jenova and xenogears deus which inspired xenoblade zanza.
And they were all John Carpainter's The Thing.
Actually, Lavos may have been the one inspired by Jenova despite the fact that the former's game predates the release of the latter's one.
FFVII's production was halted so that a chunk of the staff could be moved to work on CT, and it's been noted how some concepts conceived for FFVII bled into the development of Chrono Trigger.
It's quite possible that the similarities shared among these Square titles stem from early Jenova concepts.
And yes, The Thing parallels are recognized also. :P
Nicrawmincy
That made me do a double take, too. haha!
Its objectively pronounced maw saw moon eh. There is no debate :p. I used to pronounce it may saw moon till I learned japanese.
A fine thought, until you realize that is its name only in the English Version.
In Jaanese the blade is called Grandleon (In Chrono Cross it becomes the Grand Dream). It was not meant to be a reference to a Japanese swordsmith, but Woolsey chose that name, so it stuck.
👍🏻
ASMR stuff right here