You can’t say Chrono Cross doesn’t have its heart in the right place.
Sometimes things get complicated. Not to spoil a twenty-year-old game for anybody, but the main plot of Chrono Cross is a tale of time travel, an intergalactic parasite, and two warring realities that are either inadvertently or deliberately feeding that previously mentioned parasite until it can destroy not only the world, but all of space and time. If Serge fails in his duty as the silent protagonist, not only will 1999 AD face destruction, but also everything that has ever existed backwards and forwards in eternity. But no pressure, dude, not like you also have to deal with the fact that your dad is a mutant cat that wants you for your body, or that the most reliable friend you have is continually being poisoned and/or brainwashed. Not like you have a lot going on in the midst of this cross-dimensional crisis!
But there is a consistent throughline in Chrono Cross: the environment is getting wrecked by humans. The first thing you have to do in this game? Murder some local lizards so your girlfriend can have a nice necklace. The last thing you do in the game? Repel a gigantic flying tower that is somehow powered by an alternate universe where dinosaurs lived in perfect harmony with nature, and it is only here because the planet felt so threatened by humanity, it needed a “super dinosaur” to battle a nation founded by a super computer. … Okay, yeah, things get complicated quickly here, but the message is the same: humanity is a threat to the planet. Over and over again, Serge is presented with a world where people are surviving and living their best lives, but the world is suffering for it. You will kill the local lizards (and their mama!). You will destroy the Dragon Tower and its attendant super dinosaur. You will save the world. But the world might not be 100% on board with these outcomes.
And this is all perfectly encapsulated at the Hydra Marsh. Kid is poisoned, and the only way to cure her affliction is by killing the last remaining hydra. You can see the difference in Hydra Marshes thanks to dimensional travel (and there’s even a friendly dwarf near Kid’s hospital if you need it spelled out immediately). In the world with the hydra, the swamp is a vibrant location home to many kinds of creatures (albeit most of them are actively trying to kill you). In the world where the hydra has already been hunted to extinction, only true monsters remain, and the swamp has become lethally poisonous. You know what is going to happen if you hunt the hydra on Kid’s behalf. Your world will become worse, and a great many other species are going to die. And, to be more than clear on this sad fact, Chrono Cross does not make this a simple “background” possibility: when you inevitably kill the hydra, the dwarves of Home Swamp will be displaced, and you will then be tugged into a war between homeless gnomes and besieged fairies. With the hydra dead, the viable world is shrinking, and more problems arise immediately. Kid may be saved by hydra humour, but an entire society is going to collapse without it. As the planet cries out in pain, more and more people suffer in ways they never, ever expected…
And, as I played this section a couple weeks before I was in France during a heatwave that escalated over the Summer of 2022 to watching Europe practically melt off the face of the Earth… Well… I can’t fault for Chrono Cross for having at least one clear message.
Maybe we should do something about this whole “humans threatening the world” thing…
Even Worse Streams presents Chrono Cross
Night 3
Original Stream Night: April 26, 2022
Recruited this week:
Korcha
Greco
Razzly
Random Notes on the Stream
We all hate Korcha.
“There are ranks of -cha”… but Mel does not rank.
First dimension hop! Get used to seeing this FMV!
Final Fantasy 13 borrowed some ideas from Lost… Bad ideas. Like fake funerals.
Beeba are racist. Just realized that tonight.
So many bosses in this stupid swamp. Basically wall-to-wall boss fights of no plot importance.
A discussion about Ogre Battle naturally segues into a discussion on how great Queen is
There is a discussion of Keenspot and Keenspace and the sheer level of insanity contained therein.
We have a boat! Yay! But waves are “moving like a fat guy’s back”.
A pirate ship of deadbeat dads is where we close for the day.
Next time on Chrono Cross: Skeletons of all sorts of varieties.
This article contains spoilers for not only Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, but also potentially the entire Final Fantasy franchise. It won’t get too nuts, but if you don’t want to know a certain location exists in a certain game, and if that location has any plot relevance, I wouldn’t keep reading. You have been warned!
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin has one very important thing going for it: it is an enormous love letter to the Final Fantasy franchise. With the exception of a few “plot” stages, every level in SoP:FFO is based on a different locale from a different Final Fantasy game. And that is amazing! You’re looking at 35 years of videogame locations! From castles to caves to whateverthehell was happening in Final Fantasy 15! It’s neat!
But, as a tremendous nerd and 35-year-old critic of the Final Fantasy franchise (uh, to be clear, I am not 35, but I have been a critic of Final Fantasy as long as it has existed) I, naturally, have opinions about the various locations chosen to represent various Final Fantasy titles. Were these good picks to be representative of their attendant games? Are these good choices independent of nostalgia? Does anything in this game make a lick of sense? Let’s answer these questions on a game by game, level by level basis.
Note that this list will be going in order of Final Fantasy game featured. Actual level order is an entirely other thing. Please be as confused as possible.
Stage 1: Illusion at Journey’s End Location: Chaos Shrine
Origin: Final Fantasy (1)
Concept: Stranger of Paradise is a kinda sorta remake of Final Fantasy, so it is only natural the game starts with Final Fantasy’s first ever dungeon: the Temple of Fiends. Oh! And the final boss of the area is Garland (after a fashion)! That is as Final Fantasy as it gets!
Does it work for SoP? This is absolutely a ruined temple (of Fiends!) filled with monsters, which is all you really need from a Strangers of Paradise stage. There are enough decomposing balconies and collapsing turrets to justify something more complex than a straight line, but the layout is still recognizable enough that you won’t easily get lost. And there is at least one cactuar running around, so there’s everything a stranger could want.
Does it represent its parent game? Going to give this one a “yes”, too. The defining characteristic of Final Fantasy’s Temple of Fiends is that it was clearly the crappiest temple in the world (but looked pretty alright a solid 2,000 years back), and we’ve got a similar architectural flare going on here. The Temple of Fiends is meant to be the trojan horse of adventure for the Final Fantasy franchise, and it serves the exact same “more to it than it seems” function in 2022. Good job, Level One! Now let’s move on to Final Fantasy 2…
Maxima Content Part 1: The Final Xover Initial Stream: 12/1/20
00:00 – We start this video with a short video of its own called “What I did on my Thanksgiving Vacation”. Long story short: you can unlock a bunch of stuff by beating the final boss after completing all intervention questions (and I still had one undone when we did that on the previous stream), and I sorted much of that new content while nobody was looking. There were three whole dungeons featuring reused assets (complete with recolored bosses) that were tackled and defeated between streams. That unlocks a fourth “reused” dungeon, and we pick things up at the culmination of that quest. And our final boss for that area is…
Also, since I didn’t actually wind up summoning XG during the stream, here’s the lil’ big guy in action. I have to assume that “Little Walking Head” XG was originally designed to be a more present part of the plot. Either that or someone really wanted to toss a headmaster in here.
22:00 – So XG is the final “secret” boss of the original content for World of Final Fantasy. The Maxima upgrade offers some new content, and that’s going to be the majority of these last four parts. There’s a full explanation of that here (in the video), but, long story short, there was a mobile World of Final Fantasy game, Meli-Melo, and, while it appears to have been a failure (it was discontinued almost exactly a year after launch), my understanding is that a lot of the “new” assets from that game got recycled into the Maxima upgrade. Never waste a pixel, Square-Enix! So we’re going to see the new, Maxima-based intervention quests, starting with Cecil trying to cure a friend of desert fever. It’s not the friend you think!
32:00 – Zack time. I guess he died? If you check his in-game biography, it distinctly notes that he is basically a zombie reanimated by mako in this world. Don’t worry, he’ll get better. This is a happy dimension.
40:00 – See? He’s better now. And Serah, sister of Lightning, fights Shiva while we play with wikis. fanboymaster, I just checked, and apparently your edit will only be preserved on this video.
45:00 – Discussion of the upcoming Saga Frontier remake. TLDL: they better do something about the overt implication that a blood transfusion can give you immortality/gay.
What actually happened in the plot:
At the culmination of the “first” ending (maybe second?) Wynne is appointed the new guardian of the world, while Lann and Reynn are sucked into another dimension. Now, the “extra” ending reveals that Wynne receives two “twin mirages” from Enna Kros (god), which allows her to summon little duplicates of her adopted twin siblings. Thus, all post-game content is apparently Wynne having adventures with Lann/Reynn golems. It’s not weird at all!
• XG (Xenogears) is defeated in a presumably non-canon bonus battle (or maybe it’s in another dimension).
• Cecil secures a restorative flower for a sick Kain by defeating Yojimbo.
• Zack reawakens in Castle Figaro’s basement as a berserker, and, after fighting the heroes, flies off with Bahamut (who was coincidentally trying to take a nap in that same basement).
• Serah fights Shiva-Ixion, her fiancee’s summon-cycle, for the right to decorate her for Snow’s birthday (seriously). Zack is dropped off nearby by Bahamut, who cured Zack of his mako poisoning (possibly accidentally). Wynne followed Bahamut/Zack here, and identifies Serah as having some unknown, but super important destiny. Zack asks out Serah. Zack with a C does not play Serah with an H’s favorite song.
Maxima Content Part 2: This is Why I didn’t Stream the Other Dungeons Initial Stream: 12/1/20
1:00 – The rules of the Ultimate Dungeon suck! Apparently there are distinct warps that occasionally take you back to the start of the place, and random floors may have random rules that severely limit your options. And, of course, this dungeon is going to be nothing but reused assets. Bah! Let’s just discuss a Playstation Superman game and collectors being annoying.
8:30 – I don’t know east from west. I’m going to blame Shantae for this.
14:50 – “Nobody fucks with Dr. Brainshit.”
20:00 – Kary/Marilith is our first boss of the area while we talk about Amalgam comics. I too miss Lobo the Duck.
30:00 – Time to refuel after a discussion of Devil May Cry 3, and then on to part two (of four) of the dungeon.
49:20 – “I envy your optimism”… by the way, this dungeon takes forever. We’re not even a full third of the way done with this nonsense yet.
50:00 – CaliScrub arrives… he missed the best, giant-robot based part.
54:00 – The Kraken Boss fight. We already did this one, as two of the ol’ Final Fantasy 1 fiends already appear as part of the mandatory plot. This Kraken is like forty levels more powerful, though, so at least it isn’t as easy as before. Wee?
56:00 – Minecraft human trafficking is described as we wrap up this section.
What actually happened in the plot: Nothing. Wynne is venturing through The Ultimate Dungeon toward whatever is down there. We’re about 40% through that.
Maxima Content Part 3: The Ultimate Slog Initial Stream: 12/1/20
00:00 – I couldn’t remember the details on the stream, but here’s the full rundown on the economy of what was apparently Planet Zoo. I will never look at warthogs the same way again.
7:00 – Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is discussed, which I believe means we have successfully gone full circle on discussing a separate game during the World of Final Fantasy Stream. Long story short, everyone in Hyrule should already have fish.
Also, this bit occurs during a “no item floor” in the dungeon proper. These dungeon rules are truly random (they’re not tied to particular floors, and may change between dungeon visits), and losing the ability to use potions between battles in a game where you can’t even cast cure outside of a fight is a little… terrible. This means that “no item floors” make a little more of an impact than, say, “extra damage” or literally any other random effect.
15:00 – Lich appears. You can’t use Raise/Phoenix Down on an opponent, but you can use an elixir. Guess how Lich goes down.
25:00 – There is just so much Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity discussion here. We will never stream that game.
31:00 – Tiamat, and we already beat her, too. Kind of a wet fart of a way to finish the first 80% of this dungeon.
37:00 – The ultimate section of the ultimate dungeon begins as fanboymaster explains the name switch between Kary/Marilith.
42:00 – Please enjoy watching me engage in ice Sliding dumbassery for five pointless minutes.
50:00 – Florida leadership is discussed on the way to the ultimate boss of this ultimate area… but we stop just shy of the battle itself. Sorry!
What actually happened in the plot: Still nothing. We’re about 95% of the way through this dungeon as of this update. Incidentally, it is noted in the in-game encyclopedia that these adventures are technically canon for Wynne… just we’re well past the actual “end” of the game, so it’s pretty safe to claim none of this will ever be referenced by anything.
Maxima Content Part 4: The End Initial Stream: 12/1/20 (mostly)
00:00 – Starting off by taking the bold stance that Hitler was not right as we finally approach the final boss of this area. The boss fight is partially expected, partially a surprise. It’s a battle against Garland (Chaos or Garland would be anticipated after the four fiends), but also all four of the fiends simultaneously. Given each of those fiends was an individual (and not easy) boss battle on the way here, this could get dicey.
9:00 – Playstation 4/5 Spider-Man says “defund the police”.
13:00 – Game Over! I had a choice between healing one stack or reviving the other, and I chose wrong, as a powerful, party-wide attack was apparently coming. I came surprisingly close to winning this fight… but nope.
15:00 – Rather than bang my head against that wall again, we try the next secret boss battle, a fight with Enna Kros. As I learn here, it sucks because this trio of bosses can revive themselves repeatedly. And ol’ Enna doesn’t really have any combat animations, so this is the most… lazy of the new Maxima content (and I’m saying that after two hours of a recycled dungeon).
29:00 – Game over again! Same exact reason, too! I have learned nothing!
31:00 – Super Boss #3 requires an airship-based scavenger hunt. And it’s clear right off that this “hunt” is going to take forever, so we pretty much sizzle out with our final World of Final Fantasy stream.
35:00 – And now I avenge myself upon my losses. This section of the video is just highlights of me playing by myself, narrated by myself, because I wasn’t going to drag the stream team through another series of fights that could potentially take forever. I’m not that cruel!
Immortal Dark Dragon is first, and he’s from the anime movie that was produced to promote that mobile game. He’s apparently on the same inter-dimensional team as this game’s main antagonist, but is otherwise wholly new to this title. Fighting him necessitates finding switches across the world, then standing up to a dude that patterns his attacks after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game’s Shredder
38:00 – Garland and the gang all over again. The secret to my success this time is to kill Lich, use water to take out Tiamat and Kary/Marilith simultaneously, and then focus on dropping Kraken. Sorry, can’t kill Kary last. Garland has a bunch of elemental weaknesses after all his buddies are down, so, once again, I was really close to winning the last time.
41:00 – Enna Kros is a pain, with nine extra lives, and still those cheap animations. I’m not certain if this fight would be easier if you focus on exclusively killing one opponent nine times, or spread the death around. Regardless, at the very least you can game the “weakness aiming” by unstacking whenever targeted, so there is a bit of a trick to the battle. However, even if you know what to do, this battle takes forever, and took me personally about forty minutes with the internal speed up feature.
43:00 – And defeating all of those super bosses unlocks the right to fight a super hard version of the original final boss of Final Fantasy Maxima. It’s the same fight, just with absurd attack/HP stats. Beat that final-final boss, and you get to see the all new, secret “teaser” ending for World of Final Fantasy/ Presumptive Trailer for World of Final Fantasy 2. Or, considering how much this whole setup/content is biting on Kingdom Hearts, let’s say World of Final Fantasy 2/418 Days: A Missing Piece 1.8.
46:00 – Oh yeah, you can fish with Final Fantasy 15’s Noctis. Thanks for watching!
What actually happened in the plot: Wynne conquered Garland, an “Anti-Champion” created at the same time as Warrior of Light, deep in the Ultimate Dungeon. She also repelled Immortal Dark Dragon, a threat from another dimension (again, DLC super bosses or not, in-game datalogs confirm these events as canon). After that, a version of Diablos from another dimension attacks her world, but she defeats him with the aid of Tama and Odin. However, more interesting than the fight is that that Diablos seems to be linked to a mysterious figure in a cloak bearing two Mirage-keeper gauntlets and an odd preoccupation with searching for his “sis”. What does it all mean? Guess we’ll find out some day…
Next time on World of Final Fantasy: A sober look at a funny game.
Turn Those Corners Up: Part 2: We’re Back! A Fox God’s Story Initial Stream: 11/24/20
00:00 – As my esteemed colleague has noted in the previous chapter, we’re working toward the good ending here, which involves collecting all the legendary summon monsters. Last week we scored (good) Bahamut and Diablos, now we’re going for Leviathan. Faris has something to say about that. Given all the “important summons” are Final Fantasy 8 dudes, us dudes go on to talk about Final Fantasy 8.
14:00 – Lightning battles Odin with Ramuh’s granddaughter as we discuss Ready Player 2.
24:31 – Not a mandatory quest, but defeating Odin allows us to see (FF13) Shiva and Snow versus Shivalry, the male cousin of Shiva. Shivalry is more of a sentai archetype than a himbo, unfortunately. However, we do learn that BEAT is a himbo.
34:00 – Yakuza: Like a Dragon is discussed as we fight to reclaim our dead mascot creature. This section of the quest is stupid. Seriously. The whole thing seems to be hung on a character relationship from thirteen chapters ago, and it is not compelling in any conceivable way. It seems to exist as a prelude to what happens during the true ending, but the true ending does it so much more successfully. This “preview” version of the concept with forgettable characters is ineffective, and only serves to make the twins appear even dumber when they’re surprised by the inevitable outcome (coming next part).
48:00 – Do you suppose the most popular search engine in a Final Fantasy universe is Moogle, or did the little fluffballs cash out by inventing Final Fantasy digital commerce?
53:00 – Tama, our foxy (not like that) mascot is revived, reality is restored, and maybe we were talking about Earthbound too much to notice.
What actually happened in the plot:
· Faris avenges her distant ancestors, who were killed by Leviathan. Or Leviathan is faking her defeat, as apparently she wasn’t distinctly responsible for the death of Faris’s ancestors, she just happened to be in the area.
· Lightning loses a duel to Odin. So she recruits Ramewl, Ramuh’s granddaughter, and then returns to claim victory by battling with a rad lightning sword.
· Refia’s uncle is still possessed by a Bahamutian spirit (see Chapter 7), but the “spirit” is still attempting to kill the mythical fox monster that killed Refia’s aunt (before the possession). This apparently proves that there’s some part of the “real” uncle still alive in there. Or whatever. What’s important is that Evil Uncle finally dies after a fox battle, and our heroes claim a “life” from the fox monster. They use this life to revive Tama. With Tama revived, reality resets to a version where Tama was always there… so it’s kind of ambiguous if anything in the last two updates canon “happened”. Huh. Regardless, the party is now back to 100% complete, and, with the support of The Seven Deadly Summons (or whatever), we’re ready to retry on destroying the final general of the Bahamutian Army.
Turn Those Corners Up: Part 3: Everybody Dance Now Initial Stream: 11/24/20
01:00 – The final battle approacheth. But we’re mostly focusing on Dr. Weird quotes.
7:30 – The first actual Game Over in this Let’s Play! Granted, I’ve been cheating (almost) the whole time, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’ve been practically invincible… but still! Incidentally, if you’re wondering about the cause of death, it was a doom “countdown timer” status effect that I was completely unprepared to encounter.
13:30 – Revenge! I have triumphed over my previous failure, and am making progress. So let’s talk about Gungrave and Trigun. Hey, wait a minute! This isn’t a Wild Arms Let’s Play!
26:00 – The final boss, Brandelis, appears again. Looks like he has the ancient weapons of Final Fantasy 5 at his disposal, but I just might be thinking that because a bell is involved.
31:00 – Here it is: the absolute final boss! In typical Final Fantasy fashion, it is some hulking monstrosity that can’t even fit on the screen. We take this time to label our respective Bouncer-sonas.
37:00 – We Officially won! The World Ends With You 2 is being released! We also beat the final boss!
42:00 –
It would have been super cool if these moves were at all available during the actual gameplay of World of Final Fantasy. Or at least anywhere other than a fight with a cactus.
46:00 – Time for an ending parade/choreographed dance number. I will claim that the volume on the game on this recording is so low because I was trying to avoid copyright issues with the obviously trademarked to all hell song here in the ending.
57:30 – As a chaser, we tackle the final (vanilla) intervention quest with “other mascot” Serafie learning from Siren how to gigantamax or whatever.
What actually happened in the plot:
The original ending went poorly when the twins tackled Brandelis alone on his own home turf. Reynn has full knowledge of that “bad end”, so the plan this time is to enlist all the champions (aka Final Fantasy characters) in various support roles, and attack the Ultima Gate at the top of the Crystal Tower. (Oddly enough, the summons that we had to fight to see this ending are not involved at all.) The Summoner Sorority is going to seal the Ultima Gate with the assistance of Hauyn (the twins’ adopted sister, BEAT), and the battle-ready champions (Cloud, Lightning, etc) are going to run interference on Brandelis. Quistis and Shelke were supposed to distract The Man in the Golden Mask (secretly Dad) and Plumed Knight (Mom), but those champions fail, and Lann and Reynn are forced to fight their possessed parents again.
They succeed in defeating the evil mirages, but learn that Mom and Dad have been dead since their possession started (or thereabouts). Ghost Mom & Dad bid tearful goodbyes as Lann and Reynn move on to battle Brandelis. Brandelis has apparently been able to siphon some of the Mirage Keeper power of the twins and their parents, so he is effectively invincible with the ability to rewrite reality at will. It could be a stalemate, but the Ghost Parents help the twins to fashion an infinity cube as a prison for Brandelis. Right about then, the summoners finish up their job, and all the bad machines across the world are sucked back into the Ultima Gate. This also begins to absorb Brandelis, who once again breaks free from his infinity box. The twins attack Brandelis, and subdue him at the cost of being sucked into the gate, too. Brandelis, Lann, and Reynn are all banished to another dimension, but Hauyn and the champions are free to help rebuild the world. Hauyn is chosen as the new Mirage Keeper for this dimension, and goddess Enna Kross seems so happy with this outcome, she starts a goddamn dance party.
But wait there’s more!
Next Time on World of Final Fantasy: Just because we saved the World of Final Fantasy doesn’t mean it’s all over. We’ve got bonus dungeon(s) and content exclusive to the Maxima upgrade of World of Final Fantasy. And, yes, we will finally get to facing a certain omnigear…
You can’t say Chrono Cross doesn’t have its heart in the right place.
And this is all perfectly encapsulated at the Hydra Marsh. Kid is poisoned, and the only way to cure her affliction is by killing the last remaining hydra. You can see the difference in Hydra Marshes thanks to dimensional travel (and there’s even a friendly dwarf near Kid’s hospital if you need it spelled out immediately). In the world with the hydra, the swamp is a vibrant location home to many kinds of creatures (albeit most of them are actively trying to kill you). In the world where the hydra has already been hunted to extinction, only true monsters remain, and the swamp has become lethally poisonous. You know what is going to happen if you hunt the hydra on Kid’s behalf. Your world will become worse, and a great many other species are going to die. And, to be more than clear on this sad fact, Chrono Cross does not make this a simple “background” possibility: when you inevitably kill the hydra, the dwarves of Home Swamp will be displaced, and you will then be tugged into a war between homeless gnomes and besieged fairies. With the hydra dead, the viable world is shrinking, and more problems arise immediately. Kid may be saved by hydra humour, but an entire society is going to collapse without it. As the planet cries out in pain, more and more people suffer in ways they never, ever expected…
Final Fantasy 13 borrowed some ideas from Lost… Bad ideas. Like fake funerals.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin has one very important thing going for it: it is an enormous love letter to the Final Fantasy franchise. With the exception of a few “plot” stages, every level in SoP:FFO is based on a different locale from a different Final Fantasy game. And that is amazing! You’re looking at 35 years of videogame locations! From castles to caves to whateverthehell was happening in Final Fantasy 15! It’s neat!
Concept: Stranger of Paradise is a kinda sorta remake of 
