A parallel universe , also known as an alternate universe , parallel world , parallel dimension , alternate reality , or alternative dimension , is a hypothetical universe co-existing with one's own, typically distinct in some way. The sum of all potential parallel universes that constitute reality is often called the " multiverse ". Another common term for a parallel universe is "another dimension", stemming from the idea that if the 4th dimension is time, the 5th dimension—a direction at a right angle to the fourth —is a direction into any of the alternate spacetime realities.
221-561: Chrono Cross ( クロノ・クロス , Kurono Kurosu ) is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix ) for the PlayStation video game console . It is the successor to Chrono Trigger , which was released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System . While its predecessor, like most role-playing games at the time, only offered a handful of playable characters , Chrono Cross
442-443: A PAL region release has not been announced. Critics praised the game's complex plot, innovative battle system, varied characters, moving score, vibrant graphics, and success in breaking convention with its predecessor. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave Chrono Cross a Gold Award, scoring it 10/10/9.5 in their three reviewer format with the first review declaring the game to be "a masterpiece, plain and simple". GameSpot awarded
663-539: A Scottish accent . He is present in both the "Home World" and "Alternate World", though very different in each one. In the "Alternate World", he is seen as a thriving blacksmith, providing equipment to the Acacia Dragoons. However, in the "Home World", his business struggles and has to shut it down, due to the Acacia Dragoons being completely wiped out and because of the Porre military restricting his business. Additionally, in
884-407: A "CD-read swap" system to allow quick data retrieval. Masato Kato directed and wrote the main story, leaving sub-plots and minor character events to other staff. The event team sometimes struggled to mesh their work on the plot due to the complexity of the parallel worlds concept. Masato Kato confirmed that Cross featured a central theme of parallel worlds, as well as the fate of Schala, which he
1105-471: A "w" to refer to himself as a "Dwagon". Starky ( 星の子 , Hoshi no Ko , lit. "Star Child") initially appears as "Mega-Starky", a huge alien, that Serge must fight when arriving on Home World Sky Dragon Isle in the Home World. Once defeated, he shrinks down to normal size. Starky's main goal is to collect "Star Fragments", which he explains to be broken parts of his spaceship that shattered upon contact with
1326-508: A Dragoon Deva. Radius's speech often references his old age or other's comparative younger age, and is accompanied by an old man's laugh. In the Home World, Radius becomes the village chief of Serge's hometown - Arni, while in the Alternate World, Radius left the world's affairs entirely to live as a hermit . Fargo ( ファルガ , Faruga , Farga) is the captain of the S.S. Zelbess and Nikki and Marcy's father. In Another World, he captains
1547-518: A New Game+, players can access twelve endings. Scenes viewed depend on players' progress in the game before the final battle, which can be fought at any time in a New Game+ file. Chrono Cross features a diverse cast of 45 party members. Each character is outfitted with an innate Element affinity and three unique special abilities that are learned over time. If taken to the world opposite their own, characters react to their counterparts (if available). Many characters tie in to crucial plot events. Since it
1768-447: A Wonderful Life , George Bailey makes a wish that he had never existed, which an angel, Clarence, asks God to grant to teach George how important his life really is; he is about to be arrested for fraud in relation to money having gone missing from the bank he runs. He gets to see what his gentle sleepy town would be like if he never lived, including the death of his brother Harry at a young age, which in turn results in many troops dying in
1989-690: A catastrophic experimental failure drew it to the past. The introduction of a temporally foreign object in history caused the planet to pull in a counterbalance from a different dimension. This was Dinopolis, a city of Dragonians—parallel universe descendants of Chrono Trigger 's Reptites. The institutions warred and Chronopolis subjugated the Dragonians. Humans captured their chief creation—the Dragon God, an entity capable of controlling nature. Chronopolis divided this entity into six pieces and created an Elements system. FATE then terraformed an archipelago, erased
2210-491: A central plot-point , or it may simply be mentioned and quickly dismissed, having served its purpose of establishing a realm unconstrained by realism. Discworld , for example, only very rarely mentions our world or any other worlds, as Pratchett set the books in a parallel universe instead of in "our" reality to allow for magic on the Disc . While technically incorrect, and looked down upon by hard science-fiction fans and authors,
2431-458: A character claims that the universe is dangerous because the poem went unfinished, but whether this was his misapprehension or not is not established. Some fictional approaches definitively establish the independence of the parallel world, sometimes by having the world differ from the book's account; other approaches have works of fiction create and affect the parallel world: L. Sprague de Camp 's Solomon's Stone , taking place on an astral plane,
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#17328484710512652-465: A child on her own , leading to the brash exterior person she is for much of the course of the game. Kid is also the reason why there are two dimensions in the game; she traveled in time to save Serge from dying, splitting the world into two, one where Serge lives, and one where he had died. She speaks with an Australian accent, as indicated by her use of several Australian slang terms such as bugger , bloke , and sheila . The Alternate World Kid
2873-524: A close connection to the console's performance. Therefore, in regards to game development, our goal has always been to "express the game utilizing the maximum performance of the console at that time." I strongly believe that anything created in this way will continue to be innovative. Full production began on Chrono Cross in mid-1998. The Chrono Cross team reached 80 members at its peak, with additional personnel of 10–20 cut-scene artists and 100 quality assurance testers. The team felt pressure to live up to
3094-458: A completely new and different world from the ground up, and to restructure the former style. Therefore, Chrono Cross is not a sequel to Chrono Trigger . Had it been, it would have been called Chrono Trigger 2 . Our main objective for Chrono Cross was to share a little bit of the Chrono Trigger worldview, while creating a completely different game as a means of providing new entertainment to
3315-414: A connection of sorts to Schala, though neither source explores the details of this. Harle's speech is written with a French accent and is often interspersed with French words. Only one version of Harle, the "Alternate World" Harle, is present in the game. Janice ( ジャネス , Janesu , Jyaness) is a female human and rabbit hybrid aboard the S.S. Zelbess. If the player chooses to have Serge participate in
3536-538: A cross over event between Chrono Cross and mobile game Another Eden ; the announcement spurred more discussion on a remaster, considering Square was reviving the game for the first time in 20 years, and writer Masato Kato worked on both games. A remaster of the game, titled Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition , was announced on February 9, 2022, during a Nintendo Direct presentation, being slated for release on April 7, 2022, for Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , Windows , and Xbox One . The remaster of
3757-495: A cruel agent of the supercomputer FATE, is bent on finding Serge and using his body as part of a greater plan involving the Frozen Flame. Lynx travels with Harle , a mysterious, playful girl dressed like a harlequin . Harle was sent by the Dragon God to shadow Lynx and one day steal the Frozen Flame from Chronopolis, a task she painfully fulfills despite being smitten with Serge. To accomplish this goal, Harle helps Lynx manipulate
3978-537: A dream or some other altered state of consciousness . Examples include the Dream Cycle stories by H. P. Lovecraft or the Thomas Covenant stories of Stephen R. Donaldson . Often, stories of this type have as a major theme the nature of reality itself, questioning whether the dream-world is as real as the waking world. Science fiction often employs this theme in the ideas of cyberspace and virtual reality . In
4199-533: A fantastic island, as Jonathan Swift does in Gulliver's Travels or in the 1949 novel Silverlock by John Myers Myers , or be sucked up into a tornado and land in Oz . These " lost world " stories can be seen as geographic equivalents of a "parallel universe," as the worlds portrayed are separate from our own, and hidden to everyone except those who take the difficult journey there. The geographic "lost world" can blur into
4420-599: A few cases, the interaction between the worlds is an important element, so that the focus is not on simply the fantasy world, but on ours as well. Sometimes the intent is to let them mingle and see what would happen, such as introducing a computer programmer into a high fantasy world as seen in Rick Cook 's Wizardry series, while other times an attempt to keep them from mingling becomes a major plot point, such as in Aaron Allston 's Doc Sidhe . In that story, our "grim world"
4641-560: A final release. A second Nvidia leak occurred the following November, which again listed Chrono Cross Remastered , this time with a December 2021 release date. Further comments on the game's existence also arose in November; Video Games Chronicle reported Nick Baker of the XboxEra podcast could confirm prior reports of its existence, and game website Gematsu separately confirmed the game's existence. On December 4, 2021, Square Enix announced
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#17328484710514862-614: A grid whose size and shape are unique to each character. They are ranked according to eight tiers; certain high level Elements can only be assigned on equivalent tiers in a character's grid. As the game progresses, the grid expands, allowing more Elements to be equipped and higher tiers to be accessed. Elements are divided into six paired oppositional types, or "colors," each with a natural effect. Red (fire/magma) opposes Blue (water/ice), Green (wind/flora) opposes Yellow (earth/lightning), and White (light/cosmos) opposes Black (darkness/gravity). Each character and enemy has an innate color, enhancing
5083-480: A kamikaze attack, whom Harry would have saved if George was around to save Harry. At times, alternative universes have been featured in small scale independent productions such as Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's It Happened Here (1964), featuring an alternative United Kingdom which had undergone Operation Sea Lion in 1940 and had been defeated and occupied by Nazi Germany . It focused on moral questions related to
5304-481: A more explicit "parallel universe" when the fantasy realm overlaps a section of the "real" world, but is much larger inside than out, as in Robert Holdstock 's novel Mythago Wood . However, increasing geographical knowledge meant that such locations had to be farther and farther off. Perhaps influenced by ideas from science fiction, many works chose a setting that takes place in another, separate reality. As it
5525-561: A new band of allies along the way. He travels to a forbidden lagoon known as the Dead Sea—a wasteland frozen in time, dotted with futuristic ruins. At the center, he locates a man named Miguel and presumably Home world's Frozen Flame. Charged with guarding the Dead Sea by an entity named FATE, Miguel and three visions of Crono , Marle , and Lucca from Chrono Trigger explain that Serge's existence dooms Home world's future to destruction at
5746-517: A number of characters, instead of storing over 40 slightly different static variations of the same text and running into potential memory issues, the localization team adapted and expanded the Japanese version's auto-accent generator, to allow text to be converted into a dozen of variations that retain most of the features of the various characters. With this system, only one generic version had to be stored internally and shared by all characters. For example,
5967-582: A parallel universe but is actually a distinct idea. A counter-Earth is a planet that shares Earth's orbit but is on the opposite side of the Sun, and thus cannot be seen from Earth. There would be no necessity that such a planet would be like Earth in any way, although typically in fiction it is practically identical to Earth. Since Counter-Earth is within our universe and the Solar System , reaching it can be accomplished with ordinary space travel. Convergent evolution
6188-567: A person decides between jam or butter on his toast , two universes are created: one where that person chose jam, and another where that person chose butter. The concept of "sidewise" time travel, a term taken from Murray Leinster's " Sidewise in Time ", is used to allow characters to pass through many different alternative histories, all descendant from some common branch point. Often, worlds that are more similar to each other are considered closer to each other in terms of this sidewise travel. For example,
6409-398: A person who is a leader of a military group. In one of the game's endings, it is revealed that he is the "kind stranger" who delivered the antidote that cured Kid's life-threatening poison if the player chose to have Serge not save her. Norris is present in both the "Home World" and the "Alternate World", with him being largely the same in both worlds. Nikki ( スラッシュ , Surasshu , Slash)
6630-472: A pirate ship, the S.S. Invincible. Serge stumbles across the ship in the fog south of Hermit's Hideaway and, once aboard, is challenged by Fargo to various tests of strength. In Home World, Fargo is the captain of a cruise ship, the S.S. Zelbess, and is a cheater in his own casino. Fargo exudes a very "macho" persona, and occasionally speaks with pirate dialog. Formerly a Dragoon Deva along with Radius, Garai, and Zappa. Macha ( ママチャ , Mamacha , Mamacha)
6851-503: A possible remastered version of Chrono Cross in September 2021, when a security flaw allowed for a web developer to see an internal listing of current and upcoming video games in Nvidia 's GeForce Now database, which included a never-announced Chrono Cross Remastered . Nvidia later confirmed that the list was real, but that the games listed were speculative, and may or may not end up getting
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7072-538: A pre-existing world. Occasionally, this approach becomes self-referential, treating the literary universe of the work itself as explicitly parallel to the universe where the work was created. Stephen King 's seven-volume Dark Tower series hinges upon the existence of multiple parallel worlds, many of which are King's own literary creations. Ultimately the characters become aware that they are only "real" in King's literary universe (this can be debated as an example of breaking
7293-767: A program about classically arranged video game scores. Chrono Cross received critical acclaim, it shipped 850,000 units in Japan and 650,000 abroad by 2003. It was re-released once in the United States as a Sony Greatest Hits title and again as part of the Japanese Ultimate Hits series. Chrono Cross was also released on the PlayStation Network in Japan on July 6, 2011, and in North America on November 8, 2011, but
7514-595: A sampler disc of five songs, and Square released a three- CD official soundtrack in Japan after the game's debut. The soundtrack won the Gold Prize for the PlayStation Awards of 2000. In 2005, Square Enix reissued the soundtrack due to popular demand. Earlier that year, Mitsuda announced a new arranged Chrono Cross album, scheduled for release in July 2005. Mitsuda's contract with Square gave him ownership and full rights to
7735-540: A sequel to. In the May 1, 2009, issue of Famitsu , Chrono Trigger placed 14th out of 50 in a vote of most-wanted sequels by the magazine's readers. At E3 2009, SE Senior Vice President Shinji Hashimoto remarked, "If people want a sequel, they should buy more!" Parallel universe (fiction) Fiction has long borrowed an idea of "another world" from myth , legend and religion . Heaven , Hell , Olympus , and Valhalla are all "alternative universes" different from
7956-632: A seventh Dragon under the storm's cover named Harle, who manipulated Lynx to steal the Frozen Flame for the Dragons. After Serge returned home, FATE sent Lynx to kill Serge, hoping that it would release the Arbiter lock. Ten years after Serge drowned, the thief Kid—presumably on Belthasar's orders—went back in time to save Serge and split the dimensions. FATE, locked out of the Frozen Flame again, knew that Serge would one day cross to Another world and prepared to apprehend him. Lynx switched bodies with Serge to dupe
8177-489: A space ship accidentally travels to another dimension (implied to be hell ), turning the crew insane and driving them to kill each other. Some films present parallel realities that are actually different contrasting versions of the narrative itself. Commonly this motif is presented as different points of view revolving around a central (but sometimes unknowable) "truth", the seminal example being Akira Kurosawa 's Rashomon . Conversely, often in film noir and crime dramas ,
8398-471: A space-like dimension in which humans could travel with the right equipment. Wells also used the concept of parallel universes as a consequence of time as the fourth dimension in stories like The Wonderful Visit and Men Like Gods , an idea proposed by the astronomer Simon Newcomb , who talked about both time and parallel universes; "Add a fourth dimension to space, and there is room for an indefinite number of universes, all alongside of each other, as there
8619-435: A specific speech pattern, but often speaks showing that he follows his own moral sense and is even willing to break military regulations if deemed necessary, being one of the few who is suspicious of Lynx early in the game. Glenn is only present in the "Alternate World", in the "Home World", he and the rest of the Acacia Dragoons die in the Dead Sea. Leena ( レナ , Rena ) is the close childhood friend of Serge who lives in
8840-435: A star to a running count shown on the status screen, which allows for another few rounds of statistical increases. Players can equip characters with weapons, armor, helmets, and accessories for use in battle; for example, the "Power Seal" upgrades attack power. Items and equipment may be purchased or found on field maps, often in treasure chests . Unlike Elements, weapons and armor cannot merely be purchased with money; instead,
9061-421: A starting point for speculative fiction , asking the question "What if [event] turned out differently ?". Examples of the former include Terry Pratchett 's Discworld and C. S. Lewis 's The Chronicles of Narnia , while examples of the latter include Harry Turtledove 's Worldwar series . A parallel universe—or more specifically, continued interaction between a parallel universe and our own—may serve as
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9282-450: A system that produces accents by modifying basic text for certain characters. Art director Nobuteru Yuuki initially wanted the characters to appear in a more chibi format with diminutive proportions. The game world's fusion of high technology and ethnic, tribal atmospheres proved challenging at first. He later recalled striving to harmonize the time period's level of technology, especially as reflected in characters' garb. The demands of
9503-604: A timeline is not explicitly stated to have been erased, it is still there. Parallel universes as a result of time travel can serve simply as the backdrop, or it may be a central plot point. The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove , where the Confederate Army is given thousands of AK-47 rifles and ends up winning the American Civil War , is a good example of the former, while Fritz Leiber 's novel The Big Time where
9724-473: A unique situation in JRPGs - a "zealous hero" type who was not actually the main character or central focus of the story. He bears the same name as the character nicknamed Frog from Chrono Trigger , but has no apparent connection to him. Originally considered a naughty child, after the death of his father Garai and brother Dario, he matures, becomes popular among the townsfolk, and joins the military. He doesn't have
9945-560: A universe where World War II ended differently would be "closer" to us than one where Imperial China colonized the New World in the 15th century. H. Beam Piper used this concept, naming it "paratime" and writing a series of stories involving the Paratime Police who regulated travel between these alternative realities as well as the technology to do so. Keith Laumer used the same concept of "sideways" time travel in his 1962 novel Worlds of
10166-435: A war between two alternative futures manipulating history to create a timeline that results in or realizes their own world is a good example of the latter. Subscribing to the many-worlds interpretation of Quantum Physics , alternative histories in fiction can arise as a natural phenomenon of the universe. In these works, the idea is that each choice every person makes, each leading to a different result, both occur, so when
10387-462: Is a guitarist in the "Magical Dreamers", a musical troupe of which the dancer Miki is also a member. He is the son of Fargo and his deceased wife, Zelbess, and a sibling to Marcy. In the "Alternate World", he joins the party if the player opts to have Serge work with him as one of the possible people to break into the Viper Manor. He is present in the "Home World" as well, where he is trying to cleanse
10608-684: Is a biological concept whereby unrelated species acquire similar traits because they adapted to a similar environment and/or played similar roles in their ecosystems. In fiction, the concept is extended whereby similar planets will result in races with similar cultures and/or histories. Again, this is not a true parallel universe since such planets exist within the same universe as our own, but the stories are similar in some respects. Star Trek frequently explored such worlds, in episodes including " Bread and Circuses ", " The Omega Glory ", and " Miri ". The 2017 episode of British science fiction television programme Doctor Who , " The Doctor Falls ", explains
10829-417: Is a performer aboard the S.S. Zelbess cruise ship. She joins the party if the player chooses to have Serge assist Miki and Nikki in saving the monster-overrun island of Marbule. Harle ( ツクヨミ , Tsukuyomi ) is a harlequin jester . Harle works with Lynx against Serge and his party, as a gadfly who interferes with their efforts and frustrates Kid due to her constant flirting with Serge. She joins
11050-429: Is a pink dog belonging to Leena. She speaks with a lisp , a stutter , many exclamations , and commonly using "I" and "me" interchangeably. Poshul is identical in both the "Home World" and "Alternate World", and the only character that can have either version of the character join the party, merely requiring the player to have Serge give her a bone. Razzly ( ラズリー , Razurī ) is a fairy from Water Dragon Isle. If
11271-410: Is a police officer in one universe and a serial killer in another, who travels to other universes to destroy versions of himself, so that he can take their energy; and FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions (2004), the main character runs away from a totalitarian nightmare, and he enters into a cyber-afterlife alternative reality. The current Star Trek films are set in an alternative universe created by
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#173284847105111492-547: Is a skilled, knowledgeable, and retired warrior. Prior to his retirement, he served as one of the Dragoon Devas, where he and his friend Garai eventually found the cursed Masamune sword. This resulted in Radius assassinating Garai in a fit of jealousy partly induced by the cursed sword. Radius discarded the sword and kept the cause of death to himself, retiring from fighting to look after Garai's sons, Dario and Glenn, until Dario became
11713-538: Is a troublemaker in the town of Termina, but when Kid is poisoned, he is there to rescue her as she falls from a Viper Manor balcony. He becomes enamored with Kid, and helps Serge find the Hydra Humour needed to cure her. Luccia ( ルチアナ , Ruchiana , Lutianna) is a scientist who conducts experiments in Viper Mansion. Her experiments create playable characters Pip and NioFio, while her brother created Grobyc. If
11934-428: Is another, different Chrono that interlaces with Trigger ." Kato and Tanaka further explained their intentions after the game's release: We didn't want to directly extend Chrono Trigger into a sequel, but create a new Chrono with links to the original. Yes, the platform changed; and yes, there were many parts that changed dramatically from the previous work. But in my view, the whole point in making Chrono Cross
12155-510: Is based on the premise that the essence of a being described as Satan , trapped in a glass canister and found in an abandoned church in Los Angeles, is actually an alien being that is the 'son' of something even more evil and powerful, trapped in another universe. The protagonists accidentally free the creature, who then attempts to release his "father" by reaching in through a mirror . In Event Horizon (1997), directed by Paul W. S. Anderson ,
12376-449: Is defeated by Serge , when he arrives in Lynx 's body. He reverts to normal, and joins forces with Serge. Similar to Korcha, Macha, and Mel, Orcha commonly substitutes "cha" in for you, for instance, saying "Dontcha?" in place of "Don't you?". Despite his similar name and speaking patterns, none of their interactions indicate Orcha even knowing the rest of them. Radius ( ラディウス , Radiusu )
12597-509: Is for an indefinite number of sheets of paper when we pile them upon each other." There are many examples where authors have explicitly created additional spatial dimensions for their characters to travel in, to reach parallel universes. In Doctor Who , the Doctor accidentally enters a parallel universe while attempting to repair the TARDIS console in " Inferno ". Douglas Adams , in the last book of
12818-408: Is her enemy. Serge escapes with help from Harle , although his new body turns him into a stranger in his own world, with all the allies he had gained up to that point abandoning him due to his new appearance. Discovering that his new body prevents him from traveling across the dimensions, he sets out to regain his former body and learn more of the universal split that occurred ten years earlier, gaining
13039-463: Is impossible to obtain all 45 characters in one playthrough, players must replay the game to witness everything. Through use of the New Game+ feature, players can ultimately obtain all characters on one save file. Serge , the game's protagonist, is a 17-year-old boy who lives in the fishing village of Arni. One day, he slips into an alternate world in which he drowned ten years before. Determined to find
13260-444: Is introduced shortly afterwards. The two worlds are used to illustrate the concept of the butterfly effect ; both worlds have the same basic make-up, but show key differences that have resulted from one minor difference; the main character, Serge, died years ago in the "Alternate World". Some effects are direct, such as his mother no longer living in his home village, or that people he knew in the "Home World" no longer recognizing him in
13481-400: Is its stamina bar. At the beginning of a battle, each character has seven points of stamina. When a character attacks or uses an Element, stamina is decreased proportionally to the potency of the attack. Stamina slowly recovers when the character defends or when other characters perform actions in battle. Characters with stamina below one point must wait to take action. Use of an Element reduces
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#173284847105113702-570: Is not a remake of Radical Dreamers , but a larger effort to fulfill that game's purpose; the plots of the games are irreconcilable. To resolve continuity issues and acknowledge Radical Dreamers , the developers of Chrono Cross suggested the game happened in a parallel dimension . A notable difference between the two games is that Magus —present in Radical Dreamers as Gil—is absent from Chrono Cross . Director Masato Kato originally planned for Magus to appear in disguise as Guile, but scrapped
13923-408: Is not an example of a parallel universe. It is a more scientifically plausible use of hyperspace. (See wormhole .) While the use of hyperspace is common, it is mostly used as a plot device and thus of secondary importance. While a parallel universe may be invoked by the concept, the nature of the universe is not often explored. So, while stories involving hyperspace might be the most common use of
14144-625: Is now not possible to reach these worlds via conventional travel, a common trope is a portal or artifact that connects our world and the fantasy world together, examples being the wardrobe in C. S. Lewis ' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or the sigil in James Branch Cabell 's The Cream of the Jest . In some cases, physical travel is not even possible, and the character in our reality travels in
14365-407: Is one of the four Dragoon Devas. Initially, he is merely shown as a figure Lynx uses to track down Serge, though he later joins the party during Serge's body switch with Lynx. As a child, Karsh feels jealousy over Riddel's romantic feelings towards his friend Dario, and later regret for killing Dario, though its later revealed he killed Dario out a self-defense while he was possessed, not jealousy. He
14586-439: Is paralleled by a "fair world" where the elves live and history echoes ours, where a major portion of the plot deals with preventing a change in interactions between the worlds. The idea of a multiverse is as fertile a subject for fantasy as it is for science fiction, allowing for epic settings and superhuman protagonists. One example of an epic and far-ranging fantasy "multiverse" is that of Michael Moorcock , who actually named
14807-508: Is populated by the daydreams of mundane people, and in Rebecca Lickiss's Eccentric Circles , an elf is grateful to Tolkien for transforming elves from dainty little creatures. These stories often place the author, or authors in general, in the same position as Zelazny's characters in Amber. Questioning, in a literal fashion, if writing is an act of creating a new world, or an act of discovery of
15028-494: Is portrayed as rough but honorable. During development, a design of Karsh wearing full armor was rejected for not fitting the game's atmosphere. Karsh is only present in the "Alternate World", in the "Home World", he and the rest of the Acacia Dragoons die in the Dead Sea. Zoah ( ゾア , Zoa ) is one of the four Dragoon Devas. He constantly wears an iron helmet to cover his face due to a war injury. He rejects wealth and power and has chosen to dedicate his life to battle, although
15249-455: Is seen as a character that is searching for Serge with the Acacia Dragoons, and loathed by Kid, both for then unknown reasons. For the middle portion of the game, Lynx switches bodies with Serge, where he is the primary playable character for a third of the game. It's eventually revealed that, due to a complicated series of events, Lynx is actually Serge's father, taken over by a supercomputer named FATE, that ultimately needed Serge's body to access
15470-483: Is that you are imagining these things in the context of fiction while the physicists and mathematicians are imagining them in terms of science. I suspect it is the romantic imagination working, as it often does, perfectly efficiently in both the arts and the sciences." Unlike many science-fiction interpretations, Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories go far beyond alternative history to include mythic and sword and sorcery settings as well as worlds more similar to, or
15691-399: Is the concept of hyperspace . Used in science fiction, the concept of "hyperspace" often refers to a parallel universe that can be used as a faster-than-light shortcut for interstellar travel . Rationales for this form of hyperspace vary from work to work, but the two common elements are: Sometimes "hyperspace" is used to refer to the concept of additional coordinate axes . In this model,
15912-648: Is the leader of the "Black Wind", an elite branch of the Porre Military. In the "Home World", they have overtaken the town of Termina, where General Viper and the Acacia Dragoons cease to exist, and as such, are unable to defend the town from them. He automatically joins the party to help Serge while trapped in Lynx's body, desiring to accompany him to the Dead Sea, and ends up stays with the group. Norris doesn't speak with any special accent or habits, but generally speaks and acts very kindly towards people, sometimes unbefitting of
16133-405: Is the lord of El Nido and leader of the Acacia Dragoons. He served as one of the four former Dragoon Devas, the highest rank of the Acacia Dragoons, until he retired and became the head of El Nido. He is also the father of Riddel. Over the course of the game, he aspires to acquire the powerful "Frozen Flame" to defend El Nido from the militaristic nation of Porre and create a peaceful world similar to
16354-456: Is the mother of Korcha and Mel residing in Guldove. If the player chooses to have Serge not help Kid when poisoned, Korcha refuses to join the party and Macha joins instead. Like her children, she commonly subs in "cha" for "you" in her sentence, saying "dontcha" in place of "don't you". Glenn ( グレン , Guren ) is a member of the Acacia Dragoons. Glenn was created by the developers to represent
16575-419: Is the one seen throughout the game; Guile ( アルフ , Arufu , Alf) is a traveling magician who makes a bet with a fortune-teller that he could break into Viper Manor. The player, who must break Serge into Viper Manor as well, may choose to work with Guile, leading him to join the party if selected. Early in the game's development, Guile was intended to be the character Magus from Chrono Trigger , who after
16796-553: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Mostly Harmless , uses the idea of probability as an extra axis in addition to the classical four dimensions of space and time similar to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics , although according to the novel they were more a model to capture the continuity of space, time and probability. Robert A. Heinlein , in The Number of
17017-454: The Ultimania guide, states that in the Home World, Lynx dies in the Dead Sea with Harle and the Acacia Dragoons. Kid ( キッド , Kiddo ) is considered the second most important character of the game. Kid loathes Lynx for initially undisclosed reasons, and helps to defend Serge from Lynx's pursuit efforts against him. While they team up due to shared involvement with Lynx, various choices by
17238-605: The Nintendo DS . The February 2008 issue of Game Informer ranked the Chrono series eighth among the "Top Ten Sequels in Demand", naming the games "steadfast legacies in the Square Enix catalogue" and asking "what's the damn holdup?!" In Electronic Gaming Monthly 's June 2008 "Retro Issue", writer Jeremy Parish cited Chrono as the franchise video game fans would be most thrilled to see
17459-412: The PlayStation video game console . It is set in the same world as Chrono Trigger , which was released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System . Chrono Cross was designed primarily by scenarist and director Masato Kato , who had help from other designers who also worked on Chrono Trigger , including art director Yasuyuki Honne and composer Yasunori Mitsuda . Nobuteru Yūki designed
17680-418: The characters of the game . The story of Chrono Cross focuses on a teenage boy named Serge and a theme of parallel worlds . Faced with an alternate reality in which he died as a child, Serge endeavors to discover the truth of the two worlds' divergence. The flashy thief Kid and many other characters assist him in his travels around the tropical archipelago El Nido. Struggling to uncover his past and find
17901-406: The geographic coordinate system , with travel along latitude corresponding to time travel moving through past, present and future, and travel along longitude corresponding to travel perpendicular to time and to other realities. In modern literature, parallel universes can serve two main purposes: to allow stories with elements that would ordinarily violate the laws of nature ; and to serve as
18122-400: The "Alternate World". Others are far more indirect, with his absence leading other characters to make different decisions in their lives, effecting whether they end up being rich or poor, or follow their dreams or gives up on them. As such, there are sometimes two very different versions of characters, or conversely, characters who are only present in one world or another, due to dying or leaving
18343-479: The "Home World" and the "Alternate World" Leena is her relationship with Serge; Home World Leena has had a close relationship with Serge her whole life, while the other doesn't even recognize Serge, not having seen him for ten years due to his death occurring in that world. It is actually Alternate World Leena who follows Serge for much of the game; the Home World Leena only initiates the search for jewelry that set
18564-485: The "Home World", he is saddened because Karsh has been missing for the last three years. As such, if the player has Serge talk with Zappa in the "Home World", he will join the party, in order to search the world for Karsh and improve his craft. Orcha ( オーチャ , Ōcha ) is the cook at Viper Manor. The Porre Military made him ingest Quaffid seeds, and then transformed him into the Hell's Cook to have him torture Riddel , but he
18785-436: The "Home World". If the player has Serge fight and defeat Dario, Riddel decides to help him rebuild the destroyed Viper's Manor and make it an orphanage. Riddel doesn't have a specific speech pattern, but commonly speaks as a kind and beautiful woman with a heavy heart. Riddel is only present in the "Alternate World", in the "Home World", she and the rest of the Acacia Dragoons die in the Dead Sea. Karsh ( カーシュ , Kāshu )
19006-638: The "Time Devourer", a creature capable of destroying spacetime . Lucca explains that Kid is Schala's clone, sent to the modern age to take part in Project Kid. Serge uses a Time Egg—given to him by Belthasar—to enter the Darkness Beyond Time and vanquish the Time Devourer, separating Schala from Lavos and restoring the dimensions to one. Thankful, Schala muses on evolution and the struggle of life and returns Serge to his home, noting that he will forget
19227-417: The 'best' Chrono , but) If you can't accept that, then I'm sorry to say this but I guess your Chrono and my Chrono have taken totally different paths. But I would like to say, thank you for falling in love with Trigger so much." Tanaka added, "Of course, the fans of the original are very important, but what innovation can come about when you're bound to the past? I believe that gameplay should evolve with
19448-614: The 10th anniversary of the Japanese debut of Cross . Music from Chrono Cross has been featured in the September 2009 Symphonic Fantasies concerts, part of the Symphonic Game Music Concert series conducted by Arnie Roth . That same year, the Chrono Cross theme "Scars of Time" was voted first place in Hardcore Gaming 101's "Best Video Game Music of All Time" poll. "Scars of Time" was also featured in 2012 by NPR in
19669-410: The 2000 film The Family Man , the 2001 cult film Donnie Darko , which deals with what it terms a "tangent universe" that erupts from our own universe; Super Mario Bros. (1993) has the eponymous heroes cross over into a parallel universe ruled by humanoids who evolved from dinosaurs; The One (2001) starring Jet Li , in which there is a complex system of realities in which Jet Li's character
19890-415: The 8th Dimension , where the "8th dimension" is essentially a "phantom zone" used to imprison the villainous Red Lectroids. Uses in horror films include the 1986 film From Beyond (based on the H. P. Lovecraft story of the same name) where a scientific experiment induces the experimenters to perceive aliens from a parallel universe, with bad results. The 1987 John Carpenter film Prince of Darkness
20111-533: The Acacia Dragoons, the powerful militia governing the islands of El Nido. As the Dragoons maintain order, they contend with Fargo, a former Dragoon turned pirate captain who holds a grudge against their leader, General Viper. Though tussling with Serge initially, the Acacia Dragoons—whose ranks include the fierce warriors Karsh, Zoah, Marcy, and Glenn—later assist him when the militaristic nation of Porre invades
20332-541: The Ages" and "Sailing (Another World)". Masato Kato faced internal opposition in hiring Noriko Mitose: Personally, for me, the biggest pressure was coming from the ending theme song. From the start of the project, I had already planned to make the ending into a Japanese song, but the problem was now "who was going to sing the song?" There was a lot of pressure from the people in the PR division to get someone big and famous to sing it, but I
20553-691: The Beast , Heinlein quantizes that the many parallel, fictional universes – in terms of works of fiction. He postulates that all fictional universes are accessible by the "time twister" in the air vehicle named the Gay Deceiver . Heinlein also " breaks the fourth wall " by having both Robert and his wife Virginia visit an inter-universal science-fiction-and-fantasy convention in the book's last chapter. Heinlein continues this literary conceit in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and To Sail Beyond
20774-417: The Beast , postulated a six-dimensional universe. In addition to the three spatial dimensions, he invoked symmetry to add two new temporal dimensions, so there would be two sets of three. Like the fourth dimension of H. G. Wells' "Time Traveller," these extra dimensions can be traveled by persons using the right equipment. Perhaps the most common use of the concept of a parallel universe in science fiction
20995-540: The Beast . Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp took the protagonist of the Harold Shea series through the worlds of Norse myth, Edmund Spenser 's The Faerie Queene , Ludovico Ariosto 's Orlando Furioso , and the Kalevala – without ever quite settling whether writers created these parallel worlds by writing these works, or received impressions from the worlds and wrote them down. In an interlude set in " Xanadu ",
21216-506: The Darkness Beyond Time and began merging with Lavos, the chief antagonist of Chrono Trigger . Schala's storm nullified Chronopolis's defenses and allowed Serge to contact the Frozen Flame; approaching it healed Serge but corrupted his father, turning him into Lynx. A circuit in Chronopolis then designated Serge "Arbiter", simultaneously preventing FATE from using the Frozen Flame by extension. The Dragons were aware of this situation, creating
21437-473: The Elven world lies through a patch of mist in the woods. It was constructed when the Elven were thrown out of our world. Travel to and fro is possible by those in the know, but can have lethal consequences. Isekai is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy light novels, manga, anime, and video games revolving around a normal person being transported to or trapped in a parallel universe. Often, this universe already exists in
21658-534: The Imperium . More recently, novels such as Frederik Pohl 's The Coming of the Quantum Cats and Neal Stephenson 's Anathem explore human-scale readings of the "many worlds" interpretation , postulating that historical events or human consciousness spawns or allows "travel" among alternative universes. Universe 'types' frequently explored in sidewise and alternative history works include worlds whose Nazis won
21879-620: The Second World War , as in The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick , SS-GB by Len Deighton , Fatherland by Robert Harris , and Earthside by Dennis E. Taylor , and worlds whose Roman Empire never fell, as in Roma Eterna by Robert Silverberg , Romanitas by Sophia McDougall , and Warlords of Utopia by Lance Parkin . The concept of counter-Earth might seem similar to
22100-482: The Sunset , using characters from throughout his science-fictional career, hauled forth from their own fictional universe. Heinlein also wrote a stand-alone novel, Job: A Comedy of Justice , whose two protagonists fall from alternative universe into alternative universe and after a number of such adventures die and enter a stereotypically Fundamentalist Christian Heaven (with many of its internal contradictions explored in
22321-556: The Ultimate Hits series. Chrono Cross was later re-released for the PlayStation Network in Japan in July 2011, and in North America four months later. A remaster of the game, titled Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition was released on April 7, 2022, for Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , Windows , and Xbox One . Chrono Cross features standard role-playing video game gameplay with some differences. Players advance
22542-622: The Wasp: Quantumania . This series of universes overlaps or encompasses with universes depicted in Sony's Spider-Man Universe and the animated Spider-Verse franchise. The success of Marvel's Multiverse Saga, particularly Avengers: Endgame in 2019, led to a noticeable rise in the popularity of multiverses and shared universes in films of the early 2020s, predominantly for superhero films but also in Hollywood more broadly. Notable examples include
22763-539: The ability for anyone else to gain access to its power. With Serge dead in the "Alternate World", the Serge alive in the Home World was now necessary in the Alternate World. Kid pulled him through the dimensions as part of Balthasar's lengthy plan to defeat the Time Devourer and free Schala from it. Meanwhile, Lynx needed his body in order to gain access to the Frozen Flame's power. While Lynx succeeds in this, resulting in
22984-517: The accent generator which needed to be more robust than the simple verbal tics of the Japanese cast. Although the trademark Chrono Cross was registered in the European Union, the game was not released in Europe. After the game was done, the team was merged with those behind Parasite Eve II , Brave Fencer Musashi and Mana to make Final Fantasy XI . The programming for the game endured as
23205-601: The aforementioned Spider-Verse franchise, 2022's Academy Award-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once , the DC Extended Universe film The Flash , and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always . Some filmmakers and critics, including Endgame co-director Joe Russo , have expressed concern that film studios may be embracing multiverse-centric plotlines to capitalize on characters and intellectual property with pre-existing popularity, ultimately to
23426-406: The all-powerful Frozen Flame. In addition to this, Kid's hate stems from Lynx's past abduction of Lucca Ashtear , Kid's maternal figure from her orphanage , who had stood in the way of his goals. Lynx does not have a particular speech pattern, and is silent when Serge is inhabiting his body. All of the game's events depict the "Alternate World" Lynx; the "Home World" Lynx is not ever seen. Kato, in
23647-704: The alternative narrative is a fiction created by a central character, intentionally – as in The Usual Suspects – or unintentionally – as in Angel Heart . Less often, the alternative narratives are given equal weight in the story, making them truly alternative universes, such as in the German film Run Lola Run , the short-lived British West End musical Our House and the British film Sliding Doors . More recent films that have explicitly explored parallel universes are:
23868-533: The ambiguity. Some writers depict the land of the elves as a full-blown parallel universe, with portals the only entry – as in Josepha Sherman 's Prince of the Sidhe series or Esther Friesner 's Elf Defense – and others have depicted it as the next land over, possibly difficult to reach for magical reasons – Hope Mirrlees 's Lud-in-the-Mist , or Lord Dunsany 's The King of Elfland's Daughter . In some cases,
24089-458: The archipelago. The invasion brings Norris and Grobyc to the islands, a heartful commander of an elite force and a prototype cyborg soldier, respectively, as they too seek the Frozen Flame. The game begins with Serge located in El Nido, a tropical archipelago inhabited by ancient natives, mainland colonists, and beings called Demi-humans. Serge slips into an alternate dimension in which he drowned on
24310-462: The art style led to Square merging the Final Fantasy VIII team into that of Chrono Cross two months before the Japanese release. The Chrono Cross team devised an original battle system using a stamina bar and Elements. Kato planned the system around allowing players to avoid repetitive gameplay (also known as " grinding ") to gain combat experience. Elements were developed while planning
24531-412: The assistance from the Dragoons and Luccia, a friend of Zelbess. Her original name during development was Rachel. Marcy's speech pattern sounds like an angry valley girl , often yelling at others while adding "like" through her fiery statements. Marcy is only present in the "Alternate World", in the "Home World", she and the rest of the Acacia Dragoons die in the Dead Sea. Korcha ( コルチャ , Korucha )
24752-668: The basis for the engine of Final Fantasy XI . Chrono Cross was scored by freelance video game music composer Yasunori Mitsuda , who previously worked on Chrono Trigger . Director Masato Kato personally commissioned Mitsuda's involvement, citing a need for the "Chrono sound". Kato envisioned a "Southeast Asian feel, mixed with the foreign tastes and the tones of countries such as Greece "; Mitsuda centered his work around old world cultural influences, including Mediterranean , Fado , Celtic , and percussive African music. Mitsuda cited visual inspiration for songs: "All of my subjects are taken from scenery. I love artwork." To complement
24973-461: The battle system's techniques and animations to distance the game from the Final Fantasy franchise. Masato Kato planned for the game's setting to feature a small archipelago, for fear that players would become confused traveling in large areas with respect to parallel worlds. He hoped El Nido would still impart a sense of grand scale, and the development team pushed hardware limitations in creating
25194-423: The beach ten years prior, and meets the thief, "Kid". As his adventure proceeds from here, Serge is able to recruit a multitude of allies to his cause. While assisting Kid in a heist at Viper Manor to steal the Frozen Flame, he learns that ten years before the present, the universe split into two dimensions—one in which Serge lived, and one in which he perished. Through Kid's Astral Amulet charm, Serge travels between
25415-473: The biological check of Chronopolis on the Frozen Flame. Belthasar then reveals that these events were part of a plan he had orchestrated named Project Kid. Serge continues to the top of Terra Tower and defeats the Dragon God. Continuing to the beach where the split in dimensions had occurred, Serge finds apparitions of Crono, Marle, and Lucca once more. They reveal that Belthasar's plan was to empower Serge to free Schala from melding with Lavos, lest they evolve into
25636-477: The boundary between Elfland and more ordinary lands is not fixed. Not only the inhabitants but Faerie itself can pour into more mundane regions. Terry Pratchett 's Discworld series proposes that the world of the Elves is a "parasite" universe, that drifts between and latches onto others such as Discworld and our own world (referred to as "Roundworld" in the novels). In the young teenage book Mist by Kathryn James ,
25857-408: The changes in development, specifically intending to provide an experience different from Chrono Trigger . Kato anticipated and rebuffed this discontent before the game's release, wondering what the Chrono title meant to these fans and whether his messages ever "really got through to them". He continued, " Cross is undoubtedly the highest quality Chrono that we can create right now. (I won't say
26078-454: The character-creation process, originally planning 64 characters with unique endings that could vary in three different ways per character. Kato described the character creation process: "Take Pierre, for example: we started off by saying we wanted a wacko fake hero like Tata from Trigger . We also said things like 'we need at least one powerful mom', 'no way we're gonna go without a twisted brat', and so on so forth." As production continued,
26299-509: The colors present, while weakening Elements of the opposite colors. Characters also innately learn some special techniques ("Techs") that are unique to each character but otherwise act like Elements. Like Chrono Trigger , characters can combine certain Techs to make more powerful Double or Triple Techs. Consumable Elements may be used to restore hit points or heal status ailments during or after battle. Another innovative aspect of Chrono Cross
26520-505: The complaint that recruiting all characters required several playthroughs. During the 4th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards , the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Chrono Cross for the " Game of the Year ", "Console Game of the Year", and " Console Role-Playing " awards. On December 9, 2021, a cross-over event between Chrono Cross and the free-to-play RPG Another Eden
26741-474: The computer-controlled enemies, each attack reduces their number of hit points (a numerically based life bar ), which can be restored through some Elements. When a playable character loses all hit points, he or she faints. If all the player's characters fall in battle, the game ends and must be restored from a previously saved chapter—except for specific storyline-related battles that allow the player to lose. Chrono Cross 's developers aimed to break new ground in
26962-485: The concept in a 1963 science fiction novel The Sundered Worlds . Like many authors after him, Moorcock was inspired by the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics , saying, "It was an idea in the air, as most of these are, and I would have come across a reference to it in New Scientist (one of my best friends was then editor) ... [or] physicist friends would have been talking about it. ... Sometimes what happens
27183-630: The corrupted Masamune sword from Chrono Trigger . He then uses the Dragon relics and shards of the Dragon Tears to create the mythic Element Chrono Cross. The spiritual power of the Masamune later allows him to lift Kid from her coma. At Terra Tower, the prophet of time, revealed to be Belthasar from Chrono Trigger , visits him with visions of Crono, Marle, and Lucca. Serge learns that the time research facility Chronopolis created El Nido thousands of years ago after
27404-402: The course of a single game. However, the game employs a New Game + system, where, upon starting a second game, characters who had been recruited on the prior playthrough will become available towards the latter part of the game. As such, the player can retain characters from the first game, while taking alternate paths to recruit characters missed the first time. The characters are presented in
27625-399: The development team. The developers also created an "auto accent program", to apply accents and other quirks to character's dialogue, making the dialogue altered depending on who was present in the player's party. Reception for the game from critics was very positive, with some publications, such as GameSpot , even giving the game a perfect score. However, reception for the cast of characters
27846-531: The dialogue for each character. The game contains a total of 45 playable characters. While some join automatically as the plot progresses, others only become playable depending on the actions of the player. For example, early in the game, the player is tasked with breaking Serge into a heavily guarded manor house . The player must explore the town outside of the manor in order to find assistance with breaking in. The player may choose to ask Guile , Pierre , or Nikki for help on different approaches to breaking into
28067-515: The different origins of the Cybermen as parallel evolution , due to the inevitability of humans and human-like species attempting to upgrade themselves through technology; this perspective resolves continuity differences in the Cybermen's history. Convergent evolution may also be due to contamination. In this case, a planet may start out differently from Earth, but due to the influence of Earth's culture,
28288-518: The dimensions. At Fort Dragonia, with the use of a Dragonian artifact called the Dragon Tear, Lynx switches bodies with Serge. Unaware of the switch, Kid confides in Lynx, who stabs her as the real Serge helplessly watches. Lynx boasts of his victory and banishes Serge to a strange realm called the Temporal Vortex. He takes Kid under his wing, brainwashing her to believe the real Serge (in Lynx's body)
28509-442: The distant future called Chronopolis. Lynx and Kid are inside; Serge defeats Lynx and the supercomputer FATE, allowing the six Dragons of El Nido to steal the Frozen Flame and retire to Terra Tower, a massive structure raised from the sea floor. Kid falls into a coma, and Harle bids the party goodbye to fly with the Dragons. Serge regroups his party and tends to Kid, who remains comatose. Continuing his adventure, he obtains and cleanses
28730-610: The ending song—"Radical Dreamers – The Unstolen Jewel". Ryo Yamazaki , a synthesizer programmer for Square Enix , helped Mitsuda transfer his ideas to the PlayStation's sound capabilities; Mitsuda was happy to accomplish even half of what he envisioned. Certain songs were ported from the score of Radical Dreamers , such as "Gale", "Frozen Flame", and "Viper Mansion". Other entries in the soundtrack contain leitmotifs from Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers . The melody of "Far Promise ~ Dream Shore" features prominently in "Dreams of
28951-431: The entire adventure. She then seemingly records the experience in her diary, noting she will always be searching for Serge in this life and beyond, signing the entry as Schala "Kid" Zeal, implying that she and Kid have merged and became whole again. A wedding photo of Kid and an obscured male sits on the diary's desk. Scenes then depict a real-life Kid searching for someone in a modern city, intending to make players entertain
29172-402: The events of the entire game in motion, otherwise staying behind. The Alternate World Leena joins Serge if the player chooses to reject Kid's first offer to travel with Serge early in the game, Leena not chasing after him if another girl is with him already. Miki ( ミキ ) is a famous dancer known throughout El Nido. In the Alternate World, she is on tour with Nikki, while in the Home World, she
29393-558: The events of the first game, was traveling through time to find his lost sister, Schala. However, as development progressed, upon adding such a large cast of characters to the game, the development team felt that his story couldn't sufficiently be focused on, and he was switched into the Guile character. The developers still left some subtle references to Magus; including his Japanese name, Alf, resembling Magus's pet cat name, Alfador in Chrono Trigger , his English name, Guile, being similar to "Gil",
29614-521: The familiar material realm. Plato reflected deeply on parallel realities, resulting in the worlds of Platonism , in which the upper reality is perfect while the lower (earthly) reality is an imperfect shadow of the heavenly equivalent. One of the first science-fiction examples of a parallel universe is Murray Leinster 's short story Sidewise in Time , published in 1934, which portions of alternative universes replace corresponding geographical regions in this universe. Sidewise in Time analogizes time to
29835-399: The fantasy world. Before the mid-20th century, this was most often done by hiding fantastic worlds within unknown, distant locations on Earth; peasants who seldom, if ever, traveled far from their villages could not conclusively say that it was impossible that an ogre or other fantastical beings could live an hour away. Characters in the author's world could board a ship and find themselves on
30056-456: The final battle (during which a sequence of specific Elements must be triggered), and then applied in reverse to the rest of the game. Hiromichi Tanaka likened the Elements system to card games, hoping players would feel a sense of complete control in battle. The team programmed each battle motion manually instead of performing motion capture. Developers strove to include tongue-in-cheek humor in
30277-464: The first film's villain traveling back in time, thus allowing the franchise to be rebooted without affecting the continuity of any other Star Trek film or show. The 2011 science-fiction thriller Source Code employs the concepts of quantum reality and parallel universes. The characters in The Cloverfield Paradox , the third installment of the franchise , accidentally create a ripple in
30498-486: The fortune teller in Termina senses "deep sadness" beneath his helmet. During development, Zoah was meant to be "the prince of a certain country", watching over the protagonists' actions and wearing the helmet not due to an injury but to hide his true identity. However, because of time constraints, the event hinting at this was not implemented. Zoah's dialogue is written in all capital letters to emulate his voice booming through
30719-517: The fourth wall ), and even travel to a world – twice – in which (again, within the novel) they meet Stephen King and alter events in the real Stephen King's world outside of the books. An early instance of this was in works by Gardner Fox for DC Comics in the 1960s, in which characters from the Golden Age (which was supposed to be a series of comic books within the DC Comics universe) would cross over into
30940-436: The game 36 out of 40 from four reviewers. Fan reaction was largely positive, though certain fans complained that the game was a far departure from its predecessor, Chrono Trigger ; Chrono Cross broke convention by featuring more characters, fewer double and triple techs, fewer instances of time travel, and few appearances of Trigger characters and locations. Producer Hiromichi Tanaka and director Masato Kato were aware of
31161-502: The game a perfect 10, one of only sixteen games in the 40,000 games listed on GameSpot to have been given the score, and its Console Game of the Year Award for 2000. It also received the annual Best Role-Playing Game, Best Game Music and Best PlayStation Game awards, and nominations for Best Game Story and Best Graphics, Artistic. IGN gave the game a score of 9.7, and Cross appeared 89th in its 2008 Top 100 games list. Famitsu rated
31382-610: The game by controlling the protagonist Serge through the game's world, primarily by foot and boat. Navigation between areas is conducted via an overworld map, much like Chrono Trigger's , depicting the landscape from a scaled-down overhead view. Around the island world are villages, outdoor areas, and dungeons, through which the player moves in three dimensions. Locations such as cities and forests are represented by more realistically scaled field maps, in which players can converse with locals to procure items and services, solve puzzles and challenges, or encounter enemies. Like Chrono Trigger ,
31603-415: The game features no random encounters ; enemies are openly visible on field maps or lie in wait to ambush the party. Touching the monster switches perspectives to a battle screen, in which players can physically attack, use "Elements", defend, or run away from the enemy. Battles are turn-based, allowing the player unlimited time to select an action from the available menu. For both the playable characters and
31824-411: The game including increasing the game's framerate to 60fps. In 2001, Hironobu Sakaguchi revealed the company's staff wanted to develop a new game and were discussing script ideas. Although Kato was interested in a new title, the project had not been greenlighted . Square then registered a trademark for Chrono Break worldwide, causing speculation concerning a new sequel. Nothing materialized, and
32045-443: The game involves the player following Serge after he's been sucked into an alternative dimension where no one he previously knew recognizes him, and many are in his pursuit. The game's events reveal that Serge had died years prior in the Alternate World. As a child, he had come in contact with the all-powerful "Frozen Flame", a remnant of the all-powerful Lavos creature from Chrono Trigger . Once Serge had made contact, it sealed off
32266-431: The game's narrator , rather than a silent protagonist , and Lynx, is just a regular human, rather than an anthropomorphic cat. With the release of Chrono Cross , the characters and events of Radical Dreamers were retconned as being from a similar but different alternate reality. Once work on the actual Chrono Cross started, the initial vision beyond character recruitment was even more expansive. The game initially
32487-421: The game's dialogue, music, character art, and mechanics, respectively. Tanaka revealed that the game's assets, stored on magnetic tape after development ceased in 1999, were lost in the intervening years, causing him to rely on a personal backup he had maintained for certain aspects of his polishing work. Producer Koichiro Sakamoto further explained that creating the remaster required teams to painstakingly upscale
32708-417: The game's original location art and remap each 3D field map, sometimes relying on AI to improve the resolution. The work demanded close scrutiny to ensure no original details were missed. While Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition was received well by critics, it received a negative reaction from players in part due to how it performed as compared to its PlayStation 1 counterpart. Analysis showed that
32929-444: The game's setting due to events happening in only one world. The development team conceded it was difficult for even them to keep track of all of the game's characters, with complications arising in keeping all the relationships and events straight across so many characters and two parallel dimensions. A vast majority of the 45 characters in the game possess their own unique accents and speech patterns. When lines were being recycled for
33150-412: The game's world. To create field maps, the team modeled locations in 3D, then chose the best angle for 2D rendering. The programmers of Chrono Cross did not use any existing Square programs or routines to code the game, instead writing new, proprietary systems. Other innovations included variable- frame rate code for fast-forward and slow-motion gameplay (awarded as a bonus for completing the game) and
33371-408: The game, and all end up dead. Riddel ( リデル , Rideru ) is the daughter of General Viper and past fiancé to childhood friend Dario prior to his death in the "Alternate World". Riddel automatically joins Serge's party after being rescued by him from Porre soldiers. If the player opts to have Serge travel to the "Home World" with Riddel to an isolated island, they find that Dario is indeed alive in
33592-415: The game, as they thought it would be "rehashing and cranking up the volume of the last game". Masato Kato cited the belief, "there's no use in making something similar to before [ sic ]", and noted, "we're not so weak nor cheap as to try to make something exactly the same as Trigger ... Accordingly, Chrono Cross is not Chrono Trigger 2 . It doesn't simply follow on from Trigger , but
33813-469: The game. Additionally, the Radical Dreamers character Magil, who is an amnesiac Magus from Chrono Trigger , was originally going to be the character Guile in Chrono Cross , before Kato wrote him out of the script, fearing he could not do the character justice in the massive scope of Chrono Cross . While Radical Dreamers characters were used as a base for the characters of Chrono Cross , Kato made changes as well. In Radical Dreamers , Serge acted as
34034-540: The genre, and the game features several innovations. For example, players can run away from all conflicts, including boss fights and the final battle. The Element system of Chrono Cross handles all magic, consumable items, and character-specific abilities. Elements unleash magic effects upon the enemy or party and must be equipped for use, much like the materia of 1997's Final Fantasy VII . Elements can be purchased from shops or found in treasure chests littered throughout areas. Once acquired, they are allocated to
34255-445: The hands of Lavos. To prevent Serge from obtaining the Frozen Flame, FATE destroys the Dead Sea. Able to return to Another world, Serge allies with the Acacia Dragoons against Porre and locates that dimension's Dragon Tear, allowing him to return to his human form. He then enters the Sea of Eden, Another world's physical equivalent of the Dead Sea, finding a temporal research facility from
34476-406: The hardware." Kato later acknowledged that he could have "shown more empathy to the player" by making the story less complex, and acknowledged fans who felt the game was a departure from Chrono Trigger , noting that one can still "equally enjoy the game." He later reflected in 2015 that "the bashing was terrible" in reference to fans' push-back on featuring so many playable characters, acknowledging
34697-511: The helmet. Zoah is only present in the "Alternate World", in the "Home World", he and the rest of the Acacia Dragoons die in the Dead Sea. Marcy ( マルチェラ , Maruchera ) is one of the four Dragoon Devas. Her appearance is of a human, though she is the daughter of Fargo, a human, and Zelbess, a demi-human , her ancestry something she struggles with internally. She largely grows up without her family - Zelbess dies right after her birth, and Fargo believed Marcy to have died as well - but lives with
34918-461: The idea due to plot difficulties. Kato specifically felt that the game's large number of characters, as well as the difficult production schedule, did not allow him to develop the relationship between Magus and Kid. In the DS version of Chrono Trigger , Kato teases the possibility of an amnesiac Magus. Square began planning Chrono Cross immediately after the release of Xenogears in 1998 (which itself
35139-475: The idea of another " dimension " has become synonymous with the term "parallel universe". The usage is particularly common in movies, television and comic books and much less so in modern prose science fiction. The idea of a parallel world was popularized in comic books with the publication of The Flash No. 123, Flash of Two Worlds in 1961. In written science fiction, "new dimension" more commonly—and more accurately—refer to additional coordinate axes , beyond
35360-410: The kingdom of Guardia. He automatically join's Serge party. Viper has a formal and diplomatic speech pattern. While usually a confident father figure type, he has moments of uncertainty as well, referring to himself as ""just a fool chasing his own desires". Viper is only present in the "Alternate World"; in the "Home World", he and his men are persuaded by Lynx to visit the Dead Sea three years prior to
35581-459: The land in which the confrontation takes place – at other times the otherworldly aspects are clear. Most frequently, time can flow differently for those trapped by the fairy dance than in the lands they come from; although, in an additional complication, it may only be an appearance, as many returning from Faerie, such as Oisín , have found that time "catches up" with them as soon as they have contact with ordinary lands. Fantasy writers have taken up
35802-422: The length of Cross increased, leading the event team to reduce the number of characters to 45 and scrap most of the alternate endings. Developers humorously named the character Pip "Tsumaru" in Japanese (which means "packed") as a pun on their attempts to pack as much content into the game as possible. To avoid the burden of writing unique, accented dialogue for several characters, team member Kiyoshi Yoshii coded
36023-467: The main DC Comics universe. One comic book did provide an explanation for a fictional universe existing as a parallel universe. The parallel world does "exist" and it resonates into the "real world". Some people in the "real world" pick up on this resonance, gaining information about the parallel world which they then use to write stories. Robert Heinlein introduces an extension of his Future History series called The World as Myth . In The Number of
36244-421: The manor. The player may only choose one, and only that respective character will join the party. At other times, characters will not join if other characters are present. Early in the game, Leena will only join if the player opts to have Serge traveling alone at the time; if Kid is already with him, she no longer feels the need to help, and will not join. As such, it is impossible for all characters to join over
36465-459: The memories of most of Chronopolis's staff, and sent them to inhabit and populate its new paradise. Thousands of years later, a panther demon attacked a three-year-old Serge. His father took him to find assistance at Marbule, but Serge's boat blew off course due to a raging magnetic storm caused by Schala . Schala, the princess of the Kingdom of Zeal, had long ago accidentally fallen to a place known as
36686-468: The message or theme, but how it is portrayed as a game. Even in Cross, it was intentionally made so that the most important question was left unanswered." Kato described the finished story as "ole' boy-meets-girl type of story" with sometimes-shocking twists. Kato rode his motorcycle to relieve the stress of the game's release schedule. He continued refining event data during the final stages of development while
36907-419: The monster battling tournament, and defeat her three times, she joins the party. Draggy ( 龍の子 , Ryū no Ko , lit. "Dragon Child") is a baby dragon . If the player chooses to have Serge hatch the egg from Fossil Valley in the incubator at Ft. Dragonia in the Home World, Draggy emerges from the egg and joins the party. As such, his dialogue mimics a child's speech pattern, for example, replacing an "r" with
37128-441: The monster-infested island of Marbule. Nikki's speech pattern finds him often referencing guitars or music in general. Several allusions to Slash , including his original Japanese name, and the song lyrics he sings, such as " Sweet Sister of Mine ". He as a character is largely consistent, without any major differences, between the "Home" and "Alternate World". General Viper ( 蛇骨大佐 , Jakotsu Taisa , lit. Colonel Snakebone)
37349-405: The mysterious Frozen Flame, Serge is chiefly challenged by Lynx , a shadowy antagonist working to apprehend him. Upon its release in Japan in 1999 and North America in 2000, Chrono Cross received widespread acclaim, earning a perfect 10.0 score from GameSpot . The game shipped 1.5 million copies worldwide by 2003, leading to a Greatest Hits re-release and continued life in Japan as part of
37570-453: The name for Magus in Radical Dreamers , and had quite similarities to Magus in his appearance and "floating" nature of movement. Guile's speech often references topics such as "mystery" or "magic". He is only shown in the "Alternate World". While he does not appear in the "Home World", Sneff recognizes the "Alternate World" Guile as part of the "Magic Guild", suggesting he had seen the "Home World" Guile. Norris ( イシト , Ishito , Ishito)
37791-581: The novel). Elfland , or Faerie, the otherworldly home not only of elves and fairies but goblins , trolls , and other folkloric creatures, has an ambiguous appearance in folklore. On one hand, the land often appears to be contiguous with 'ordinary' land. Thomas the Rhymer might, on being taken by the Queen of Faerie, be taken on a road like one leading to Heaven or Hell. This is not exclusive to English or French folklore. In Norse mythology , Elfland ( Alfheim )
38012-404: The order given in the game's master list of playable characters. Serge ( セルジュ , Seruju ) is the silent protagonist of Chrono Cross ; his motions alongside the reactions of other players indicate that Serge talks with others, but none of Serge's actual dialogue is shown outside of occasional dialogue trees . Instead, he is meant to be interpreted as "the persona of the player". Much of
38233-460: The original timeline with a new one. As a result, travel between alternative histories is not possible without reverting the timeline back to the original. There are exceptions to the above, and an alternate history doesn't necessarily overwrite the old one. There are no rules written in stone regarding this. Modern ideas of time travel pose the idea of branching timelines, such as the 2009 Star Trek reboot and Avengers: Endgame . Technically, if
38454-501: The parallel universe concept in fiction, it is not the most common source of fiction about parallel universes. Time travel can result in multiple universes if a time traveller can change the past. In one interpretation, alternative histories as a result of time travel are not parallel universes: while multiple parallel universes can co-exist simultaneously, only one history or alternative history can exist at any one moment, as alternative history usually involves, in essence, overriding
38675-450: The party during Serge's body switch with Lynx, and leaves just before Serge returns to his body. It's eventually revealed that she was the "Dark Moon Dragon", actually working against Lynx to obtain the powerful Frozen Flame to exact havoc against humanity damaging activities to the planet. She fails in her mission, and her ultimate fate is left unclear. The game mentions, and Kato confirms in the game's Ultimania Guide, that Harle also shares
38896-473: The planet comes to resemble Earth in some way. Star Trek also frequently used this theory as well, for example, in " Patterns of Force " and " A Piece of the Action ". Simulated realities are digital constructs featured in science fiction such as The Matrix or The Thirteenth Floor which can parallel ours very closely. It is common in fantasy for authors to find ways to bring a protagonist from "our" world to
39117-490: The planet. He joins the party to collect all of the Star Fragments, but upon traveling to Another World, he discovers the spaceship completely intact in that dimension. From the spaceship he retrieves an anti-gravity device allows the party to reach Terra Tower in the sky, which had been otherwise unreachable. Chrono Cross Chrono Cross is a 1999 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for
39338-401: The player and certain required plot points shorten or lengthen the time they work together. Late in the game, it is revealed that she is actually a cloned version of Schala from Chrono Trigger , who had fallen into an area beyond time and space following the events of the prior game. There, she was trapped and fused with Lavos, the antagonist of Chrono Trigger , but was still able to observe
39559-420: The player chooses to have Serge speak to her late in the game, she joins the party, wanting to observe Serge's strength, and if the player has Kid speak with her reveals she was scientific colleagues with Lucca from Chrono Trigger . Luccia speaks with a German accent. She is only present in the "Alternate World"; the Viper Manor she resides in is destroyed in the "Home World". Poshul ( ポシュル , Poshuru )
39780-416: The player must obtain base materials—such as copper, bronze, or bone—for a blacksmith to forge for a fee. The items can later be disassembled into their original components at no cost. The existence of two major parallel dimensions , like time periods in Chrono Trigger , plays a significant role in the game. Players must go back and forth between the worlds to recruit party members, obtain items, and advance
40001-463: The player opts to have Serge help find a cure for Kid's poison, it leads him to the Hydra Marshes, where Razzly is imprisoned and surrounded by a deadly monster. If the player has Serge intervene to save her, she joins the party; if the player does not save her, or decides against assisting Kid altogether, Razzly is never seen again, with only her mangled cage remaining. When Razzly speaks, she replaces
40222-519: The player. This is mainly due to the transition in platform generation from the SNES to the PS. The method I mentioned above, about improving upon a basic system, has inefficiencies, in that it's impossible to maximize the console's performance as the console continues to make improvements in leaps and bounds. Although essentially an RPG, at its core, it is a computer game, and I believe that games should be expressed with
40443-409: The plot. Much of the population of either world have counterparts in the other; some party members can even visit their other versions. The player must often search for items or places found exclusively in one world. Events in one dimension sometimes have an impact in the other—for instance, cooling scorched ground on an island in one world allows vegetation to grow in the other world. This system assists
40664-462: The possibilities of even greater dimensions. Isaac Asimov , in his foreword to the Signet Classics 1984 edition, described Flatland as "The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions". In 1895, The Time Machine by H. G. Wells used time as an additional "dimension" in this sense, taking the four-dimensional model of classical physics and interpreting time as
40885-520: The possibility that their own Kid is searching for them. The ambiguous ending leaves the events of the characters' lives following the game up to interpretation. Chrono Cross employs story arcs, characters, and themes from Radical Dreamers , a Satellaview side story to Chrono Trigger released in Japan. Radical Dreamers is an illustrated text adventure which was created to wrap up an unresolved plot line of Chrono Trigger . Though it borrows from Radical Dreamers in its exposition, Chrono Cross
41106-421: The power of using same-color Elements while also making them weak against elements of the opposite color. Chrono Cross also features a "field effect", which keeps track of Element color used in the upper corner of the battle screen. If the field is purely one color, characters are able to unleash a powerful summon element at the cost of one of the player's stars. The field will also enhance the power of Elements of
41327-544: The presentation of certain themes, including the questioning of the importance of one's past decisions and humanity's role in destroying the environment. Rounding out the notable facets of Chrono Cross 's gameplay are the New Game+ option and multiple endings. As in Chrono Trigger , players who have completed the game may choose to start the game over using data from the previous session. Character levels, learned techniques, equipment, and items gathered copy over, while acquired money and some story-related items are discarded. On
41548-501: The professional ethics of Pauline, a nurse forced into Nazi collaboration. Another common use of the theme is as a prison for villains or demons . The idea is used in the first two Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve where Kryptonian villains were sentenced to the Phantom Zone from where they eventually escaped. An almost exactly parallel use of the idea is presented in the film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across
41769-597: The protagonist's world as a fictional universe, but it may also be unbeknownst to them. The most famous treatment of the alternative universe concept in film could be considered The Wizard of Oz , which portrays a parallel world, famously separating the magical realm of the Land of Oz from the mundane world by filming it in Technicolor while filming the scenes set in Kansas in sepia . In Frank Capra's 1946 Christmas classic, It's
41990-421: The relationships between them can vary quite dramatically, but the essence of them remains the same." There are many examples of the meta-fictional idea of having the author's created universe (or any author's universe) rise to the same level of "reality" as the universe we're familiar with. The theme is present in works as diverse as H. G. Wells' Men Like Gods , Myers' Silverlock , and Heinlein's Number of
42211-429: The remastered version had its frame rate dropping quite frequently, and was also unable to cross the threshold of 30 FPS . This issue has been noticed across all the platforms it was released on. On February 22, 2023, Square-Enix released an update patch for the remaster on all systems it released for which has fixed some of the various gameplay issues with the remaster, as well as updating several performance aspects of
42432-660: The rest of the team undertook debugging and quality control work. Square advertised the game by releasing a short demo of the first chapter with purchases of Legend of Mana . The North American version of Cross required three months of translation and two months of debugging before release. Richard Honeywood translated, working with Kato to rewrite certain dialogue for ease of comprehension in English. He also added instances of wordplay and alliteration to compensate for difficult Japanese jokes. To streamline translation for all 45 playable characters, Honeywood created his own version of
42653-447: The rest of the world. Schala observed Serge about to drown as a child, created the storm that saved his life by directing him to the healing powers of the Frozen Flame, and then created a clone of herself to send back to reality to find Serge. The clone-baby, Kid, is found by Lucca, who raises her in her orphanage. Kid hates Lynx because he raided Lucca's orphanage, abducting Lucca and leaving Kid homeless, leaving her to fend for herself as
42874-535: The same as, our own. The term 'polycosmos' was coined as an alternative to 'multiverse' by the author and editor Paul le Page Barnett (also known by the pseudonym John Grant), and is built from Greek rather than Latin morphemes . It is used by Barnett to describe a concept binding together a number of his works, its nature meaning that "all characters, real or fictional [...] have to co-exist in all possible real, created or dreamt worlds; [...] they're playing hugely different roles in their various manifestations, and
43095-449: The soundtrack of Chrono Cross . It was delayed, and at a Play! A Video Game Symphony concert in May 2006, he revealed it would feature acoustic music and would be "out within the year", later backtracking and alleging a 2007 release date. Mitsuda posted a streaming sample of a finished track on his personal website in January 2009, and has stated the album will be released to coincide with
43316-421: The staff. The development team also considered the idea of having each character have their own ending, each with three variant scenarios based on events occurred in the game, leading to over 120 endings, but the idea was scrapped as being not feasible. The developers of Chrono Cross created a setting consisting of two parallel dimensions ; the "Home World", where the game starts, and the "Alternate World", that
43537-536: The static text "How are you?" would be stored, but if spoken by an Australian character it would be changed to "How are ya?"; if spoken by an Alien character it would appear as "How aare yoou?" Translator Richard Honeywood would say in retrospect that while the converter helped deal with memory constraints, creating and working with it was described as "mind-boggling". The system did not work well with some more detailed scenes that required more context; these were treated as independent lines, retaining an original version of
43758-560: The story of Radical Dreamers to conclude some aspects of it. However, due to the rushed nature of the development schedule, it being a short, text based visual novel , and being released on an obscure add-on for the Super Famicom , the Satellaview , Kato would label the game "unfinished", leading to the conception of a more complete game, which would be Chrono Cross . Serge , Kid , Lynx , Viper , Radius , and Riddel all originate from
43979-467: The theme of parallel worlds, he gave Another and Home respectively dark and bright moods, and hoped players would feel the emotions of "'burning soul,' 'lonely world,' and 'unforgettable memories'". Mitsuda and Kato planned music samples and sound effects with the philosophy of "a few sounds with a lot of content". Xenogears contributor Tomohiko Kira played guitar on the beginning and ending themes. Noriko Mitose , as selected by Masato Kato, sang
44200-558: The three spatial axes with which we are familiar. By proposing travel along these extra axes, which are not normally perceptible , the traveller can reach worlds that are otherwise unreachable and invisible. In 1884, Edwin A. Abbott wrote the seminal novel exploring this concept called Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions . It describes a world of two dimensions inhabited by living squares, triangles, and circles, called Flatland, as well as Pointland (0 dimensions), Lineland (1 dimension), and Spaceland (three dimensions) and finally posits
44421-493: The time-space continuum and travel into an alternative universe, where the monster and the events in the first film transpired. This concept has been also been passively depicted in the view of a romantic couple in the Indian Tamil Film Irandam Ulagam . In the 2000 film The Beach , Leonardo DiCaprio's character Richard, while sitting on the beach with love interest Françoise ( Virginie Ledoyen ), describes
44642-409: The title includes quality-of-life updates such as the ability to disable encounters, in addition to an enhanced OST. The remaster is also bundled with the text adventure game Radical Dreamers , previously only available to Japanese players through the Satellaview peripheral for the Super Famicom . Masato Kato, Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuteru Yuuki, and Hiromichi Tanaka were brought in to lightly polish
44863-428: The town of Arni. While no romantic relationship between her and Serge is ever explicitly stated, she does ask him for jewelry, refers to long-term promises made between them in the past, and asks about the prospect of them kissing one another. While typically being a sweet, girl next door type around Serge, her brother Una claims she is prone to temper tantrums and not being very "lady-like". The only difference between
45084-438: The trademark was dropped in the United States on November 13, 2003, though it still stands in Japan and the European Union. Kato later returned to Square Enix as a freelancer to work on Children of Mana and Dawn of Mana . Mitsuda also expressed interest in scoring a new Chrono series game. In 2005, Kato and Mitsuda teamed up to do a game called Deep Labyrinth , and again in 2008 for Sands of Destruction , both for
45305-447: The truth behind the incident, he follows a predestined course that leads him to save the world. He is assisted by Kid , a feisty, skilled thief who seeks the mythical Frozen Flame. Portrayed as willful and tomboyish due to her rough, thieving past, she helps Serge sneak into Viper Manor in order to obtain the Frozen Flame. Kid vows to find and defeat Lynx , an anthropomorphic panther who burned down her adopted mother's orphanage. Lynx,
45526-430: The two switching bodies for a period of the game, leaving the player controlling Serge trapped in Lynx's body for the middle third of the game, if the player directs Serge to find the legendary "Chrono Cross" item and use it to fight the Time Devourer, Balthasar's plan also succeeds. Lynx ( ヤマネコ , Yamaneko , "Wildcat") is an anthropomorphic feline that serves as one of the game's primary antagonists . Initially, he
45747-410: The universe is thought to be "crumpled" in some higher spatial dimension, and that traveling in this higher spatial dimension, a ship can move vast distances in the common spatial dimensions. An analogy is to crumple a newspaper into a ball and stick a needle straight through: the needle will make widely spaced holes in the two-dimensional surface of the paper. While this idea invokes a "new dimension", it
45968-402: The user's stamina bar by seven stamina points; this often means that the user's stamina gauge falls into the negative and the character must wait longer than usual to recover. With each battle, players can enhance statistics such as strength and defense. However, no system of experience points exists; after four or five upgrades, statistics remain static until players defeat a boss . This adds
46189-821: The utopia they have found in Thailand as their own parallel universe. Following its introduction in the film Doctor Strange , the multiverse became central to the Multiverse Saga series of superhero films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe , being depicted in Avengers: Endgame , Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings , Spider-Man: No Way Home , Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness , and Ant-Man and
46410-511: The words "fairly" and "very" with the word "fairy". Razzly is only present in the "Home World"; in the "Alternate World", her events occur because the Water Dragon Isle is dried up and abandoned, and the Hydra Marshes are poisoned. Zappa ( ザッパ ) is a blacksmith from the town of Termina, and had been one of the four Devas of the Acacia Dragoons prior to the events of the game. He is the husband of Zippa, and father of Karsh, who has succeeded him as one of General Viper's 4 Dragoon Devas. Zappa has
46631-446: The work of Chrono Trigger 's "Dream Team" development group, which included famous Japanese manga artist Akira Toriyama . Kato and Tanaka hired Nobuteru Yūki for character design and Yasuyuki Honne for art direction and concept art. The event team originally envisioned a short game, and planned a system by which players would befriend any person in a town for alliance in battle. Developers brainstormed traits and archetypes during
46852-435: Was also the name of what today is the Swedish province of Bohuslän . In the sagas, it said that the people of this petty kingdom were more beautiful than other people, as they were related to the elves , showing that not only the territory was associated with elves, but also the race of its people. While sometimes folklore seems to show fairy intrusion into human lands – " Tam Lin " does not show any otherworldly aspects about
47073-428: Was intended to be able to have the player recruit any person they encountered, through either interacting or battling them. However, eventually the development team found this to be too ambitious, and narrowed it down to 64 playable characters, and then again down to 45 characters for the final game, which were then drawn by character designer Nobuteru Yūki . The backgrounds of some minor characters were left to members of
47294-446: Was more mixed; some critics were impressed by the quantity, variety, and individuality offered by the characters, where others complained of an emphasis of "quantity over quality". A few of the core characters from Chrono Cross originate from an earlier game titled Radical Dreamers . Chrono series writer Masato Kato felt that the first game in the series, Chrono Trigger , did not wrap up all its story arcs, and as such, wrote
47515-441: Was notable for making 45 different characters available for recruitment over the course of the game, each with distinct backstory and speech patterns. The game's writer, Masato Kato , started with the core characters from Radical Dreamers , a rare, Japan -only visual novel he felt ultimately went unfinished, and greatly expanded the cast and scenario, while leaving the creation of some minor characters to various other members of
47736-405: Was originally conceived as a sequel to the SNES game). Chrono Trigger 's scenario director Masato Kato had brainstormed ideas for a sequel as early as 1996, following the release of Radical Dreamers . Square's managers selected a team, appointed Hiromichi Tanaka producer, and asked Kato to direct and develop a new Chrono game in the spirit of Radical Dreamers . Kato thought Dreamers
47957-399: Was previously unable to expound upon in Chrono Trigger . Concerning the ending sequences showing Kid searching for someone in a modern city, he hoped to make players realize that alternate futures and possibilities may exist in their own lives, and that this realization would "not ... stop with the game". He later added, "Paraphrasing one novelist's favorite words, what's important is not
48178-610: Was released in a "half-finished state", and wanted to continue the story of the character Kid. Kato and Tanaka decided to produce an indirect sequel. They acknowledged that Square would soon re-release Chrono Trigger as part of Final Fantasy Chronicles , which would give players a chance to catch up on the story of Trigger before playing Cross . Kato thought that using a different setting and cast for Chrono Cross would allow players unfamiliar with Chrono Trigger to play Cross without becoming confused. The Chrono Cross team decided against integrating heavy use of time travel into
48399-439: Was released. A collaborative effort between Chrono writer Kato and composer Mitsuda, the game features elements similar to the Chrono series, such as talking frog protagonists and time-travel elements. Titled Complex Dream , the event introduces several Chrono Cross characters, including Serge, Kid, and Harle, as well as gameplay elements from the series such as element magic and combo techs. Publications began discussion of
48620-411: Was to make a new Chrono with the best available skills and technologies of today. I never had any intentions of just taking the system from Trigger and moving it onto the PlayStation console. That's why I believe that Cross is Cross , and NOT Trigger 2 . When creating a series, one method is to carry over a basic system, improving upon it as the series progresses, but our stance has been to create
48841-400: Was totally against the idea. And as usual, I didn't heed to the surrounding complaints, but this time, there was a pretty tough struggle. Production required six months of work. After wrapping, Mitsuda and Kato played Chrono Cross to record their impressions and observe how the tracks intermingled with scenes; the ending theme brought Kato to tears. Players who preordered the game received
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