Part 85: Episode LXXVIII: Serge and the Time Devourer of Terra Tower
Music: Dragon's Prayer
Welp, Belthsar's crazy non-existing space vanishes from err...existence...as soon as Serge and the others exit. The real path further into Terra Tower presents itself instead.

In the following chamber is the core of Terra Tower. It is err...a bunch of floating color coded crystals repeating THE PATTERN over and over and over. Hell if I know what they do, other than provide the least subtle display of THE PATTERN in the game. But...there it is...
Yellow-Red-Green-Blue-Black-White! DO NOT fucking forget it!

Following the Terra Tower core is yet another punk ass orb of +3 condescending preaching.




So, they've stopped giving a shit and will just be resorting to copy and pasting palette swaps for the rest of these dumb filler robots. It shoots out green shit. Yadda yadda yadda.



Honestly...a fucking robot preaching about saving forests and going green... That's like a fucking dragon giving a seminar about fire prevention.


In any case, the death of the botanic advocate robotic guardian activates a portal to the upper reaches of Terra Tower. And friggin' FINALLY a save point. Good grief, that was forever.
Music: Tower of Stars





So, long story short: we need to go fight two more palette swap bosses before this here door is gonna open up so we folk can mosey. Shoot...
Heading westward...

Of course, the path to said boss is riddled with enemies. Wouldn't want to move too quickly now, would we? Sure, you can't see them here. But, just look at the pretty pictures and let me deal with the mindless slog behind the scenes.

At the end of the neon red path lays a teleporter to where the first of the dual boss encounters awaits. Since, just having it sit at the end of the path without fancy teleportation antics wouldn't be nearly dramatic enough.

This next boss doesn't even bother to make a speech this time. They worked real hard on the background art. That ought to be enough of a build-up, right?


Meet Gravitor. Yes, it is just a color swapped version of that old pro-wrestler robot from way back in Fort Dragonia. Yes, its counter-part on the other side of the tower is going to be the same exact thing with a whiter color shade.


The only thing this dark horse of an android has going for it is the OmegaBlack attack, which does hit for a very respectable 500+ HP of damage. But, that is easily countered by just having the squishiest party member (Kid in this case) wear the Black Plate.

Anyway, it'll be lucky to get off more than a single round of attacks in since Serge will absolutely ruin its day within one or two turns.



You know, the game stops leveling up at a very awkward digit. You'd think they'd make it an even 50 but...nope. In addition, this there is no BlackField or WhiteField to make a full set of broken elements.


Welp, that is one down. One to go.
A few minutes of backtracking alongside newly re-spawned enemies later...

The other side of Terra Tower's wing is, for unknown reasons, really windy. For equally mysterious reasons, there are several of those Terra Terror shade monsters standing at attention on the rocks lining the area. I guess the game wanted you to run against the wind to avoid them but...well, we're going to level up again in a couple minutes. This is the only chance to get a few minor stat bonuses in before then...

Anyway, it is the same exact story for the opposite end of the area. They even just copied, pasted, and mirrored the background. This is getting kind of silly low effort.

So, Luxator. Same song, different verse. It just takes slightly longer as Serge cannot just solo the thing instantly.


This one has OmegaWhite, which basically transports a party member into a meteor shower for 500+ damage. All the elemental themed droids have an Omega<element> attack. Most just died far too quickly to ever fire it off. Though, outside of Black and White, they're all pretty ho-hum much 200-300 HP damage affairs.



Welp, that's five out of f...wait...there's six elements, aren't there? What happened to Blue...?


Oh well. I'm not complaining. This place has more filler than the bulk of the game combined. With the destruction of the last two guardians, the summit of Terra Tower is now open to explore...

...that is after we defeat the Blue guardian. Goddammit!




Hey, Blue Boss!

Kindly fuck off!



Thank you and goodnight.


Following that last utterly forgettable guardian's demise, the floor of this chamber pipes up with THE PATTERN once more whilst summoning the teleporter to the peak of this moody citadel.
YELLOW-RED-GREEN-BLUE-BLACK-WHITE! DO NOT FORGET IT IF YOU WANT THIS GAME TO HAVE AN ENDING!


The party is teleported to the peak of Terra Tower. I wonder which Dragonian architect has the teleporter to the top floor fetish.
Oh well...this is it... No turning back now! Just an ominous staircase that chews out humanity with every step between Team Serge and the final challenge of Dinopolis.























"PEAK-A-BOO!"


And so the Frozen Flame converts from its travel size to its full glory. Why a legendary relic that is a shard of a galactic space tick's shell has a travel size function is beyond me... But sure, why not?





Actually, it just flashes white for a few seconds and nothing really happens. Turns out this thing was a dud.




The fused dragon god complies with the angry Aussie's wishes. Yes, it just floats in the air like that. It is actually...incredibly poorly animated compared to everything else in the game. I'm not sure what happened.





Music: Dragon God
Note: This is the only time in the entire game this track plays, so you should probably listen to it. It's quite a great battle theme anyhow.



Time to face what I'd probably consider to be the final boss of Chrono Cross: The Time Devourer. Yes, there is one more boss afterwords but err...it is a...different sort of thing... And it has no boss music, dungeon, or inkling of build-up until ten minutes before you fight the damn thing.

The Time Devourer has the most HP of any enemy in the game at a whopping 15,000. So, any way you cut it, this is a bit of a slog for just its sheer mountain of health. The actual battle, like most in Chrono Cross, isn't all that difficult though.

I mentioned earlier the animation on this thing is kind of abysmal and...its physical attacks are mostly why I say this. It is like they couldn't be bothered to properly animate the token physical strikes every enemy possesses. So, what it does is sort of...float toward its target...rotate 180 degrees on its Y-axis...and sort of meekly wiggle its tail. It will then spin another 180 degrees on its axis to its starting position.
The thing is, it does this like three times in a row with rotating, attacking, returning to its default position, and rotating again to restart the cycle. It looks ridiculous.


On the subject of weaksauce battle animations, the Time Devourer only sports a single unique attack to its name. It will fly overhead and zoom past the whole party, hitting them all for a whole...75 or so HP of lost health...


Otherwise, the thing has access to every single standard Element in the game and will not hesitate to use them. UltraNova and BlackHole traps are particularly useful in this fight as it will almost definitely fire off at least one or two of either of those elements and they're the only ones that can dish out a decent hurtin'.



The Time Devourer has a bit of a gimmick going for it to spice-up the fight. After taking a certain bit of punishment, it will cast a portal that tears it and the entire party to a new area for battle.

Specifically, where its former selves once had set up shop. In shifting to new arenas, it will also shift its innate color to the corresponding dragon's domain. It goes in order...the Earth Dragon...

...the Fire Dragon...

...the Green Dragon...

...the Water Dragon...

...the Black Dragon...

...and finally, returning to where we began as its initial White innate.
YELLOW-RED-GREEN-BLUE-BLACK-WHITE! THIS IS THE LAST TIME I AM TELLING YOU, MISTER!!!


After taking the aforementioned 15,000 HP of damage during the course of the brawl across El Nido, the Fused Dragon God seems to fritz out and loses its corporeal form. Shame, that...

And that is the final Star Level the party will obtain during the course of an initial play through of Chrono Cross. Yes...they stop on 48 for no readily apparent reason. Sure, why not?



And thus the Time Devourer turns down its opacity to 25% and abruptly clips straight through the floor. Well, that was anti-climactic. But fear not!
Belthasar teleports into the area to spew some more exposition...








This is the Frozen Flame itself speaking. Did anyone mention the Frozen Flame can talk...? No...? Well, the Frozen Flame can talk. If you'll recall that brief flashback or old buddy Miguel had to Chronopolis, yeah...that was the Frozen Flame speaking. Everything in this world is gabby.

Well, except for the Frozen Flame. It just has that line and fades away, never to be seen again -- a weak plot MacGuffin that accomplishes nothing to the end.











And so, after taking that final plot dump, Belthasar fades away once more and is never seen again...


Meanwhile, the Time Devourer (the dragon one) slams into the core of Terra Tower and causes it to begin filling with water...somehow...despite the fact it is currently floating in mid-air...
Terra Tower begins violently shaking and falling apart...


Everyone rushes back to the boat...


Whatever was holding up Dinopolis in mid-air has apparently fallen asleep on the job as the thing crashes into the ocean.

Although the base of it is just dipping a small portion into the water, the entire structure immediately floods and spews sea water everywhere from the cracks in its foundation.



And Terra Tower morphs into its majestic final form. It's quite picturesque really. Shame that none of what just took place or caused that transformation will ever be explained.



















The Frozen Flame

Terra Tower's Final Form

Dragon God