Part 73: Update Sixty Nine: Team Girl Power Visits The Future

Update Sixty Nine: Team Girl Power Visits The Future

Howdy, folks, and welcome back! Last time, on Chrono Trigger, we did the Dimensional Vortex in 1000 AD, where we met the Once-King Dalton, kicked his ass, then went and kicked the ass of the Steel Shade. Today, we're doing the final Dimensional Vortex, so let's bounce.



Our final Vortex is in 2300 AD, on the same island as the Geno Dome.



It's very green and sciencey in here.



We have Team Girl Power for this trip. They have their standard gear, with Prism Helms, Lucca and Ayla in Zodiac Capes, and Marle wearing the Reptite Dress.



Our first location on our way to the dungeon is the Denadoro Mountains.



Ogans are the only ones we'll be facing here, and we've got this shit covered.



There's something about a critical doing over 2,000 damage that I can't help but show off.





Moving on, we're in the Future. Again. For the second time.



I see that crest over there and wonder if I could have gone into that door. I doubt that I can, but it's a thought I'll have to check into later.



Oh, hey, the Forest Maze. Been a while since we came into here.



Been a while since we've seen these guys, too.



Lavos may have brought the Ice Age that really screwed over the Reptites, but Marle is starting the process.



And that finishes that off.



...Well, this isn't unsettling at all.



Ah, hell, a quiz?



There's a wide variety of questions that can be asked here, but we're going to see just a handful.



Catalack is the cat named racer, so this one can probably screw you up if you're not paying attention.





There's a series of these questions.



I suppose this one could be difficult if you weren't paying attention.



But I suppose you could just go by the process of elimination; if you'd forgotten, Piette is one of the soldiers that appears in Norstein Bekkler's Tent of Horrors.





I don't have much to say about this question.





This is probably the easiest one, though.





It seems like that should be the final room before the dungeon, but there's a little more to go. We're in the cave before the entrance to Mt. Woe.



Had you forgotten about the Mudbeasts? I don't blame you if you did. They only appear in the one place and aren't memorable.







Onto the dungeon proper!



Befitting Lucca's dungeon, it's all sciencey and technological in here.





Yeah, it's one of those conveyor belt dungeons. The ones on the sides lead back here, so the only way forward is to go forward.



Beyond the belt, there's a file.



He's a strange one, though, always writing in codes and what have you. Knowing him, he probably wrote it down backwards.



So we've gotta find the code to do anything here. There's a few different files around here, one of which I walked right by and didn't see it until I was grabbing screens for the update.



Hey, what happened to the lights?



Oh, it was this guy appearing. How surprising!



The Searcher has 1650 HP and absorbs Shadow. He also has shitty physical defense, but average magical defense.





And their defense goes up when you attack them.



They can also shoot needles at you, like Yakra could, as well as having a HP absorb attack and they can (try to) put a character to sleep.





Heading down from the Searcher lets you go to this "hidden" path.



Which leads to, of all things, a goddamned forest. It has nothing but some treasure chests in it.



I also found a Turbo Ether, a Megalixir, and the Apocalypse Arm for Robo, which I'll talk about later.



So, back to the conveyor belts.



That is the file I skipped. Not sure what it says, and I don't care.



In the lower left corner of this room, you find the file you need.



Yes, yes, the fucking password is "BALL." There's only so much shit you can spell with the buttons on a SNES/DS, so that's probably the best we could get.



I also have no idea what that switch does, because I couldn't reach it. I never reached it. But got through the dungeon just fine.





Eventually, we work our way to the upper left corner of the room, which is actually pretty simple to do. The room is fairly easy to navigate, and the minimap actually shows the directions that the belts go.



We can't pass laser beams, so we're forced to go north.



That door behind us is locked, and we can't open it from this side.



This bit of the dungeon is interesting; see that robot down there?



He's moving on a loop and will turn around, which is when we have to run past him.



If we're caught by any of the robots, bad things happen. You'll see what that entails later, but for now, we scoot on through without issue.





We're about to see the next gimmick of this dungeon. which is interesting and unique in Chrono Trigger.



Also, there's this long-ass hallway to run down.



But it leads us to this computer, where we can punch in that code we have.





Jesus, it's like working with fucking Vista. But we punch in BALL and we're good.





So we can jog on outta here and move on.



And this gives me a chance to show off what happens if you get caught.







We get tackled off the platform and into the darkness.





Where two of these robots drop down with us.



Prototypes aren't difficult to kill, but they are hardy.



They have 3500 HP and insane physical defense. They're weak to Light, but we don't have a source of that.



But they do have average magical defense, so just about any magic will do, as they don't absorb or resist any element.





They can attempt to put someone to sleep, but by now, you should have plenty of sources of status immunity.



There's also this laser beam attack, which can hit people lined up in a row.



Not too powerful. The only attack we're not seeing is their Electric Maelstrom, which we've seen before from other enemies.



And yeah, this was purely for style.





We come out of the door we couldn't enter before. Getting dropped into there doesn't save any time, but I figured someone out there would want to see what happened if you did.



When we reenter this room, shit goes wrong.



INITIATING CONTAINMENT LOCKDOWN



Well, shit. This room is locked down, and they only way to open it is to register as the admin over in the east part of the room.





Excellent question, Ayla.





That's not looking positive for anyone being out there.





Except for fucking Robo.



And Frog.



As well as our esteemed leader. I don't know why the hell Team Battle Bros is wandering around here, but I'm assuming there's a pile of scrap electronics in their wake.



I'm also not sure how they determine who comes in for this sequence.



Even so, there are now multiple parties in play, in the same dungeon. This is the only place where such a thing shows up in Chrono Trigger, and it's cool as hell.



We've gotta work our way to the east side of the room.



There's no party switching in this section, which would have been cool.



There is something amusing to me about how Team Girl Power became the damsels in distress.





Eventually we reach this door and go through it.





In this room, there's a series of glowing points.



Hitting one teleports us to another point in the room.



Thankfully, this isn't a very long section. Who likes a teleporter section in a dungeon, honestly?



Just skip past this guy to the spot on the end; he'll move up and down the row, blocking off the sections.





Before long, we'll reach this door.



Which has this computer in it, so let's get registered.



Or fight off waves of robots, since we're not part of the staff that worked here.



At least, I'm assuming there was a staff around here.



I've got a theory about what this place was, but I don't think there's any evidence to corroborate it or make it more than a wandering thought.



It contains spoilers for Chrono Cross, though, so there'll be some spoiler tags coming up.



At the end of Chrono Cross, you find Chronopolis, which has an extensive research center, where FATE was created, as well as the Frozen Flame, and where Lynx became the avatar of FATE to do whatever the hell was to be done with Serge.





My theory is that this was part of that research center. I don't think there's anything to back that up, but since this content is supposed to help tie the two games together, it makes as much sense as anything.



I'm not sure if anyone reading this will care about the spoilers for Chrono Cross, but if you haven't played it and are interested, it can't hurt to spoiler it. Those are some of the biggest spoilers the game has to offer, too, and I don't like spoiling things for other people. Feel free to discuss it if you'd like, but be conscientious of those who might not have played Chrono Cross.

And don't get stupid about it. I don't want to see any internet slap fights over the crummy story in that game.





Anywho, here's a new enemy. The Iron Maiden is kind of a bad mamma-jamma.



No weaknesses or resistances, but they do have 10,000 HP, high physical defense and above average magic defense.



They also have a shitload of attacks, including missiles, a laser that inflicts Shadow damage, the ability to inflict Stop, as well as a self-destruct skill.



The Iron Maiden also has its own tackle attack, but it doesn't deal damage as you'd expect.



It does half of each party member's HP in damage.



They take a while to whittle down.



And the reward pretty much sucks.



The computer system, after discovering we whipped the shit out of everything it had to throw at us, promptly shits its circuits about it.





After the fights, we have to go interact with the computer to finish off Team Battle Bros part in this.



And they're now administrators of whatever the hell this place is.





Team Girl Power is back in action!



We have no other option, Marle, so we're going that way.





We've got to do the sneaking stuff again.





It's hardly different from the first time.



When going through here, these arcs of electricity randomly come out of the wall. If you touch them, you take 30 HP in damage.



Which isn't much, granted, but with fights around, I could see how it could quickly become dangerous.





But it's not a very long trek, and the arcs are easy to avoid.



An Iron Maiden waits at the end of the hallway.



But there's a twist!



The twist is that while they became two, I used a third level spell.



Not much of a twist, but still a better one than what happened in The Village.



Yeah, I rewatched that movie recently. I thought maybe I'd been a little too judging of it the first time and I'm generally willing to give second chances.



That, however, was a horrible thing to give a second chance to. That movie still sucks.





In other news, we're at the end of this Vortex.





The boss fight is interesting, if nothing else.



And takes place in Lucca's bedroom.



Eh, kinda.





There's actually two enemies in this fight, and both need to be taken down to finish it. Team Girl Power is ready to rumble!



Yes, it's named Eggsterminator.



Despite being Lucca, the Crimson Shade, like the other two, is pretty hardy.



She's weak to Water, too, as could be expected, as well as being immune to Fire.



However, I'm sure you're curious why I'm using a Fire attack.





Eggs there is weak to Fire, immune to Light, and absorbs Shadow. It also has 10,000 HP.



It counters all attacks made against it with Osmose, which is more of an irritant.





For being weak to Water, you'd think that would have done more damage.



The Eggsterminator mostly has status attacks, and can also inflict Blind, Lock, and can cancel status ailment immunity.



However, these status effect attacks also deal a fair amount of damage.



Eggy is also more hardy than the Crimson Shade.







The Shade never used Explosion, which is her Flare ripoff.



I imagine it would have done about the same amount of damage as the Steel Shade's Scintillation, so I'm glad I didn't have to deal with it.





I'm pretty sure those are magical attacks from Eggbert, and each of the girls have maxed out Magic Defense. I'm not sure why Ayla is taking far less damage than Lucca and Marle.



Here's a pretty good reason to take out Eggman first.



Not only can it heal, but it can add extra damage on top of what the Shade can do, as well as removing ailment immunity and inflicting some on you.



So I kick the shit out of it.



A lot. Lots of fiery kicks going into Eggbot's face.



Which leaves the main event herself.



Yeah, that's a Megalixir. Silversatyr, you better be happy, seeing as how I'm starting to break my hoarding habit.





The Crimson Shade has 12,000 HP, by the way.





Lucca makes do with shooting her doppelganger in the face, since all of her most powerful attacks won't do shit to the Shade.



However, it works, and the fight doesn't take much longer after Egghead dies.



Lucca fuses with the Crimson Shade and gains a power boost.



She needs a Speed Tab to max that out, and she needs all the Stamina she can get. Her Magic continues to grow, making her an ever-more powerful engine of destruction.



But that polishes off the Dimensional Vortices. All that comes next is the bonus ending, which we'll get to next time.

Stay tuned.