Too Radical of a Dream
Back in 1999, Squaresoft released a game that would forever mark my life, not just as a game that challenged the standards of gameplay of the RPG genre of the era, but also, as a necessary introspective piece that the teenager me needed at the time.
Chrono Cross was a bold piece created by the same developers of Chrono Trigger, and Xenogears, both games celebrated to this day as masterpieces. The peculiar thing however is how Chrono Cross inherited different aspects of both of these games: From Chrono Trigger, the story; from Xenogears, its greatest flaw: Being unfinished.
Chrono Cross has suffered from the very beginning of its existence two curses: Being made by a team that historically had an issue with delivering its intended vision, releasing incomplete games more often than not; and daring to be the sequel of Chrono Trigger, arguably the best RPG of the SNES and, to some, of all time.
After that the months and years rolled by… Xenogears made slow progress, but was eventually finished, and when I was asked what kind of story we should do next, I heard Kid’s voice echo from within me. “My fight’s not over yet!” Thus those reckless Radical Dreamers once more took the stage…
Radical Dreamers was an adventure text game featuring a cast of thieves: Serge, Kid and Magil, who invaded the mansion of a cat man named Lynx to steal the legendary artifact Frozen Flame, a splinter of an alien creature named Lavos who fell on the planet eons ago. For those who played Chrono Trigger, the name Lavos may trigger some memories. Indeed, the game was part of the same world of Chrono Trigger, acting as a side story to the Chrono universe.
This game, and one of its characters, inspired Masato Kato to create Chrono Cross, but this time, instead of being a side-story, it was meant to be a sequel to Chrono Trigger, something history has shown to have been a bit of a reckless move.
Chrono Cross featured a similar cast to the original game, putting Serge once again as a protagonist, and Kid, who in Radical Dreamers acted as a much more important character as the leader of the thieves' squad, becomes a mostly skippable side-character in Cross, with Magil becoming a completely skippable character in the form of Guile... and another 42 characters. Yeah.
The game was received with overwhelmingly positive reviews, scoring consistent 90+ across most magazines at the time, being complimented for graphics, soundtrack, gameplay, and more. Yet, the game quickly became the target of questions from players about its supposed connection to Chrono Trigger, something developers quickly dismissed, perhaps as to save face.
As I mentioned before, Chrono Cross is not a sequel to Chrono Trigger, so I'm not worried. 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 the hardware.
To assume Chrono Cross is not Chrono Trigger's sequel however, requires ignoring the entirety of the game's lore. Lavos being mentioned in the Dead Sea, Belthazar's existence, the time machine at Viper Manor's Library hatch, Lynx name dropping "CHRONO TRIGGER" in all caps, Schala being imprisioned inside lavos as the Dream Devourer in the end of the game, Ozzy, Flea and Slash making an appearance, the 3 ghost kids that look literally like Chrono, Marle and Lucca, oh, and the Orphanage scene with kid drawings of Chrono, Marle, Lucca, Frog and Robo from Chrono Trigger, implying that they knew characters from the previous game, and finally the letter from Lucca to Kid you receive from Luccia. Yeah, let's just ignore all those things, shall we?
One may ask however, why is Chrono Cross a sequel to Trigger? The premise of Cross could, perhaps, be sumarized in a simple moment of Chrono Trigger's story: The moment Magus is about to step into the portal in the good ending:
The reason Chrono Cross exists
Atypical of the idealistic heroic team of teenagers of Trigger, Schala is forgotten, left to die at the hands of the big bad of the story, despite them knowing painfully well she saved them from Lavos the moment he emerges from the depths of the planet to obliterate the Kingdom of Zeal. Without any gratitude, the team just accepts her doom and moves on with their lives, something her brother, Magus, has different plans for.
As before we started on a trial and error basis, and welcomed days filled with both joy and despair. And right in the middle of all that were Kid and Serge… Accordingly, Chrono Cross is not Chrono Trigger 2. It doesn’t simply follow on from Trigger, but is another, different Chrono that interlaces with Trigger. When you see the ending you’ll probably understand what I mean… My desire is that Chrono Cross will see the conclusion of the battle that started in Trigger and continued in Radical. And that people who do and don’t know Chrono, who do and don’t know Kid, can all enjoy this game. That’s right, because the stars’ dream isn’t over yet…
Chrono Cross' story starts with the premise that Schala must be saved, and to do so an extraordinarily convoluted plan is required. So convoluted that it might have unnecessary elements, extras, if I may say. Now as someone who is particularly devoted to the church of Occam I will ask you to keep your Occam's Razor ready, because we will need it soon.
The story utilizes an interesting and peculiar consequence of Chrono's Team saving the future: They didn't quite kill Lavos before he destroyed the Kingdom of Zeal. Which means, the three gurus Lavos teleports around? Yep, that still happens. When teleporting Belthazar to the future, originally, he ends up in a ruined world, destroyed by Lavos at 1999. In that timeline he struggles with a toxic atmosphere, almost no food, and limited resources, only managing to create a time machine by himself. Yep, that's all he could do, just a time machine.
After the future is saved however, he ends up in a prosperous and highly technologically advanced future in which peace and abundance (and trees) seem to be the norm. If he could only build a time machine before, what can he achieve now? Well, he builds more than a time machine, he builds an entire city that acts as a time machine: Chronopolis.
Chronopolis: White buildings, high tech and preserved vegetation, something you'd see in typical idealized eco-friendly modern architecture design
Belthazar needed to know what happened after he was teleported, and with an entire time research institute at his disposal, he really figured it out: Turns out Schala survived the whole ordeal and was trapped inside of Lavos, outside of time itself.
What follows might be one of the most contrived rescue plans in the entirety of gaming history, not that I have played all games to know that, but still. Thankfully, I have deeply analyzed his plan and I can simplify it to you: To rescue Schala, Belthazar decides to create a thing called the Chrono Cross, an artifact that could separate Lavos from Schala, destroying him and saving her, simple isn't it?
To do that however is were the contrivances begin. To properly execute his plan he needed to do two things:
- Split the timeline into two to then combine it again with the Chrono Cross.
- Find someone to get the Chrono Cross, face Lavos and use it against him.
It is difficult to tell why the timeline had to be split in the first place, but the second step seems to be more simple. Let's find someone to be the champion of this quest to save the princess of Zeal. Who could that be?
Usually people would just assume the protagonist, or the team of the previous game, could do the job. Although, someone may just assume that because they already gave up on Schala they wouldn't be up for the job. Well, regardless of what you think, Masato Kato had already killed the team off screen after Chrono Trigger anyway, so they aren't up to the task anymore.
The fall of Guardia cutscene, implying Chrono and Marle, who were the monarchs at the time, might have died to the invasion of the neighboring country: Porre
Perhaps the most controversial thing made by the writer of Chrono Cross was to kill the beloved characters of Chrono Trigger, and not satisfied with that he did it offscreen, in a cutscene that just implies it happened, while excluding the characters from the next game completely.
This is perhaps the main complaint Chrono Trigger fans have had about Chrono Cross for all its existence. It is really difficult to accept that a game would dare to do Chrono Trigger characters this badly, a team of virtuous characters that deserved much better.
Well, since these characters are out of commission I suppose we must find other candidates. Radical Dreamers becomes the hint to which characters might be available to tackle the challenge of saving Schala: Serge, Kid and Magil, the main cast of that game.
Effectively remaking Radical Dreamers as a sequel to Chrono Trigger, the development team decided to create a story in which Serge, Kid, and other 43 characters would join forces in a long journey to, eventually, save Schala and the whole world from the evils of Lavos, that giant planet eating tick.
So, we get a boy meets girl story in which Serge, a fishing village boy who accidentally touched the Frozen Flame in the past after Schala heard him crying after he got struck by a panther demon, sending him and the ship with his father and father's friend to the facility that contained the Frozen Flame with a magnetic storm she conjures out of sadness, marking Serge as the Arbiter of the Frozen Flame, locking out FATE, the super computer that controlled Chronopolis that had been sent back to the past due to an accident, out of being able to use it, except it uses it anyway to corrupt Serge's Father, Wazuki, into drowning him, leading Kid, from the future, sent by Belthazar, to save Serge, splitting the timeline into two, one he dies and one he doesn't, which allows Serge in the future to cross the worlds, meet past Kid and join forces to face Lynx who steals his body to give it to FATE, making Serge lose all his allies, leading him to a journey to regain his body, which restores his alliances that, together, destroy FATE, then destroy the Dragons, that were sent by the planet to counter Chronopolis, but lost and were split and enslaved by FATE, then destroy the Time Devourer and save Schala.
Did you get any of that? This is perhaps the fastest I can describe the plot of Chrono Cross from Serge's perspective, while skipping basically 95% of what actually happens ingame, because Chrono Cross is a game that, peculiarly, explains most of its lore in lore dumps that happen close to the end of the game; quirks of being an unfinished game.
As someone who loves this game, the first time I played it I couldn't help but think how I had no idea of what just happened. The ending made no sense to me, and the lore was incomprehensible. The strange live action movie at the end implying the game characters would meet in our real boring world didn't help either, throwing me off my escapism, and basically disappointing me profoundly.
Strange live action scene at the end of Chrono Cross was a terrible way to get out of immersion
It wasn't until much, much later in life that I decided to at least attempt to understand the lore of Chrono Cross, leading me in my searches to a certain website called Chrono Compendium. A reservoire of everything Chrono related be it Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Radical Dreamers, you name it. From lore, fanfics, speculations, developer interviews, many I have extracted from there, it is a veritable source of information on the specifics of this peculiar universe written by Masato Kato.
The unfortunate realization I had, however, was that diving deeper into the lore of Chrono Cross did not make me appreciate it more. Rather, quite frankly, it made me realize how flawed the lore was and how much better it could have been.
My first realization that the lore had issues was when I found out about the moment Dinopolis and Chronopolis are sent thousands of years or so back in time. The reasons why these things happen are fairly confusing, but the thing that stood out to me was that, for whatever reason, the planet sends Dinopolis to counter Chronopolis' teleportation to the past.
Scene of Chronopolis' jet fighters attacking Dinopolis
Well, let's take a step back. Let's actually analyze what is happening here. Chronopolis, due to an accident when doing a time-wimey experiment, is sent to the past thousands of years. Now, as a response, for whatever reason, the planet sends, from another timeline, a timeline in which humanity died because Lavos never fell into the lair of the Dinos back in pre-history, an entire fortress from the Dino civilization to counter Chronopolis, known later as Terra Tower.
Now this may sound cool and all to some people, but knowing how little the planet benefits from this deal I had to ask the question: Why?
Allow me to make the situation clearer:
- The Planet sends the Dinos to fight the Humans
- The Humans are trying to destroy Lavos
- Lavos is trying to destroy the Planet
Why is the Planet helping Lavos when Lavos is its enemy?
Now I could stop here and just conclude that the motivation of the Planet is questionable, but I have to go further and question the very fact the Planet is doing this. How? How is that the planet can teleport an entire fortress from another timeline? Since when the planet had this kind of power?!
The convenient portals of the End of Time
Technically it isn't without precendent. Some people speculate that the Planet was responsible for making sure the portals and the End of Time, in Chrono Trigger, were aligned perfectly for the team to journey through time to save the world. Some believe it was Gaspar, the Guru of Time, but Lucca insinuates, at the end of the game, to be an "entity" looking for the team.
The issue however is that, unlike other games that follow Gaia theory, like Final Fantasy 7, in which the planet is a living and seemingly conscious entity that actively participates in the story, and is properly introduced as so in the story, in Chrono Trigger that idea comes out of nowhere.
So now we have an issue, a fundamental part of Chrono Cross' lore is questionable, not only the planet shouldn't have teleported Dinopolis because it is self sabotage, the planet having this power is strange, its almost like it wasn't thought out, and was a plot hole that was rushedly filled in. Now, I have no proof of that, but I can at least affirm that this makes no sense.
Remember when I told you to keep your Occam's Razor at the ready? Well, mine is tingling, because I have realized I can make Dinopolis' teleportation, and the portals of Chrono Trigger make sense at the same time.
Schala and Lavos in an eternal battle of wills
Chrono Cross' story is defined by a battle of wills between Schala and her captor Lavos, who are battling outside of time, in a potential 5th dimension. The usual understanding of dimensions is that you are capable of seeing all dimensions you are conscious of and below. We can't properly perceive the 4th dimension, but anything from 3 and below, we can. We are tridimensional creatures.
If Lavos and Schala are now 5th dimensional creatures, then they can see everything in the 5th and below, which includes time traveling. The moment Marle and Chrono teleport towards the year 600 AD, it was perhaps an accident, curiously, the very next portal leads them directly to the point in time in which the team would have found about Lavos. Isn't that interesting?
Who could have done that other than the Planet?
The moment Schala shows she knows a thing or two about time portals
By the time the team time travels, the disaster of Kingdom of Zeal already happened, which means Schala is already outside of time battling Lavos. Yes, Schala was already available to guide the team to save the world, and perhaps herself, and she had every motivation to do so, and perhaps the power, given she has shown in the story she could manipulate or at least seal time portals, something not even Magus was capable of.
But Schala isn't the only one already available to interfere in time travelling shenanigans, after all, Lavos himself, known for having time magic powers, who is actually interested in the humans being stopped from achieving what they wished with Chronopolis, could have teleported Dinopolis instead of the Planet, and he had every motivation to do so.
But there is even more: Lavos would possibly be the only entity in the universe aware of the timeline that the Dinos survived, after all, he is the one that created the split by coming into the planet. The fact the Dragons become his servants later in the story further confirms that, yeah, Lavos should have been the one to do this.
This was perhaps the first glimpse at the lore of Chrono Cross that made me realize Masato Kato had made a few choices that not only were convoluted and unnecessary, but also just... wrong, by lacking internal consistency and being contradictory. There is no reason for the planet to be an entity, since Schala and Lavos were more fitting for the role. This bold sentence? You will want to remember this at the end of this essay.
Dragons of Chrono Cross, the gods of the Dragonians, modern Dinos, and servants of Lavos
The next strange moment in the lore is the moment the events start to align for Serge, the protagonist, to become involved in the plot. During his childhood Serge is attacked by a poisonous panther demon which leads his father Wazuki, and his friend Miguel, to take Serge to Marbule, an island of demihumans known for having talented healers. The journey is interrupted however by a sudden magnetic storm that conveniently pushes them towards the Sea of Eden, an island completely closed off to outsiders that housed the facility of Chronopolis that's been there for thousands of years, untouched. The magnetic storm, further conveniently, deactivated all security systems opening the facility for just a brief moment, enough for Wazuki, Miguel and Serge to enter Chronopolis and hear a mysterious voice.
Miguel and Wazuki carrying baby serge, inside of Chronopolis, hearing a mysterious voice
It is the voice of the frozen fire. Or rather, it is more like the thoughts of the flames, but in their own words.
This event leads to, apparently, the very Frozen Flame, now completely exposed due to the security system of Chronopolis being deactivated, calling the group to touch it. The result is a plan seemingly concocted by Belthazar and Lucca that, when someone touched the Frozen Flame, the Prometheus Circuit, a computer built from Robo, a character from Chrono Trigger, would prevent FATE from being able to use the Frozen Flame. Whoever touches it becomes the only one allowed to use it.
Serge then touches the Frozen Flame, miraculously healing his body, turning him into "the Arbiter", the only one allowed to use the flame.
Assuming you managed to follow all that happened, perhaps we should go back a little and question the peculiar event that was a bit too convenient, as I usually like to question in stories: The Magnetic Storm.
According to official lore, Schala, who is currently imprisoned inside Lavos, hears the cries of the injured baby Serge, and out of sadness, creates a magnetic storm that conveniently leads him to the Frozen Flame all while deactivating the facility.
Let's ask our questions again: Why and How?
The issue begins with the way the lore is framed. Schala seemingly, not knowing any plans that Belthazar may have, specifically reacts to one baby in particular, in a specific moment in history, creating a very specific and localized weather phenomena that conveniently aligns to make Serge the Arbiter of the Frozen Flame.
How is this even sensible? And how can Schala have so much power, and such specific precise control of power while being consumed by Lavos?
This is the first of a few strangely conveniently, and dare I say forced, moments in the story that I'd like you to keep in mind for later as we unravel the peculiar design of Chrono Cross' story.
Serge staring at the Frozen Flame
Serge becoming the Arbiter of the Frozen Flame isn't the only consequence of this event, as the security of Chronopolis activates, forcing the team to escape. Miguel, perhaps sacrificing himself, stays behind, while Wazuki escapes with Serge on his arms.
We could just skip many years into the future here and start from were the game begins, right? Enough of Serge's backstory. Well, if things weren't weird enough, this is perhaps were things start to get really strange.
Seemingly, corrupted by being exposed to the Frozen Flame, Wazuki, Serge's father, is controlled by FATE, the computer that has access to the Frozen Flame, in an attempt to seize control of the Frozen Flame again since Serge now has it. Using the Frozen Flame, FATE controls Wazuki to drown Serge and kill him, in the hopes that, by killing him, the computer would have access to the Frozen Flame again.
Perhaps you might have thought I was having a stroke while typing the last paragraph, as there is quite clearly an obvious contradiction. FATE needs the Frozen Flame to control Wazuki to kill Serge so that FATE can have access to the Frozen Flame again. Question: How does FATE control Wazuki with the Frozen Flame since it doesn't have access to it?
Furthermore, after this event, FATE utilizes the Frozen Flame to create Lynx, frustrated that killing Serge didn't return its ability to use the Frozen Flame, waiting for an opportunity to steal Serge's body (from the other dimension) to then unlock the Frozen Flame.
Lynx, a cat man, and a plot hole
This is one of the most egregious plot holes of the game. Wazuki's corruption and control is impossible. The creation of Lynx is impossible. Yet, the story continues, and Wazuki is ordered by FATE to kill his own son. What comes after is the split of the timelines. In one timeline Serge died, in another he survived.
The question one must ask is how come a split happened? Usually when splits happen time magic or time technology is involved, although certain interpretations of the game's lore assume all timelines exist and are all simultaneously happening, a really dangerous way of writing stories, as anything can, at any time, be undone by another's timeline interference. Let's assume however that time traveling is required to create time splits, and well, it does happen.
The reason Serge survives in a timeline isn't because he is the Arbiter of the Frozen Flame, or because it was bound to happen anyway, no, it is because Kid, remember her? Is sent back in time by Belthazar, with a time machine, to specifically save him. After this great good deed, Kid disappears for many years until the moment the story of Chrono Cross begins.
Wait, what do you mean begins? Do you mean the game starts only now? Yes my dear reader, everything I told you was literally backstory. Take a time to rest your eyes, drink some water, because we are just half way through this story.
Many years later Serge is a grown man, or almost, with a bossy girlfriend that demands him a new necklace. A good future husband like he is, Serge sets into a short journey to the closest nest of monsters and komodo dragons to extract some scales for her necklace. But at the very moment he is about to deliver his quest, he hears a strange voice and is teleported to another world.
Now, I could explain the entire lore of the game to you, but that would be a colossal time spent with something you could just read somewhere else. What I'm going to do, however, is talk about peculiar things I have noticed during the game, things I could only see after I became very critical of the writing.
The plan of the story is simple: Get Serge to the Chrono Cross, then to the Time Devourer (Lavos + Schala), use the Chrono Cross and save her. But he doesn't know any of that stuff. So he tries to understand what happened to him first, and the first thing he notices: Nobody knows him.
So Serge sets into a journey, meeting with weirdos who are tracking him (goons of Lynx who wants his body), and then he is conveniently saved by Kid who was just passing by. They talk a little and then suddenly she proposes an alliance. The first peculiar moment in this game is how you are given the choice to reject her. Not once. Not twice. Three times in a row. As in really making a point of "I really don't like you, get lost, weird girl that just saved my life!".
Of course this is not something most people would bother with, but I've never seen this in a game before. Keep it for later. Serge is then told by Kid to go to Termina, regardless of his choices. Even if he refuses her, Leena joins Serge and tells him to go to Termina. So no matter what you do, you are going there, with or without Kid.
So you get there. If you refused Kid she will be mad with you, and eventually she will tell you "The goons that attacked you came from Viper Manor, let's go there together since I have business there too". You can strangely, once again, refuse her.
Viper Manor
So you go to Viper Manor anyway, and then there you fall into a trap. If you have Kid in your team she busts you out, if you don't have Kid in your team... She appears and busts you out.
After exploring the manor and fighting a bunch of weird lanterns, soldiers and robots you end up facing Lynx, who is a creepy cat man who knows a little too much and also knows you for whatever reason. Kid appears, saving your bum, again, by kidnapping the daughter of Viper, the lord of the Manor, giving you a path to escape. Once out, you realize there is no other way to escape other than to jump off to a potential deadly fall. Lynx throws a dagger poisoning Kid, she falls and you, after receiving a weird proposal from Lynx that might have ended with "I am your father" (Damn was that intentional?), jumps after her.
The team wakes up in Guldove, a city close to the Manor, and finds out Kid is poisoned by a lethal poison that cannot be cured by normal means. The game then gives you, for the fifth time, the option to reject Kid, by refusing to save her. At this point most people should find it strange the fixation the game has with giving the player the option to remove Kid from the game, and this is also the point the community of Chrono Cross splits. The people that despise Kid have a very easy choice as, refusing to save her, gives you access to Glenn, a fairly popular typical stoic sword user guy, while saving Kid gives you access to... A fairy.
Now, I love Razzly, the fairy, and I like Kid, so it is a no brainer for me to save her. The peculiar part, however, is that regardless of your choice, Kid survives. At this point you might start to see a pattern, if not I will point it out soon. After a few events, if you save Kid, or not, you will visit her again and find out that, actually, she is fine now.
This is the moment, my dear reader, if you saved her, that she will ask a certain question, and, if you have noticed the pattern at this point, you know the result of your choices: They. Don't. Matter.
The illusion of choice
Kid will ask Serge if he wishes to go back home, or if he wishes to continue his journey to know what is really happening, why people attacked him, why Lynx said those weird things. Regardless of your choice, Kid will pick it for you, the answer is: We continue.
So you do, you get to Fort Dragonia, you fight Lynx, he steals your body, stabs Kid, and you are sent to the shadow realm. You lose all the friends you made until this point, until you finally get your body back, rescue Kid, face FATE, and do all the endgame things. And this, here, is the moment I wished to get to: The ending.
After everything you do, what is the reward of Serge?
Nothing.
Serge is sent back to the very beginning of the story, before he was teleported. He loses all his friends, and the entire journey he went through after he finally saves Schala.
Serge realizing it was all a dream, probably
Now perhaps peace and a simple life is enough of a reward. But after reading through enough of the lore this is perhaps were I started to question a few aspects of the way the story was written.
Why is that Serge, the protagonist, seems to have so little agency in his own story? The story is his journey on how, after meeting Kid, he decides to find out why he was hunted down, to then be hunted down, have his body taken away and then discarded like trash to the shadow realm, to then recover his body, take revenge, save someone he was supposed to and then be discarded to his previous life.
You might have noticed a peculiar pattern. How easily Serge is discarded after he serves his purpose. It's like he is someone else's tool, and that is where by reading the line "Save someone he was supposed to" that I realized, did Serge even have any agency at all? Did he do things because he wanted to, or was he just... used?
And here, my friends, is were everything started to shatter in ways I did not expect.
Schala, the girl he was supposed to save
Let's go back to the moment Kid asks Serge: "What are ya gonna do, Serge?"
What would have happened if Serge went back home? This is the moment I had the most absurd realization: If Serge went back home... Nothing would have happened. Lynx would fail to abduct his body, FATE would have no access to the Frozen Flame, and he would go back to his life the exact same way it was before the adventure started, and the same way the adventure ends.
But what about Schala? Well, he wouldn't have saved Schala, and nothing would have changed in his life either way.
Now someone may be thinking: But if Lavos isn't killed, he will destroy the universe! And this is were I noticed yet another strange part of the whole lore of this game. If Lavos, by fusing with Schala, had the power to just leave the timeline and start eating all timelines until he became able to destroy the entire universe, then, out of all the infinite timelines, why didn't it happen already? Why didn't Lavos already do that in another planet that he came from? Why are we even alive? This kind of writing is were I started to realize a really strange pattern from Masato Kato: The need to make up nonsense to justify Serge's journey.
Be it Schala's Magnetic Storm, be it Lynx's impossible origin that sets up Serge's tragedy in one of the timelines, be it Lavos having to raise all the stakes to the highest order to justify that "Serge had to do it after all", many things are writen in such a way to put Serge in the spot to become the protagonist of a journey he has nothing to do with. Why did Serge have to do it, and not want to do it?
We have already noticed that Serge's agency means little. Actually, Chrono Cross' journey is easily defined by Serge falling into the next step of the story, not moving towards it. He is told, again and again, what to do next because he neither has any idea of what is going on nor has any idea of what he wants to do for most of the game. The final objective of his journey is to save Schala, someone he doesn't know, and has no reason or motivation to even save. And if there is one thing the game shows us is that the only agency Serge has is to deny company to blonde girls and refuse to save them. And you may think I'm joking, but you are actually capable of finishing the game without saving Schala, by just killing Lavos without the Chrono Cross.
The man, the boy, the hero, the only one who can save the world... Or is he?
Not only Serge's motivations and connections are questionable, the fact Serge is the very body FATE is searching for, makes him the least qualified character to go to the other world. If anything, Belthazar were smart, he would do everything to keep Serge as far from the Another World as possible, to make so FATE can never access the Frozen Flame.
Now you may ask something that I never really mentioned before: Why is that FATE wants the Frozen Flame? Well, according to the lore, FATE wants the Frozen Flame to become... human.
Hold on a minute. Am I reading this right?
The super duper evil AI that just wanted to become human
The super powerful AI that controls Chronopolis is evil because it committed the absolute heresy of... wanting to be human? Wouldn't that just weaken the AI? Why is the lore making such a big deal about locking out FATE from using the Frozen Flame? Maybe it just wants to eat some Termina squid gut pasta and enjoy life like everybody?
Are you telling me that Serge's entire story, his challenges, his suffering, all of it was just to deny a machine to become human? You've got to be kidding me. Not only him entering this journey was questionable, the whole threat of FATE stealing his body wasn't even a threat at all! Not to the planet that is.
Then why? Why did Serge even have to embark in this journey?
I know reader, you who somehow kept reading up until this point and paid attention to every single detail: To save Schala from Lavos! So we pick the guy that has no connection to her, no desire to save her, and no reason to personally save her.
Why can't Schala be saved by someone else?
Because Serge is the hero? Because Serge is the Protagonist? Because Serge is connected to the plot? But his connections don't lead him to Schala. Him being the hero and the protagonist was because someone else decided to. Wait, who decided to set Serge in this journey?
We go back to the very beginning of the story, to the man who plotted everything to save Schala...
The man behind it all
Belthazar, remember him? At some point in the future he asks someone to save Serge, which sets up the split timeline, and then call him from the Home World to the Another world when he's older. This person is given a time machine and the Astral Amulet to accomplish their mission, so that then Serge can meet Kid in the Another World, be given the Astral Amulet and be able to do everything... Everything this someone could have already done themselves?
Well then you silly writer, you wasted my time to say what, Serge being the protagonist is a problem? If not him who would be a protagonist? He is the hero, the man, the boy, my boy, the ultimate my dude, there is no one else who could take his place, nobody is as connected to the plot as he is, nobody is as well equipped as he is, nobody has more stakes or reasons to take on this journey, to defeat Lynx, FATE, get the Frozen Flame, save Schala, hell, even connections to the old cast of Chrono Trigger, nobody has anything like that, nobody has higher pedigree than Serge to be the protagonist of Chrono Cross, nobody-
Kid, the Radical Dreamer herself
Oh, but there is.
A character who met the original characters of Chrono Trigger, who was raised by Lucca, has a motivation to take on revenge against FATE and Lynx for murdering her mother and her friends, a character that was created by Schala and therefore has reasons to save her, meet her, and ask her why she was created, a character that has a reason to find the Frozen Flame, a character who, single-handedly survives the oppression of the Porre army while stealing valuables, creating the fame of the Radical Dreamers, moves onto the El Nido Archipelago by herself in search of fulfilling her life's goals... All of that to be reduced to a mere optional romance-subplot by the first random boy she meets.
I would like to put up this picture of "RADICAL DREAMERS NEXT 1996", which was personally drawn by Mr. Kato himself and given to me as a gift. This work of art was given to me by Mr. Kato back in the summer of 96; the day after when he and I went to an Irish musician's live together. He said that he was inspired by last night's live and drew the picture out of sheer inspiration... Yes, by this time, he was already beginning to develop within his mind, a new world for KID! ... Wait a sec... we're still not even done with Xenogears (laughs)! But maybe this was the true beginning of "Chrono Cross"
The first depiction of Kid, an absolute badass ready to rock
This, my friends, is the realization I came to after analyzing the lore of Chrono Cross. This game was never Serge's story, it was Kid's Story. It is undeniable, were anyone given the character profiles of Serge and Kid, and asked who should be the protagonist of Chrono Trigger's sequel, that the obvious answer would be Kid, unless you really prefer Serge for some reason.
It is difficult to deny this affirmation, after all, not only the lore shows how much more connected and important she is, the very developers consistently speak of Chrono Cross with Kid as a priority. Hell, the game is even called, internally by the developers, "Project Kid". Doesn't help Serge's case that, in game, there is a room in Chronopolis called "Project Kid", but if Serge was the goal all along, to be the protagonist, to be the one to save Schala, then where is his room? Where is "Project Serge" room?
Special Thanks to: Hiromichi Tanaka, Masato Kato, Keiji Kawamori, Takeharu Ishimoto, Satoshi Akamatsu, Hideaki Katayanagi (MAGNET), Fumio Takano (TOUSHITSU), All Staffs of "Project KID = CHRONO CROSS"
For most of my life I attempted to avoid these kinds of conclusions because they can't be proven unless having direct access to the thoughts of developers, or confirmation from them. It is difficult to tell why exactly Serge became the protagonist of Chrono Cross, instead of Kid. But I like to analyze things for what they are, and there is no better material to use than the game itself, although interviews can help further identify what happened.
Chrono Cross is defined by Masato Kato as a boy meets girl story, which is a peculiar way to define a game in which boy can meet and reject girl 5 times in a row, including leaving her to die, avoid almost every potential scene that deepens their relationship that isn't even remotely romantic, to end up marrying in the end of the game anyway. Yes, Serge and Kid apparently marry at the end of the game, despite Serge being an absolute jerk to her throughout the entire journey (with the exception of that one strange moment he saves her in the orphanage, with Radius' insistence that is).
Kid and Serge supposedly marrying, against all odds
This is were I question the merit of certain narrative choices, and where I realize the story doesn't follow an organic path. The format boy meets girl, in the case of Chrono Cross, is used to force Serge to take the role of protagonist when Kid has a much better profile to do it, while she is reduced to an optional romance sub-plot despite having everything required to be the protagonist of the story. She knows almost everyone from Trigger, has every motivation to set on this journey, defeat the villains, recover the MacGuffin (Frozen Flame), and save the princess (Schala), she even knows the guy that wants to save the princess (Belthazar), and has all the artifacts and keys required for the mission (time machine, astral amulet) with the exception of the Chrono Cross which she could, like Serge, gather herself. Yet, for some reason, she needs to use everything she has to prop up another guy to do the job instead.
It's like Kid was trained her whole life as a soldier for a very important mission, to then, suddenly, when she is about to start the mission, be told that she needs to save a guy that will do the mission for her instead, a guy that has less stakes, less motivations, less connections, less competence than her and is, funnily enough, a character that must be protected from the enemies. It's like she is forced to prop up a civilian into taking the role of a soldier.
We have to remember that Future Kid is a character that is possibly older, more experienced and more powerful than Serge, and has every single reason, connection and tool to jump into this journey herself, yet her entire purpose is to set Serge into the role of protagonist of the story instead.
Why?
Why couldn't Schala be saved by Kid instead?
But then again, Kid's so cute that I'm willing to forgive all of the rest of the weird parts (laughs). Although I AM a little worried that watching the scene where Kid lays cold and pale on the floor, and taking that to be artistic, is a rather bad influence on little children's education, ... oh well. Speaking of Kid, there's a figurine of her that's coming out soon from Kotobukiya. It comes all painted and completely finished. It's so adorable! You've gotta get this baby!..
When reading through Masato Kato's interviews, it is very clear to me that he is, to say the least, enamored with Kid's character. She is his main driving force to work on the projects of Radical Dreamers and Chrono Cross. She is his motivation. The peculiar part, however, is that his initial intent of making Kid's story seemingly mixes with his own passions.
Now here is where I could just assume things about his personal life and do armchair psychology, but in respect to him I will try not to, yet, it is difficult to interpret which motivations led Masato Kato to take Kid, that initial design from 1996 I indexed above in this essay, and turn her into what Kid became later, without assuming the worst.
Looking at her lore, her motivations, her connection to everything, it is difficult to accept that the final result was reasonable. Kid had everything from the very beginning to be the protagonist of her own story, yet, perhaps out of the passions of the developer towards her, the actual game's purpose was twisted, not to celebrate and embody her journey, but to just simply have her as part of the experience.
The hint is, obviously, on the concept of boy meets girl, perhaps the last kind of story I would write given Kid's original design and her lore in hand. Yet, to Masato Kato, the best way he could manifest Kid into this world was by having her as a romantic partner to a self-insert character, after all, Serge is seen as a player insert character. Well, isn't that but his own perspective of Kid, come to life? A character he was so enamored with that he wished to experience this romance himself, in the form of a game?
This is were I believe the developer's passions, and perhaps limited understanding of how to write a female character, yes, I am assuming a lot, might have barred Kid from becoming the protagonist of Chrono Cross. Masato Kato may have, possibly, loved the character, but was unable to express this love in any other way than making her a romantic partner to a male protagonist. It is hard to tell if this was the reason, or if Square just couldn't accept a female character as the protagonist of the game, it was the 90s after all, or if Masato Kato genuinely believed Serge's journey was more interesting than one with Kid at the helm which, as I hope to have proven to you at this point, was not a reasonable idea to have.
I put a lot of effort to get a really simple point across, a point probably any 90's kid like me would almost instinctively understand now. You probably think the same, and I will just get it out: Kid wasn't the protagonist because she was a girl.
Kid is, in my bold opinion, unfortunately, another victim of a tendency of JRPGs from the 90s: Male defaultism. Serge is shoehorned in the plot of Chrono Cross in unimaginable ways. It is difficult to look at every connection and every piece of the story that ties him to the game and puts him in the spot and take it seriously, since half of them are plot holes, and the rest is forced and nonsensical.
The most fascinating part of the game, that to me defines Serge perfectly, is the moment you meet the 3 ghost kids in the Dead Sea. The moment the ghosts from the previous game, murdered off-screen to make space for Serge as a new protagonist, accuse him of destroying the future. It is a quite strong and emotional moment in the story, but it doesn't quite feel the same after you find out that... Him destroying the future has no explanation. It is a plot hole.
The final plot hole
The fact Serge’s guilt of destroying the future is empty since there is a lack of explanation for how he did it amplifies his role as a void rather than as a character. This is both another instance and the epitome of how the story bends over backwards to insist on his importance without ever justifying it. The act of because: his existence, his relevance and his destruction isn’t just a plot hole; it’s a void at the heart of the narrative. It’s as if Serge is the plot hole, a character around whom events are artificially constructed without regard for cohesion or depth. He is blamed for destroying the world in the same way he is credited with saving it: Because the plot demands it, not because his actions or his character leads to it.
It is difficult to understand what exactly Masato Kato intended with this exchange between the characters, but sometimes I feel like it was a bit of a slip of some intrusive thoughts of his, knowing that he had to destroy so much to shove Serge into the story.
Indeed, so much was sacrificed, Chrono, Marle, Lucca, Robo... Even Kid, as a protagonist, all sacrificed to make a character that had no stakes, no reason, no business in being the protagonist of Chrono Cross, all because of what? Is it because he was the protagonist of Radical Dreamers, a game he was more of a narrator of Kid's story? Or is it the inability to think outside of the box of male defaultism that dominated the 90s?
A lot of people like to blame the 45 characters as the reason why Chrono Cross' story never got good enough, why the main plot is underdeveloped. I have to hard disagree. The side stories, the side characters are what makes Chrono Cross as beautiful and diverse as it is. It is all those side stories that create the world building and the well known richness of Chrono Cross' world.
Nay, it isn't the 45 characters the reason why Kid's story or Harlé's story is underdeveloped: Suikoden II had 117 characters, and the last thing people complain about that game is the story. A game in which the main characters are directly connected to the main plot from beginning to end, instead of being a strange buffer added on top of another character's story, like Serge is.
Chrono Cross suffers from having the wrong protagonist, the story is strange and underdeveloped because there is nothing to develop with Serge. His entire existence is a MacGuffin for the villains, his importance is tied not to his spirit, or his motivations, or even his agency, but his body. The moment the game could have shown that Serge is more than his body is when he swaps bodies with Lynx, but his answer isn't to be himself despite his body, it is to get his body back, confirming, that he is only his body after all, even though some characters do recognize him below his new cat face.
His motivation to face FATE is to take revenge for having his body stolen, something that could be avoided by going home, only to find out that FATE only wanted to be human and was denied for bizarre circumstances of weather I explained earlier, he has nothing else to tell FATE, he has no reason to seek the Frozen Flame, he has no reason to save Schala or anything to tell her after he saves her.
While Kid? She has a revenge to take on FATE and Lynx for murdering her mother, Lucca, she has a reason to steal the Frozen Flame as it is the artifact that ruined her life, she has a reason to save Schala, her creator, and she must have so many questions to ask her: "Why did you create me?", "What will you do with me now that I saved you?".
Another female character denied protagonism of her own story
A character with stakes in the story, a character with motivations, connections, everything Serge doesn't have. Yet, she is reduced to a side character, a romance sub-plot, an annoyance barrying people from getting a favorite side-character. Is it too much to ask to have the characters to be respected, to have their backstory and motivations treated accordingly? Is it too challenging to make an RPG with a female protagonist? Or was having Kid be the protagonist of her own story something too radical of a dream?