A Stupid Idea

[Destina Faroda]

You know I had the craziest, most unworkable idea ever.

Many SNES-era RPG fans argue whether or not Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy III were the best of Square's role playing games.  Now I know the systems used in both are completely different.  However, I have seen hacks of both games, and I know there are crazy people out there who love tinkering with the engines.  How about redoing FFIII (or FFVI if you prefer) using a modified Chrono Trigger engine.  The sprites would have to be done over again in CT syle, backgrounds created, and the map completely made.  While the battle options would be more like Chrono Trigger, the special skills characters have would be similar to their Final Fantasy  counterparts.  And although everyone would be able to cast spells by learning them, only certain characters would be able to perform combination techs with them.  Of course, most techs would have to be redesigned, and the increased cast list would make the number of combinations insane.  And I still haven't worked out Esper summons yet (I would probably get rid of them unless one used the Magicite item, as I've never been that much of a fan of them).  And maybe one could incorporate a two player element if one chose so that instead of having one team of three there could be two teams of three, allowing each to do even more powerful combination attacks.  This would come in addition to the CT specfic elements of tabs (to replace Esper bonuses) and New Game+...

..then again, with all that work, one might as well go and make a new game.

[ilpalazzo]

*slaps Destina* Blasphemy.

[Darkmoon]

Hey, at least the number of characters would serve some purpose, unlike in Crono Cross... Damn meaningless characters.

[Destina Faroda]

Well, the Chrono Cross system is extremely adaptable and could be applied to many RPGs, but that would be too far afield from Final Fantasy.  At least Chrono Trigger still has Magic Points and Experience.

And see, Ilpalazzo.  That's why I'll never like you right there.  Violence by men against women in a discussion thread isn't funny.

[Darkmoon]

See what they needed to do in CC is make ech character have a specific color like they did, but also give them an entire rack of special skills, (one line), not just 3 skills in the line set

[Destina Faroda]

A Chrono Cross style version of Final Fantasy III, then it is.

Since we have eight Sword Techs, eight Tools, eight Dances (which would of couse automatically change the field color like the *Field elements) and eight Blitzes then you don't have to worry about too much conversion there if we use Darkmoon's modification...assuming he's talking about one skill per level instead of an entire level of skills.  One could reduce the number of Lores to the eight best ones.   Gau as always would be the most difficult.  First of all CC doesn't have random encounters, so anything resembling a Veldt would have to be completely reworked.  While Sprigg has a model for a potential Rage system, it would be impossible to have Gau attack automatically...this needs some serious thought.

Skills like Morph, Runic, Sketch and Steal would be harder to implement, but if I thought about it for a minute, it could work.

The question of magic as elements would also be diffcult, though, even more so than in using a Chrono Trigger model.  If using Espers causes extra element slots to open up, it would allow people to become magic users.  But since the only way you improve your stats is by fighting a boss or fighting enemies shortly thereafter, I don't know how you'd force your characters to develop.  And there's still the issue of Espers giving characters unique skills (unless they refine items into elements).

Personally for Chrono Cross, I would have made the characters' combo special techniques rechargable, thus giving an incentive to actually use combos.  I also think CC would have benefited from a BOF/FFX style of switching characters in and out of battle.  But CC isn't bad as is.

[Darkmoon]

Well, I like some of the ideas that CC implemented, but not everything worked out right. Honestly, if we're going off CC, but modifying it, the first thing I suggest is to bump the number of bosses and subbosses in game up to the near 90s or even 99 if you find every one of them (a little incentive). FF6 didn't have a New Game + anyway, so that's not a necessary addition.

I like the idea of Espers giving extra slots. A nice, helpful addition.

And yeah, one special, character specific, attack per level in a single row. Have them all line up, so you know what the character specific attacks are just at a glance. And yeah, have them be reuseable and rechargable. FF battles take WAY long than most CC battles do.

[ilpalazzo]

Well, the Chrono Cross system is extremely adaptable and could be applied to many RPGs, but that would be too far afield from Final Fantasy.  At least Chrono Trigger still has Magic Points and Experience.

And see, Ilpalazzo.  That's why I'll never like you right there.  Violence by men against women in a discussion thread isn't funny.

I wasn't trying to be funny.

[Sin Ominous]

Prepare to get your head chewed off. Just a fair warning, as I've already gotten mine chewed off this week.

[Destina Faroda]

Nah, I'm not going to chew him out too much.  I'll just let the hypocrisy of his current signature and his admitted non-joking intent to harm me speak for itself.

I have to disagree about the lack of a New Game+.  Without it, in my opinion, there's no point to even thinking about a Chrono version of anything.  It's a Chrono series staple.   Of course, from a storyline perspective, one would have to either find a new boss to trigger the extra endings since unlike most FF Big Bads, SNES FFIII's the villain isn't some overly powerful being at the beginning of the game.  And maybe it could be tweaked, but gotten rid of entirely.

The problem with making all Elements rechargable is that it makes CC a battle of Elements rather than a battle of coordinating your attacks so that you always have some Stamina and Defend when the enemy gets enough stamina to attack.  Plus it also ruins the point of Element slots and makes the magic users a little unbalanced.  Worst of all, it makes consumables useless.  I do agree that using elements in CC is a bit punitive, but that's precisely the point.

Final Fantasy battles take longer than CC battles because the enemies usually fold using three attacks in CC, or a round of unleashed Elements.  Final Fantasy battles require more "spamming."

I just thought about a big stumbling block...weapons.  It doesn't seem hard at first, but what about Relm's brushes?  Also a separate category would have to have to be made for Lances.  Then again, on the brightside the "household item" weapon could be eliminated (as much as I liked it).

[Darkmoon]

Well, I think the character specific "elements" need to be rechargable. As for the basic spells, there should be some skills that recharge the elements. I think CC had one (didn't the Chrono Cross do it?), but there need to be a couple of more. Limited use, of course, be rechargers.

[Destina Faroda]

Oh, okay, I misunderstood.  You're right in that there were character specific elements that recharged elements (although not themselves), but those were very few and far between.  Still, I'm kinda on the fence on making all character-specific abilities reusable.  On one hand, I'd like to be able to use some abilities more than once per battle.  On the other hand, do you really need more than one Bum Rush?   I want to open up the possibility of Double and Triple Techs...far more than CC had.

Heck, I didn't know the Chrono Cross recharged elements.  Or maybe I did know and forgot.  Then again, Im the idiot who didn't even get the Chrono Cross the first time I played and wondered why there was no ending to the game

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

There's an element called "Recharge".  It recharges all elements.  You only get one per game, I think.
I don't think it gets carried over to the next game, either.

Ms.Riddel's Snake(something...) Tech recharges elements.

Ms.Riddel is SO cute! 

[Destina Faroda]

Leena's Maiden Faith recharges elements too, I think.   But I like Riddel too.  she's refined and cute at the same time, even though she's a pain to keep alive in that Dario fight (which should have REALLY led to Dario joining).

[Darkmoon]

I just disliked how generic all the Chrono Cross characters felt. There wasn't much need to use any one character over another. Period.

[ilpalazzo]

Still the game was great, little baby dragon. soo cute.
I mean surge rules.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I like my Red Women (Kid, Janice, Miki) Group.

[Destina Faroda]

The only thing that bugged me was this...why no Innate Yellow mages?

[Darkmoon]

I never bothered with the yellows. I played Surge, Kid, and a blue.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Wasn't Sneff yellow?  AND a Magician?
BTW, LOOOOOVE that DoubleTech with Sneff and Guile. 

I think that not having any one particular character over another was the Point of the game.  I think, given that it's a PSX game, they did as best as they could with character development, given the beefy cast.  On top of that, the game gives me joy every time I play it, 'cuz it always 'appears' different.

Green people like Razzly and Karsh rawk.  Karsh is one awesome dude.

[Darkmoon]

I woulda prefered more character development of key people, less uselesss side characters in the party, and a more diverse magic and skills selection. Some customizability is cool with the magic, sure, but everyone felt so generic.

[Destina Faroda]

Sneff was yellow and a magician in the game, but his magic power was utter crap compared to the mages of the other colors.  Didn't Mel and Norris outdo him in the magic department?  Then again some colors like Blue were over-represented with magical characters.  Green, Blue,  Red, and Black all had an abundance of useful characters, with White being okay and Yellow being full of muscleheads and mediocre people.

I do think the cast could have been cut in half, so that you have three or four characters per color with defined roles (mage, brawler, specialist), and the story would have worked out better.  Then again, I like how you have to play the game differently to get different characters and that you could not get all the characters at once until you used the Chrono Cross.  Plus I felt the leads were strong, and I've found that as much as I like well-rounded character development, the game's story was great as is.  Plus, Neo Fio, Starky, and Draggy are so cute I could hug them.

CC was a great game...but back to the subject...converting FFIII to a CC-style format.  I think I can work around just about everything except the skills Throw and  Runic.  The problem with Throw is that accoring to the CC universe, all specials are the same color and their user.   That's fine for the status Skeans and the various stars, but what would the other three slots be?  It can't be any of the elemental skeans because Shadow would almost certainly be Innate Black, and changing him to Red or another color would still leave the problem of the other two elements.  Could it be to throw a random weapon?  Or we could bend the rule?

The bigger problem is Runic.  Celes' special skill is utterly useless in this game and there's no way I can figure out how to make it work in a CC stysem...not unless of course it raises her elemental energy by the level of the cast element and restores her stamina to full.  But there'd have to be a BIG payoff for essentially wasting a turn.

[Darkmoon]

I don't see why elements have to be the same color as their user. One or two users can break that rule. I mean, shit, if you think back, Magud, being black, had Blue, Red, and White when you first get him. Of course, that's CT not CC, but same universe, same ideas. I say we let one or two skills be a different color and just move on.

As for Celes, I honestly dunno. I haven't played that far into FF6. Really should one day...

[Destina Faroda]

Oh man, then you'd better not read my Final Fantasy III thread...

You know, I'm going to play that game again.  For...research purposes...

[Darkmoon]

I own a copy of it on the PSX. I really should play it eventually... Just neve have. That or FF4.

[Robo-AgentKiri]

well, since CC had some fairly irrelevent characters, i'd have to agree. if any FF game (other than VII and up) had the modifed CC engine, i'd have to say it'd be more challenging. then again, i'd make my friends guinea pigs for such a game since they're RPG fans.i mean, they have KH2 already, lol.