2025 Mega Update! Official Art, Interviews, CT Hacking, and More!

[ZeaLitY]

Welcome to the 2025 Mega Update! It's been almost a couple years, so we've got a lot of ground to cover. We'll usher this update in with Rom's discovery of the Epoch maquette used for Chrono Trigger's Japanese commercials, which was shared by Hironobu Sakaguchi on his Twitter:



[OFFICIAL ART]  Vehek went back and discovered the source of some additional Kato concept art images: the Chrono Trigger 2019 orchestral box set. We've got them all added to the Official Art page and have taken a first look at the contents. Exciting finds include the fact that the Prerelease Triceratops was apparently a friend of the party named "Migo", and that Ayla may have originally been envisioned as a kunoichi-type character. Frog's missing in the earliest sketch too, with another knight who looks suspiciously like human Glenn. Check them out and see what you think.  [2]  From Rom comes scans of The PlayStation Vol. 170! This shows Tadayoshi Yamamuro's Toriyama-inspired designs for the Chrono Trigger PSX anime cut scenes. They're remarkable for containing different perspectives of the Chrono Trigger team, as well as some other beings (such as art for a typical Reptite)! Check them out on the Official Art page.

[TRIGGER]  Redditor cessout was successfully able to piece together virtually all of Yasunori Mitsuda's comments from the Chrono Trigger 30th Anniversary music stream, which went down on YouTube back in March. We've got them in the encyclopedia here, and have disseminated the notes about individual songs into their respective pages as well.  [2]  The Real World Influences article has been updated with a new section contributed by Belchior (who also provided a Portuguese translation of this section). Check it out!  [2]  Lord J Esq's old Encyclopedia Chronotica proposal surfaced! Check it out here. Those were dark days, when I thought we'd never finish the wiki...  [CT UNGLUED]  It's 2025, and Macromedia Flash is long dead. Unfortunately, so is Chrono Trigger Unglued. If you want to download the source files, hit up this link to grab the entire collection and remember those days (190 MB).

[CT MODIFICATION]  inuksuk has put together an awesomely thorough tutorial on transferring an accessory's status effect to other accessories! Check it out here.  [2]  inuksuk also expanded our understanding of the Active Time Battle system; refer to the new section at this article for details on how the battle system is coded.  [3]  Vehek has documented several key differences in Chrono Trigger DS's engine and handling of events/other variables; check them out here.  [4]  Reld has tweaked ChronoCharView to display sprites at 200% (fixing some horrible artifacting), and has also fixed a selection issue with tiles on the second page. Grab the better version here.  [5]  GitExl is working on a Chrono Trigger map viewing utility for both the Chrono Trigger SNES and Steam versions. Might this be the salvation for getting rips of the DS maps? Progress is ongoing right now and we can't wait to see where this goes; check it out here!  [6]  A secret project may be brewing! Check out Project Lucca. So far, this is the only glance, but it's awesome to see new work being done!

[FINISHED MODS]  Chrono Trigger+ released its "Final" version earlier this year in March!  It's already surpassed 40,000 downloads on romhacking.net alone. Check it out here.  [2]  The Enhansa Edition is up to version 1.1.2! For those out of the loop, this patch rebalances Chrono Trigger with changes to items, techs, enemy stats, player techs, and more; the readme is impressively long. You can grab the patch here.  [3]  Colmines92 has put out an amazing patch that lets up to two other players control their respective party members in Chrono Trigger! Grab it here.  [4]  We've got new translations incoming!  [ Indonesian 1.0 ][ Turkish 1.0 ][ wakkoswami's KWhazit Update 1.12 ]

[CROSS]  Art from Another Eden's versions of Chrono characters has been added to Official Art (Chrono Trigger) and Official Art (Chrono Cross), as well as the respective encyclopedia character pages.  [2]  glennxserge tracked down the lookup table where Chrono Cross determines growth for a character's Elements grid; find the notes here.  [3]  Grobycftw completed a Dario replacer hack for Chrono Cross! Dario is now playable and takes up the Turnip slot. Find the hack here.  [4]  Grobycftw also completed a tutorial for extracting an NPC's model and texture; check it out here.

[ODDS AND ENDS]  On Discord, Reld recently pointed out two issues with Prophet's Guile responsible for bad-sounding music and the infamous black screens/soft-locks at a certain point in the game. The first issue stems from the echo buffer not handling the instruments we chose to change up the music, while the second, graver issue relates to an event trick Chickenlump discovered in 2005 that lets one remove the black bar at the bottom of the screen. Well, turns out this black bar is pretty important for extending the blanking between frames for processing VRAM/animations. ZSNES tolerated the fault mostly well, but real hardware/better emulators do not. Reld has provided a patch to fix these issues; it must be patched separately/after the original Prophet's Guile patch (i.e. don't patch it to a cold, fresh Chrono Trigger ROM). Download it here.  [2]  We found a random doujinshi from Chrono Cross from 2011; download it here. It features Serge and Kid.

[CT PRERELEASE]  Reld is back with some insanely good research.  [1]  First up, Reld has carefully reconstructed the sprites for Prerelease Queen Zeal, including her boss form atop the Black Omen. Check out the thread here for details.  [2]  Reld also tracked down commercial art and other photos that were used for the moon/planet in Chrono Trigger/Radical Dreamers, as well as the original picture used for Zenan Bridge's sky. Check out this thread for details. As a plus, FF6's Opera House curtains also seem to have had their original reference curtains divined.  [3]  Nestled in the 1000 A.D. tileset of the Prerelease are sheep and windmill graphics, features of the overworld from the V-Jump 1994 build! Check them out in action here.

[HDD RECOVERY]  I recently combed through a drive image of my main Windows 98 SE machine from 2003, including all the temporary Internet cache files, and recovered some gems.  [1]  Some curios have been stashed on the Compendium's about page here, like our first attempts to diagram timelines and dimensions. Speaking of which, we also recovered a splendid old banner from 2003, intended for Chrono Compendium Design #2; see it here (we'll keep it on the Main Page button section).  [2]  Found some old fan art/wallpapers! [ Mammon Machine ][ Lavos ][ Lavos-chan Thumbnail (slightly NSFW) ][ Kid Thumbnail ] Goes without saying, but if you have higher resolution of the last two, please let us know!  [3]  Check out a snapshot of IcyBrian's Chrono series board in November 2003 here.  [4]  Here are two ancient AMVs... [ Crawling by Melknin ][ Final Fantasy and Chrono Cross by ehgzl ][ CT CC Linkin Park - One Step Closer ]  [4]  Old pages from the PHPNuke Compendium have also been found. I've curated some and upload them here if you'd like to walk down memory lane. Posts abound from YbrikMetaknight, Radical_Dreamer, JustinS1985, GrayLensman, Lord J Esq, Oswego del Fuego, warmgun, Aitrus, and so many others who fostered the site in its earliest days.

[FAN ART]  [ Nuwt Sprites by TheMage ][ Re-Zeal by EchoGhost616 ][ Reptite Rework by Reld ][FANFICTION]  Chrono Origins - Fate's Cross and Fate's Trigger by skylark ][ Chrono Collective by MagilsugaM ][ Project Unity Fragments by Lennis ][ Chrono Trigger - Dragon's Dance by lunac ]

[REMIXES]  [COMPENDIUM]  [ 'Corridors of Time Final' by EchoGhost ][ 'Star-Stealing Princess of Zeal' by EchoGhost ]  Lots of recovered stuff from the old HDD follows!  [ 'Schala Trance (Different Version)' by Prievert ][ 'Forever (Hope Remains V1)' by Suzumebachi ][ 'My Curse, My Blessing' by Ko Miho Lifo ][ 'Old Schala Remix' by Rimco ][ 'Glowing Fair (Glitchy)' by Unknown ]  [OCREMIX-CC]  [ A Synonym for Death by minusworld, p4p3r ][ FATE has no forgiveness... by ensemble ][ Lost Orphan by AzureKevin ][ Scars Worn by Time by Cyril the Wolf ]  [OCREMIX-CT]  [ 'Strain on You Insane Diamond' by zachaction ][ 'Skylands' by prophetik music ][ 'When the Walls of Time Fell' by H36T ][ '12,000 B.C.' by Outset Initiative, Jeremy Lim ][ 'Corridors of TimeShift' by JSABlixer ][ 'Ambience of the Forest' by jnWake, Emunator ][ 'Carnival of Life' by RebeccaETripp, Gamer of the Winds ][ 'Eschala Them' by Rockos ][ 'Find the Frozen Flame' by Ivan Hakstok ]

[DWELLING OF DUELS]  [ 'FATE has no forgiveness for those who dare stand against it.' by Lucas Guimaraes, Mattmatatt. ImAFutureGuitarHero, jnWake, Ivan Hakštok ][ 'Square Off' by itsamedaddio ][ 'Ambience of the Forest' by jnWake, Emunator ][ 'Desert Search for Techno Camel Meat' by Hydrasphere ][ 'Bad Aural' by EndlessRepeat ][ 'Let's Take This Outside' by itsamedaddio ][ 'Guardia Boss Rush' by Gregorio Franco ][ 'A Cappellavos' by Ian Martyn ][ 'It's About Time' by Newmajoe, ErichWK, JohnStacy, Biggoron, Brandon L. Harnish, Shea's Violin ][ 'The real trigger was the friends we made along the way' by Triple B Music, jnWake, streifig, roqdrummer, Nivan Sharma ][ 'Zealotry Supreme' by Biggoron, Kevin Handlon ][ 'The Forest and the Trees' by The Rocket Knights, Mattmatatt, DeLuxDolemite, Extrinzic ][ 'Soul of the Forest' by Mustin ]

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Thanks for taking the time to put this together, Z.

[Vehek]

Nice to see a mega update after last year was skipped. I even learned some things that went on outside the forum.

Also, I could have said this in one of the lesser site updates, but with all the radio silence (and then the site issues), I was worried that you'd gotten completely disillusioned with the series, Zeality.

[ZeaLitY]

Oh, no. If the fate of the series is to die with a whimper and have no new game from Square, then it's up to the Compendium, in typical vain fashion, to dictate the terms of that whimper. Systems outlive effort or motivation. Even if it took 5 years, there's definitely something to be made...

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

I still wish we could put something more out there. A Crimson Echoes+ (especially now that Flames of Eternity has been dead since before covid: https://metronomeproject.blogspot.com/), or even the concept Mauron, TheMage, and I had to a Chrono Trigger sidedquel a la Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (which followed a literal mute new protagonist and her adventures with the OVA characters, name a Nu, a Kilwala, "the man" Johnny, and an evil cat longing to usurp the Magus).

We're all old now and real life has taken over, at least for myself. I have very little time for gaming let home toying with ROM hacks - it sucks.

[ZeaLitY]

There are ideas. The challenge to me seems to be balancing two extremely tough spectrums:

• Pulling off a rollicking new CT adventure (we've done "beautiful and emotional" with Cross; we've done "dark and technical" with CE), but with an upped ante that doesn't simply rehash Lavos
• Using as many original hooks/characters as possible to minimize the "fanfictiony" feel of a new sequel
• Retaining CT's cool, core features as well, while innovating (I so very badly want to do a "zoomed in" overworld version of Zenan, with checkpoints and different towns, forests, etc., but that straight up nukes the flyable Epoch feature)

...doing that, while, to achieve my personal goal, stretch the limits of what would've been possible on the SNES (so no MSU-1 capability) by packing that damn ROM as full as it can possibly go with content. My understanding is so much better these days that I'm now aware of the extreme challenge that represents. Adding another location tileset, or a big custom enemy with unique graphics, etc. sucks up free space like crazy, even with the expanded ROM. But there are so many things we could do—inject some Cross/Dreamers tunes, test the limits of event tricks, play with the Mode 7 graphics, etc. I'd want it to feel like "two discs" compressed into one, except for an SNES cartridge.

There's always the Prophet's Guile temptation, too—"let's just do a short hack first to revitalize the community." There's already an operable idea there from some old legends. For an actual sequel idea, I've got one that probably checks a lot of those boxes above, but it's still under review. I swear, I've been trying to think of a third game plot that attracts me since 2015, and it's such a start/stop affair. It has to be interesting; it has to grab the player...

[Dialga_Palkia]

"Retaining CT's cool, core features as well, while innovating (I so very badly want to do a "zoomed in" overworld version of Zenan, with checkpoints and different towns, forests, etc., buthat straight up nukes the flyable Epoch feature)"

Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana had mode 7 with Flammie flying across the world and secondly I do recall the Epoch having a mode 7 sprite itself during the true ending of Chrono Trigger before  the credits ascend to space. It could work, just the camera needs a zoom in and out and a swappable mode7 map to view below the surface or see 360 around the map.  Final Fantasy VI also meets this criteria.

On another note, could Chrono Trigger work as an SRPG? commanding an army force to protect your country over the invading land? Saga Frontier II had a mixture of regular fights, dueling (1 on 1), and strategy (gustave's route only),