Subject number one: The Land of Genesis. She doesn’t know where in the hell it is (thanks, Steena), but she has a “feeling” that someone has a reason for bringing Cronabe to this world beyond the fact of his counterpart’s death. Well, duh. Steena merely reiterates what we’ve already learned about the Dragon Tear and Fort Dragonia. The only new information we receive is that Fort Dragonia is located on Mount Pyre. Get it? Because (fire) dragons breathe fire and fire makes a pyre. The layers here are simply amazing. As for the 6 Dragon Gods, they represent the six elements, of course. Steena treats Cronabe like a giant moron by reciting the elements and their opposites in trite little pairs such as, “If the sun is white, the shadow is black…” I won’t insult you by copying down everything she says, but basically an eighth-grade aspiring fantasy writer could come up with this junk. I guess I should be glad that they do make the system quite easy, instead of all the random rules and colors that go into the Skies of Arcadia element system. Let’s just not go there.
Finally, Cronabe inquires about the Frozen Flame. Remember that? Steena, for once, is at a loss, as she’s never heard about this supposed frozen flame. But she does pull a flame-related poem out of her ass that may or may not have to do with the flame in question (it does): “Be very careful when you stare into the flame…For the flame will also stare back at you…It will either transform you into a different being…Or burn you into ashes.” Wait, what’s that buzzing sound? Oh, that’s the little Foreshadowing Wizard flitting about my room, zapping the shit out of me with his wand…not like that. But there’s more! The evil that the 6 Dragon Gods supposedly sealed away was none other than “an evil flame.” Dun-dun-DUN!
Are you saying he’ll turn gay?
Filled to the brim with exposition, Cronabe takes his leave of the two longwinded ladies and heads for Meedo’s boat. The four of them squeeze into the craft, and sail for the city of Termina. As soon as they disembark to the familiar sound of boingy music, some fat official accosts them. He orders them to get the boat the fuck out of there, as they don’t have a permit or something stupid like that. Meedo gets all up in his grill because she’s the sassy housewife who don’t take no shit. When he doesn’t back down, Meedo does her Super Duper PMS Attack, causing the whole screen to shake ominously. Because she’s large and has a temper — get it?! Fat Official pees his pants, then walks away at a leisurely pace in fear. This is definitely a candidate for Most Pointless Scene Ever. That’s going to be one huge ballot.
Meedo leaves the trio to their own helpless devices. You see, while other games use things like different font colors, brackets, and endless mentions of the same places, Chrono Cross tends to do the opposite and just throw a bunch of random place names at you and let you wander around until you trigger the next plot point. I’ve had several place names thrown at me in this recap alone. Since I am scared and confused, I decide to consult some walkthroughs on GameFAQs to help me find my way, as well as to pick up some of the stuff I’ve undoubtedly missed thus far.
But first things first. On their way out of Termina, Cronabe and friends encounter a couple of familiar faces — Exposition Flower Seller and Glenn. As before, Glenn is filling the flower seller’s head with all sorts of crazy exposition, not caring just who hears him. Apparently, General Viper and the other dragoons are on their way to Fort Dragonia because of rumors that “the major power of the East, Porre” is plotting something dastardly. The Porrians heard that the Frozen Flame was in El Nido or something like that. Well, if you dumbasses would stop expositing all over the fucking place, then your enemies might not hear about it, duh. So this is our second mention of Fort Dragonia. Maybe I don’t need a walkthrough after all. Also, could it be that Lynx is behind the theft of the Dragon Tear? What a shocking turn of events, that the main bad guy could be responsible!
Exposition Flower Seller wonders if the Porre army will loot the village and rape the women. Glenn assures her that the dragoons are moving to the fort to prevent that, although I’m not sure exactly how. “I was ordered to remain at the manor and protect Miss Riddel, but…She felt very uneasy about the way General Viper was acting before he left, so…” Glenn, studly rebel that he is, plans to sneak into the fortress by boat. When Exposition Flower Seller wonders if he’ll get his ass kicked out of the Acacia Dragoons, Glenn nobly announces, “I will act in accordance with my faith, even if I have to break military regulations.” With this pompous declaration, he bids the flower seller farewell and heads offscreen to presumably find a boat. There’s something right at the front of my brain…something about someone who has a boat….damn it, it’s gone.
Before Cronabe heads back to the boat to pick up Glenn…crap, I ruined the surprise. Anyway, before Cronabe heads back to the boat, he decides to do some random stuff around the island that he just now got around to doing for no reason whatsoever. His first stop is his Bizarro Home Village, Arni. More specifically, the home of the fisherman-turned-scarecrow-worshipper. You see, Cronabe received a Shark Tooth Amulet from the non-scarecrow-worshipping counterpart of this guy, and I sort of forgot about that because it’s really not that important to the overall “plot.” I know, I know, what is? However, why don’t we see what happens when Cronabe gives it to the guy’s evil twin?
He’s probably an anime fan.
Understandably, the guy freaks out over how unnaturally huge it is. The shark tooth, people. Cronabe throws all caution to the wind and tells the guy — in his own subtle language, of course — all about his counterpart in the other world. Although Scarecrow Worshipper has no trouble believing in the divine attributes of a straw figure, he just can’t wrap his diseased brain around the possibility of another dimension. He recalls a time when he wanted to be a fisherman, but in that magical 10-years-ago time period, he totally wussed out. Oh, but he supposedly doesn’t regret being a grown man, out of work, living in his parents’ basement, worshipping an oversized doll (sound familiar?). He pissily tells Cronabe to get the fuck out of his mother’s house so he can jack off to his Eva body pillow continue to praise the straw man.
Loading ...Cronabe happily obliges. But he doesn’t get further than the stairs when a voice calls out, “Boogum! Hold on a second there!” I watch from between my fingers as the camera pans over to the scarecrow. “Love is always in the air! It’s just that no one notices,” the voice continues. I think you can see where this is going. The freaking scarecrow comes to life. His name is Mojo, of all things, and he’s a good luck doll, despite being a tad higher than average on the creepiness scale. Like all the other characters, he has a speech impediment, a catchphrase, and a character portrait. That means he’s going to join my party. Hooray. As he jumps down off his shrine to the disbelief of his worshipper, we see that he has a crown of candles and a gigantic railroad spike sticking through his chest. Who thinks up this shit? I’m sure someone is opening up their e-mail program right now in order to tell me in detail just what ancient folklore the game designers raped to come up with this creature, but I implore you to take your hands away from the keyboard. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Before doing a little dance, Mojo tells his worshipper to get his freaking act together. While he has a point, it’s nice that he watched the guy waste ten years of his life before telling him that. “I’m lucky, I’m lucky, I’m lucky! Uh-huh-uh-huh!” Mojo raps, continuing his dance. Luckily (heh), before the colors of my room begin swirling or bugs start crawling on my skin, Mojo joins my damn party. I get to name him now. After racking my brain for a good name, I finally stick with the default. Then, his nickname hits me — Jesus. I would go into why, but I’m scared of going to hell, so let’s just move on, okay?
I switch Gandy out of my party for Jesus, just to mix things up a little. Of course, Jesus’ stats suck, but he won’t be in my party for long. Okay, I’m just looking out for lightning bolts now. Leaving the worshipper to his personal crisis, Cronabe, Biotch, and Jesus head on over to Termina. They check in on the jiggling Miki, who whines about her concert being postponed due to Frank N. Furter’s mopey behavior. I guess leaving him out of the whole Viper Mansion infiltration made him pissy. Oh well.
Separated at birth?
After that pointless moment, Cronabe heads back to the cemetery. A professional wrestler, complete with mask, presides over a memorial service. Now, unlike our resident expert Sam, everything I know about wrestling comes from extremely old episodes from MadTV, so this guy is now El Asso Wipo. Unlike his namesake, however, El Asso Wipo recites what sounds like a Bible verse, complete with thees and thous. To up the tragedy of this scene, it’s a child that died (cue horrified gasps), and his or her parents weep over the funeral boat that presumably holds the body. I can’t really tell from the graphics. “My only wish was to drink with you when you have grown up…” the dead kid’s dad whines. Well, that’s…one reason to be sad, I guess. El Asso Wipo, undoubtedly disgusted by this man’s spotty grammar, gives his final words as he sets the boat adrift to disturb all the unsuspecting fishermen on the river.
While the parents remain there, El Asso Wipo talks out loud to himself about how torn apart he is and how much death sucks ass. Very comforting. “Ghetz, I have not yet seen the light, amigo,” he randomly says. As he mopes back to his hut, he spots Cronabe and the others standing there. “If you have a moment to spare, please give this wandering soul a small prayer to guide him on his path…” he entreats Cronabe. That’s not the least bit awkward for Cronabe, I’m sure. Although maybe Jesus could help the guy out.
‘…and try not to eat their brains.’
Anyway, I am dying to know El Asso Wipo’s tragic hinted-at backstory, so when he returns to his hut, Cronabe follows him inside. I like how the cheery town music begins to play while the grieving parents are still onscreen. Inside the hut, El Asso Wipo bitches about the dragoons. “What nerve do they have to call me an imposter, especially after they drag me all the way out to the valley!” Cronabe, putting two and two together, realizes that this guy is the actual exorcist that the Fossil Valley guards were expecting. He wisely keeps his mouth shut. More than normal, I mean. The little girl who presumably lives with El Asso Wipo (his daughter, I sincerely hope) just laughs the whole thing off. Crisis averted.
Cronabe changes the subject by giving El Asso Wipo his entire life story. I guess the habits of the townsfolk are rubbing off on him. Instead of going, “That’s nice. Bye!”, El Asso Wipo asks if he is “really a human who does not exist in this world…” This guy has an unfortunate tendency to spout a lot of philosophical and pretentious bullshit, much like your average LiveJournal user, and sure enough, he drones on and on about Cronabe’s predicament. Long story short — he wants to help, but he has to perform his duties at the cemetery.
Random Little Girl — named Romana — offers to take his place for a while. El Asso Wipo insists that she is too young. “The spirits are always looking for a chance to draw the living into the darkness!” he spouts dramatically. “But my brother, Ghetz, was able to save you from being drawn into the dark! He gave his life to help you!” Romana says in awkward detail for our benefit. At this, El Asso Wipo can only respond in surprised punctuation. Because of her relationship to Ghetz, Romana feels that she is equipped to handle the mean ghosts and zombies that will try to eat her brains. After all, Cronabe is more in danger of being pulled down, down into the darkness than she is, because he’s already dead in this world. Romana thinks that her dead brother would want El Asso Wipo to help Cronabe out, even though she just met the guy. The pungent smell of Plot Contrivance is in the air.
El Asso Wipo has a personal breakthrough at this moment. He feels guilty or something over Ghetz, so he lived as a hermit since that day. But not anymore! He’s going to face the world like a man! Or something like that. Anyway, we never really find out who the fuck Ghetz is, but this is VGR, so we’ll just assume that he was El Asso Wipo’s gay lover. It’s the obvious conclusion. I switch Jesus out for El Asso Wipo, fearing for my immortal soul. Hey, El Asso Wipo is buff and shit.