Chrono Trigger/Endings

Chrono Trigger > Endings and how to obtain them

The ending you receive after you beat Lavos depends upon what point in the game you are at, or what the save file reads when you save your game. If you challenge Lavos after Crono's death and the black omen's rising, the ending will depend upon three factors: whether or not you saved Crono, whether or not you spared Magus, and whether or not you lost the Epoch by ramming it into Lavos, thus allowing for eight variations total. A couple "mini-endings" can also be seen by losing to Lavos in a normal fight with him or losing to Magus.

There are basically four ways to challenge Lavos:


 * At the millenial fair, press "A" on the right Telepad in a New Game +, where you see the sparkle. This is neccessary if you want the Progammer's Ending at the start of the game or the Frog Ending. It's also the easiest way to obtain most of the endings since you will skip directly to Lavos's first form.
 * At the end of time, go into the bucket to travel to the day of Lavos in 1999 A.D. and tell your party you're ready to fight Lavos. This is neccessary only for the Nu Ending, and you will have to battle through all of Lavos's "pre-forms" before you fight his first body.
 * When the Epoch is able to fly, take it to 1999 A.D. and choose to ram it into Lavos. You'll destroy his first form and skip directly past the outer shell. This is neccessary for any of the main variations without the Epoch.
 * Fight your way through Zeal Palace and fight Lavos's outer shell after defeating Zeal. You will find a time gate on the inside which will take you back to the end of time in case you want to do some more questing. I believe fighting through the Ocean Palace may be neccessary to activate the New Game +. You will also have to fight through all of Lavos's forms with this method.

The one other fight with Lavos you can get into is the one you're expected to lose, when Zeal commands Lavos to attack you when you reach the end of the Ocean Palace and before Crono dies. Lavos will be much stronger than normal and unless you're in a New Game + you'll likely have no protection against chaos or other status ailments. After you defeat the first form however, the rest of the battles proceed as usual.

For information on fighting Lavos, see Bosses. In general it's best to wait until the New Game + to try for the endings so you can have some of the best equipment in the game, it would require an incredible amount of levelling up without it. The best way to challenge Lavos to get one of the endings is normally through the right gate at the millenial fair.

The Lavos Ending
A few of us might be unlucky enough to see this one accidentally. Simply challenge Lavos at any point and die against him. You'll see a more detailed version of the scene in 2300 A.D., and Lavos will arise from the earth, and you'll see the grim line "but the future refused to change" at the end.

Another "Lavos" Ending
If you lose to Magus in the battle against him in his castle, he will turn around and raise his arms, and you will begin to hear Lavos make his trademark scream. It can probably be inferred from this that without your interference Magus would have summoned Lavos to challenge him, and probably lost the battle.

Another side note, these two battles are the only ones I know of that trigger special endings, although you can also lose the first battle against the Golem which will similarly lead to you getting trapped by Zeal.

The Programmer's Ending
Save File when you challenge Lavos should read: The Millenial Fair.

There are actually two ways to get this ending, which are the two toughest ways to fight Lavos. You can either beat him at the first Ocean Palace fight before Crono dies, in which you're expected to lose, or you can challenge him at the very beginning of the game. If you choose the Ocean Palace route just make sure you have your best equipment since the first fight will be harder than usual, but the last fights are the same as normal. If you choose to fight Lavos at the beginning of the game, you can do it with or without Marle depending upon whether you enter the right Telepod right away or whether you try out the Telepod first and do it with Crono alone. You can fight Lavos with Crono alone if you want, but there's no real reason not to take Marle, so you might as well. Hopefully you're at a high enough level where this is a piece of cake. You'll get to talk to the programmers in the coolest exposition of a credit sequence ever, then be treated to a rapid fire scroll of the credits to complement your breezing through the game.

The Frog Ending
Save file when you challenge Lavos should read: We're Back!.

Challenge Lavos using the Telepod as soon as you come back from 600 A.D. for the first time. You'll only have Marle and Crono in your party unfortunately, so make the best of it. You'll pop out of the Telepod again only to find out you changed history in a bit of a froggy way.

The Nu Ending
Use the bucket at the end of time when you first get there, and before fighting Heckran and making your way back to the fair. You'll watch a lot of random scenes involving a Nu and a Ribbit. All things begin and end with Nu, don't they?

The Tata/Legendary Hero Ending
Beat the game during your second trip to 600 A.D., while everyone still thinks Tata is the hero, and before he gives you the hero medal. Tata will go to Magus's castle to challenge him and find some unusual company.

The Unknown Past Ending
Beat Lavos after you get the hero medal and before visiting 65M B.C. for the first time to get the dreamstone. You'll see a bunch of scenes showing the villagers in 65M B.C. to show what you missed out on, and a few other random things with the characters.

People of the Times Ending
Beat Lavos after you return from your first trip to 65M B.C. with the gate key and before repairing the masamune and giving it to Frog. Again, more random scenes involving characters from the game.

The Frog vs Magus Ending
Beat Lavos after giving the Masamune back to Frog and having him join your party, but before confronting Magus. You'll start out at Lucca's house with her fixing Robo, and Frog will go to Magus's castle to take care of some unfinished business. He'll go through each of Magus's henchmen in turn, with a final battle with Magus taking place over the credits. And the winner? Open for interpretation in my opinion.

The Reptite Ending
Beat Lavos after you defeat Magus but before you go with Ayla to fight the reptites. The past will have been changed so that the reptites won the battle with the humans thanks to your lack of help, and all the characters are reptites, except for the green jogger oddly enough who's a human now.

The Prophet Ending
Beat Lavos after defeating Azala and after opening up the path to 12000 B.C. A few scenes will take place involving Magus disguised as the prophet, implying that he would get his chance to do what he wanted in 12000 B.C. without your interference.

The SlideShow ending
Better known as the ending which proves Crono isn't a mute. That's right folks, he talks. Beat Lavos after Schala opens up the door to the black omen but before charging up your own pendant. Marle and Lucca will put on a slideshow and discuss the men of Chrono Trigger.

The Main Ending
You'll see some variation of this ending if you choose to fight Lavos after you complete the Zeal quest and have the magic kingdom crash into the ground. This also allows you a chance to do all the sidequests to get some equipment up to the challenge of fighting Lavos. The ending you get will depend upon three factors: whether or not you saved Crono, whether or not you spared Magus, and whether or not you rammed the Epoch into Lavos in 1999 A.D.

If you killed Magus, Frog will be in human form during the ending, and he may actually talk to the party depending upon the variation. If you spared Magus, Frog will still be a Frog but Magus will have a small role to play.

If you saved Crono, the ending will begin with him waking up and going through another mock trial sequence since his stay of execution is over. If you didn't save Crono, the ending will revolve around Marle or someone else going to rescue Crono at Death Peak. There are also some slight variations depending upon whether or not you already got a clone or the chrono trigger.

If you rammed the Epoch into Lavos, a few things can happen such as Lucca inventing another form of time travel, or Marle and Crono just floating off into the clouds. If you didn't ram the Epoch into Lavos you'll probably fly off with it during the ending, and Crono's mom may run into the last time gate with all the cats Crono owned. (another minor variation depending on how many cats you had)

The easiest way to get this ending is to ram the Epoch into Lavos if your ending requires it by flying it to 1999 A.D., or taking the right Telepod at the fair as usual. The following is a more detailed description of each version of the ending. One last variation which is common to each version is that if you saved Lucca's mother Lara, she will be standing up in good health during the final scenes when you walk around the fairgrounds.

Without Magus, Without Crono, without Epoch
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