Chrono Trigger/The Final Battle

The Final Battle (1999 A.D. / ???)

If you take the time portal inside Lavos's shell after you defeat the outer portion in the Black Omen, you'll wind up back at the End of Time, where Gaspar will congratulate you on freeing Zeal. Also, all the villagers who previously commented on the Black Omen will now just talk about the weather instead. Depending upon which period you destroyed the Black Omen in, you may be able to go back and face it again, but all the bosses will be gone except for Zeal herself, and Lavos's outer shell will already be destroyed.

There's not much left at this point aside from fighting Lavos, although you can collect clones and Poyozo dolls for everyone except for Crono if you saved him from getting killed by Lavos in the Ocean Palace, as mentioned in the last chapter. Keep in mind however, that if this is your first time playing through the game after you beat Lavos, since you went through the Black Omen you'll be able to start a New Game+ carrying over all the old data from your game. A few special items don't carry over, and none of your money carries over, so if you want to save your cash you should probably spend it all on items you can sell. After you defeat Ozzie, Medina offers the best rates on items compared to their resale value. When you're ready, fly the Epoch into Lavos, take the bucket at the end of time, or go through another version of the Black Omen to confront Lavos again. The outer shell will have disappeared if you’ve gone through it before, but he has still two forms to go.

Lavos's Second Form
You'll have the same party for this and the next form, so here's what you need to keep in mind: you'll probably want a strong healer, I prefer someone like Frog or Robo who can heal the whole party although Marle does have Life 2, Cure 2, and Haste. Marle and Frog do have the double tech Double Cure which heals every character for their maximum health and status. You'll also need a strong physical attacker since one of Lavos's forms can only be damaged by physical strikes, Ayla's Triple Kick, Crono's Confuse, and Robo's Uzzi Punch are all decent choices. However, the best way to deal damage by far is powerful triple techs or single techs such as Dark Matter, Luminaire, or Flare. Choose your party however you like, if you're going for all the endings you'll probably end up doing this with every conceivable combination anyway, just make sure you equip the best equipment and have status protection. One last comment is that since a New Game+ is based upon the contents of your save file when you save, there's absolutely no reason not to use all the Megalixers and Elixirs that you want, since this is the point of no return.

This form has three parts, Lavos' left arm, right arm, and body. The body will have too high defense to damage at first, so just use your most powerful magic attacks to damage the left and right arms. The left arm will probably die first, then the right arm, and the body will remove its defense when it casts obstacle. Heal as necessary, its attacks may do in the 500 range in the best case, and keep wearing it down, it'll break apart eventually.

Lavos's Final Form
Another cutscene takes place with dialogue to and from certain characters. You'll now start battling Lavos's final form, a humanoid, surrounded by two bits.

Once you've destroyed the bit, Lavos will die, the time portal around him will shatter, and you'll see a silhouette of the left bit appear just for a second as you fade away (suggesting it may have survived). Now sit back and enjoy the ending!

After the credits, you have two options to wrap up the game. Check out the endings if you want to see other end results, or get ready to start a New Game + (which may be necessary to reach those endings).

Challenging Lavos
If you challenge Lavos during this chapter, you should get The Main Ending, although you may be able to reach this chapter without Crono as well, in which case you would get The Reunion Ending. There are several variations depending on whether or not you crashed the Epoch into Lavos, spared Magus, and a few minor ones depending on how you completed Fiona's sidequest and how many cats you have. The basic theme of the ending is that Crono and company get honored for their work in saving the past, and have a farewell party. You should also have activated the New Game+ by finishing the game in this chapter, so you can now restart your game with ridiculously powerful characters and try for some of the other endings.