Chrono Trigger/The Fated Hour

Chrono Trigger > Chapter 25: The Fated Hour(All Time Periods)

Introduction
Now that Crono's back in your party, welcome to the final portion of the game. You have unlimited access to space and time over all the periods you've visited, and if you haven't done so already you can clear out the first set of Sealed Chests easily enough. Saving Crono at death peak was more or less "his" sidequest, but you'll find out that every other character has one as well. If you talk to any character with Crono in your party they'll say some words of congratulations, and if you talk to any character whose sidequest hasn't been completed they'll inform you of it. And as always, if you say yes when asked to take a character into your party, it will play their theme music.

There are a few other sidequests/secrets you might consider doing however: as you know, you can compete for a poyozo doll, a clone, and a cat for 10, 40, and 80 points respectively. However, if you win a prize twice you can win some cat food to place in your cat's bin, giving you up to 15 cats which will show up in one of the endings. The other interesting thing is that you can win a Clone and a Poyozo doll of each character if you put them at the front of the party and play the games in Norstein Bekkler's lab. Each Clone will show several poses of that character and each Poyozo doll will play the main theme of that character, although Crono's, Marle's, and Lucca's seem to just be Marle's theme. The clone and Poyozo doll will show up at that character's "home." For each character:


 * Crono's clone and Poyozo doll will show up in his room at his house
 * Lucca's clone and Poyozo doll will show up in her room at Taban's house
 * Marle's clone and Poyozo doll will show up in her room at the castle.
 * Frog's clone and Poyozo doll will show up in his house at the cursed woods.
 * Robo's clone and Poyozo doll will show up in the Proto Dome where he joined your party in 2300 A.D.
 * Ayla's clone and Poyozo doll will show up in her hut in 65M B.C.
 * Magus's clone and Poyozo doll will show up in North Cape in 12,000 B.C.

In addition to completing all the sidequests, eventually you'll want to challenge the Black Omen for the most "complete" way to finish the game, and to activate the New Game +. The Black Omen shows up in 2300 A.D., 1000 A.D., 600 A.D., and 12,000 B.C. If you visit it in the future Zeal will show up and laugh at you since Lavos already drained the world's energy, and in any other year she'll tell you how long you have to go until Lavos destroys the world. You can actually fight your way through the Black Omen three times if you go through it in 1000 A.D., 600 A.D., and 12,000 B.C. in that order, although none of the bosses except for Zeal will reappear and you won't be able to get the chests or items more than once.

The first part of this chapter describes all the sidequests which you will want to complete, and the latter part describes how you should fight through the Black Omen.

Sidequests
The sidequests are arranged roughly in order of difficulty. The last three require some major boss fights and dungeons to get through, the first three are comparatively short and painless. If you were to arrange them in order of usefulness, Marle's quest, Lucca's quest, and Fiona's give you the best equipment at the end of them.

Ayla's Sidequest
Included solely for the sake of completeness, Ayla mentions that her village has a strong defensive item. First, head to the ruins of Laurba village and talk to the Nu. He'll rename your characters if you want, and give you a Silver Rock which activates the spin strike between Frog, Robo, and Ayla. The armor Ayla was bragging about was the Ruby Armor, which cuts fire hits by 80%, and offers better defense than any armor you'll have found so far. You'll need to trade 10 of each trading item to get it, which can be done if you hang around the Hunting Range long enough and fight a few Nus when it rains.

Lucca's Sidequest
This quest is particularly interesting because it crosses all time periods you'll have reached so far. You'll start out in 2300 A.D., and go to the sun palace. If you check your map by hitting select, the sun palace is the island at the bottom left of the map. Head inside and prepare to fight a boss, the Son of Sun. This will be a fairly gimmicky fight, you'll only want to attack the flames surrounding the Son of Sun and hope you hit the right one, since it will counterattack with Flare if you try to hit the center. The individual flames will also counterattack with fire if you hit the "wrong" one. My advice would be to equip the Red Mail to absorb fire, as many Ruby Armors as you bought, the Red Vest, and the Taban suit if you have Lucca and picked it up from Taban. If you hit the right flame, it will do damage to the center sphere, and keep attacking it until it shuffles, then try for another one. After you hit the correct flame enough times, the Son of Sun will lose its fire and turn into a moon stone. If you have fire resistant equipment this battle should be easy enough.

You'll need to leave it in direct sunlight for 65.0023 million years (Robo's estimated fraction is a bit off), so head to the sun keep in 65 Million B.C. You'll soon notice that one exists in each era at the northeast portion of the map, and it's a mysterious spot where the sun never sets. Head back to the future and it will be missing, and Magus will intuitively guess it's been missing for 1300 years. Head back to 600 A.D. while you're at it to find a Power Tab in the sun keep, and go back to the present. Head over to Poore at the southwest corner of the map, to find that the mayor's house is suspiciously glowing and he denies knowing anything about the moonstone. What'll you need to do is play with space and time to deal with his greed.

Buy some jerky from the nearby Snail Shop for 9900G and head back in time to 600 A.D. and go to the elder's house. You can sell it to her for 10000G and make a whopping 100G profit, or you can just give it to her to change the way she feels about generosity and sharing. Head back to the present after giving it to her, and the mayor will give you the moon stone for free. Put it back in the sun keep, and head to the future. Have Lucca examine it and you'll be able to harness its energy. You'll get the WonderShot, the ultimate weapon for Lucca although it's a wee bit unpredictable, and the Sun Shades, which raise your attack power although they'll later be replaced by the PrismSpecs. Also note that this quest is neccessary to get all the equipment at the end of Marle's quest involving the Rainbow shell.

Frog's Sidequest
This one involves visiting a continent you haven't been able to reach yet, and finishing off the last of the Sealed Chests. If you haven't already gotten the chests you can get outside of the northern ruins, you should do so right away. The continent you want to visit is in the southeast corner of the map. For starters, try going there in the present with Frog in your party, to meet a surly ghost who seems to recognize him. Supposedly the ghost can be damaged by non-elemental attacks such as Tails Spin or Poyozo Dance incidentally. Talk to the villagers to learn that the place has been in ruins for years, and head back into the past.

Now, head into the northern ruins, go down the left path, and you should clear out a few sets of monsters. Talk to everyone in town, and you'll find that the workers there can't repair the ruins since someone stole their tools. Head back to the present, talk to the worker at the bar to get permission to take his tools, then speak to his wife, and head back to the past with them and give them to the worker at the bar to start cleaning up the ruins.

A few general tips for cleaning up the ruins are that most of the monsters are only affected by magic, although non-elemental techniques such as Ayla's tail spin work, and sometimes they cast MP buster, to rest at the nearby inn in between attempts to clear it out. Also, don't pick up the chests just yet, wait until the very end. Anyway, after you give the tools to the worker go to his house and he'll begin cleaning up the ruins, but he'll stop each time when he can't repair the spots where the monsters still are. Use some of your best magic attackers and head down the right path to clear out another set of monsters. Talk to the workers at their house to pay 2000g to clear out another portion of the ruins. Have Frog examine the grave that you can now reach down the left side to view a scene between him and Cyrus, and the Masamune will power up into its ultimate form.

Pay the workers once more, and they'll repair the last section of the ruins so you can reach the rest of the items, although you'll have to fight off a few more monsters. What you want to do here, as explained in the Sealed Chests section, is to go to the ruins in 600 A.D. and select each sealed chest but decline to open it so the items will power up. Then you can go to the present to receive the powered up item, and you can also head back to the past to get the low-power item. In addition, you can get all the regular chests twice by opening them first in the present, then in the past. The Nova Armor will power up to become the Moon Armor, which raises magic defense by 10. The Siren will power up to become the Valkyrie, a more powerful weapon for Marle, and the Kali Blade will power up to become the Shiva Edge, a weapon for Crono which does 4x damage on critical attacks. Make sure you get the sealed and unsealed chests twice, and pick up a magic tab by Cyrus's grave in the present.

One last thing you can do with Frog now is to head to the Denadaro mountains with him, put him at the front of the party, and have him catch one of the rocks which the Free Lancers throw. It will turn out to be a Gold Rock, which invokes the Grand Dream triple tech when equipped on Frog.

Fiona's Sidequest
This is the one quest Gaspar mentions that isn't tied to a particular character, although special guest stars Lucca and Robo play a major role in this one.

Challenging Lavos
If you challenge Lavos during this chapter, you'll get The Main 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. Keep in mind however that you won't activate the New Game+ unless you battle all the way through the Black Omen and move on to the next chapter.

Continue to Chapter 25: The Fated Hour(All Time Periods)