This is a guide for the final boss battle against the Time Devourer (True Form) in Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition.
During your first playthrough, after the events of Terra Tower, you’ll obtain the Time Egg. With this, you can fight the final boss. Return to Opassa Beach, where it all began: specifically the Home World version. You’ll find three children standing in a triangle.
Once you’ve listened to their lengthy info dump or otherwise, step near the dark, glowing spot in-between the children and use the Time Egg via the key items menu. This will zap you straight to the final boss battle.
Final Boss: Time Devourer (True Form)¶
Despite being the final boss, the Time Devourer is nothing special. If anything, it’s a massive step down from the non-awakened version that you fought atop Terra Tower. That said, sit tight and get ready for a long fight, since you’ve got 10,000 HP to whittle down.
Similar to its previous incarnation, the awakened Time Devourer will attack by casting Elements, including the extremely powerful Omega versions. At the start, it will solely use Green Elements. Eventually, it’ll start using Elements that follow the harmonic sequence: Yellow, Red, Green, Blue, Black and White.
There are two ways to defeat the Time Devourer.
Easy Way to Beat the Time Devourer¶
First, if you have the Chrono Cross Element, you can instantly defeat the Time Devourer in as little as 7 Element casts.
To begin with, allocate the Chrono Cross to Serge’s Element Grid, in the Level 1 position. This will make it easier to cast. Next, allocate Level 1 Elements of all 6 colors for all 3 party members. The Turn Color Elements are a good pick.
What you must do is cast Elements so the order of colors is Yellow, Red, Green, Blue, Black and White. After performing this sequence, when you cast Chrono Cross, it will one-shot the final boss. But there’s a problem: any Elements casted by the boss will affect the chain–and typically break it. Thankfully, there’s an easy solution to get around this.
When the battle begins, Defend until your Elemental Power Level is at least 3 for Serge and at least 2 for the others. At this time, you may get blasted by an Omega Green. Consider equipping the Green Plate armor on a character liable to take heavy damage. Once your Elemental Power Level is high enough, Defend until the Time Devourer casts its next Element.
After this, have Serge cast a Level 1 Yellow Element. Then have your other two characters cast Red, then Green. From here, it shouldn’t be the Time Devourer’s turn yet. Next, have Serge cast a Level 1 Blue Element. Then quickly cast Black, followed by White with your remaining characters.
At this point, it should still be your turn. Make Serge cast Chrono Cross and, provided you adhered to the sequence, the battle should end.
As mentioned, you’ll progress to the Good Ending.
Normal Way to Beat the Time Devourer¶
The other way to fight the Time Devourer is to attack it normally, until you deplete its massive 10,000 HP.
During your first playthrough, we don’t recommend doing this. The sole exception is if you intend to collect all the trophies/achievements. In which case, do this to obtain the Bad Ending while it still has 10,000 HP.
Defeating the Time Devourer normally isn’t that hard, but can be pretty boring. Especially if you’re gunning for multiple endings. Although, if you have the Green Plate armor, stolen from the Green Dragon, you can greatly speed things up.
First, keep a save file after obtaining the Green Plate and Chrono Cross, but before fighting the Time Devourer. Beat the Time Devourer using the above method (to get the Good Ending) and, when prompted, save your game in a different slot.
Load the newly created cleared save file and Continue Plus onto the save file with a Green Plate and the Chrono Cross. You’ll carry over all your Growth stars, most of your gear and Essences, including the Green Plate. However, this save file already has a Green Plate. So now you have two!
Return to Opassa Beach (any world) and use the Time Egg to fight the Time Devourer again. Like before, beat it with the above method (using the Chrono Cross). Watch the ending and save over the previous cleared save file (not the Green Plate/Chrono Cross save!). Load the cleared save file and, guess what? Continue Plus to the Green Plate/Chrono Cross save. Ta-da, you now have 3 Green Plates.
Now you can fight the Time Devourer “normally”. Equip your 3 party members with a Green Plate each, Rainbow weapons (or the Mastermune for Serge/Twin Einlanzers for Glenn) and any nice accessories you have (the Power Seal is nice for boosting your damage). Oh, you may want accessories to nullify sprain and maybe poison.
Start the battle and turn on auto-battle, then casually watch the screen. Since the Time Devourer only uses Green Elements for half the fight, you’ll take no damage during that time. When you see the Time Devourer use a Yellow Element (or anything that’s not Green), turn off auto-battle. If you’re strong enough, you could probably heal up, cast Diminish and then re-enable auto-battle, occasionally healing where necessary.
If you don’t have the Green Plate and/or it’s not convenient to get one, stock up on healing Elements like Recover All, Heal All, Cure All, etc. Plus Elements that boost your damage, such as Strengthen and Eagle Eye. Finally, allocate a couple of Diminish if you’re concerned about taking damage or if you’re lazy.
We suggest casting Diminish to defang the Time Devourer, then go ham with standard attacks boosted by Strengthen and/or Eagle Eye. You could even use Vigora to prevent stamina depletion for a while, allowing you to pull off multiple 99% accuracy fierce attacks. This can be rather tedious since the Time Devourer has so much HP, but, hey, it works.
Otherwise, if you’re confident or daring, you should be able to get by without Diminish, so long as you regularly heal up. Without Diminish, you can use powerful Techs, Summons and other high Level Elements at their full potential. For easy summoning, be sure to allocate the Color Field Elements (eg. Red Field) obtained from Terra Tower; these don’t exist for Black and White though.
After felling the Time Devourer without the Chrono Cross, if you fought it after Terra Tower, you’ll progress to the (crappy) Bad Ending. Otherwise, if you defeat it earlier (by using the Time Egg on a New Game Plus or Continue Plus save), you can unlock a variety of alternate endings.
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