The Zodiac Trilogy (Discontinued)

The Zodiac Trilogy was a series of three installments. The initial concept was to further the immersive story of time travel, eras and primordial history. Due to IP restriction of the title and characters from the *Final Fantasy*and *Chrono series*, it was decided not to make the game from scratch through open-engine.

**☀The Zodiac trilogy is a discontinued project that's been rebooted, baring the name only as an allusion.**

## The Original Project

### *Final Fantasy: Crimson Echoes*

Originally, the first game would include Terra, Rydia and Nyx as playable characters. It would have a theme centered around time travel and the only playable characters would have been these three. Many new locations where to be created for this game, which were all scraped. They have been alluded in the current project, *Chrono Trigger: The Zodiac Era.* The scraped locations were:

* *Mojave Desert*
* *Palace of Lumière (Name would later become "The Sun")*
* *Tomb of Fenrir*
* *Darkness Sanctuary (Location of the nethicite).*
* *Passage of the Yardang*
* *Leviathan's Lair (Palace of Leviathan)*
* *Shrine of Atomos*
* *Realm of the Undying*

Three concepts areas that would later become the Mansion of Illusion, 2300 Mist Cave, and Insomnia Mines/Void Beyond Time would act as the point of no return leading to the final conflict against a Lavos Spawn, before subsequently ending on a cliff hanger. Nyx's Shadow would have been foreshadowed, but not further developed on. In the current project, Mansion of Illusion was kept as an allude to *Final Fantasy VI,* Owzer Mansion and the earlier development of the project before the shift. The Mist Cave was kept for Rydia, and Insomnia Mines would be the sole playable location in the sub-scenario, Veracity Kingsglaive Unveils.

### *Chrono Trigger: Age of Omen*

The second game would have deviated away from the three characters, Terra, Rydia and Nyx and focus solely on all Chrono Trigger characters three years after the canon ending of Chrono Trigger. Remaking nearly all of the original environments, unlike the Dimensional Vortex-specific locations from the *DS version* of *Chrono Trigger,* as in the current project. The plot of Age of Omen was later altered and developed in to *Final Fantasy IX: Ascension,* when the project took the dramatic shift, starting with the plot taking place three years after the events of an ending. The scenario of Age of Omen would go on be the story of Edge and his search for Rydia following the events of Veracity Kingsglaive Unveils.

### *Chrono Trigger: The Zodiac Era*

Before its latter incarnations, the final game would have taken focus after the initial antagonist, King Zeal banished the party to the era of 500 B.C. A similar event was included in Veracity Kingsglaive Unveils, when Carrière falls onto the Haulo Green from the time gate.The scenario would later follow similar to Crimson Echoes. When the project shifted, this would become the scenario of *"Radical Dreamers: The Zodiac Era".*

## The Current Project

The current project, baring the name only as an allusion, has been rebooted***.*** Each game in the trilogy has been re-released as separate entities, with their lore no longer connecting to each other. Veracity Kingsglaive Unveils has also been rebooted.

## Reboot

On January 1st, 2021, Cronos announced the official reboot of the project series, with Mr. Branford*,* re-releasing all of his previous projects as standalone mods. The re-releases are to fix bugs, introduce improvements and revisions to lore to stay consistent and unreliant on another entries; retaining potentialities as allusions rather canon. The rebooted project resides with a new team at Chrono Compendium. A new version of Zodiac Engine was also announced. Dubbed *Zodiac Engine 3.0,* where a playable Nyx was seen in the latest update to Zodiac Engine 3.0 by Vicodeen. There is no word currently on the state of Veracity Kingsglaive Unveils, or if Nyx will be included in the final product of the reboot project.

## Development Team

The main development team of the trilogy consisted of:

* *Team Zodiac*
* *Mr. Branford (original scenario writer)*
* *Cronos (Current project leader and scenario writer)*