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Kind of a shame this ended like it did, because Temporal Flux is hands down one of the most competent game-specific tools I've ever used.

It's extremely easy to get into without much use of the already very detailed manual, contains just about everything you could possibly need (between what's already there and plugins) outside of ASM, and is gloriously stable with changing things you already changed. This is just plain perfect for ripping holes in space-time.

Hey, if you happen to be outside of Windows this works pretty well on Wine, the only winetricks needed are corefonts and dotnet20. Just make sure to run it in virtual desktop mode!

So you want to make a Chrono Trigger ROM hack but aren't sure where to start? Maybe you want to fix something that seems broken in an existing hack. Or maybe you want to change some lines of dialogue? How about altering the world map a little, or adding new exits to an existing map? Do you want to change some of the events? Or maybe you'd like to try your hand at creating all new ones?

Well you're in luck... because this editor right here, Temporal Flux, can do all these things and more. Right out of the box, no less! I'll give you an example of what the editor can do: Recently, I decided to merge two ROM hacks together - Level Zero and Retranslation - together. The two mix very well... but I noticed merging the hacks like I did broke how chest content displayed. I also noticed that Retranslation had some odd spacing problems. Both of these were fixed very quickly after one session in Temporal Flux. However, as I explored the program a bit more, I began to notice just how powerful it is. Soon, every item in the game was renamed and had flavor text where there previously was none. Techniques and enemies got their names revised and dialog which broke through windows was amended to fit properly. After I saved, I was thrilled! The hack had been fixed. For some reason though, I wasn't satisfied...

Soon, I began to look around the map editor. All I wanted to do was add a back door to a specific map and its adjoining world map location. At first, it seemed very confusing. After examining the various map options and windows, I succeeded. But I still wasn't satisfied. The story event for that map didn't work correctly if you entered from the back door... so I ventured into the event editor. Once again, things looked extremely intimidating and confusing. There were events and call functions as far as the eye could see! Once I really looked through the events however, I started to understand things better. Bit by bit, I made the secondary event trigger work with the story event. After some time, I had a perfectly functional trigger for the event.

The more I used Temporal Flux, the more I realized just what it was capable of. I could make the NPCs sing and dance... or say whatever I wanted them to. I could rename everything in the game, move mountains and islands, destroy locations, build new ones... I could create warps to places where Crono and company should never go or summon Lavos right there in Leene Square. I could do anything. I. Wanted. To this game... ... so naturally, I coded the piano-playing fellow in Porre play more songs.

It goes without saying that Temporal Flux makes modifying Chrono Trigger nearly effortless. If you have some patience and a determination to change things, you will more than likely figure out all the ins and outs of this thing pretty quickly. And in doing so, you will have the power to change everything about this beloved Squaresoft RPG. ... well, almost everything. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this, Temporal Flux still lacks a few features that would make it entirely perfect. As far as I'm aware, there's no way to edit the stats of items, characters, or enemies. There's no way to import music data, either. (I really want some of the song data from the pre-release in my hack...) Someone has made a plugin for modifying Techniques, called "Hi-Tech"... but it's still very much in beta and a tad bit on the buggy side... but that's definitely a boon. There's also no way to conveniently edit actual level geometry through Temporal Flux, despite the fact you can modify existing maps and make brand new ones.

So... whether you just want to make Magus say "butt" a lot, or make the entire playable cast dance to "Jolly Ol' Spekkio" at the End of Time, this program should be right up your alley! This editor has been an amazing piece of software and I would highly recommend it to anyone.