Chrono Cross is weird and confusing. Basically since Lavos exists in all times at once (or something), being killed in 1999 convinced it to simply assimilate Schala during the fall of Zeal in 12,000 BC and feed on her desire to either cease existing or make everything else cease to exist. Before it took her over though, she heard Serge in distress in 1010-ish AD and figuratively raised hell to interfere through time and save him. This cause a huge storm and error in 2400 AD which sent a Time research station into the stone age and created a reptite version of it, and uh... beyond that I"m not sure. Also kid works into Schala trying to save Serge somehow and is like an avatar of Schala or something. I don't know even the ending is ambiguous.


Anyways

One thing I've always waxed heavily on in games is the volatility of the dead, or thoroughly defeated. Being dead in games is like being a witch splashed with water: seconds later, there's nothing but a few puffs of steam. This makes sense purely from a game's standpoint since bodies add up, get taxing on the system, and generally are a little disturbing to all see laying around, but... if you were Mario, and you really were in the mushroom kingdom, would every flattened goomba's flesh start to rapidly evaporate in a matter of seconds?? Would there be tall wisps of steam everywhere you go from all the enemies you killed? Or are there just smeared corpses all over the place and some poor mushroom guy with a mop saying how much he hates his job?