More Chrono Cross characters

[10.17.99] » Ayla's daughter may be one of ten new characters joining the cast.

   With exactly one month to go until Chrono Cross's release, Square unveiled the next batch of character designs. This batch is particularly odd; four of the characters appear to be under the age of 6 and another one is a normally inanimate object. Without further ado, the new party members are:

• Orlha, an Amazonian female warrior. She looks almost identical to Seiken Densetsu 3's Riesz; Chrono Cross character designer Nobuteru Yuki drew the characters for that game too. (Unlike Riesz, however, Orlha fights with her fists instead of a weapon.)
• Lucky Dan, the first of many truly bizarre characters in the list. Picture a naked scarecrow with no head and a big smiley face painted on the top of his torso. Now stick three candles in that scarecrow's head and give him a necklace with a flashlight attached, and you've got Lucky Dan. Apparently he likes to dance, too.
• Farga, a fairly generic fighter-type character. He has black clothing and wears a red bandanna, but his most distinguishing features are probably the hawk tattoo on his left shoulder and his long black mustache. His weapon appears to be a spear.
• Bancliff, a scholarly fellow with blue hair and glasses. Expect him to be more of a magic-user.
• Ishito, a gunfighter whose face bears a stark similarity to that of Resident Evil 2's Leon Kennedy. For clothing, Ishito wears a blue uniform, a black military jacket, and a Squall-style pair of brown belts.
• Leea, who is very likely the daughter of Chrono Trigger's Ayla. Her hair and eyes are identical to Ayla's; on the other hand, Leea does carry a weapon (an axe) and wears a blue crystal pendant.
• Steena, another female magic-user. Her grayish-blue hair and clothing style make her almost identical to Suikoden's Jeane. Steena does fight, however; her weapon in battle is a staff.
• Dragon Child, whose name describes him well -- he's an adorable little yellow baby dragon. His skin has blue stripes and he has purple eyes.
• Star Child, best described as a Teletubby with a really big head. Underneath his massive blue cranium, he wears a red and white costume. Star Child also rides around in a UFO; based on this and his name, we're betting he's from another planet.
• Fio, the weirdest of the new characters. Fio is best described as a baby version of Breath of Fire II's plant-man Spar; flowers and other shrubbery grow out of her head and she has a sunflower-shaped necklace. In place of arms, she has long blades of grass; this sharp foliage is also her weapon.

   Artwork and screenshots of this motley crew are also available.

   When these newcomers are combined with the previous 8 characters, 18 party members are now known to the public. Square still maintains that a total of 40 playable characters are in Chrono Cross, so expect the final game to feature plenty more flaming scarecrows, super-deformed midget aliens, and other freaks of nature.