Well, I've had this idea blooming in my mind and I've written it down after awhile. It's kind of like a "Past influences the future" thing. So basically in my idea I had something like this as an example:

The party rests at a lodge and finds that one of their party members falls ill. The lodge owner says that the illness can only be treated by a now extinct herb.

The lodge owner says that the wizard who used to brew the potions hasn't left his house on the other side of the forest for ages.

Party seeks a wizard who died of old age recently. They have the idea to travel to the past and try and approach him in his earlier years.

They go to the past, and find the wizard in his former time (with obvious terrain and area changes).

The wizard speaks to you, and tells you that he cannot to anything because he lacks a certian flower which is thought to never exist in this region.

You head back to the present and let's say, you head to the "Far East" and locate that specific flower. This region wasn't even heard of in the past era.

You travel back to the past and relocate the wizard. He is baffled at how you found it, but creates it into a herb anyway.

You travel back to the present with the herb and return to the area your companion fell ill. They recover and the optional quest is complete.

This influences say things like, Bazaar goods, or the chances he offers your assistance later in the game / story or a mini quest is flagged.


That, is a crude example of it but it is a base explanation.

Now for storyline terms, I have taken this idea into further use and used it as a neccisary part of the story. Whereas you go to the past by accident due to an enemy casting a spell on you. You are seperated from your party and you find yourself in an area you reknow well. But this time it is differently coloured, the monsters associated there are vastly more powerful. You find that the terrain (as rocks and caverns, which were blocked or removed in the present,) is now drastically changed and you have more access to the area. The music is also different and the atmosphere is just totally different.

Now I'm thinking of making this a mid to low priority, and rather I see it as a "mini expansion" for quests and missions. It only appears as a essential part of the game once, and after that the player can freely explore between eras whereas they please.

Obviously, there'll be new areas, and maybe some areas are inaccesible in the past. I'll probably elaborate more later.

So, any ideas?

Chrono Trigger fan perhaps? If not I recommend you give the series a look.

There was a mild inconsistency with your post (it sounded like the herb was extinct in both time periods?) but otherwise, yeah, multiple timeframes is a very fun idea, but'll require very indepth mapping of each before you start (You need to consider what would be in each period and then have quests based around that, rather than have the periods at the whim of each quest)

Edit: also might want to look at the Zelda games Oracle of Time and its partner Oracle of Seasons

Personally this strikes me as a very nice concept. Long have RPGs made use of a Chrono system, where the player can go into the past and alter the place they're in. Alternate dimensions have also had this influence as well.

Keeping it a small part of the game is difficult. Things like this tend to balloon into larger pieces of the game for whatever reason. Probably because they're very interesting plots and tools, and players prefer to see them expanded on.

As a matter of fact, I've never even played Chrono Trigger

But yeah. I prefer to make it a mid to low priority because I don't want the game to be majorly associated toward time travel. This is why I would rather keep it as an optional part of the game. But I would add parts of the storyline based on the past.

My idea for the past is that there is a storyline behind it which is optional. What I said in my last post was just a "hinted" idea. Not just for the pure whim and woe of an ironic item in the past and present. My idea was about the civil war and the discovery and struggle of a resistance. This is purely optional, but if complete, you uncover something say, valuable, and a worthwhile piece of information. Further exploration in the past allows you to access more areas which you could normally access in the present.


My idea of a past is several years ago, 30 years ago, was my idea, and time travel is rather more limited, where you must walk up to, say a "Maw Rift" which sucks you in by accident. You are put into the past of that area, and you can only access the present by re-approaching that Maw Rift. So for now, only that area alone you have access to.

To access other areas you need to explore more areas by walking to them manually forsay. And within those areas you need to locate a Maw Rift in those specific areas. Activating rifts in the past allows them to flow in the present, allowing you to access the past area of that specific location once activated from the past.

Areas such as towns and cities for example, play a major role in the storyline of the past. As you find out there is about to be a war between civilization and monster. I plan on it being set into the Mideval Era, so there are swords and shields ect. You have the option to join forces of a specific nation. (Which I would call a campaign battle for example.)

I also plan on making classes unlocked exclusively for accessing the past. Locating a city say, is a rough journey, but worth it, allowing you to trigger quests in that city. Some of those quests require you to travel outside the city agian, but you are able to teleport to areas you've activated by speaking to Allied Reunion Sappers at outposts in specific areas. The outposts serve as strongholds while monsters--or beasts, rather--try to take over them. Battles take place there and you try and fend them off, this is how you do your part as an Allied Campaign Soldier for example.

That's just an idea of what I'm going to try and achieve. I think the idea can succeed well with the right tracks set in motion.

yepp, well, the herbs and optional quest something really relates to the old Chrono Cross. But put the 'Home' and 'Alternate' instead of 'Past' and 'Present'..

I'm playing with a similar concept, actually. Although, instead of time travel, it's more interfacing between incarnations. Mainly focusing around two incarnations, through glimpsing past memories, or visions of the future, the player can obtain information to make changes in one era, that can affect the other era.

If this is played straight, it's kinda limited. I'd say tweak the idea a bit. For example, why is the herb not available for awhile? Because people have been going back in time before that, and getting samples for medical reasons before it can pollinate. They stopped doing it for awhile in that past, so it grew back in the present.