Chrono Cross Review

Chrono Cross is the sequel to Chrono Trigger. But, in a way, it’s almost a Chrono Trigger Gaiden kind of thing. Ya know? And we all know that “gaiden” means side story. It’s hard to have a sequel when it takes place inside the time line of the original game, ya know?

Serge is tasked by this girl in town he knows with getting her some bits and bobs to make a necklace. He ends of being pulled into an alternate dimension. Like you do.

In this strange new world it turns out that Serge died years ago. He meets a strange and very poorly dressed woman named Kid who is looking for a man (well, a demi human) named Lynx. They’ve got some history. Lynx is looking for Serge. It’s a whole love triangle gone wrong thing.

It would takes ages to get into the workings of this games plot because there’s a lot to it so I’ll sum up a little bit.

Serge having died left a void in this dimension. Lynx needs Serge to get inside some ruins where a power to change time and dimensions exists. Serge and his crew would really not appreciate that. So they’re trying to prevent this from happening.

There’s dimensional travel, there’s dungeons, puzzles, towns and cities, there’s delivery quests, secrets, and a TON of characters to be recruited. Literally there’s like 40 of em. You can’t get them all in a single playthrough through. There’s a couple of times where you have to make a decision that will take you down a path you cannot turn back down. Those paths will lock you into and out of certain characters. If you want to get 100% of the characters, you’re going to have to play the game 3 times.

There are references to Chrono Trigger all over the place, which is totally fine, because this game take places sometime after the events of Chrono Trigger (The 1000 AD era). Some things have… happened. Maybe not the best of things.

Inside battle is where the fun begins. Unlike Chrono Trigger, Cross here, takes a slightly different approach. Instead of a single action per turn, your characters have a stamina bar and three levels of physical attacks. The stronger the attack, the more damage but the more likely it is to miss. So you’re encouraged to build up your attacks with weak and medium attacks.

Each successful hit will build up your MP bar one level. Each level lets you cast a spell or use an ability equal to or lower than that level.

Magic in this game works different too. First of all, it’s called Elements. Each character has an innate element that they’re affiliated with. But unlike Trigger which had Fire, Water, Shadow, etc., Cross just has colors. Red, white, blue, green, etc. Now each color is kind of specific to an element (in the traditional sense), but they aren’t refereed to in game by those elements. It’s colors.

Your element grid, usually, is built in the form of a right pointing arrow. Kind of like this >. You have a lot of slots in the lower levels and few in the higher levels. You can customize the elements to your liking but it’s generally a good idea to avoid having opposing elements in your grid. So a Blue character is going to be great with Blue, ok with green, yellow, white, and black, and terrible with red. Doesn’t mean you can’t use red, just it won’t be very effective.

Not every character has that triangle shaped grid though. The more magic focused characters may have a grid that looks like this < instead. Fewer low level spells but room for more high level spells. And physical characters may have a grid that looks more like = this. No real room for growth.

I should also mention that inside your grids each character has three spaces for specific abilities that are unique to them. If we’re thinking in terms of Trigger, which like Chrono’s Cyclone or Ayla’s Dino Tail. Abilities that are unique and specific to that character that you cannot remove from their grids.

And another thing. All those double and triple techs? There’s maybe 6 here total. That’s not a lot, I get it. And they were such a big part of Trigger. But think about this. Trigger had 6 characters. This game have more than 6 times that many. It would have been a monumental task to include double and triple techs for every pairing and grouping.

Anyway. Combat decent but gets a little boring. But I do like the stamina and element system. I don’t really like games that just let you cast Ultima in round 1 of every encounter. I think that’s REALLY boring. Make me play the game, ya know? Don’t give me a “Push To Win” button.

Graphically the game is one of the best looking PS1 games that I think I’ve played. It has very good character models, some really gorgeous background, and some of the enemy designs are outright disturbing. It’s fantastic. Weapons all look cool and the spell animations are great. There are a few FMVs in the game and they’re also gorgeous and the opening cinematic is one of my favorite in all of games.

The music in the game is excellent. They really hit it out of the park on this one. There aren’t really tracks you’d recognize from Trigger (not completely anyway), but they all still FEEL like they exist in that universe. Know what I mean? The vibe check in complete and the game passes.

The game takes place in a more tropical island area instead of all across the world like Trigger and the graphics and music really work with that very well. There are also different versions of the music depending on the dimension you are in. The world music, the town music, it all so very good.

The game also features one of the most heartbreaking pieces of music in all of video games. The Star Stealing Girl. It’s so amazingly good. Baten Kaitos Origins also features a track that I’d put in the same group. There, it’s called Le Ali del Principio and… oof… just thinking about the two of these. My heart. It hurts.

……….

Sorry. Had to take a minute there and listen to both of those back to back several times.

I think I’m ok now.

So. Look. I know a lot of people don’t like this game because it’s not Chrono Trigger Part 2. But it’s not supposed to be. It’s supposed to be Chrono Cross. Once you realize that this isn’t a continuation of Chrono Trigger I think you can appreciate it for how good it really is.

Chrono isn’t here anymore. Lucca isn’t. Marle isn’t. Frog isn’t, he’s been dead for hundreds of years. Ayla for millions. Robo doesn’t even exist yet. They’re gone, and you’ve got to let them go if you’re going to move on. And I think at the end of it all, that’s really a big part of what this game is trying to teach you. Nothing lasts forever. Even if you can go back and change the past it’s not going to matter.

It’s a hard lesson to learn, but it’s an important one.