Special Review: Chrono Cross

Chrono Cross is the Sequel to Chrono Trigger-And some sequels do tend to be pretty great, but some sequels tend to be very overhyped *Cough*Final Fantasy X-2*Cough*. Chrono Cross, in my opinion, is one of the sequels that are overhyped-I mean, just go to Lamefaqs-Err I mean Gamefaqs and look at all those 10's. I, like Jay, Disliked Chrono Cross. I didn't hate it, I was just disinterested and disappointed, because for being the sequel to the best SNES RPG besides Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling together and Final Fantasy IV and III. Well, I have been a bit mean on Chrono Cross (So I gave it a fairer score, because I had submitted a gamefaqs review when back when I even bothered to send actual reviews to gamefaqs giving it a 2 out of 10 but it didn't get added) and that might be because It's the sequel to Chrono Trigger-But even if it were the first game I still wouldn't have liked it.


The graphics of Chrono Cross are hands-down simply some of the best on the playstation. The FMVs are simply beautiful-They're about as high quality as the FMV's in Shining the Holy Ark and Final Fantasy 7 (Which had some damn good FMVs!). Granted, the graphics here may not be the best on the playstation, but they're pretty damn close!

The storyline...Well, I never really got it. Sure, alot of people defending Chrono Cross say "You have to play it twice to really get it". If I had the nerve, I probably would, but I just won't replay it-Not because I loathed it, but I'm just, well, disinterested. I'm not bored, excited, or angry, I'm just disinterested. I'm sorry but I can't really explain what I get about the plot except for that Serge found another dimension which is just like the other world except he doesn't exist there (Bummer) but parts I did understand were that they were trying to free Schala. So you can see, it pretty much answered a question Chrono Trigger left us-What happened to Schala? If you can get the storyline, you'll probably love it but If you didn't get the storyline, then you'll probably hate it. I didn't get the storyline, and I'm just not interested.

Character development is at an all time low. There are like 44 or whatever characters in the game (I don't know exactly how many, but it's around that number) and yet only 4 of them are developed, Serge, Kidd, Lynx and Harle. I really wish they wouldn't focus soley on them, and when you don't have Serge, Kidd, Lynx, or Harle in your party, the only thing you hear is annoying accents.


The first thing you'll notice about the gameplay is that you can run from every battle-Even boss battles. That's one of the pros in my opinion because if your party is too weak to handle a boss because you picked the wrong combination of Serge's Army, you can just run away and go back with better characters. The attacking system is kinda fun, because you can attack 3-4 times a round and that can really help during the Dragon God battles. Magic is simply one of the WORST parts of the game and it simply bugs the hell outta me-You have to junction magic, which was the biggest drawback of Final Fantasy 8 besides *****noa-I mean Rinoa's attitude. And best of all-there's no auto junctioning, leaving you to do the annoying process yourself. And those element levels were pretty annoying too. I just wanted to scream.

Now the Music....Oh man, how could I have forgotten this in the past? Some games have like 1 or 2 themes that are awesome and you'll want to listen to them over and over again, such as in Kingdom Hearts, Shrouding Dark Cloud and Keyhole boss (Like Opposite armour) were my favourites and in Final Fantasy 7, my favourites were the battle theme and the famous One Winged Angel. Chrono Cross has like 20 themes that are very well put together. My all-time-Chrono-Cross-Favourite is the Dragon God battle theme. Where Chrono Trigger had World Revolution, Chrono Cross had The Dragon-God battle theme. The music is good, but not good enough to play the game for-Buy the soundtrack.

I don't really have a gripe about the controls-The characters respond pretty well and don't lag a few seconds but that's not really much of a problem anymore.

Chrono Cross does indeed have a bit of replay value-How's getting all 10+ endings and recruiting all members of Serge's Army sound? It can keep you occupied for a while if you want, but I don't really have any intention of replaying it again.

And let's not forget one of the biggest drawbacks:

LLLLLLLUUUUUUUUCCCCAAAAA!!!!

-Jay


God I hate when they kill off or have bad misfortunes happen to great characters in video games. Chrono Cross is no exception with Lucca. That is almost always a drawback when they kill off of have bad misfortunes happen to the best characters in games, like in Tactics Ogre, when they kill off Rictor in Path A is a downside. Oh, and

GGGGGGGAAAATTTTTOOOOOO!!!!

-Carter


Overall, I have been a bit hard on Chrono Cross, so I gave it a fairer score. I have no intention of playing the game again because I just can't get into it again. Yeah, you either like Chrono Cross or you hate it. I'm one of those who thought it was pretty bad. 5.65/10


(Commence the flaming now Bolt)

... :resses the Summon Bolt button::


Where are these lemmings going? The Super Nintendo Super Shire! Hop in line and follow them there!

And to think, the readers at EGM got mad at a reviewer when he "only" gave that game a 9.5, costing it a perfect score.

-The Mighty Sharpedo