You know, Chrono Cross really DID suck.

I think I really need to play this game again. Because I'm starting to forget why I ever liked it. Maybe I should go over the pros and cons as I remembered them.

Pros
----
-Probably THE best soundtract of all time.

-An interesting, deep story that makes you think (Double bonus for people like Bolt. )

-A fun, fast, battle system that didn't get too repetative.

I may have missed some, since it's been a while. Moving on...

Cons
----
-The star system was stupid. Removing EXP was done poorly, making random battles practically worthless. Although it eliminates the need to "level up", sometimes I LIKE to leve up.

-The magic "element" system was stupid. Even worse, it was HORRIBLY inconsistant from Chrono Trigger. There is practically nothing the same from the old game in the new game. Sure, there's still Fire and Ice and some cool spells like Luminaire, but the rest is just stupid. And most of them are practically worthless concidering you can just attack most enemies to death.

-Characters are not very well defined and unique. I like unique characters. Most people do. So it's dumb when characters have only three unique spells. Without those, all of the characters are pretty much the same thing. Boring.

-No items. WHAT? No items??? OK, so you have some very limited equipment you can give to people (Done in a very crappy system, mind you), but no items. Instead you have some very limited elements that "act" as items. Maybe Square was trying to be cool and combine magic and items, but seriously, why bother?

-Thirty freaking characters. Most definately the game's greatest strength and greatest weakness. Now, I agree that it is cool to switch around to different characters. It make the game more interesting. But seriously. Wow. Thirty characters also means thirty characters who aren't developed at all. Only a few lucky characters like Kid and Lynx get any development and the rest get stepped on for the rest of the game. They're lucky to get two lines and one scene and then they're forgot about. Even THAT wouldn't be so bad, as long as they made all of the characters a LITTLE more unique instead of just boringly simular and giving them standard magic spells, which is just lame.

-Wow, so much suck, I'm having a hard time remembering it all. Well, I guess I should end this will the way CC completely just crapped up the Chrono Trigger universe. Simply put, Square had a GREAT chance to really make an awesome sequal based off of an awesome story and setting. But instead, they threw 99% of the CT setting away when they made CC. They didn't even use the same map for crap sake. All I ask is why. WHY? Seriously, this would have made a GREAT game by it self. But why even BOTHER giving it the Chrono name. Sure, we got a few nice scenes in CC about the history of Lavos and a little development into a couple of left over themes from CT, but that's IT. SO much more could have been done.

Well, that's all I can really add right now, I'm getting tired. Just thought I'd post this to spread some discussion into the Square forum.

Oh yeah, and Tonberry wanted to add Funguy to the list of Cons.

I also want to add Turnip, Skelly, and all of those other STUPID characters.

I guess I should finish with the biggest con, as you were all probably waiting for the entire time...LLLUUUCCCCCCAAA!!!

Hear hear!

I hated the magic system. Even more than FF8's magic system. This was craptacular. I missed items, too.

[Falco53]

Wow, this game looks really sucky. I never played Chrono Cross.

Sniff, sniff. Do you smell that? It's the smell of a CC debate. RUN!!!

Jay, you are now my new best friend. heh heh.

It's been a while since we have seen our last Jay Topic, I expect Bolt will be dropping in any time now with some counters.

From the way Jay described the game, it sounded like Square masterbated while thinking up dumbassed gameplay ideas, and it's penis spewed out diarrheaic crap that was sent to a sperm bank and the baby that was created was Chrono Cross.

No, I didn't play the game yet and not sure if I would, Chrono Trigger needs an actual Chrono Trigger 2 as a sequel with the original characters from the 1st CT in full 3-D on the PS2.

At least Fire Emblem have 20+ developed characters.

[imported_AJ Middleton]

WHOA!

HEY!

NO.

EVERYONE needs to play the game for his or herself. DO NOT follow one person's opinion! How dumb can you get? Honestly now...

I could easily counter each of Jay's points...

...but it will have to wait until tomorrow when I'm not so tired.

Haha. Oh Bolt.

Although seriously, I don't see how you can counter the Star system, the Magic system, and the Item system. They just sucked. Hard core sucked. And if you liked those systems, then you're just strange.-jay

*hides the 'summon Bolt' button until it is needed again*

Originally posted by Sir Bolt:
WHOA!

HEY!

NO.

EVERYONE needs to play the game for his or herself. DO NOT follow one person's opinion! How dumb can you get? Honestly now...

I could easily counter each of Jay's points...

...but it will have to wait until tomorrow when I'm not so tired.

By all means. Debate to the death. More data for me MWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Mind if I get your RL names first? Or just PM them to me as I need a name to my source other than Bolt Dragoon.

[Zavval]

Myself, I love the game but I agree on the Star System and lack of items. The Star System makes most battles pointless because you don't gain anything from them. Sucks even more that a bunch of battles were unavoidable.

I really didn't mind the Element system though, I guess it's just all about tastes.

CC wasn't bad, but it just didn't live up to the Chrono Trigger name...

Oh, and here's some code in C++

if (Janus != Guile) {
You Are Correct!
} else {
Nice try, Bolt. But still, if Square really meant for Guile to be Janus, then they did a piss poor job of it. I mean, Magus the Magician? Please.
}



And please, Bolt, don't turn this into another "OMFG Jay Sucks and Iz Stoopid For Not Understanding Chrono Cross!!!" arguement, because I know I am bringing up very legitimate downpoints to the game that turned many people off, including myself.

And like I already said, I havn't played the game in over, like, three years. So any ignorance on my part is because of that.

Oh, and if you want to quote anything from me (Why, I don't know, heh), just call me Jay Resop.-jay

Originally posted by Joliet Jake Blues:
*hides the 'summon Bolt' button until it is needed again*

Anti-Americanism, Misc forum mod, Master of Debates, Combine! Form The Great Defender of Chrono Cross! Bolt!

Blot, you DO realize that he was telling people who loved the game why he hated it.


I think I feel a special Review over in the reviews forum coming on.

[imported_AJ Middleton]

This is a general post about CC.

*ahem*

There are multiple ways to make a sequel. You can make an "x years later" sequel which just takes place a certain amount of time after the original, has the same characters, and has a plot closely based on the original. Or you can do it like Zelda, which are a bunch of games LOOSELY linked (no pun intended), but connected well enough to be in the same series. But classifications can go on and on.

ANYWAY...

Square had a problem. They wanted to create the much-needed sequel to one of their greatest games, as well as attract the new mainstream audience. The result was Chrono Cross. It's independent enough to be understood by a new gamer, but if you HAVE played Chrono Trigger, you'll truly appreciate certain details that are thrown in.

With that said, no, it is NOT a carbon copy of the CT format. It is its own thing, which I happen to like a lot. The plot directly stems from certain events in CT, mainly the fall of Zeal and Crono's time traveling. Although certain elements seem untrue, it overall isn't a disaster.

The plot. The plot is an extention of CT's. What happened to Schala? And what about Belthasar in the new Future? All of that and more is answered. Now, it's a VERY complex RPG, and the story isn't handed to you on a plate. Therefore, you have to use logic and do some deducing. OMG I HAF TO USE TEH BRAIN!!111 Seriously, the greatest writers didn't tell everything straight out. Chrono Cross doesn't either.

Oh geez, 30 characters. Here's the deal with that. You all know that over the course of your RPG gaming, you've met certain characters and said, "Ohh, I hope I can get that guy in my team!" Yeah, well, most of the time you can't. I mean, imagine playing as Vargas or Sigfried in FF3. Or Golbez in FF2. Or even Schala in CT. It happens, and sometimes only a small feature makes a character cool. But it always sucks when the truth hits and you can't be that person. Well guess what: CC solves that. You can practically recruit almost everyone you meet in that game. There. Done. You get everyone AND their gardens and pets! And you don't even have to get everyone if this feature pisses you off--just don't recruit them.

With that in mind, NOT ALL THIRTY CHARACTERS ARE DEVELOPED. Why? Because most are optional. The main characters are Serge, Kid, Lynx, and Harle, and maybe even Viper and his family and dragoons. That's it. Everyone else is like an NPC...without the N. So please don't complain about the multitude of characters, because you know you would be finding ways to hack the game if you couldn't play as Grobyc or Radius. To get upset because the NNPCs have little to no development is like complaining because elephants don't have wings--they aren't supposed to.

The star system sucks. Here's why. Part of the joy of an RPG is learning from mistakes. The first time around you have hell from a certain boss, but the second time you realize that you need to gain levels and train to make things easier. Because the only way to get a star is from a boss, and stars raise stats, EVERY TIME YOU'LL BE IN THE SAME PHYSICAL POSITION. Blah. No diversity. The only thing that makes the 2nd time a little interesting is that you still need a strategy to beat harder bosses, but the simple fact that you can't be stronger sucks.

...But that one point doesn't ruin the game.

Elements and "items" are interesting. The only items I ever use in RPGs are for healing, and you can buy those elements and they pretty much work as traditional items do anyway. The whole magic system is unique, and I honestly like it better than standard MP. But then again, CC has a very unique battle system as a whole.

As for Lucca? This is one of those moments where you must INFER things. MEGA SPOILERS FOLLOW!! Schala really did cause everything, and after she is liberated, she restores everything to normal EXCEPT for the Frozen Flame, Lavos, FATE, etc, which have all been destroyed and removed from time. Therefore, since the Flame never existed, Porre never attacked Guardia, and chances are Crono and Marle are still alive. Likewise, since FATE/Lynx is gone, no one could have killed Lucca. Isn't it great how things work out? (But people have issues with that logic because it isn't spelled out for you. Whatever, it's an RPG.)

So there you have it. Most people don't like CC because it's a not a copy of CT and the plot requires actual thought. But overall it's fun and the music is simply amazing. Again, everyone needs to play it and develop individual opinions.

(As for Guile and Magus...that's another post.)

[ March 24, 2004, 09:17 PM: Message edited by: Sir Bolt ]

And please, Bolt, don't turn this into another "OMFG Jay Sucks and Iz Stoopid For Not Understanding Chrono Cross!!!"

OMG I HAF TO USE TEH BRAIN!!111

Good job, Bolt, but I wasn't even talking about the plot in my post. If you can read, I even listed that under one of the positive aspects of the game. The point of my topic is to bring up the other things in Chrono Cross that pissed me off.

Yeah, yeah, I already heard your "30 characters let you play as everyone you would want to play in an RPG" speech. But it's still a dumb excuse from Square. I mean, seriously. Do you know ANYONE who would want Turnip, Funguy, Skelly, That Damn Dog, and about half of the other characters in their party? They could have reduced the party from 30 to 15 and it would have made the game 10 times as good. It would have allowed them to spend more time on the characters that mattered and get rid of some of these more stupid characters who's only character trait IS THE ABILITY TO TALK IN CAPITAL LETTERS. I mean, seriously, it's lame. Sure, I agree that the intention was good. I agree that people sometimes want to play as a cool NPC and the purpose of this system in CC was to let you play as most of the characters. But it was still done poorly. I don't think anyone jumped for joy the day Turnip joined their party.

And you didn't get into my main beef was that when they increase the party to 30, they also have to reduce the uniqueness of each character as a result. Instead of having 7 cool characters with unique weapons and attacks, we are left with 30 boring characters who use the same weapons, magic, and attacks. They only get 3 special attacks each, which is pretty weak. And you end up with only, like, 5 double techniques in total, which didn't make ANY sense to me. Why did they not just add 50 double techniques in the game. Give pretty much every pair of characters a double tech. That would have made the game a HECK of a lot cooler and would have given me a lot better reason to switch characters around. But instead, I could simply stick with the same party of a couple characters for most of the game and never have the need to really switch around. I know that in order to program unique attacks for all 30 characters would have taken Square a lot of time, but if they only had the time to Half-Ass 30 characters and only a few double techniques, I would have much rather had only 7 to 15 Full-Assed characters that had their own attacks, weaknesses, strengths, ect.

And if they really want to give the person the ability to have everyone join their party, why the hell didn't Belthasar join the party. Or Marge for that matter.

Oh wait, but don't worry, because we have a guy WHO CAN TALK IN ALL CAPS ON OUR TEAM! WOW!

And I'm not asking for much development. But I am asking for at least SOMETHING. And if they can't do that with 30 characters, then they should have simply had 7 to 15.

Hey, at least I got you to agree that the Star System sucks.

I agree that I ususally only use items for healing, but still, I like to have them. They've become the standard. And go ahead and like the Element system, because I just thought it was the stupidest lame thing that ever existed.

They could have at LEAST kept the magic names the same, instead of coming up with new crap.

SPOILER

And Square killed Lucca, and there is nothing they can do to make me forgive them. -jay

^ Wow, my Bolt summoning spell really DID summon Bolt!

[imported_AJ Middleton]

And if YOU can read Jay, the 1st line of my post was,

This is a general post about CC.

Don't make fun of Zoah. The script translation in CC is AWESOME. All 30+ characters have their own things to say say every moment in their own unique ways. THAT'S a feat, whether you like them all or not.

..plus, Zoah does a lot more than that.

Like I said, the main characters are VERY developed.

There are more than 5 double techs, I believe. And you know damn well if there were 50 you would be complaining about THAT being too many. And there's no reason to switch characters around other than who you think looks cool.

OMG...they still left out Dario. DARIO. I wish you could play as him. WTH is up with that Square? Belthasar is too old and too major to be playable.

Last time I checked, Fire Emblem had more than 30 characters that at least get some character development. Hell, even Huey, which is Florina's pegasus, also gets character development by learning how to avoid arrows. And having the characters to have unique things to say at certain moments isn't as genius as the supports in Fire Emblem(Lowen recommending breakfast to Eliwood= [img]graemlins/lol.gif[/img] ).

And they need an actual Chrono Trigger that has to do with Crono as well as a different battle system that uses a Kingdom Hearts-ish battle system combined with the system in Chrono Trigger, only that you use Triangle to switch characters and there is an Active Time system. Besides, Kingdom Hearts seems to be the true heir to the Chrono Trigger throne while CC seems to be a mere outcast with Chrono Trigger having sex with that slutty FMV-whore Xenogears to create Chrono Cross.

[]Belthasar is too old and too major to be playable. [] Who says a character is too major to be playable?, Major characters in the storyline are important and vital to the team and as far as what Jay said, it's better to have important characters that have strong attacks that you actually CARE ABOUT! than tons of Chrono Clones who speak in Capslock and just have 8 crappy moves and thats it. Besides, having characters vital to the storyline on your team is, in fact, 10 times better than 30+ characters who have zero relevance to the storyline; And I mean characters like the Dog that Jay mentioned.

[ March 24, 2004, 11:58 PM: Message edited by: Coke Addict ]