ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
I finished Chrono Cross for about the 14th time just the other day, and while I still very much enjoy the game and consider it one of my favorites, I think that it could be vastly improved in many different ways. I also understand the plot (and the faults in it) more than I had before, but heavy research at the Chrono Compendium probably helped a lot for that. And this was the first time I had played Chrono Cross since having played and completed Chrono Trigger, so I could more see why people would be angry and/or disappointed with it. What follows is not really a review, but rather my thoughts on why CC has the reputation that it does, and why I think people might have enjoyed or disliked it.
The Bad
To get this out of the way, the game is almost nothing like it's predecessor, for one. This really isn't a bad thing, but I'm sure a lot of people were hoping for more of a continuation of CT's events, rather than a new story with a new cast and location. For most of the game it has little to nothing to do with CT beyond a few namedrops, and what connections it does have seem to be inconsistent with how things were in CT (Porre, for instance). While what CC has to do with CT is explained more as the game goes on, those explanations too have seemingly shaky foundations, and I'm sure the eventual revelations concerning the original cast's fates were met with a fair bit of dislike and outrage, to say the least.
On that note, the plot of Chrono Cross (though I still consider the story itself to be rather good) is horribly explained and the plot's pacing was ridiculously awful. A good amount of time would go by with little to no story sequences, and then there would be huge walls of text and insane amounts of exposition with details and events hastily explained and then left to never be spoken of again (Almost all of disc 2 was particularly bad in that aspect). The fact that the ending
explains absolutely nothing of what happens in the game's aftermath (though it may have been planned for Chrono Break, to be honest)
Also a very big departure from CT was the battle system, which also had quite a bit of flaws, I now realize. Whereas CT's combat was fast and managed to be simple while still maintaining a sense of depth, CC's was a bit slower and portrayed itself as being more of a strategic battle system (which is a bit indicative of the two games' differences as a whole, really). The main problem with CC's battle system was that even though it tried to come off as complex and strategic, the game was so easy, and the depth of the battle system's workings so unexplored, that you never really did anything with the strategy.
Really, battles were that you would either go Weak>Fierce>Fierce, or Weak>Strong>Fierce>Element if you needed to heal. The effects of Elements were usually so inadequate for their cost that they were simply impractical to use, especially when you could unleash a full combo with the same amount of stamina and deal more three times more damage than you would've with an Element. And fill your Element Grids with healing Elements and you were unbeatable. How unbalanced the game was (in just about every aspect of the battles) was really disappointing, mostly because the design of it's leveling system made it possible for the game to have been almost perfectly balanced.
Another issue was the micromanagement required for Elements. With the huge cast of 45 characters, and individually designed Element Grids for each of them, changing characters was a gigantic pain. Even if you select "Auto Allocate", the game wasn't very smart with the process and would yield poor results more often tha not. The Element Grid sounds like a cool concept, but the excessive and clunky micromanagement, combined with the overall uselessness of most Elements, just made it more of an inconvenience than anything else, especially with the lack of an option to save grid arrangements for later use if you take a character out of your party or something like that.
On the subject of the cast and party, CC has an enormous cast of characters as previously stated; 45 all together. I don't know how many people consider a cast being this size to be a good thing, though. A lot of the characters are very similar to one another, which is to be expected with so many. The cast is comprised of mostly stereotypes and character development for these people is generally considered to be far too sparse. Few characters really stand out among them all, and the decision of your party will usually just be the ones whose designs you like the most. Or Serge, Kid, and Glenn, like me.
The Good
Okay, I think I've spent enough time stressing all of CC's failings. I don't mean to seem like I hate this game, as said before it is one of my favorite games (Though that may seems surprising considering all the things I've slighted against it). CC has a lot of good things too, and it's story and battle system can make for some really fun experiences despite their issues. The game really comes together whilst you're playing it, and a lot of the flaws can be overlooked for what it does offer. So now I'd like to point out and remind people of the many things Chrono Cross did get right.
For one, the game was absolutely gorgeous for it's time. The pre-rendered backgrounds were amazing, full of lush colors and intricate designs, making the areas feel alive and real while still managing to be well-designed from a gameplay perspective, with just a few exceptions. In battle, characters and enemies had amazingly detailed and good-looking models, and they all had a large number of unique animations. You can really tell how much effort was put into all of that, especially with every one of the 45 playable characters. The graphics in the game were just outstanding by PS1 standards, and I think it still manages to hold up fairly well to this to day.
Also outstanding was the game's soundtrack. It's still held by many (me included) as one of the greatest OSTs of any video game ever made. Each piece perfectly conveys the mood and setting of the scene, and it contains delightful remixes of many of CT's signature songs in addition to the huge amount of original songs it has. Seriously, words can't convey how amazing the music is. Definitely the best point of the game, bar none. Here's some of my personal favorites:
Time's Scar
Dreamwatch of Time
Home Arni Village
Plains of Time
Dreams of the Shore Near Another World
Another Termina
Star-Stealing Girl
People Imprisoned By Destiny
Quitting the Body
Dragon God
Radical Dreamers
...And many, many more. Seriously, the soundtrack is beautiful. Huge spectrum of songs which all feel so unique and magnificently compliment the game.
While there were many flaws in the game's story and gameplay, they also had some good points. Once you moved past how horribly paced it was and how the points of plot exposition had confusing explanations that were badly worded and made things exceedingly hard to understand, I felt the story itself was rather good for JRPG standards, be them as they may. If you searched hard enough, reasons and justifications for mostly all of the story's events can be discovered and understood. There were a lot of small things connecting everything together, and it was rather satisfying once you figured everything out, though the game would not give you that unless you tried with all your might.
And I have to say, despite the many complaints about the lack of development for many of the game's characters, they did a good job considering it's size. It may have benefited from simply having a smaller cast, but with what it was, I felt it did fine. I think the main cause of people's issues about the lack of development for the characters was that you only get as much development as you go for. If you leave a character out of your party, you're probably not gonna hear from them again. Most of the characters only got development if you actively brought them along in your party and tried to seek out things related to them, and even then, the game didn't make a big deal out of the development.
True, a good deal of characters were simply devoid of any development whatsoever, or even a reason for participating in the quest. But there were also some who got a surprisingly good deal of development, most notably the Acacians and those related to them. Outside of the main cast, Karsh, Fargo, and Nikki are some of the most notable. Starky gets a fair deal too. What's more, Viper and (surprisingly) Pierre also get some rather big development, but they are mainly dealt with in two or three simple text boxes. Viper's realization of him failing as a ruler, and Pierre's acceptance of himself being a disgrace of a hero, as well as his hopes to truly earn such a status. However, most people don't see these things. I only just saw them on my last playthrough.
It may seem a bit strange to have character development hidden away like this, but maybe we're just used to how most JRPGs (and games in general) like to throw any semblance of character development into our face at any chance they get. I'm not saying the examples listed are really great and subtle cases of character development. It's mostly fairly standard, really. And like I said before, there are characters without the faintest trace of any development (thought sometimes it was planned, but had to be cut out for various reasons, like Guile and Zoah). I'm just saying there's more of it than most people think.
Moving on to what CC got right, gameplay-wise, I still consider the leveling system to be the best of any RPG. By having you get major stat boosts only by defeating bosses, it completely got rid of grinding, and enabled the battles to be balanced exactly to the developer's intentions at all times. But the fact of the matter is that the game was ridiculously easy outside of three or four boss fights. It's disappointing, but it was still a fantastic method of leveling that let me play through the game exactly how I wanted without ever having being underpowered or overpowered. Well, more overpowered.
Also rather revolutionary was that you could automatically heal after every battle. At the end of a fight, you'd have the option to use what Elements you had charged by the end of the fight in order to replenish the party's HP without having to go into the menu and manually do it. It's a bit surprising that they have this option which cuts out so much micromanagement when the rest of the game's systems were so sadly plagued with it. The World Ends With You and Final Fantasy XIII both took this concept a bit further to just automatically restore your health at the end of each fight, and I think both games were better off for it.
And while most of the battle system went unused, it certainly had a lot of depth to it. The Field Effect, Stamina Points, Element Grid, Double & Triple Techs (Sparse as they may be)...All together, they made a very deep system that sadly never saw it's full potential. Battles could easily be passed through without worrying about half of the system's inner workings. But during some of the few battles which were actually difficult, you could catch a brief glimpse of what could be accomplished through a better usage of the battle system. It had the potential to be really great.
The Result
All-in-all, Chrono Cross is still a pretty fun game to this day. It had a lot of complex systems which were sadly underused, and it had a good deal of problems with it's storytelling and characterization which drastically hampered an otherwise fine story. It greatly distanced itself from Chrono Trigger, but was also deeply tied to it. It tried to live up to what many consider one of the greatest RPGs of all time, which was designed by an almost legendary team of developers. And I personally think it succeeded, but I now have a better understanding of why people wouldn't agree.
To be honest, I still prefer CC over CT despite the many flaws CC has. One more thing is that CC had a lot less to work with than CT, and the only main people returning from the original team were Masato Kato and Yasunori Mitsuda. And IIRC, CC had some bad budget issues, leading to a fair deal of last-minute changes and the inability to include stuff that they had planned, but even though I'm not sure to what extent this affected the overall game, I wonder what it would have been like if they had been given more time and money to work with.
Anyway, what do you people think of Chrono Cross nowadays? What did you like about it, what did you dislike, how do you think it could be improved, etc.? I'm interested as to what people think of when they remember Chrono Cross.
