Moronwind said:
It's like someone took a look at Chrono Trigger and decided that the most exciting thing about that game was not the act of time traveling itself, but rather the ridiculously contrived mechanics behind it. Chrono Cross starts of well, the idea of traveling between alternate timelines is very exciting and a cool way to follow up on Chrono Trigger's time traveling element, but partway through the game the story just loses itself in it's metaphysical mumbo jumbo.
I don't think that is very fair.
I would say that
Chrono Cross, above all else, engages with the high concept at its(and
Trigger's) core, namely time travel but whereas
Trigger used time travel as plot fuel,
Cross uses
Trigger itself in the same regard. Its interest is in everything
Trigger never said, in the ramifications that went unexplored. And it does so largely by restriction and reduction on the large scale which prompts growth on the small. That leads to the game having a small archipelago instead of the world and twinned realities instead of multiple timelines. And a large cast of characters to populate this small space so the effects are shown clearly and in sharp relief, Serge is dead here but not there, Fargo the pirate versus Fargo the shady luxury liner captain, etc.
This singular focus is occasionally problematic for the game, its use of such a large cast is to the benefit of this interest but is also a detriment to the fleshing out of said cast(although I would argue some of those characters are given more depth and feeling than a lot of JRPG characters who get loads more screentime), but it gives the game an unnaturally intimate core for a big, sprawling JRPG.
So the indifference and rejection given to its "mumbo jumbo" is kind of baffling to me,
Chrono Cross' whole identity from moment one("What was the start of all this? When did the cogs of fate begin to turn?") was that "mumbo jumbo".
Cross is a sequel to a universally loved game that engages with its predecessor on a level very few games do and at no point does it ever take the easy way by just replicating the game that came before. I wish I lived in a reality where this way was the norm for crafting a sequel.