When Chrono Cross is brought up there's a bit of an air of attempted compromise; it's good on its own merits, but they really shouldn't have gone and killed Crono and friends like that. That used to be how I took it, where Chrono Cross existing as a game set in the same universe that excised everything after the death of the Dragon God would have made for a better game, because that info dump at the end was rank. Just make it about the war between FATE and the Dragon Gods with Serge caught up in the middle and getting turned into his dad's fursona.
As I am now making this thread, I have long since disabused myself of that notion. Chrono Cross is absolute ass, but it's a remarkably pretty ass with a soundtrack that other people like a whole lot but is too encumbered with that common battle theme for me to agree. It's also a legendary failure of gameplay even by the standards of PS1 RPGs and has a fanbase that tries to convince you it's totally fine for the 2/3rds of the cast to be the lamest goobers to engage in a turn-based battle, because idk Glenn's rad enough to excuse everyone else.
Despite this, Chrono Cross remains a game I will absolutely cape for its right to exist because it had the balls to ask a question more RPG sequels should try: What if it didn't work out?
The time traveling romp of Crono and friends is now the greatest threat to the universe and, explicitly, doomed entire universes to extinction as they jumped back and forth trying to get the mayor of Porre's Sun Stone. Lavos is back because their meddling sent him to the Darkness Beyond Time so now he's gone from eating planets to eating reality itself, not that they were there to see it: Comic relief villain Dalton slipped through time until he landed in Porre, whereupon he turned it into a fascistic military that lays waste to Guardia and steals the Masamune, and meanwhile Lucca's playing nice with the invading military that definitely murdered her best friends because hey, still got bills to pay. Robo lasts the longest, getting annihilated by FATE when given the chance in what's almost explicitly just there to be a dick punch for the audience.
This rules, and it's at the crux of why I think Chrono Cross deserves that oft-abused title of "brave" that gets erroneously applied to stuff like the remake of most beloved JRPG of all time, Final Fantasy VII; Crono's journey is just a stepping stone, and it's one that made things worse in the short term because he (and you, the player) had a grand ol' bit of fun adventuring through time that turned out to be the direct cause of every bad thing happening here. It's a story that weaponizes your love of Chrono Trigger against you, doing that thing video games never allow themselves to inflict upon the audience: meaningful consequence at the expense of something you already loved.
An important thing to understand at the end of this is that canon is irrelevant and imaginary. Chrono Cross does not exist unless you make a game at the expense of Chrono Trigger's happy ending, and that's a good thing that's only bad if being the canon sequel to Chrono Trigger is all that matters, and not a story about the textual failures of past heroes as they meddled with forces beyond their comprehension. Chrono Cross has to stick you with a big Kick Me sign on your back for having fun with your rad SNES RPG, and if it means killing off Crono to do it, well, that's fine. You can still play Chrono Trigger and end it with him sailing off into the horizon on the Epoch, that ending ain't going anywhere.
As I am now making this thread, I have long since disabused myself of that notion. Chrono Cross is absolute ass, but it's a remarkably pretty ass with a soundtrack that other people like a whole lot but is too encumbered with that common battle theme for me to agree. It's also a legendary failure of gameplay even by the standards of PS1 RPGs and has a fanbase that tries to convince you it's totally fine for the 2/3rds of the cast to be the lamest goobers to engage in a turn-based battle, because idk Glenn's rad enough to excuse everyone else.
Despite this, Chrono Cross remains a game I will absolutely cape for its right to exist because it had the balls to ask a question more RPG sequels should try: What if it didn't work out?
The time traveling romp of Crono and friends is now the greatest threat to the universe and, explicitly, doomed entire universes to extinction as they jumped back and forth trying to get the mayor of Porre's Sun Stone. Lavos is back because their meddling sent him to the Darkness Beyond Time so now he's gone from eating planets to eating reality itself, not that they were there to see it: Comic relief villain Dalton slipped through time until he landed in Porre, whereupon he turned it into a fascistic military that lays waste to Guardia and steals the Masamune, and meanwhile Lucca's playing nice with the invading military that definitely murdered her best friends because hey, still got bills to pay. Robo lasts the longest, getting annihilated by FATE when given the chance in what's almost explicitly just there to be a dick punch for the audience.
This rules, and it's at the crux of why I think Chrono Cross deserves that oft-abused title of "brave" that gets erroneously applied to stuff like the remake of most beloved JRPG of all time, Final Fantasy VII; Crono's journey is just a stepping stone, and it's one that made things worse in the short term because he (and you, the player) had a grand ol' bit of fun adventuring through time that turned out to be the direct cause of every bad thing happening here. It's a story that weaponizes your love of Chrono Trigger against you, doing that thing video games never allow themselves to inflict upon the audience: meaningful consequence at the expense of something you already loved.
An important thing to understand at the end of this is that canon is irrelevant and imaginary. Chrono Cross does not exist unless you make a game at the expense of Chrono Trigger's happy ending, and that's a good thing that's only bad if being the canon sequel to Chrono Trigger is all that matters, and not a story about the textual failures of past heroes as they meddled with forces beyond their comprehension. Chrono Cross has to stick you with a big Kick Me sign on your back for having fun with your rad SNES RPG, and if it means killing off Crono to do it, well, that's fine. You can still play Chrono Trigger and end it with him sailing off into the horizon on the Epoch, that ending ain't going anywhere.
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