So, I've been wanting to make this thread for a long time. Do a girl a favor and listen to this as you read.
Story time: I played Chrono Trigger in Final Fantasy Chronicles for Playstation when it came out in 2001. I played it emulated before, but due to an emulation glitch could never get past 2300 AD so I placed my bets on Square releasing a Playstation port. I ended up waiting two years for that port which in teenager years is an eternity. When it came out I gobbled that game up due to my previous inability to play it and it quickly became an obsession. Playing it, I had many firsts - the first (and last) time I blacked out while playing a game through sheer addiction. Or the first (and last) time I biked over to my friends house after I beat a game because I didn't have space on my memory card to save and had to borrow theirs. I went far for that game. In some ways, too far. Basically, I fucking loved Chrono Trigger.
So a year later, summer 2002, I borrowed Chrono Cross from my friend. Story short, I hated it. I loved the Mitsuda soundtrack. I loved the visuals. I liked the gameplay, although by that point I was already a Suikoden fan and thought it [CC] was a cheap Suiko rip off with none of the personality. But the story is what I truly hated. I hated what they did to Trigger characters, and the more "convoluted" stuff. I was 16 at the time, and maxed out with the game upon completion, I quickly gave it back to my friend thinking I would never play that horrendous game ever again. As a massive Trigger fan I just thought it was probably the worst sequel you could have possibly given that game.
About two years ago, with a lot more experience on my belt, I decided to give it another shot. I'm prone to giving games that I feel don't deserve it second or third shots. Among that list includes Final Fantasy VIII, Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, Suikoden IV, Xenosaga II. Sometimes I end up loving them because I've open my mind to them, in cases like FFVIII, Mario 64, or FFXII. Sometimes, my opinion doesn't change but I get a somewhat greater appreciation for them (Xenosaga II, FFXIII). Sometimes, I dislike them even more (Suikoden IV).
Cross ended up being in the love category.
This thread is my attempt to deconstruct the game and articulate why.
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I kind of don't know where to start. The graphics, art direction, and music have been so praised over the years that it feels pointless to mention them here. Everything that has needed to be said about these elements has been said. So I think I'll start on the gameplay.
I think gameplay in Cross is largely excellent. More specifically, its battle system. After each battle, you start over with full HP which is unique for jrpgs whose gameplay is often typified by resource management, item management, minimizing damage, and making sure things don't get too low so you're stuck in a dungeon with no potions. The best jrpgs, I find, instill a clear message of fight or flight and risk management: do I fight here or do I wing it? Should I run away and risk getting hit and being forced to use a spell? I need to save my spells for the boss, will ten potions be enough to get me there without using spells for healing? Dragon Quest does it, Shin Megami Tensei does, any jrpg worth its shit in the gameplay department does it. What's interesting is how Cross navigates around that while still managing to have the feeling of resource management, mostly through the element system.
The thing is that elements are kind of limited. You're allotted a limited number of elements per character and each character has their strengths and weaknesses. Serge's strength is white magic, but his weakness is black magic. But it's good to bring black magic just in case you run into another white element character. I ended up playing the game not too differently than how I would a Shin Megami Tensei, with each character covering not only strengths but also weaknesses - just in case - for a well balanced team.
What's more interesting is how Elements are consummable. Like in Final Fantasy VIII, you have no MP, and characters' ability to use Elements is dependent on their stock. So if you end up bringing one heal Element for a character, you can heal only once that battle. But because characters' element options are so limited, you are forced to pick and choose. What's even better is that Elements can't just be plunked down and automatically equipped given that they have tiers. A level 3 Element can't be used in a Level 1 slot. So a lot of time and care is spent on finding the exact Elements to equip, in the right order which makes the games meta extremely satisfying to research and understand. Personally, I'm really big on rpgs where magic is a consummable rather than have an mp option. In a game like Final Fantasy VIII for example, where you might need to use a spell that is equipped to your stats as a consummable, I think that makes things fun and exciting. In the end, I feel like Chrono Cross has a more developed, and thorough take on the approach than Final Fantasy VIII and that if they ever remake FFVIII, they could use Chrono Cross as a nice template to gain inspiration from.
The combination of Cross' difficulty spikes and the element system made for very interesting gameplay. The color field effect system and the strategies you have to employ to get the upper hand on some bosses forces for very, very creative decisions. I felt like Cross demanded more of me as a player compared to Trigger, whose main battle system conceit is its inherent simplicity which combines to be both a strength as well as a weakness. Suffice to say, I love Chrono Cross' battle system. Which wasn't too surprising given how much I enjoyed it the first time I played it. What did surprise me was how much I enjoyed all the rest of its gameplay.
I remember when I played Chrono Trigger last (on DS) I remember thinking a little less of the game. I mean, it's still one of my all time favorites but I remember the battle system being less interesting than before or certain elements having egregious flaws like the scripted encounter system. But more than anything that shocked me was how bad I felt the dungeons were in Trigger. There's not really much in the way of dungeon design in the game: traps, survival through attrition, resource management. It's kind of like, you fight monster after monster in the most simplistic of ways. So I found that part disappointing.
I tend to have high standards for dungeons in a jrpg. After a game like Lufia II or the myriad of dungeon crawlers I've faced and beaten over the years and Shiren the Wanderer Mystery Dungeon games, having high standards for dungeons is just going to happen. So color me shocked when I replayed Cross and found the dungeons not only serviceable but actually good. With battles resetting characters HP to max, it meant that dungeons had to be up to par by sheer necessity. You ended up traversing through traps, you had to make sure you didn't fuck up and had not only enough elements to carry your party through, but also the right elements. Dungeons were sometimes full of teases that didn't allow you full access to certain areas or chests unless you fulfilled certain goals, so there was plenty of back and forth. The fact these came from the mind of Square, which didn't - and doesn't - have the best track record with dungeon design is shocking.
Speaking of back and forth, I found myself going back and forth between the two alternate worlds revisiting towns and cities to find new things. Like Suikoden games and Chrono Trigger before it, Chrono Cross has something within it that just tickles that OCD gamer itch. Will I find a new event? Will I find a new character? I might be able to use this key item on this character. This character in this world says something, maybe their alternate version has something else to say? I played the game based on what if's just to see what would happen, just to stretch the possibilities and see what they were and what I could do at any one point which is rare in today's jrpgs for me. Getting characters wasn't as simple as I remember it, and collecting them still had that addictive feeling that Suikoden always had. I ended up desperately trying to recruit certain characters, enthralled by their back stories. Which is funny given how much I felt the backstories were shallow compared to Suikoden 1 and II when I first played it.
I found the gameplay considerably more involved than Chrono Trigger and I was sold on it hook, line, and sinker. Far from the more simplistic battle system and equally simplistic dungeon design its predecessor offers, Chrono Cross has a more in-depth gameplay full of difficulty spikes, creative decision making via the element system, and far more thorough and interesting dungeons.
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The bigger sell of course, was the story. Chrono Trigger's appeal is, as said, in its simplicity. The characters work despite being seemingly "shallow". The hook of the game - saving the world by going back in time - is genius as it is timeless. The game is also shrouded in mystery upon mystery that are not only fun to unravel but also have captured Trigger fans' imaginations since its release - how did Lavos come to being? Where did Schala go? Chrono Trigger's story was definitely simple, but it was also a good kind. Kind of like other famous time travel stories like Back to the Future. I've never not found Chrono Trigger's story to be a fun ass adventure meant to draw from the players imaginations as much as it did its creators'.
Note: I did this replay playing the Japanese version of the game so it may color my impressions since I did not play the translated English version this time.
Chrono Cross' story is fascinating. I used to think it was the worst sequel you could ever conjure because of its differences to Trigger. Now I realize it was clearly the best thing they could have possibly done. Trigger is about a bunch of kids who decide to try to save the world by altering time. There's no fucking way that act could ever not have ramifications. Chrono Cross is about what happens after time has been manipulated, much like how Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is about what happens once you have achieved an utopia (TNG). Except, in this game, it's not about time, it's about alternate worlds caused by shifts in time.
In one world, Serge is alive; in another, he's dead and forgotten. In one world, one npc has fulfilled their dream as a writer; in another, they work a dead end job as a waitress. I feel that, for better or worse, Chrono Cross simply has more things to say than Trigger based solely off its main premise. I ended up being obsessed with the differences between characters in alternate worlds. Even random npc's had interesting stories and enough differences in personality to see a full formed character arc. It's almost impossible to play it, with an adults life time of experiences, and not wonder in some way, what an alternate you would be like. Would they have any unfulfilled dreams? What would I have the same regrets? What would I be like? As it is, Chrono Cross is a more philosophical and interesting game based off this very relatable duality.
What's more is how these elements intersect with the main plot. Let's take Kid. She gets full of poisonous spores that will kill her and the player is tasked with making a decision: saving her, or letting her die. The caveat is that saving her means going into an alternate world and creating an extinction event. The place is already extinct and dead in the current world, so you actually have to more than bend your morals to save Kid. The game even outright says you're fucked up for causing extinction just to save a girl you barely know. This serves as one of the Cross' first interesting lessons about its story: it takes traditional jrpg set ups such as saving the girl, and flips it. In order to save her you have to be a monster. The second lesson? Chrono Cross is a story that never stops flipping it. The result is a game that not only plays with genre expectations but also introduces a sort of philosophical/moral quandry into its storytelling. I didn't find any of this interesting as a teen, but I found it cool as hell as an adult.
One problem with Trigger's story is that despite being a game based on time travel you really don't get to see yourself impact time that much. It feels like you're witnessing events happen much more than you're a direct contributor. There are some side quests where you definitely change time or events, such as reviving Crono, but for the most part, the timeline in Trigger, despite its premise, feels somewhat static. Cross' world is anything but static. It truly feels like you're fully impacting its world and depending on which routes you take, in the worst of ways which made me curious to see all the possibilities.
I didn't find the Trigger stuff as offensive as I once did. Frankly, I think a lot of the "Chrono Cross is convoluted and ruined Trigger" talk to be hyperbole after replaying it. It's not without its flaws, but most of them are made with the assumption that Trigger is a perfect game - and it isn't. It's just that Cross is treated badly just for daring to not only be different but also tie into Trigger in interesting ways.
I certainly found the characters to be way better than I remembered them being the first time I played it. I think I was so caught up in the fact it wasn't a fun adventure with fun characters like Trigger that I wasn't able to appreciate the good that Cross had, such as Glenn's background. If there's one complaint it's that once characters join the party, very few of them matter after the fact. But what's there is really good.
I really came away from Chrono Cross more than enjoying it. I loved it when I replayed it. I haven't been able to replay it I last played it to see where it all fully goes, but damn if that first ride wasn't amazing. In the end, I ended up thinking it was (shockingly) a better game than Chrono Trigger. But now unlike most Chrono fans I'm able to appreciate them for being two halves of the same coin. Chrono Cross is every bit the sequel Trigger deserves. It's shame so few people can recognize that.
I really hope we get a new Chrono some day. Hopefully, with luck, it will be every bit as good as Cross.
Have some amazing Cross art.
I'd love if it other posters made threads telling us what games they've REconsidered.
Story time: I played Chrono Trigger in Final Fantasy Chronicles for Playstation when it came out in 2001. I played it emulated before, but due to an emulation glitch could never get past 2300 AD so I placed my bets on Square releasing a Playstation port. I ended up waiting two years for that port which in teenager years is an eternity. When it came out I gobbled that game up due to my previous inability to play it and it quickly became an obsession. Playing it, I had many firsts - the first (and last) time I blacked out while playing a game through sheer addiction. Or the first (and last) time I biked over to my friends house after I beat a game because I didn't have space on my memory card to save and had to borrow theirs. I went far for that game. In some ways, too far. Basically, I fucking loved Chrono Trigger.
So a year later, summer 2002, I borrowed Chrono Cross from my friend. Story short, I hated it. I loved the Mitsuda soundtrack. I loved the visuals. I liked the gameplay, although by that point I was already a Suikoden fan and thought it [CC] was a cheap Suiko rip off with none of the personality. But the story is what I truly hated. I hated what they did to Trigger characters, and the more "convoluted" stuff. I was 16 at the time, and maxed out with the game upon completion, I quickly gave it back to my friend thinking I would never play that horrendous game ever again. As a massive Trigger fan I just thought it was probably the worst sequel you could have possibly given that game.
About two years ago, with a lot more experience on my belt, I decided to give it another shot. I'm prone to giving games that I feel don't deserve it second or third shots. Among that list includes Final Fantasy VIII, Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, Suikoden IV, Xenosaga II. Sometimes I end up loving them because I've open my mind to them, in cases like FFVIII, Mario 64, or FFXII. Sometimes, my opinion doesn't change but I get a somewhat greater appreciation for them (Xenosaga II, FFXIII). Sometimes, I dislike them even more (Suikoden IV).
Cross ended up being in the love category.
This thread is my attempt to deconstruct the game and articulate why.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I kind of don't know where to start. The graphics, art direction, and music have been so praised over the years that it feels pointless to mention them here. Everything that has needed to be said about these elements has been said. So I think I'll start on the gameplay.
I think gameplay in Cross is largely excellent. More specifically, its battle system. After each battle, you start over with full HP which is unique for jrpgs whose gameplay is often typified by resource management, item management, minimizing damage, and making sure things don't get too low so you're stuck in a dungeon with no potions. The best jrpgs, I find, instill a clear message of fight or flight and risk management: do I fight here or do I wing it? Should I run away and risk getting hit and being forced to use a spell? I need to save my spells for the boss, will ten potions be enough to get me there without using spells for healing? Dragon Quest does it, Shin Megami Tensei does, any jrpg worth its shit in the gameplay department does it. What's interesting is how Cross navigates around that while still managing to have the feeling of resource management, mostly through the element system.
The thing is that elements are kind of limited. You're allotted a limited number of elements per character and each character has their strengths and weaknesses. Serge's strength is white magic, but his weakness is black magic. But it's good to bring black magic just in case you run into another white element character. I ended up playing the game not too differently than how I would a Shin Megami Tensei, with each character covering not only strengths but also weaknesses - just in case - for a well balanced team.
What's more interesting is how Elements are consummable. Like in Final Fantasy VIII, you have no MP, and characters' ability to use Elements is dependent on their stock. So if you end up bringing one heal Element for a character, you can heal only once that battle. But because characters' element options are so limited, you are forced to pick and choose. What's even better is that Elements can't just be plunked down and automatically equipped given that they have tiers. A level 3 Element can't be used in a Level 1 slot. So a lot of time and care is spent on finding the exact Elements to equip, in the right order which makes the games meta extremely satisfying to research and understand. Personally, I'm really big on rpgs where magic is a consummable rather than have an mp option. In a game like Final Fantasy VIII for example, where you might need to use a spell that is equipped to your stats as a consummable, I think that makes things fun and exciting. In the end, I feel like Chrono Cross has a more developed, and thorough take on the approach than Final Fantasy VIII and that if they ever remake FFVIII, they could use Chrono Cross as a nice template to gain inspiration from.
The combination of Cross' difficulty spikes and the element system made for very interesting gameplay. The color field effect system and the strategies you have to employ to get the upper hand on some bosses forces for very, very creative decisions. I felt like Cross demanded more of me as a player compared to Trigger, whose main battle system conceit is its inherent simplicity which combines to be both a strength as well as a weakness. Suffice to say, I love Chrono Cross' battle system. Which wasn't too surprising given how much I enjoyed it the first time I played it. What did surprise me was how much I enjoyed all the rest of its gameplay.
I remember when I played Chrono Trigger last (on DS) I remember thinking a little less of the game. I mean, it's still one of my all time favorites but I remember the battle system being less interesting than before or certain elements having egregious flaws like the scripted encounter system. But more than anything that shocked me was how bad I felt the dungeons were in Trigger. There's not really much in the way of dungeon design in the game: traps, survival through attrition, resource management. It's kind of like, you fight monster after monster in the most simplistic of ways. So I found that part disappointing.
I tend to have high standards for dungeons in a jrpg. After a game like Lufia II or the myriad of dungeon crawlers I've faced and beaten over the years and Shiren the Wanderer Mystery Dungeon games, having high standards for dungeons is just going to happen. So color me shocked when I replayed Cross and found the dungeons not only serviceable but actually good. With battles resetting characters HP to max, it meant that dungeons had to be up to par by sheer necessity. You ended up traversing through traps, you had to make sure you didn't fuck up and had not only enough elements to carry your party through, but also the right elements. Dungeons were sometimes full of teases that didn't allow you full access to certain areas or chests unless you fulfilled certain goals, so there was plenty of back and forth. The fact these came from the mind of Square, which didn't - and doesn't - have the best track record with dungeon design is shocking.
Speaking of back and forth, I found myself going back and forth between the two alternate worlds revisiting towns and cities to find new things. Like Suikoden games and Chrono Trigger before it, Chrono Cross has something within it that just tickles that OCD gamer itch. Will I find a new event? Will I find a new character? I might be able to use this key item on this character. This character in this world says something, maybe their alternate version has something else to say? I played the game based on what if's just to see what would happen, just to stretch the possibilities and see what they were and what I could do at any one point which is rare in today's jrpgs for me. Getting characters wasn't as simple as I remember it, and collecting them still had that addictive feeling that Suikoden always had. I ended up desperately trying to recruit certain characters, enthralled by their back stories. Which is funny given how much I felt the backstories were shallow compared to Suikoden 1 and II when I first played it.
I found the gameplay considerably more involved than Chrono Trigger and I was sold on it hook, line, and sinker. Far from the more simplistic battle system and equally simplistic dungeon design its predecessor offers, Chrono Cross has a more in-depth gameplay full of difficulty spikes, creative decision making via the element system, and far more thorough and interesting dungeons.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bigger sell of course, was the story. Chrono Trigger's appeal is, as said, in its simplicity. The characters work despite being seemingly "shallow". The hook of the game - saving the world by going back in time - is genius as it is timeless. The game is also shrouded in mystery upon mystery that are not only fun to unravel but also have captured Trigger fans' imaginations since its release - how did Lavos come to being? Where did Schala go? Chrono Trigger's story was definitely simple, but it was also a good kind. Kind of like other famous time travel stories like Back to the Future. I've never not found Chrono Trigger's story to be a fun ass adventure meant to draw from the players imaginations as much as it did its creators'.
Note: I did this replay playing the Japanese version of the game so it may color my impressions since I did not play the translated English version this time.
Chrono Cross' story is fascinating. I used to think it was the worst sequel you could ever conjure because of its differences to Trigger. Now I realize it was clearly the best thing they could have possibly done. Trigger is about a bunch of kids who decide to try to save the world by altering time. There's no fucking way that act could ever not have ramifications. Chrono Cross is about what happens after time has been manipulated, much like how Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is about what happens once you have achieved an utopia (TNG). Except, in this game, it's not about time, it's about alternate worlds caused by shifts in time.
In one world, Serge is alive; in another, he's dead and forgotten. In one world, one npc has fulfilled their dream as a writer; in another, they work a dead end job as a waitress. I feel that, for better or worse, Chrono Cross simply has more things to say than Trigger based solely off its main premise. I ended up being obsessed with the differences between characters in alternate worlds. Even random npc's had interesting stories and enough differences in personality to see a full formed character arc. It's almost impossible to play it, with an adults life time of experiences, and not wonder in some way, what an alternate you would be like. Would they have any unfulfilled dreams? What would I have the same regrets? What would I be like? As it is, Chrono Cross is a more philosophical and interesting game based off this very relatable duality.
What's more is how these elements intersect with the main plot. Let's take Kid. She gets full of poisonous spores that will kill her and the player is tasked with making a decision: saving her, or letting her die. The caveat is that saving her means going into an alternate world and creating an extinction event. The place is already extinct and dead in the current world, so you actually have to more than bend your morals to save Kid. The game even outright says you're fucked up for causing extinction just to save a girl you barely know. This serves as one of the Cross' first interesting lessons about its story: it takes traditional jrpg set ups such as saving the girl, and flips it. In order to save her you have to be a monster. The second lesson? Chrono Cross is a story that never stops flipping it. The result is a game that not only plays with genre expectations but also introduces a sort of philosophical/moral quandry into its storytelling. I didn't find any of this interesting as a teen, but I found it cool as hell as an adult.
One problem with Trigger's story is that despite being a game based on time travel you really don't get to see yourself impact time that much. It feels like you're witnessing events happen much more than you're a direct contributor. There are some side quests where you definitely change time or events, such as reviving Crono, but for the most part, the timeline in Trigger, despite its premise, feels somewhat static. Cross' world is anything but static. It truly feels like you're fully impacting its world and depending on which routes you take, in the worst of ways which made me curious to see all the possibilities.
I didn't find the Trigger stuff as offensive as I once did. Frankly, I think a lot of the "Chrono Cross is convoluted and ruined Trigger" talk to be hyperbole after replaying it. It's not without its flaws, but most of them are made with the assumption that Trigger is a perfect game - and it isn't. It's just that Cross is treated badly just for daring to not only be different but also tie into Trigger in interesting ways.
I certainly found the characters to be way better than I remembered them being the first time I played it. I think I was so caught up in the fact it wasn't a fun adventure with fun characters like Trigger that I wasn't able to appreciate the good that Cross had, such as Glenn's background. If there's one complaint it's that once characters join the party, very few of them matter after the fact. But what's there is really good.
I really came away from Chrono Cross more than enjoying it. I loved it when I replayed it. I haven't been able to replay it I last played it to see where it all fully goes, but damn if that first ride wasn't amazing. In the end, I ended up thinking it was (shockingly) a better game than Chrono Trigger. But now unlike most Chrono fans I'm able to appreciate them for being two halves of the same coin. Chrono Cross is every bit the sequel Trigger deserves. It's shame so few people can recognize that.
I really hope we get a new Chrono some day. Hopefully, with luck, it will be every bit as good as Cross.
Have some amazing Cross art.
I'd love if it other posters made threads telling us what games they've REconsidered.
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