Flashback to summer 2000. I have an awesome, beautiful, sweet girlfriend. I’m at summer school at my college. I spend most of the summer in my dorm room, playing Diablo 2, which resulted in me getting lousy grades and her breaking up with me for neglect. This has a deep effect on me, which took away my desire to play video games anymore…later that year, both Final Fantasy 9 (which I did finally go back and complete a couple years ago) and Chrono Cross, the sequel to Chrono Trigger, one of my favorite games of all time, get released and I pass them both by. I eventually get over her and the whole situation (although since then, I have been WAY less fanatic about my gaming), and I realize that I have a lot of catching up to do, which has left me this continuous feeling of being overwhelmed by SO MANY good games which I still need to play.
Last week one of my friends bought a copy of Chrono Cross, and had assumed that I was familiar with the game. I was not. I’ve done every possible thing in Chrono Trigger and for the most part knew it back to front, but I’ve never touched the sequel and know little about it. I decide this has to change. To warm up, I played through Chrono Trigger for the first time in at least 4 years (finishing it with the “searching for the cats” ending in 11 hours with all sidequests completed) so I’m ready to jump in. I picked up a used copy of it from Gamestop.
I was having a lot of ePSXe errors, so it took me a while to get started last night. I STILL can’t get the left analog stick to work with the game (even though the controller assignment config recognizes it…and yes I set it to Digital+Analog), but fortunately the regular directional pad works. I decided to play it on my PC because even though I do still have a working PSX, it’s BARELY working and tends to freeze up a lot. At least ePSXe gives me the option of pressing F1 to save state, just for extra protection (and so I can quit without having to worry about finding a save point), although I stress that I am NOT going to cheat my way through this game with save states like I do with some old NES action games. Anyway, once I got it up and running, I only played for about 20 minutes so far. I played through the opening dungeon (which reminded me of the opening to Lufia, since I have no clue what I’m doing, but my party is really powerful, so it’s probably the last dungeon or something), but then the whole “SERGE! SERGE! WAKE UP!” thing was a direct call back to the opening of CT. I also noticed that Toma The Explorer is in the game, there are some direct call backs to music from CT, and cats everywhere for no reason. I know I’m gonna have fun spotting the references. Bear in mind that aside from a little tidbits, I am not familiar with the plot for this game at all.
Okay, now that I’m done ranting, what is the consensus of this game by our members? I’ve heard feelings ranging from “best PSX rpg ever! Better than Final Fantasy 7!” to “man, that sucked. It destroyed the reputation of the first game!” and so I was never able to gather if the game lives up to the first one, or was at least a decent game standing alone. And please don’t spoil me, as this is my first time through it.
It’s been quite a while since I played it. I enjoyed the game a great deal, but not as much as I did Chrono Trigger itself. The combo system is interesting, but often awkward to use in practice, and I found it to involve almost FF7-materia-esque levels of management. I would describe at least one of the major plot twists as “magnificent”, but I’ll let you see that for yourself.
Fair warning: Trying to unlock all the playable characters is maddening.
It’s ok. I’m not a fan of the battle mechanics, and there are way too many characters. There’s a lot to do though, and the story is ok. I’d rank it well behind Chrono Trigger and most of the Final Fantasies.
You’re not including beating all of Spekkio’s forms in that 11 hour play through, are you?
Eh, it’s OK. Maybe a B- game. The big problem is that your party is almost totally reactive. I.E., you are told to do something and you do it. The plot is somewhat obnoxious in that it has a bunch of really odd and pointless bits in there which are simply not necessary and detract from it. This was another plot which just plain spiralled out of control, and by the end I didn’t much care for it.
For those who’ve played it before
Lynx is you dad! And, uh, Harle is evil, or something! And so are all the dragons! Kid is really kinda-sorta Schala from Chrono Trigger (yeah, despite not looking anything like her :rolleyes: ) By the entire Fate plotline, the story was just going out of control. Harle actually survives the end and some suggest she’s actually another version of Kid, although this isn’t described in the game itself.
Hmm, well that isn’t very reassuring. One thing I do like about Chrono Trigger is the way that the characters would always have group meetings, and KNEW why they were going on every single mission. Except for Crono, of course
and no, I only fought Spekkio once, right after I got my magic, and lost. I was at level 55 when I beat it.
I enjoyed the game a great deal. Of course, I don’t have the same obsessive love for Chrono Trigger that many others do, so I didn’t find the plot horribly blasphemous. Also, I enjoy having lots of characters to choose from, so I found that a point in its favor rather than a detriment. If you don’t expect too much from it and just go with it, I think it’s a very fun game and you will probably enjoy it. Also, I firmly believe it has the single best video game soundtrack ever. The music does a great job of thrusting you into the island setting.
Chrono Cross was the second rpg I ever played, so my bias is most definitely a little skewed. I thought it was a fun game, and will say that I thought the plot was pretty cool. I can play this game once a year or so, and don’t get tired of it, and that’s not something I do often with an rpg. The music is phenomenal, and I also think the graphics hold up remarkably well in terms of not hearing my brain wisper “This game would be way better if it looked nicer” (Final Fantasy VII I’m glaring at you!)
My advice would be to not think of it as a sequel to Trigger; instead try to see it as a separate game made with some loving throwbacks.
I hated this game, and I’m a huge fan of all things Square Enix. To me it’s the quintessential example of the worst that JRPG storytelling has to offer; obfuscation and pretentiousness signifying nothing. And the 40+ character cast was just ridiculous; each new character you met was more annoying than the last, and in terms of strengths and weaknesses they were all practically identical anyway. The music was the only good thing about it, but even that was still a step down from Trigger.
For me, this was not so much a sequel to CT as a game with random CT tie-ins so I’d be interested in buying it.
Now that I am a couple of years removed from Chrono Cross I don’t feel nearly as “betrayed” as I did when I first found out what the CC world tells us happened to the CT cast. It still sort of feels like they shit all over the original timeline, though.
1) Porre–Yeah, freaking PORRE, that dinky little town where we taught the mayor to be generous–becomes a military superpower and takes over the entire continent. Chrono and Marle, who even in a normal walkthrough should be miniature world destroyers at this point, are never even mentioned. My fanwank is that they went time traveling to look for Lucca, the time gates collapsed, and they ended up being stranded somewhere with no way to get home.
2) Lucca is kidnapped by the antagonists and presumed to have died by their hand.
3) Robo either doesn’t exist because of time paradox or becomes the “Prometheus Lock” thing that Mother Brain deletes just before you have to fight her.
4) There is one little shoutout to “Janus” (Magus’ name when he was a tow-headed brat in Zeal) in Lucca’s last letter to Kid, but the game isn’t explicit on what that’s supposed to mean.
I didn’t mind the game engine that much, I thought it was an interesting variation on the battle system. I only wish the cast was much, much smaller and they spent more time developing the characters. (It helped that many of them were hot guys. )
Back when I first played it, I beat the game and all, but didn’t end up liking it too much. Though when I played it again years later, I ended up liking it way more.
I used to gripe about how you could only use most spells/skills once per battle, but in a way it meant having to also think and prioritize a bit more, and know when to actually use the spell.
Though it is irritating to have so many characters join you. I love variety and all, but c’mon, really.
And it really did kind of suck that double/triple-techs that were so integral to Chrono Trigger were reduced to a rare handful. You’d think with so many characters you’d have more pairing-up attacks than the several they threw at you.
Overall, it’s a good game, but would have been a lot better as a stand-alone game and not as a sequel to the original CT. Could just as easily take the CT references out and replace them with other means.
I am going to echo a lot of what the others in this thread have said, on the good side. When I first got this game, I tried to play it through, and dropped it maybe ten hours in. Then, a few years later, I was looking for something good to play and picked it back up. Made it all the way through this time. And then a second time with New Game Plus, grabbing a significantly different set of characters along the way.
This game is REALLY, REALLY good. It’s not really a straight sequel to CT, but it’s also REALLY, REALLY good. The music is excellent, the story is above-average (with, as mentioned, at least one EXCELLENT plot twist), the gameplay is generally excellent once you get the hang of the system, and the large amount of characters in no way compromises the cast. The central characters are frankly developed just as well as in any other RPG, and pretty much every single non-central character you pick up has its own unique quirk as well.
I would probably call this my second-favorite PSX game, just behind Final Fantasy Tactics and just ahead of Symphony of the Night.
I’m still only about 2 hours in, but it’s really not grabbing me. First of all, I HATE the battle system. I’ve yet to encounter any dual techs yet, and this elements system is totally confusing me. Not to mention that whole 1/2/3 % attack system…I just keep tapping X since it doesn’t seem to matter if I go for the third attack or not.
And I can see what a previous poster was getting at with the way Leena treats Serge like shit and demands that he do stuff for her, and the player is stuck being her bitch.
Symphony of the Night is not only my favorite PSX game, it is my favorite game PERIOD, so I’m amazed that someone would call this better than it. I’ll stick it out a while longer. Final Fantasy Tactics is a very difficult and fustrating game, but I enjoyed it anyway.
You won’t get dual techs for a while. Look at your percentages while attacking, and choose carefully. When you steal with Kid, her steal percent rate is related to her attack percent rate, for that enemy. So don’t build up your stamina on one enemy and then try to steal from another, you won’t have as many successes. I usually have Kid use an ivory/bone dagger, rather than copper or better. This way, she can hit the enemy a few times to build up her stamina and hit percentage without killing her target.
This IS a Square game, so steal, steal, steal. And then steal some more.
Unless you use an element, use your last bit of stamina for Defense. Defending WILL make a difference in how much damage the character takes.
Don’t worry about the element fields too much just yet. At two hours, your main concern is not allow your enemies to turn the field to their innate color, especially if their innate is opposite one or more of your characters’. For instance, if the enemy’s innate color is red, don’t allow them to turn the field red unless YOU have some great red elements. Remember, if their innate is red, they’ll be less susceptible to red elements. Later on, with more powerful and innate-only elements, you’ll have to watch the field more closely.
DO pay attention to what Solt and Peppor say when they show up and start shaking. They are the in-game tutorials.
I’m not emotionally invested in the original (though I did love that game) but the story was incomprehensible anime style nonsense. I liked the battle system…magic system not so much.
But god damn I hated all the characters. I just wanted them to die. When I got to around what I believe to be the halfway point in this game I just dropped it. I’d give it a C- a few fun parts but just not worth the effort to keep playing it.
I actually really enjoyed Chrono Cross. It felt a little weird as a sequel to Chrono Trigger, but I thought that it tied in effectively in a strange kind of way. Definitely a little different, but it has a good story, beautiful scenery, and excellent music.
As for the gameplay, well, gameplay has never been a huge sticking point for me in JRPGs. I typically enjoy them for the music, scenery, and storytelling, and as long as the gameplay doesn’t suck too badly, it’s all good. That said, I will say that I wasn’t too wild about CC’s battle system. It was a little plain, and I felt it didn’t add much over the previous system. I certainly agree that the lack of more double/triple techs was a disappointing.
Overall, though, I’d say it’s an excellent game and definitely worth playing.
Chrono Trigger is my favorite RPG ever and I’d even go so far as to say it’s my favorite video game ever. I would consider myself blessed and would probably propose marriage on the spot if a significant other ever knew me well enough to secretly surprise me with a gift of the original cartridge version of the game…I only own the Playstation Chronicles version with horrid load times.
That being said…Chrono Cross was a resounding mehhhh to me. It was okay. I enjoyed playing it, but having all these characters and yet only being able to have three in your party at any given time was frustrating. The story didn’t grab me very much, and things like the music and battle system were okay, but nothing compared to the greatness of the first game.
Of course, I played it when I was in high school. I then let my friend borrow it, and he’s had it for about six years and I only recently got it back from him. Maybe I should play it again…
I’d like to say that I enjoyed the concept of having so many potential characters, and going around and getting them was a little fune, but I really didn’t use them. Let’s face it: there are almost no differences between the characters, and the techs are pretty predictable.
[QUOTE=Pollux Oil]
I would consider myself blessed and would probably propose marriage on the spot if a significant other ever knew me well enough to secretly surprise me with a gift of the original cartridge version of the game…I only own the Playstation Chronicles version with horrid load times.
[QUOTE]
You can use an emulator like ZSnes to play the original on your comp. It is illegal to keep the Chrono Trigger “ROM” file for more than 24 hours though if you don’t own the original cartridge, but at least you can feel the magic for a little while.
Chrono Trigger is one of the most fantastic games ever created, and I really would like to play a sequel that involves all the original characters. Never played Chrono Cross, but I heard it was pretty good though.
No, it’s illegal to keep it at all. I don’t know where you got that 24 hours thing from, but it sure as hell isn’t from a law. And unless you have the FBI regularly screen your harddrive, I wouldn’t worry about it. As far as I can suggest, owning the PSX version counts.
So far I’m only up to the second dimension. I should get a couple good hours in on Sunday though.
I enjoyed the game, but I haven’t played it in years. I really did like the combat system with the initiative bar; it forced you to think ahead but it also allowed you to more easily cycle through actions between characters than in most other games that either are strictly turn-based or speed-based. I do agree that there weren’t enough techs.
If you go looking around the Internet, there was a game released in Japan called Radical Dreamers. There is an available English translation patch but you’ll probably have to do some looking for a ROM. The game was released using Satellaview but works just fine in a SNES emulator.
And remember, there’s two endings available without NewGame+. Pay attention late in the game if you want to get the good ending. (Or get a walkthrough, but that’s less fun.)
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