Chrono Cross is a lovingly crafted RPG that makes me wander why Sqaure won't make a new game in the Chrono series.
While Chrono Cross is a sequel to Chrono Trigger (as in some events and characters are referenced in each game) it isn't a 'proper' sequel as such. Chrono Cross included none of the famous Chrono Trigger cast (no Crono, no Lucca, Marle, Frog, Robo, Ayla or Magus) which alienated avid Trigger fans. Instead it introduced a whole new cast of characters.
The story revolves around a young seventeen year old boy called Serge in a battle against the evil Lynx. Serge accidentally slips into an alternate dimension opposite to the one where he lives, and in the alternate dimension he died ten years earlier when he was just seven years old. And after meeting Kid (a young tomboyish girl with an appetite for saying 'arse', 'bastard', 'bugger' and 'bloody hell') he sets out on a quest to find out why he died in the alternate dimension and to stop Lynx. Sounds pretty much like old-hat for an RPG doesn't it, well don't expect that. While Chrono Cross's story is a bit typical for a Japanese RPG once you delve further in to the game you'll find a story as engrossing complex as any videogame has ever offered you.
As I touched upon earlier Serge 'accidentally' slips in to an alternate dimension, well the core aspect of Chrono Cross is travelling between dimensions. While Chrono Trigger messed about with the aspect of time travel Masato Kato (the script writer for both Trigger and Cross) decided up on trying something different with Chrono Cross. Instead of travelling to the same areas hundreds, thousands or even millions of years apart, in Chrono Cross players have to visit the same areas in different dimensions. For me this was a great idea. It's weird going to one dimension and taking to somebody you know, then travelling to the other dimension and have that very same person not know at all who you are, but the way the games story fits around the dimension travel makes it a really great aspect of the game.
Now, apart from the setting and characters been different between both Trigger and Cross, those two elements aren't the only major difference between the two games. The battle system in Chrono Cross had a complete overhaul (apart enemies still appear on screen in Cross like they did in Trigger, so you can still avoid them if you want).
Each battle revolves around 'Stamina Points' around using Elements. The stamina points determine how many times you can attack with a character in one turn. Each character has seven stamina points, and each character has three attack modes differing in strength – weak, normal, strong. Each time you attack you lose stamina points depending on which strength of attack you use. If you use a weak attack you lose one stamina point, if you use a normal attack you lose two and if you use a strong attack you lose three stamina points. This was you could get seven attacks in one turn if you choose to use seven weak attacks, but the stronger the attacks you use the less attacks you can perform in one turn (and if you miss the target you still lose the stamina points you would have done if you hit them). And attacking the enemies is also crucial to using elements.
In Chrono Trigger certain characters had an element (like Crono was Lightning) and each character learned magic in correspondent with their element when they gained AP points. Well Chrono Cross does still rely on elements (Cross's magic system) for characters, but it has been a lot more fleshed out. You have six elements in Chrono Cross - White, Black, Red, Blue, Green and Yellow - and each character you acquire to join you has their own element (rather like in Chrono Trigger), but they aren't limited to using set elements like in Trigger. The magic system in Chrono Cross kind-of reminds me of the Materia system from Final Fantasy VII.
You can find and buy elements throughout the game and equip them to your characters, but if you're character is a White elemental, for example, they aren't just limited to using their own elements like in Chrono Trigger. Chrono Cross enables you to fully equip your party to your liking and that gives you more freedom than Chrono Trigger did. But there's a catch. While Trigger's battles played out like Final Fantasy battles (where each character had Magic Points which were used up when using a tech attack) the characters in Chrono Cross don't have MP. How the elements are handled in battles is miles different to any other magic system Square has ever thought up. You get two types of elements, replenishable and normal. You can only use a normal element once per battle (unless you have your character equipped with two or three of the same element) but replenishable ones you can uses up to five times in battle (or more if you've got multiple replenishables equipped). Also you can't use elements in battle without first growing your in-battle element level. To grow your element level in battle you have to attack; if you use a weak attack, as well as losing one stamina point you also gain one element level (normal attacks grow you two element levels and strong attacks grow you three), and to use certain element magic spells you have to reach a certain element level. If you want to use a Lv.6 element spell in battle you first have to get your characters element level to six before you can do so, and after you use an element you lose all your stamina points so you can't attack again until you get them back (stamina points replenish whenever another one of your characters attack or whenever you defend). The battle system may sound a little weird, but it works really, really well.
Chrono Cross is also different to Chrono Trigger for the fact that you don't gain experience points to grow your characters abilities and levels. None of your characters have a level, each character just gets stronger. How they get stronger is by gaining growth levels. You gain growth levels every time you beat a boss, and these grow your characters abilities and give them more Hit Points (they also grow the abilities and HP of the characters you don't use in battle, which is good), and after you gain a new growth level you can battle other monsters and for a few battles you grow abilities a little more before you stop growing. The way the level system works in Chrono Cross stops you 'over-levelling' like you can do in Final Fantasy games, you can only be as strong as the game lets you be, which again may sound weird but, again, it works really well and stops the necessity of grinding.
One of the biggest reasons as to why so many people loved Chrono Trigger was because of the great cast of playable characters. Well Chrono Cross expands the amount of playable characters Chrono Trigger gave you. While you only had six or seven playable characters in Trigger, you have up to forty five in Cross. Now that's a hell of a lot of characters. I've got nothing against having forty five playable characters in a game, but it wasn't really necessary, for me, in Chrono Cross. I'll admit I never got all forty five characters (I only had twenty-something characters) but I found a lot of the characters pointless. Only about 12 characters actually serve a real purpose in the game. Some of them seemed to be there for the sake of having them, not because they actually meant anything. I felt this dragged the game down a little, it would have been so much better if they only had meaningful characters.
Another thing that Chrono Trigger is famed for is its superb soundtrack; well Chrono Cross carries this trend along. Chrono Cross also sounds fantastic. I don't think the soundtrack is as good as Chrono Triggers, nor do I think it is as good as other RPG soundtracks like Final Fantasy VII, but what you're getting is still something great. The music is brilliant and perfectly fits in to the games surroundings, and I have to take my hat off to Yasunori Mitsuda for again composing a brilliant soundtrack.
But as well as sounding great Chrono Cross is also one of the best looking PlayStation games. Now it doesn't look as good as some Nintendo 64 games did when it was released, but Chrono Cross was, for a PlayStation game, stunning visually.
I wasn't too sure what to expect from Chrono Cross before I played it. A lot of people class it as either the best RPG on the PlayStation or just the best RPG ever made. Truth be told I found the game no be neither of these, but it is still lovingly crafted RPG which leaves me with just one big question; What's the hold-up Square on a new Chrono game?
Review by: James Widdowson
Score: 9.5/10