An Interesting Rehashing of the Oldschool RPG Formula
To say Cross Edge, from Nippon Ichi Software (best known for the Disgaea series), appears to be a niche title is an understatement. Not only does it meet 100% of the qualifications of the infamous JRPG formula, but its premise is based on a mashing together of settings and characters from the other titles in the NIS software lineup. In other words, it's a JRPG made up of JRPGs. Confused yet? Good. Oddly, that's part of the appeal here. You could think of the Cross Edge running as the Kingdom Hearts series of NIS. The only notable pitfall with this is that sales are a magnitude of 10 lower than the titles that comprise Square-Enix's set.
You'll be starting your adventure in the usual unknown land with mysterious creatures. In no time flat, you're sucking in new characters to your lineup-a lot of characters, actually. To be precise there are 32 voice actors listed for characters in the end credits, if you'd like some warning as to what's in store. Whether you known the characters in advance or not, you'll find them to all have their quirks. This is backed up with all the goofy dialogue you could ever ask for and a character for every RPG stereotype you can think of. The introduction to the game's combat system and basic mechanics is straightforward and will have you strutting ahead with confidence in your first levels.
Sadly, you'll probably be reconsidering that confidence in a hurry, as the learning curve becomes very steep, very fast. By the time all the game features such as item synthesis and upgrading become available you'll start to get an idea of what you've gotten yourself into. Take however insane you think that is and multiply by about 100, and you'll barely be scratching the surface of everything that's crammed on to this game. Speaking of said features, they're accessible at 'Save Points' around the map. I only mention the name specifically because, ironically, they're not where you save your game (you can do this anytime you're on the open world map), but it is where you do your business including the incredibly important revival of dead characters. Though you can revive them mid-battle, if combat ends with them KO'd you'll need to pay to have them healed here.
You certainly don't need to dive right into synthesis, but it will become a necessary evil as you move along. The usual reaction to this is "can't I just buy everything at the shop?". The answer is no, no you can't. You start out with only a very limited number of things you can buy and the only way to lengthen this list is via crafting it so it will appear for later purchase. Although this doesn't apply to all items (such as special weapons with unique traits), it does work for all the incredibly important medicines so that you'll have a constant supply of them if needed. If you'd like a further demonstration of how important synthesis can become, the later gear available to you can only be made using a combination of existing items combined with items dropped from monsters and items you receive from converting your old gear. Yikes. Seriously, I don't know how to accurately describe it all. The tutorials are acceptable, but no matter what you're trying to make you'll be handed a screen loaded from edge-to-edge with numbers representing different stats of the item in question. The frightening thing about this isn't so much that you're given this much info, but that all the numbers actually mean something and are something you'll have to keep track of.
In case just synthesis wasn't enough for you, there are also three very important ways to enhance the equipment you already have. Double yikes. One is to use 'EP' (one of no less than 8 types of 'points' you'll have to follow) to upgrade items between levels 1 and 5. Generally speaking this is a cheap and effective way to improve your performance, as a level 5 older item will outperform something several tiers higher. Second, you can use some of the items dropped by monsters in combat to supplement the stats of your gear. Each piece of equipment has a certain point balance which dictate how much upgrading you can do via items, and one of the eventual benefits to synthesis is that the point allowance can be much larger if you can create a high-quality item (again, using items dropped from monsters as material). Lastly, equipment has a certain number of slots that you can equip a bonus skill in. These are mostly the RPG-standard things like HP regeneration and attack bonuses, though there are dozens total. Unsurprisingly, these traits are not handed to you either, and it requires upgrading a piece of equipment to level 5 and then "converting" it in order to make it into a skill you can place on something else. Triple yikes.
The other major feature Save Points is the "Database" menu, which is something quite unique to Cross Edge. Here you can earn extra loot via earning Titles (basically mini-quests or monster hunting), and your discovery of treasure and plot events along the way will unlock costumes for everyone. Equipping a costume will change the stats of your characters in one way or another, either increasing or decreasing certain attributes. If you'd like to keep things simpler, there is at least one generic "add HP and little else" costume for everyone which can make obtaining these rather important. As a very JRPG-ish feature, equipping a costume on a female character changes their appearance on menus and in cutscenes. Thankfully, the most ridiculous of costumes such as swimsuits change stats such that they're impossible to leave equipped for combat and will keep your perverted mind at least a bit in check.
Wandering the world map isn't the standard you'll see in most other games. Most of note is the random encounter warning device, which is color ranging from blue and green to red when it's time to fight something. The farther you walk the more the color changes. Although untraditional and nonsensical, it's actually an awesome feature. Even better, if you deliberately want to fight something during exp grinding or the like, you can force a fight by pressing R1. No longer do you need to spin around in circles waiting for something to smack you in the face. Good times. While walking around you'll be searching for "Souls" (explained in the storyline), which take the form of treasure for you to collect or mark plot events around the map. One somewhat frustrating thing is that, although a lot of these events are optional, some of them you absolutely must find in order to trigger the next main plot event from appearing on the map. It can get tedious, and you will need to re-search earlier areas for new events and treasure after you move on, but doing this actually eliminates the need for substantial exp grind on normal difficulty. Merely searching should keep your levels up and will earn you Titles for the better rewards.
Your eventual opinion of the game will most certainly hinge on what you think of the battle system. It could well add or subtract 2 full points on a scale of 10 to a review score, depending on what you make of it. It's that important. No, wait. It's that COMPLICATED, I mean. In total seriousness, I have old calculus textbooks that are more straightforward than all the depth of battle here. If you peek at some game screenshots you'll get some kind of idea, as you'll note that the character and ability displays take over half the screen. Quadruple yikes. It'll take you many hours to get used to how all the different bars and arrows and numbers work. This is either a really GOOD thing, or really BAD thing, depending on how you like your RPGs. It makes the game a massive turn-off to new or more casual players, but it is massively rewarding to people who sink their teeth into it.
In short (lol?), combat is in the tried-and-true method of standing face-to-face with your foes on a flat plain. In a bit of a throwback to the old front row/back row style, each side of the field is split into a 3x4 grid of places you can stand. This is important to use and you must master positioning to be successful in combat. Depending on the character and the ability you'd like to use they have different ranges and lateral distances, so you need to think ahead to where you want to stand. For example, a member with a sword will need to stand in front to hit targets, but even then may not be able to hit the enemy back row. Your magic users need a minimum distance to cast so they'll have to stand back, but then they might not be able to reach the far targets either. Versus bosses your placement also becomes vital since you want to minimize how many characters the strongest abilities can hit at the same time. It might prevent you from a Game Over, but it makes shifting around for healing more complicated and, uh… sorry. My brain just froze for a second.
On both sides of battle, combat is run via an AP system. You get a certain number of points per turn based on your equipment, its level, your costume, etc.. With it you have up to 8 abilities per character that will become available, each of which have a different AP cost and range/area effects. Each also has a certain attack 'type' (direct, magical, break, etc.), an element attached, a strength designation from I to V, and a skill level you'll increase from 1 to 10. With alllllll this information in hand, combat revolves around skill combinations. There are over 100 different skill effects (yikes) and each has very different requirement in terms of element/type/level needed to use. The only thing that saves you from this insanity is the "Archaic Tomb" in the game. As you collect bits of it along the way, you can view from the menu (or even while in combat) which combinations you can pull off. They're coded by color, meaning you can either perform them immediately, or if you swap characters mid-combat, or if you equip different skills, and… wow. Uh. Ok, my brain is really hurting now. The last thing about combat I'll mention is that there is a very handy Practice Battle feature available from the game menu so you can test out your skills on dummy targets. If you're bored of the long attack animations, pressing L2 will skip the graphic, and this makes combat a lot more tolerable in repeated encounters and longer battles.
The storyline? There's a story? Oh, sorry, my brain was crammed full of combat graphics and numbers and was still overloaded from trying to explain synthesis. But yes there is a storyline, but please don't expect too much from it. Frankly, it's pieced together as well as can be expected given the insane scenario. It has characters from so many different games mixed in with all-new ones in a world setup that can only be stretched so far for it to even be theoretically imaginable instead of completely off-the-wall. In a word, it's "fun", with some level of character development, and some downright entertaining villains. There are rivalries and romances both amongst and between the ally and enemy forces alike, and there are some quite notable one-liners that'll keep you laughing. Did I mention there are Prinnies? No? Well, there are! By definition of how the game world is set up, there are only a maximum number of bosses to face and number of times you can fight them, but this is played out well nonetheless. Actually, I'll expand on the rivalry system. Though it doesn't change anything about combat, there are a lot of one-on-one arguments with certain foes and you are actually required to use the feuded character in your party for some combat. A minor detail but it's at least something different. The bickering can get quite grumpy and there are running gags and teasing flying everywhere.
The variety of characters and villains and how they interact is a major strength in this game, but it is also a substantial pitfall. In the bigger plot scenes, it's almost as though there was something in the contract with the voice actors to get everyone an equal number of lines. The result is very, very confusing (at best) and incomprehensible (at worse) dialogue split amongst literally 20 different people at times. The optional plot events I mentioned above to help and work on smaller group of characters, but depending on when you discover them they can seem entirely out of place and even some of the main story scenes seem to fall out of the sky and make no sense whatsoever. Unless you take the time to actually process what is said and what's going on, hours of story can fly by without really having a clue about a thing.
In closing, I'll mention how much this game caters to the 100%-clear-perfectionist types. Merely accessing the 'best' of the 3 possible endings is a massive amount of work, and as this is the only way to access post-game super-hard content it practically begs repeated plays (which are politely enhanced via the NewGame+ system). Cross Edge has, hands-down, the most ridiculous PSN trophy set put together to-date, and will take the most advanced of players with complete walkthroughs in front of them hundreds upon hundreds of hours to work out. They're so ridiculous I'm starting to think names of the people insane enough to go for the Platinum should be put up on a billboard. Seriously. It's just insane.
There's a lot of fun to be had here, and I've become quite addicted in working toward total completion. So why the meh score? Where the flaws and frustrations are here, they are really hard to get over. The finer points of synthesis and combat feel like flying a 747 as much as playing a game. Deaths are very common and you'll learn to be saving constantly. Even if you play things very well, instances of bad luck can kill you out of nowhere. Difficulty can be manic, with some tasks seeming impossible. Grind can be absolutely terrible on higher difficulty levels and the process of leveling is tied far too much with how quickly you can kill bosses, as they give more than half your total EXP and you get bonuses (from -50% to +1000%) based on speed. To get at all the features or even all the normal story scenes you MUST have a game guide. Just too many teeth-grinding issues to keep the score up. If the menus could be simplified, items and skills easily referenced, and some of the monster AI tweaked it could go a VERY long way to a better score, but even then the game certainly doesn't scream out as something truly special. Other reviews of Cross Edge have been incredibly harsh, and I wanted to put together something that at least tried to look from the bottom-up instead of the top-down.
If you're ever frustrated, just remember: Prinnies and Morrigan. Prinnies, and Morrigan.