Yet Another Overhyped Squaresoft Title (Chrono Cross (PS))

Member Name: Guile176

Product:	Chrono Cross (PS)
Date:	12/04/03 (161 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of Characters, Graphics

Disadvantages: Weak battle system, Lame character design

When it comes to RPGs, there's perhaps no company more famous for
them then Squaresoft. From hits like Xenogears and Secret of Mana to
the legendary Final Fantasy series, Square really knows their stuff
when it comes to RPGs. Sure there were a few let downs to me like
Saga Frontier and Final Fantasy 8, but overall I still consider
Square one of the best when it comes to an RPG. One of my favorite
Square titles was a SNES game by the name of Chrono Trigger. In my
opinion, it was probably my second favorite RPG right behind Sega's
Phantasy Star 2. I've waited for a sequel to Chrono Trigger for some
time, so as you may expect I was pretty happy when Square had
announced its sequel Chrono Cross a few years back. So, how does
Chrono Cross stack up to the original? Lets see.

In Chrono Cross, you assume the role of a young boy called Serge. On
a trip to find Komodo Scales for his friend Leena, Serge has a
little accident on a nearby beach. When he awakens, he finds himself
in an alternate reality in which he had previously died in. Serge
eventually discovers that he has a much bigger role in the world
then just a simple teenage boy.

Thats all im going to tell about the story since I don't want to
ruin it for anyone. And one thing I did find interesting about the
story is that unlike Square's Final Fantasy games, Chrono Cross has
definite connections to its prequel Chrono Trigger. In fact, it
takes place about 20 years after that game and even features a
number of appearances by Chrono, Marle and Lucca.

Although I can't say
I can remember the original Chrono Trigger
(hey, its been like 7 years and i've played alot of games since) all
that well, Chrono Cross seems to play quite abit differently then
from what I do remember about the original. Im not going to make any
real comparisons though since like I said, I cant remember the
original all that well. One thing that I in fact do remember was the
cool time travel elements of the first game. These elements are sort
of back in Chrono Cross. This time, the game has you constantly
hopping back and forth in between Serge's home world and the
alternate reality. In some instances, what you do in one dimension,
can affect what's going on in the other. It can get a little
confusing at times though. Sometimes you may find yourself dead
stuck in one area and you must then travel to the other dimension to
accomplish your goal.

One of the coolest thing about the original Chrono Trigger was its
character design by Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball Z fame. Sadly,
that great character design has flown strait out the window in
Chrono Cross. Serge is as non descript and boring as they come.
Other lame characters include a Mexican wrestler, a turnip, a straw
man and a big queer looking pink dog. Im telling you, these are
designs i'd expect out of a lesser company like Crave or even
Acclaim, not Square. About the only cool characters that had any
real personality and good design were the foul mouthed Kid and a
French clown called Harle. Other then that most of the games 40
playable characters are totally lame. Yes, I said 40 characters.

Although this is alot for an RPG, its not actually as good as it
sounds since most of them are as useless and they are lame looking.

The combat system itself is kind of a mixed bag. Its sort of like a
mix of Final Fantasy and Dungeons and Dragons. First off, fights are
not random as you can see your enemies before fighting them. Battles
are also completely turned based so you can ease back some and not
worry about franticly rushing through menus to set up your action.
During the fight you can have up to 3 characters on your side like
in Final Fantasy. Characters start with 7 action points in which
they can use in each combat round, With them, you can use 3
different attacks or magic. Magic or items will take up all 7 points
while standard attacks take between 1 and 3 depending on their
power. Also, the more powerful the attack, the lower the hit
percentage of it is.

Each character also has their own elemental attribute out of 6
different colors. Each elemental color conflicts with another. For
example, white and black both conflict with each other. If a
character with a black attribute attacks one with a white (or vice
versa), then their attack will deal more damage then if it were
against a character with a blue or red attribute. There's also an
indicator up top that changes color when magic (Elements) and
special attacks are used. By using the same color Elements enough,
its possible to change the entire field to that color element.
Having the field all one color allows certain powerful elemental
attacks of that color to be used. It a
ll sounds pretty confusing but
its nothing really that tough to learn.

Now, the part of the fighting that reminds me of Dungeons and
Dragons is the magic. Like I mentioned, magic is called elements.
Unlike most RPGs, you don't actually learn magic as you get more
powerful. Instead you can either buy it or find it. Each character
has a grid in which they can use to place their elements in. The
more powerful the element or item, the higher up on the grid it
needs to go. If you put it any lower then the indicated number on
it, it will lose power. Also, once you use that element, you cannot
use it again in that fight. Don't worry though, you wont lose it
permanently, its just for that fight.

Ok, now for the parts of Chrono Cross I didn't like besides the lame
characters. First is the whole elemental system. While the whole
thing may sound pretty original and cool, I didn't feel it worked
quite as well as it should have. I don't think items and magic's
should be kept in the same menu. While this may not bother some, I
didn't like this. The actual magic's themselves are mostly useless.
With the exception of a few healing and damage cutting spells, I
really didn't find many of the magic's to be as effective as they
should have been.

My second problem with the game deals with the games leveling up
method. Why? Simple, you cannot level up. In many RPGs, constant
fighting will increase your characters level and allow them to
become stronger. Instead in Chrono Cross, you have a party level.
Party levels in
crease when beating bosses and not from regular
battles. After raising your party level, you can gain a hit point or
2 from fighting a few weaker enemies, but, that only works for a few
fights and it is impossible to get any stronger after that. This is
lame. Picture this, if a player is having a difficult time with a
certain boss and they want to level up to get a little more power to
beat that boss, they can't. Sure you can get more powerful weapons
but that will do very little for you. Especially if your already
equipped with the most powerful weapon you can get at the point your
in. I guess Square calls this innovation, but I call it crap. Heck,
the back of the package reads "Unique design eliminates random
battles and experience points." So im assuming that just because its
unique that it means its good? Some may like this but I think its
just plain stupid. If a person wants to spend hours leveling up in
an RPG to make their characters stronger, then that should be up to
them if they want to invest the time to do it.

Another major gripe I had was with the last boss and the ending.
When I finally made it to the last boss, I was expecting some huge
epic battle that gave me a challenge. Instead what I got was a
mediocre looking boss that was a cakewalk to beat. It used really
nothing more then weak little magic spells that did a minimum of
damage to your characters. I had thought that when the boss started
exploding, it was going to morph into a tough looking new form or
something. I guess I thought wrong because immediately after it was
finishe
d exploding, the end credits began to roll. What the hell!
What a nice ending to reward the 42+ hours I just put into this damn
game. There is a real ending, but to get it requires alot of
frustration. You need to use your elements in a certain color order
to light up the colored globes up top. This is not only stupid but
extremely frustrating to do. You'll want to throw your controller
when you have half of the colors done and the boss cast a spell and
ruins the entire thing. Lame! Another lame thing was that no place
during the game did I find any references on how to do this color
alignment to get the real ending. So, what this means is that unless
you bought a guide you will probably have no clue that there is an
actual ending to the game.


Graphics 9:

Graphics are very impressive for a PS1 game. In fact, this is one of
the best looking PS1 games out. Graphics are almost on par with
Sony's Legend of Dragoon. Colors are nice and sharp, jaggy graphics
and pixels are kept to a minimum. The characters and battle scenes
are all made up of polygons while almost everything else is made up
of rendered backdrops like in the PS1 Final Fantasy games. Actual
character animation is a little jerky and some scenes tend to get a
little framey but there's nothing really that bad that hurts the
graphics any. Magic effects and summon spells look very pretty as
well but not quite as nice or exaggerated as the ones found in the
Final Fantasy games.

Overall a very impressive job by Square on the graphics.


Sound 6:


The sound in Chrono Cross was somewhat of a letdown. Sound effects
were ok and did the job but the music is pretty boring. It has the
typical RPG sounding adventure theme to it and it does fit the game.
The only problem was like I said, its boring. Its doubtful that
you'll remember any of it 5 minutes after playing.

Another problem I had with the sound was the lack of voice acting. I
felt the acting in Final Fantasy X on the PS2 was amazing and really
added to the game by giving the characters more of a personality.
While some may disagree with me on this, its just the way I feel
about it.


Control 9:

No real problems with the control here. Everything is pretty
responsive and simple to learn. The only real problem comes with
learning the whole element and battle system. This is a little more
of a problem then it should be at first since there's no real
tutorial in the game and the book doesn't offer much help. After a
few hours of play you should start learning the whole system though.
Its not really as complex as it sounds.


Overall I was kind of let down with Chrono Cross. After reading
several reviews and articles on it that called it one of the
greatest RPGs ever, I had pretty high hopes for it. Especially since
the first game on the SNES was so amazing. In the end, Chrono Cross
turned out to be a slightly above average RPG at best. I can
guarantee you that is Sega had put this same exact game out on the
Saturn or Dreamcast a few years back that it would not have received
this much praise. Crap l
ike the lack of experience points or the
fact that most of the 40 characters are useless would have been
dogged like no tomorrow by Square freaks. Because this is by Square
and on the PS1 though, those same Square freaks will praise this
game to no end. Its a damn shame that this game got so much praise
while Sega's masterpieces like Skies of Arcadia,Dark Wizard and
Shining Force 3 got so little attention. Chrono Cross is not a
horrible game and I would recommend it. Just don't get your hopes
too high. Especially if you were a big fan of the original like
myself.

Summary: