The original Chrono Trigger is consider one of the greatest RPGs and it's sequel Chrono Cross...Err. It's a good game but not as great under the shadow of it's predecessor.
Click here to see the awesome opening to this game
Chrono Cross takes places in the year 1020 AD. Twenty years after the "Present" of Chrono Trigger.Your main character is the blue-hair boy in the above pic called Serge. The game starts with our hero at this mysterious tower with this scantily-clad blonde with an Aussie accent named Kid. Suddenly you see blood on a knife as Serge smiles. This is basically what the game's story in a nutshell, screwing the minds of the viewers.
Anyways, that was a dream the main character dreams about. Now is time to talk about the actual start of the story, Serge is a teenage boy in a fisherman's village to meet his girlfriend at the beach. When he gets there, a strange portal appears and transport him back to the same location but however, his girlfriend isn't there. He goes back to the village and nobody there knows him. They do remember a kid named Serge that drowned 10 years ago. He soon meets up with the mysterious girl known as Kid. She after a mysterious relic called the Frozen Flame.
Kid also wants to kill a man known as Lynx who did something bad to her.
Serge soon learn that he is in an alternate world.
The setting of the game takes place at an archipelago called El Nido.
Wait, where was this in Chrono Trigger?
El Nido was an unseen area in the 1st game. There is an explanation for that's told in the game.
Instead of time travel like the 1st game, Chrono Chross lets you travel between the dimensions of Home World(Where Serge is from) and Another World. There are noticeable differences between the two worlds like Serge being alive from an event from his childhood where he nearly died, the famous Acacia Dragoons are dead, and the city of Termina(no relation to Majora's Mask) has been invaded by the Porre military.
This is one of the problems with the game that makes Cross stuck in the shadow of Trigger. Most of these characters are forgettable. Soon you recruit them, you most likely forget them. There are some good characters with good stats and skills in the line up to play as but alot of them be sent to the bleachers.
There are other branching paths to get you recruit different characters. Weirdly enough, the best characters you can get is being a jerk to Kid. When you first meet Kid, she ask you to join her on her quest. Say no to her a few times and she walks away. You get Leena, Serge's alternate universe girlfriend. She is a good mage character to use.
Instead of time travel like the 1st game, Chrono Chross lets you travel between the dimensions of Home World(Where Serge is from) and Another World. There are noticeable differences between the two worlds like Serge being alive from an event from his childhood where he nearly died, the famous Acacia Dragoons are dead, and the city of Termina(no relation to Majora's Mask) has been invaded by the Porre military.
Wait a minute? Porre!? This little town that's part of the Guardia Kingdom?
Yeah, another thing. Porre retroactively became somesort of military nation after the fall of Guardia. I get to that later.
Unlike Chrono Trigger's cast of 7 playable characters, you get 45 of them.
This is about 2/3 of the playable characters.
This is one of the problems with the game that makes Cross stuck in the shadow of Trigger. Most of these characters are forgettable. Soon you recruit them, you most likely forget them. There are some good characters with good stats and skills in the line up to play as but alot of them be sent to the bleachers.
Alot them are optional and they won't matter to the story that much. You most likely have them in your party just for a quick sidequest to gain their ultimate skill. That's their entire character arc in the game, how you recruit them, and them gaining their ultimate skill. You can have them in main story events but they be saying generic lines in their specific accents.
That's another thing about this game, alot of these characters have cheesy accents or character tics. It sort of help to make them less bland.
However you can kinda tell who are the filler characters. I doubt anyone can believe that a dancing voodoo doll, a baby dragon, a clown skeleton, and a turnip be the major characters.
However you can kinda tell who are the filler characters. I doubt anyone can believe that a dancing voodoo doll, a baby dragon, a clown skeleton, and a turnip be the major characters.
I need to stop ranting about filler characters. Anyways, you can't recruit them all in one playthrough. The game encourages you to play several times. Like at one point, you need to sneak into an enemy mansion and you have three different characters to help you. A fake French wannabe heroic swordsmen, a heavy metal guitarist trying to find his sister, and a mysterious magician. The magician who may or not be Magus from the 1st game. He was intended early in development of didn't fall through. One of the alternate endings in the DS release said Magus got amnesia, hinting he may the same character.
There are other branching paths to get you recruit different characters. Weirdly enough, the best characters you can get is being a jerk to Kid. When you first meet Kid, she ask you to join her on her quest. Say no to her a few times and she walks away. You get Leena, Serge's alternate universe girlfriend. She is a good mage character to use.
Another branching path that related to Kid is right after she gets poisoned. You can find a way to save her or lose all hope in saving her. So the moral is, be a jerk and you get the better characters. Kid does get cured in the end, regardless which option you use. You can travel dimensions to try to kill the last remaining Hydra to get a cure for Kid and get an annoying fisher kid, his sister, and a cool fairy mage, or you can give up hope since Serge is unaware he can travel worlds to kill a Hydra. This path will get him a town doc with a surfer lingo, the mother of that annoying fisher brat, and the young warrior, Glenn. Now the last guy is a freaking powerhouse. He can grab a mythical sword and then go the alternate world and dual-wields both of them.
Time to talk about the graphics. Alot PS1 graphics are horribly dated nowdays with the characters looking all blocky.
Look, it's Hagrid in 3D man. Look at the breathtaking graphics. He looks so real.*sarcasm*
Chrono Cross is one of the few exceptions. It ages well compare to most.
Gameplay is kinda unique. You can use attack in light, medium, or heavy. However you are more of a chance to miss your attack if you attack heavy right away, it's best to attack light and to build up your chance to attack heavy without missing.
The element system is kinda unique complex system. It's sort of like your typical magic or specials techs option in RPGS but they don't go by MP/Mana. Instead, you have to attack your enemy to build up your element grid to cast your element. You can change the outcome of the battle depending on your characters and what elements you got. Like you can bring characters not weak to Red(fire) attacks from a monster that uses Red elements, or you can bring a Blue(Water/Ice) element character. The Blue may be weak but if you cast Blue elements multiple times in a row uninterrupted, it will make the red elements weak and the Blue attacks stronger. Other colors be Green(Air/Nature) vs Yellow(Earth/Lightning), White(Light) vs Black(Shadow)
The music is down right amazing. It is a joy to listen to. You can properly look up the game's music somewhere on youtube.
It's going to be full of spoilers from here on out so be warn.
The game is very very confusing. You think the 1st game be confusing with time travel with paradoxes and altered timelines but it's not.
People are confused by the stories of Metal Gear and Kingdom Hearts. Those can get confusing but as long as you follow the games in intended order, it's fine. But when you can to the last 3rd of Chrono Cross, it gets downright confusing and alot to take in.
Like when this dude showed up in the 2nd Matrix movie confusing
Here's some examples, you got future people trapped in the past, a future city frozen in time, lizard people from an alternate timeline, your dad became a furry and a supercomputer, the dragons gods merge to form a organic supercomputer, humans didn't evolve but magically morphed from fragments of alien parasites, Aussies are clones of a blue-hair girl from the 1st game, the world destroying alien parasite from an erased timeline fuzed with a blue-hair princess and devouring all time and space.
However you can say the game's main goal did end up resolving one of the biggest mysteries from the 1st game.
However you can say the game's main goal did end up resolving one of the biggest mysteries from the 1st game.
Magus' sister, Schala was last seen at 12,000 BC teleporting the good guys away at her evil mother's underwater later turn sky fortress. Many people wondered what became of her. There were a dozen theories on how to save her.
Chrono Cross did resolve this by making Serge free her at the final boss of the game.
Chrono Cross did resolve this by making Serge free her at the final boss of the game.
Here's another thing that people didn't like, well...
All your favorites from the 1st game. They're all dead.
Well Frog and Ayla may died of old age in their time eras. They were barely referenced. Everyone else tho... The PS1 re-release of the game did came with bonus animated cutscenes. It showed Chrono and Marle getting married and becoming King and Queen or next in line of the throne, it never said. It also showed Lucca adopting a mysterious baby she found who Chrono Cross players know that is Kid. There was another animated cutscene that showed the fall of the Kingdom of Guardia. There way alot slayed bodies on the ground and the famous sword of Masamune is stolen and the sword itself gets corrupted.
When I mention about the peaceful city of Porre that randomly out of nowhere becoming a military nation. Well the DS re-release came with more bonus content. An enemy of the gang fell out of a time portal and plotted revenge, thus changing the timeline where Guardia fell in the year 1005 AD. Alot people assume that Chrono and Marle perished from the event.
Lucca started an orphanage and help raise several kids. However the villain Lynx burned down the place, in one of the select few times time travel happen in Chrono Cross, Serge saves a young Kid from the burning building but Lucca was no where to be found. Did she perished from the hands of Lynx?
Robo aka R-66Y aka Prometheus also dies. The villain known as Lynx, aka the supercomputer, FATE wants the relic known as the Frozen Flame. However something called the Prometheus circuit is there to prevent FATE from getting it's hands on it. FATE deletes the circuit.
This is down right depressing and kinda insulting. The 1st game was lighthearted and straightforward and the 2nd game is confusing and kills off your characters offscreen. Robo comes back and says 3 lines before FATE deletes him.
So you can see why fans of the 1st game weren't happy. However you can say it was implied deaths. It's possible Chrono and Marle survived but forced to resigned their Kingdom. Lucca may of escaped the fiery house. Robo may had a copy of himself on the circuit while the real one is out there in the future.
Also the two dimensions merged, so this merged timeline was barely seen at the very very end of the game. Who knows what happen since the ending of the game hit the reset button on the planet.
Like the 1st game, Chrono Cross is has several endings.
By normal methods, there's the good and bad endings. The bad ending is done by simply killing Lavos, thus prevent on saving Schala. Then there's the good ending that's done by using you elements in a certain order to sing a song to save Schala.
After beating the game, you get New Game+. This will let you replay the game will carry over all your levels, stats, and equipment from your previously playthrough. You can also use a certain item to retrieve your characters from your previous playthrough if you want to play go a different branch to retrieve different characters.
New Game+ will also give you early access to fight the final boss. Depending on where you are on the game, you can view a different alternate ending, just like what Chrono Trigger did.
Chrono Cross is not a bad game but fans of the 1st game kinda wish this was stand alone, but even if it was, you still have the confusing end part of the game.
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