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[theofficefan99]

I didn't like the final 20 mins of the game, and there was a stretch of the game where I was like "ok... can we move on pls" along with being confused as to which dimension I was supposed to go to, and I got annoyed at the stat boost caps, BUT........ it's one of my favorite games of all time.

 

[Shouta]

I thought the story was a mess and poorly told, the combat was only OK, and the numerous characters that don't really add anything made it feel like it was trying to be Suikoden but did not understand how to make it work. Then there's the stuff it does with CT.

The bar for that gen was high so it needed to do way more and do it way better than it did. It probably doesn't make my top 10 for the PSX let alone the Top 5 for that system alone.

 

[jnWake]

The thing with Chrono Cross is that, in terms of design, it's the opposite of Chrono Trigger. CT has a small cast of characters, most of them nicely developed through the story. CT has very simple systems too, battles are quick and fun, characters learn skills automatically so players don't have to worry much about that. CT also has a simple but emotional story. CC has a huge cast with little development, a strange system for skills, a weird ass leveling system and a very convoluted story. I like CC but when you take it as a sequel to CT it's easy to see why it gets so much hate since it takes a simple and effective formula and turns into it into a complex mess.

 

[surjective]

Terrible battle system, terrible music, terrible characters. I stopped playing the game after Serge gets bodyjacked and never looked back.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I had it the day it came out with the OST and wall poster Babbages was giving away. The OST was superb, but the plot was forgettable. The characters were never that important to me except Lynx. Lynx by far was the most interesting character. The game looks beautiful. It just doesn't have the charm of Chrono Trigger. Some parts of Chrono Cross are awesome. I remember replaying it in 2006. I still remember the

Spoiler

rigged casino game

I wouldn't go on a huge rant against Chrono Cross, but the plot felt forgettable in a couple ways.

 

[Jezan]

We were supposed to save them in the final game of the Chrono trilogy:

Hopefully we get that Chrono All-Stars.

I want a Starky spin-off though, a planet full of small aliens that pilot mechas and they audit planets? Badass

Lucca's letter in Cross made perfect sense to me. A huge chunk of the game is dealing with the consequences of your action. While the trigger crew saved the world they've also prevented people from the ruined future from existing. They've also lead to the creation of the Chronopolis and the whole convoluted frozen flame plot. Lucca more or less believed someone would come for them because of what they did anyway and it actually happens.

That's were they forget their own rules, I mean in Trigger they basically said that life finds a way and people would be born but in different circumstances, and their memories would be non-existant (which is also a really sad concept if we delve into it) since it will be the first time they are "born".

But then the Reptite ending in Trigger (where Ayla is fighting Lavos and no one is fighting the Reptites) or the story arc where Azala steals the gate key say that those actions created an alternate universe where Reptites are the dominating species but humans still exist. So where is the non-existing future? Like all rules of the Chrono universe point that no one dies by altering the time line, I mean everyone is born in different circumstances but no one is forgotten by time, then Miguel is like "fuck this, change the rules, drama-license, Serge is the scapegoat".

Cross is awesome, but you don't play with the characters like that; I was disappointed but leaned to accept it. Specially because I was conflicted that Crono, Marle and Lucca are kids in Cross, but weren't they supposed to be like 19 (?) in Trigger, they never looked like kids or teens, if anything they were late teens. Were the kids added for drama? Because that made me say "These are not the guys I saved the world with, these kids do not know hardships"

EDIT: I checked and Crono is 17, Marle is 16, and Lucca is 19.

EDIT2: While the combat was great, it was not an evolution of the previous game. They added two elements, which were never mentioned by anyone in Trigger. Even though each character had an innate element, you could equip any element, thus making Spekkio seem like a crazy creature rambling about rules, about that, they gave Grobyc an element, but maybe it cna be overlooked casue he is a cyborg and not a full robot like Robo. But then they gave magic to all random creatures like Mojo or Skelly, and Spekkio couldn't give Ayla one element? Because in her time no one knew magic? Ok, I'm sure Leah didn't learn magic, nor Draggy , NeoFio, Pip or Turnip. I understand that the Tech learned by each characters are extensions of their "attack style" but then giving magic to everyone including physical attackers made each character stand out less in this big cast.

Some of those rules broken by Cross even if they were not in the player faces, were enough to make players disappointed.IMO

 

[Mr_Moogle]

The only thing I don't like about this game is that is wasn't released in PAL territories.

Why on earth haven't Square released a digital version of this game?

 

[Soulstar]

Cross is one of my all time faves. I really should play it again sometime soon.

Also Gale is an awesome battle theme.

 

[BlondeTuna]

Background: Played CT as a kid a little after release, loved it, one of my all time favorites.

I was super hyped for CC and got it on release day. I played for probably half the game, and just stopped because 95% of the cast was trivial, the plot did not grab me, and the game felt slow. I was extremely let down by CC and have never gone back.

Years later I read the plot synopsis and ending on the Internet, and felt I made the right decision.

 

[Rutger]

A big thing for me is that it opens up wanting to be its own thing, and that's cool, but when it feels its time to get serious with its plot it falls back heavily on plot threads from Chrono Trigger. Sadly, where the story goes lacks impact when the characters it would matter to the most are not there, and how it treats several of those characters just leaves a bad taste. I've kind of warmed up to the story a little if I look at it as a continuation of the worst possible ending one could get in CT, but it's still a mess overall.

Other things, I thought the battle system had some interesting ideas, but still needed some work and could be kind of tedious. The two timelines is used in a far less interesting way than the multiple eras in CT. The character artstyle is a big downgrade from Akira Toriyama. And the main battle theme was so bad I would often mute the game.

Edit: Oh yeah, the massive cast was severely underdeveloped, and largely unnecessary. I forgot that was actually a thing with how worthless most were.

 

[Call Me A Hero]

It's a good game on its own terms but not really good as a sequel to CT.

What personally I didn't like about this game:
- Level system
- Battle theme
- Battle system
- Few team members while there are too many characters, it should be 4 instead of 3
- Body swap
- Final battle, not challenging at all

 

[trejo]

Chrono Trigger: "Hey, you wanna go on a fun adventure with a likeable cast of characters that you'll grow to be incredibly attached to while you save the world from a big bad?"

Chrono Cross: "Hey, remember all those characters you loved? Well they all died like dogs in the streets, the lot of 'em. Dumbasses shouldn't have messed with time so they got what was coming to them. Fuck 'em and fuck you. Now here's 40 assholes you don't give a shit about. Go do whatever."

 

[Nicolada]

Chrono Trigger: "Hey, you wanna go on a fun adventure with a likeable cast of characters that you'll grow to be incredibly attached to while you save the world from a big bad?"

Chrono Cross: "Hey, remember all those characters you loved? Well they all died like dogs in the streets, the lot of 'em. Dumbasses shouldn't have messed with time so they got what was coming to them. Fuck 'em and fuck you. Now here's 40 assholes you don't give a shit about. Go do whatever."

But it's like, people die. They aren't the main characters in Cross, so anything can happen and you should be able to accept it. Ayla and Frog would obviously be dead at this point, and the former apparently even got a daughter so we know she got a happy ending. Then Magus may or may not be Guile depending on how seriously you take the Dream Devourer ending from CT DS. Crono didn't have a personality so zero attachment there. Marle was the worst party member. So really, it's just the loss of Robo and Lucca that was sad, and the latter was still a significant character so we can still be happy about that.

 

[JC Lately]

Also: Does anyone remember what the point of the final battle was?

Spoiler

Was it just rescuing Schala? And if so, are there now two of her (herself and her "clone" Kid). Or did they merge?

Was it killing nu-Lavos/Time Devourer? And if so what's there to make it stick this time, as opposed to when Chrono and co do it?

Was it to reunite Home and Another dimension into a single timeline again? And if so did it even work? The game ends with Kid/Schala looking for Serge, if the dimensions are unified, why couldn't she just go to his town and knock on his door? And if the timelines are unified, which version of events would stick? Did Guardia still fall? Will Chronopolois still be built? Will the Time Crash still happen? THEN WHAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT?

 

[TrounceX]

...terrible music...

Something is wrong with your hearing.

 

[Choppasmith]

Besides too many characters with very little consequence to the plot (robbing the player of the chance to grow attached to them), the convoluted storyline and the obtuse battle-system...

The biggest reason (for me, personally) is that the game is so far up it's own ass. The original dream team wanted to make a simple, charming, coming-of-age story...and it worked.
Kato came in and decided to say 'FUCK! THAT'. At times, the story and themes seem to arguably hate you, the player, for liking Chrono Trigger.

It's like somebody came in, looked at a popular kid's cartoon and decided to make an extremely edgy sequel to it and then complain loudly why it wasn't as well received.

Chrono Trigger was (and still is) possibly the greatest JRPG of all time.

Chrono Cross was sold to me as essentially "Chrono Trigger 2".

My first impression of the game was that it was jawdroppingly beautiful. But eventually I couldn't keep suppressing the question that was gnawing at the back of my mind for quite a long time "What part of any of this makes it a Chrono game?"

I gave up and allowed someone to spoil the plot for me. Chrono Cross' connection to Chrono Trigger is that Chrono Cross eventually gets around to making a statement of "Fuck Chrono Trigger. And fuck you for enjoying what may be one of the greatest JRPGs of all time."

Chrono Cross should've done a much better job of being Chrono Trigger 2, or it should've put a lot more distance between itself and Chrono Trigger.

I think these sum it up quite well. I would NEVER argue against it being great in a technical way. OUTSTANDING graphics, AMAZING score that, sure, can outdo Trigger in some ways, and I think the battle system was good too. But I, too, got that "Fuck Chrono Trigger" vibe, and it didn't help that most of the recruitable characters were just forgettable and the story felt like it was trying way too hard to be deep and thought provoking out of some fear that people don't like light hearted games. It's funny because Kingdom Hearts is kinda similar in the sense that it has this over the top "complexity" to its lore but still manages to be fun and upbeat. It's like Cross WANTED to be like that but ends up tripping and falling on its face.

 

[Cheerilee]

https://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Supporting_Material_Translation.html#Masato_Kato_Interview

There was also a time during a meeting when the idea of the main character dying came up, and the whole room suddenly burst into laughter. I seemed to be the only one who thought “That was a serious suggestion, what’s so funny?” and sat looking blank. (laughs) Although at that point Mr Horī did say “Hey, that might be pretty interesting.” Incidentally, the idea that I had at that time was for Crono to really die, and the others would have to go back in time and enlist a version of Crono from the night before the Fair. Then after the final battle they would have to return him to that point in time and bid him farewell. But that idea was rejected (laughs). They said it had to be a happy ending, so we eventually settled on the story with the clone as it is today.

Chrono Trigger was great in part because Yuji Horii was there to steer Masato Kato's dark ideas in the right direction.

Chrono Trigger was frequently dark, but it was presented in the context of optimists fighting to bring the light back. You (the player) fought through the darkness and eventually earned the happy ending. It should be no surprise that the guy who didn't understand Chrono Trigger's need for a happy ending was the one who revoked Chrono Trigger's happy ending.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

There is too much fluff, the pacing is erratic, and the info dump at the end makes me weep because it seems so misplaced. There was solid gold set aside in optional dialogue.

The team ran out of time and had to cut some plot points and quickly wrap up the endgame. (Back in the PS1 era all Square games had to be developed in less than 2 years; Xenogears also ran into the same problems.) The info dump at the end was actually shorter in the Japanese version but the American translator asked Kato to add some details in the English localization for the sake of clarifications.

Except... it wasn't really a sequel to Chrono Trigger so much as it was a re-make of the satalliview snes game Radical Dreamers. Elements felt shoehorned in to make it work as a followup to CT but it never felt natural to me. It reminded me of something like Dinosaur planet becoming star fox adventure - where you could tell this was chopped into a sequel rather than simply being it's own thing.

But Radical Dreamers was a sequel to Chrono Trigger...

That's were they forget their own rules, I mean in Trigger they basically said that life finds a way and people would be born but in different circumstances, and their memories would be non-existant (which is also a really sad concept if we delve into it) since it will be the first time they are "born".

But then the Reptite ending in Trigger (where Ayla is fighting Lavos and no one is fighting the Reptites) or the story arc where Azala steals the gate key say that those actions created an alternate universe where Reptites are the dominating species but humans still exist. So where is the non-existing future? Like all rules of the Chrono universe point that no one dies by altering the time line, I mean everyone is born in different circumstances but no one is forgotten by time, then Miguel is like "fuck this, change the rules, drama-license, Serge is the scapegoat".

Well that's the thing (bolded), they should be erased but circumstances made things like the Dead Sea, the ghost-like Dragon God, and the Time Devourer itself re-emerge/persist.

 

["D"]

I lot of people didn't like the revelation of what happened to Crono and crew when you reach the end of the Dead Sea, but I personally kinda liked it. It deviated from the normal in such that "oh we saved the world, everything is fine now" stuff and gave you a fucked off conclusion instead. Typical ending for most games so when I seen this I was like "damn that's fucked up...but this some real shit though"

 

[Rutger]

But it's like, people die. They aren't the main characters in Cross, so anything can happen and you should be able to accept it. Ayla and Frog would obviously be dead at this point, and the former apparently even got a daughter so we know she got a happy ending. Then Magus may or may not be Guile depending on how seriously you take the Dream Devourer ending from CT DS. Crono didn't have a personality so zero attachment there. Marle was the worst party member. So really, it's just the loss of Robo and Lucca that was sad, and the latter was still a significant character so we can still be happy about that.

I should I be happy that Lucca was killed off screen to motivate some character I couldn't care less about?

If Trigger was that kind of dark game to begin with, then the move to Cross wouldn't feel off, but as it is the two game's stories have very different tones. If Cross was truly its own game then that would have still been fine, but its connected too closely to Trigger's story, so it's very reasonable for someone to be unhappy with how it treats those characters.

Cross' story felt like it was trying to tell me to move on, that the game I love somehow isn't as great as I think it is. It's like they didn't have enough confidence to move forward with something very different so they tried to make the first game seem like a mistake. That's what I felt when playing Cross, and it made it very hard for me to care about what was going on.

If you love Cross then that's fine, I'm not saying it doesn't have its merits. However people don't have to just accept it when the game seems to be actively trying to destroy things people loved about Trigger. It's a different kind of game with some very close connections to Trigger, people will have strong feelings about how it handles everything.

 

[thechristoph]

I have not played the game since it was new, so these are opinions from the year 2000. I would love to give the game a fresh try, but here's where I landed.

It wasn't Chrono Trigger 2, like everyone said.

Who is this Serge jerk and is anything more 2000 than the gratuitous "hot lady" sidekick?

The battle system made no sense at all to me at the time.

The only gameplay bit I remember was invading Lynx's castle, and wondering to myself if there were cat people in Trigger. I didn't remember them.

I didn't (and still don't) like the graphics... I was slow on the draw in N64/PS1 era. We went from awesome, colorful SNES graphics to ass-ugly muddy polygon sludge.

The tone is all wrong. It's so far up its own ass. Chrono Trigger was about saving the world, yeah, but it was very light along the way.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Anyone who thinks that Chrono Cross "tried to make the first game seem like a mistake" simply didn't understand Chrono Cross.

Masato Kato cares about Lucca more than any of us and any of the other Chrono Trigger staff. It's not like her death -- and planned reappearance in the cancelled third Chrono game -- was gratuitous. It served to tell a story.

 

[Fou-Lu]

Gratuitous hot lady sidekick?....
What?

 

[HotHamBoy]

Chrono Cross > Suikoden

When it comes down to it the story and world just aren't as endearing as Trigger's and the tight band of characters is replaced by a whole heap of goofballs.

But I really like Cross. I think the battle system, story and cast are way more interesting and fun than Suikoden - another PS1 RPG in which one amasses a huge collection of party characters.

 

[Vampfox]

Cause it shits on the characters from the first game. The fall of Guardia was a huge middle finger to fans of the first game.

 

[Rutger]

Anyone who thinks that Chrono Cross "tried to make the first game seem like a mistake" simply didn't understand Chrono Cross.

Masato Kato cares about Lucca more than any of us and any of the other Chrono Trigger staff. It's not like her death -- and planned reappearance in the cancelled third Chrono game -- was gratuitous. It served to tell a story.

Maybe he does, but that's not how the game felt when I was playing it. Killing several characters off screen doesn't look like care for those characters, and it really comes off as nothing more than for cheap shock value. It may have been to tell a story but I don't think it gave us a well told story.

 

[KingParappa]

Wrong thread.

but I love Chrono Cross

 

[Choppasmith]

https://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Supporting_Material_Translation.html#Masato_Kato_Interview

Chrono Trigger was great in part because Yuji Horii was there to steer Masato Kato's dark ideas in the right direction.

Chrono Trigger was frequently dark, but it was presented in the context of optimists fighting to bring the light back. You (the player) fought through the darkness and eventually earned the happy ending. It should be no surprise that the guy who didn't understand Chrono Trigger's need for a happy ending was the one who revoked Chrono Trigger's happy ending.

This reminds me of Zootopia's development how it was originally so dark and dreary until Lassiter pointed out how awful it was and no one would enjoy a place that's so unlikable. I guess the Chrono Cross equivalent to a Zootopia sequel would involve some new characters with the city becoming this war torn dystopia, shock collars for the predators with all the characters from the first film either dead or killed.

Just because you could doesn't mean you should. I feel like people are missing that point the most.

 

[legacyzero]

The game seems to lack a real focus. Even outside just the story. Throughout the whole game, I just found myself completely uninterested with the story, the characters, and the gameplay was barely enough to keep me engaged until the end.

 

[Korigama]

Well for starters it has the some of the worst that '90s Japan could offer in character design, add to that a supersized cast and the fact the characters in the previous game were designed by the most famous and recognizable mangaka of its time and you have a recipe for disaster.
Second the more you get into the game the more you see that this game treats Trigger and everything that happened in that game like trash which hurts a lot if you liked Trigger.


Edit:
I mean what the heck is this?

It looks one of those "how to draw manga" characters from publications that were around years ago.

I'd say it's a disservice to suggest that there's nothing worthwhile in respect to character design in Cross. Nobuteru Yuki is not as famous as Akira Toriyama of course, but I'd say he's done noteworthy work both in CC and elsewhere (i.e., Escaflowne, the Battle Angel OAV). I would also say that occasional duds like the one cited (whom I rightfully dismissed in an earlier post) would be inevitable in a cast as large as one with 45 playables, regardless of who the artist is.

 

[sensui-tomo]

I thought crono and marle were never confirmed for dead, just missing, Lucca is dead for sure during CC, robo got merged with spoiler, frog,Ayla die from age due to time period and Dalton made piorre a militant super power. Kids shown in CC are dead from another timeline that we see.