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[Synless]

Chrono Cross was fucking awesome and so were the accents.

:lol @ people saying the plot made no sense.

This man speaks nothing but absolute truths.

 

[Fersis]

That was cold dude. :lol

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

I'm of the camp that thinks that "CT isn't really all that great so naturally it wouldn't take much effort to surpass it". Needless to say this makes CC an astoundingly better RPG, regardless of whether or not it's viewed as a sequel. Course it also gets bonus points for giving the finger to a fanbase I don't particularly care for.

Hell with a few slight omissions/changes the very real possibility exists that Square could have made a game that had nothing to do with Chrono Trigger at all...which probably would have made it more well-recieved. But eh I think it's better this way.

Besides it's already well established that if the designers were trying to make a sequel to Chrono Trigger they would have called it Chrono Trigger 2. Cause anyone familiar with the original can tell that they wrapped that game up as tight as you can imagine.

 

[Blackjack]

I'm of the camp that thinks that "CT isn't really all that great so naturally it wouldn't take much effort to surpass it".

I know that camp. Camp WRONG, I believe it's called.

 

[Synless]

I know that camp. Camp WRONG, I believe it's called.

Just because his personal opinion is better then yours doesn't mean you need to get upset about it.

 

[Blackjack]

Just because his personal opinion is better then yours doesn't mean you need to get upset about it.

I'm not upset. I'm amused.

 

[flintstryker]

Just because his personal opinion is better then yours doesn't mean you need to get upset about it.

I reread the post but i still can't find the better in his opinion.

 

[SomeDude]

Chrono Cross had the same problem I had with Suikoden. Way too many characters.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

All the bickering and the hee haw and the riff won't change anything. Chrono Cross is top 5 in my RPG list. Will probably play it through again once I finish up with Xenogears. The music gets cited all the time, opinion can't be wrong on that. I have more fond memories of CC than of Chrono Trigger. Gameplay wise it's superior. Story, it's a matter of preference.

Chrono Cross had the same problem I had with Suikoden. Way too many characters.

Yea but you randomly got certain ones and they each had unique things to say when you had them equipped. You can work with a main group for most of the game.

And the characters will cool for the most part. Of course there are some not so good ones but that never took away from the game.

 

[Synless]

Chrono Cross had the same problem I had with Suikoden. Way too many characters.

Variety is the spice of life friend.

 

[Tenks]

Is something like you said, i did a kind of accent generator for a LeapFrog game.
Its nothing mind blowing on the tech side but it is on the sound department ,since they have to record many times the same stuff.

Wouldn't the point of the accent filter be so you wouldn't have to record the same audio many times? I'd assume the accent filters would be in place to add certain influxes to audio wave patterns instead of completely redoing the VA. Maybe only 4-5 characters used one VA then 3-4 others used another VA. Dunno, I'm not a game dev.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Well I'm sure they'd write it as a strategy. You would have something like a party class which has your characters and each character class holds the information to process their audio. No way they'd use some supermassive switch statement. I'm also assuming the plain-english audio is stored in some form of database so you access it via the character methods something like party.character1.playAudio("clip_1_1_1") or something of the like. playAudio would then retrieve the clip from the file system/database and transform it with the accent filter that was placed within the character class.

That is assuming its not written like shit which I highly doubt it is.

There is no voice acting in Chrono Cross, this is all about accents implied in the game's text.
but yeah it will be a simple data system with no hardcoded stuff, ideally.

 

[Fersis]

Wouldn't the point of the accent filter be so you wouldn't have to record the same audio many times? I'd assume the accent filters would be in place to add certain influxes to audio wave patterns instead of completely redoing the VA. Maybe only 4-5 characters used one VA then 3-4 others used another VA. Dunno, I'm not a game dev.

I missed the 'accent filter' part
I tought that they only interchanged the audio files.

 

[flintstryker]

Variety is the spice of life friend.

it have a lot of characters but not a lot of variety in those characters.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

it have a lot of characters but not a lot of variety in those characters.

Out of all of them, can you find at least enough to build a party and stick with it? I know I can and that's good enough. Variety is the spice of life.

 

[Tenks]

There is no voice acting in Chrono Cross, this is all about accents implied in the game's text.
but yeah it will be a simple data system with no hardcoded stuff, ideally.

Really? Hm thats kind of cool. I never played CC since my PS2 was having really hard times reading PSX games when my friend let me borrow it. Its sitting on my room mate's shelf right now next to FFIX and FFXII ... two other PSX games I missed out on =x

 

[Soulhouf]

Dude, CC is not only a fun game with a great soundtrack, it is BALLSY.
It takes goddamned BALLS to

Spoiler

kill the main characters from the first game.

And while that makes me hurt on the inside, that is why I love it. Because it is not afraid to toy with my emotions like a real lover.

Actually your avatar says the opposite

 

[Blackjack]

You know what amused me about Chrono Cross?

The way you got all the really good characters by being mean to Kidd. You got Glenn, and Lena(was that her name?), and the giant fat lady, who okay wasn't GOOD but was certainly better than her speedo wearing son

 

[Threi]

Serge, Glenn, and <insert blue innate char here> is usually the winning combo.

Guile or Karsh in there when i feel like mixing it up.

the rest are useless (well except Grobyc, nothing wrong with a ninja cyborg assasin)

 

[Son of Godzilla]

:lol @ all the people who didn't think this was real. It friggin tells you about it in one of the game endings.

 

[Splatt]

What I liked the most was how through a random use of items you could get some wackoo characters like Mojo the creepy doll that some girl worships in her basement.

 

[Regulus Tera]

:lol Chrono threads are funnier than Final Fantasy threads, who'd have thought?

 

[Soulhouf]

Serge, Glenn, and <insert blue innate char here> is usually the winning combo.

Guile or Karsh in there when i feel like mixing it up.

the rest are useless (well except Grobyc, nothing wrong with a ninja cyborg assasin)

Approved.

 

[Tenks]

I just find it funny how the actual reason the OP posted this thread was abandoned in like 6 replies and is now just a Pro-CC vs Anti-CC slapfight

 

[MechaX]

Yea that shit was obnoxious as hell. It's even worse once you realize THATS THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FUCKIN CHARACTERS.

If you want to see a funny incident regarding the accent generator, bring

Spoiler

Harle

to Terra Tower. I kid you not, the conversation went like this:

Spoiler

"And the 8th Dragon of the Silver Moon was really... Harle all along!"
Harle: "Zat can't be!"

... Actually... That scene alone pretty much convinced me to never play through Cross again.

 

[SnakeXs]

Really? Hm thats kind of cool. I never played CC since my PS2 was having really hard times reading PSX games when my friend let me borrow it. Its sitting on my room mate's shelf right now next to FFIX and FFXII ... two other PSX games I missed out on =x

Hmm.

 

[Tenks]

haha meant VII. I like to type x's more than v's.

 

[Mr_Appleby]

ah feel like punishin' mahse'f a bit, so ah's cornsiderin' replayin' Chrono Crost. ah hate th' accents in th' game though. ah remember readin' once thet they haf a system in th' game thet junerates th' chareecker's accents as yo' play th' game. Is thar enny Gameshark o' other cheat device code t'turn them off?

auto accenting in action... not a new idea, been round since 'jive' program, i used http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/ to do the above. it's really not a bad idea for a text based game if you want to have selectable characters filling roles where they may have to share dialog.

http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/works.shtml explains how they work.

to the person who posted the code fragment, i'd suspect it's a lot neater than massive case switching.. more like

doText(text_paragraph, curr_character.getAccent())

ie. invoking dialogue means calling the display system with the paragraph requested and passing the accent value of the speaking character. returned text would be passed through the corresponding filter. this is just a guess anyway... but would substantially reduce file sizes compared to having each variant stored on the cart

 

[ag-my001]

While someone has posted the text from the Developer's Room ending that explains the text and accent system, here is the complete game script ripped from the ROM. As you can see, if text is spoken by a particular person, it's already in the proper 'accent'. If not (denoted by 'Member' or 'Member 2'), then the accent is applied in real-time.

Also, whoever said Serge + Glenn + Blue wasn't thinking it through. Use a full stamina Red innate to cast RedField-3, Serge + Glenn X-Strike, then the Red innate with 1.0 stamina uses Salamander. Serge and Glenn have enough party-wide healing with RecoverAll and HealAll that you don't need a Blue, unless going after a Red boss perhaps.

 

[Forkball]

I actually really enjoyed Chrono Cross. No matter what you think about it though, everyone wants Chrono 3. WHERE ARE YOU?

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

All I'm saying, guys, is if after 40 hours or whatever a game has to sit you down before you enter what is more or less the final dungeon of the game, and say to you, "Okay, here's how everything you've been doing makes sense"...

It's not doing its job properly. There is a breaking point for "mystery" for most people. A lot of people stopped watching LOST because it kept answering questions with more questions - mystery on top of mystery, and cryptic dialog that never seems to go anywhere.

Chrono Cross only makes sense if you stick it out until the end of the game; otherwise all you're doing is wandering around completing tasks and events are happening as a result of those tasks and very rarely is it ever said why. Just about every question the game raises is left unanswered until the last possible moment, when it dumps everything on you all at once.

That is, I would say, a sign of a bad writer. Complex does not always necessarily mean "good". If you are so preoccupied with your twisted mystery that you forget to keep the reader interested (and I definitely stopped being interested in Chrono Cross after a certain point), you are failing as a writer.

Cross was not the continuation I wanted of Trigger, and, save for the music, it openly defecated on everything I enjoyed about Trigger. Call that "daring" if you want, I just call that "obnoxious".

 

[pancakesandsex]

Serge, Glenn, and <insert blue innate char here> is usually the winning combo.

Guile or Karsh in there when i feel like mixing it up.

the rest are useless (well except Grobyc, nothing wrong with a ninja cyborg assasin)

Grobyc the Cyborg? lol.

 

[NoitoraJirugajr]

Grobyc the Cyborg? lol.

Hell yeah I always use Grobyc!! He is sooo awesome, second only to Karsh or Fargo. So many awesome characters that I will forever love the game even though the graphics make me barf now.

 

[SomeDude]

To be honest Chrono Trigger doesn't have a lot of great characters either. I just played through Trigger and with the exception of maybe Magnus and Frog none of these characters were developed that much if very little.

 

[Azure Dream]

To be honest Chrono Trigger doesn't have a lot of great characters either. I just played through Trigger and with the exception of maybe Magnus and Frog none of these characters were developed that much if very little.

You apparently managed to overlook the everything with Lucca part of the game. Now, you may have missed an important developmental sidequest with her, but you still managed to somehow overlook several forced events. Marle and Robo go through a bit of development too. Crono and Ayla are probably the only characters who don't "develop," and Crono has the disadvantage of being the silent protagonist.

Hell, even Gaspar goes through some development through the game. And he stands in one place the entire time.

 

[SomeDude]

You apparently managed to overlook the everything with Lucca part of the game. Now, you may have missed an important developmental sidequest with her, but you still managed to somehow overlook several forced events. Marle and Robo go through a bit of development too. Crono and Ayla are probably the only characters who don't "develop," and Crono has the disadvantage of being the silent protagonist.

Hell, even Gaspar goes through some development through the game. And he stands in one place the entire time.

It's nothing that put's it far above a lot of Chrono Cross's characters. Yeah, there are some optional sidequest, but they're nothing big or substantial.

 

[robor]

Is there a code to turn the game into a real sequel to Chrono Trigger?

If you remove retardation and lack of pattern recognition from the equation of your question, you'd realize that there isn't a need for a code because CT stands tall on it's own without ever needing a sequel to retain it's grandeur beauty.

Quoting Masato Kato himself. Pre-defense of CC. ;o

I totally feel for what he is saying here, there really isn't a need for all this bullshit, but there is only because fanaticism is the very destruction of our beloved art.

In basically every single conceivable way in which a game can be measured, chrono cross is worse then chrono trigger. The main problem , having played through CT on the DS recently is that CT is set up to be an RPG aimed at people who don't really care for RPG's or have never played one before. The world map could almost be a non interactive one as they got rid of random encounters, the dungeons are for the most part relatively small , consisting of only a couple screens varying in size , the story is VERY simple, and the characters that exist in that story are the most basic of archetypes you could draw from. In spite of this or perhaps directly due to it , this simplicity allows the game to be experienced from beginning to end in 20 hours or less, it has great graphics so you've always got something pretty to look at and the combat which is normally such a drag in other rpg's of the time is very fun here with double and triple techs, area of effect, distance and such to worry about. Plus you don't get interrupted randomnly, you see all the enemies, there's no battle transition, characters just whip out their weapons and go to town and because they followed such a simple character archetype for your main party , no one feels useless , everyone has their own gameplay niche. Basically the game is a blast and you ignore all of it's short comings. For a number of people this was probably the first rpg they ever finished or possibly the first one they ever played so it just holds a soft spot in their hearts.

Nothing square could have made to follow it up with would have been good enough, in my personal case I'd have actually been perfectly content with the EXACT SAME GAME with slightly better graphics. Square instead went out and did something completly different but really, for me, I'd rather they remove the sketchy connections to chrono trigger completly and just let CC stand on it's own. Even has it is I consider it the equivalent of when an anime like idono, tenchi muyo does an alternative universe story. Given the time traveling nature of chrono triggers story any sequel made is merely a possibility in a sea of different outcomes. Certainly it did interesting things gameplay wise but mostly all it accomplished was overcomplicating something that was so awesomely simple that it worked. And really, for all the possible complaints that COULD be thrown at CT, chrono cross actually has a worse cast of characters because there's simply to goddamn many of them in the game, why bother having 50 people to choose from when there are still only about 8 or 9 archetypes present in the game? There is 0 character development present in this game , it's basically just a bunch of random and inconsequential morons running through random and loosely connected environments. So you've got characters that are ugly , unlikable and pointless going through a story that's only mildly interesting at best , boring at it's worst going through a nice looking but completely random world but honestly, that could be acceptable if the meat of the game- the combat system- were atleast the same one present in chrono trigger. Again the game disappoints having but a handful of double and triple techniques , perhaps thrown in only because they realized late in the development cycle that their game had nothing to do with it's much better predecessor and the excellent character specific magic system ? gone, replaced with a crappy materia knockoff that pretty much means your party has 0 individuality, you may as well be playing through the game with a bunch of one eyed eggs that have an arm for a weapon and a leg for moving, it'd make no difference to the story or the gameplay. Perhaps worst of all though , the best thing about chrono trigger that it still has over any rpg released prior or after it - the way encounters are handled was ruined in CC. Now, you may as well just have random battles because you have to watch a transition load you into a battle which is now just an ff8 quality atb setup. Worse still, you have a plodding battle system pace that is second only to the mech battles in xenogears. Consider yourself lucky should you manage to stay awake for the fights, especially later in the game. Even the developers must have realized how pointless the entire experience was because after completing the game you get a fast forward button so you can see the other endings without suffering through the horrible game as slowly. In a generation of hardcore gaming masochists that care only about math and complexity in their rpg's , I can easily see why they could find enjoyment in chrono cross but to me , it sodomized everything that chrono trigger stood for.

To fucking whom? YOU? Your entire fucking post reeks of fanaticism that leaves a residue of pure elitism. Like if anyone were to disagree with you (because, ya know, it's INCONCEIVABLE if they did) we're belittled by the fact that apparently we're supposed to experience and perceive this tortured RPG in a fractured, dualistic mindset just because some people can't get the fuck over CC and it's references. Or more so, the fact that it supposedly OWED shit to a lot of people's expectations. Well as an artist it actually owes you nothing. CT was made with the intention of creating something that the creators could first and foremost reflect upon and then later sold to the masses to make a profit and hopefully inbetween all this, those who bought it found the magic that the creators had expelled into the game.

It's their brush, and it's their canvas. You invested in their result of what they call art and in return you want more of the same. Well I say artists take on new horizons and with that there is an evolutionary process that eventually treacles out onto the new blank canvas; nothing is ever the same (Twilight Princess anyone?).

With that vampirism is in play here, and you'll suck the shit we all love dry because you demand more of what you had. This is one of the biggest issues with games; sequelizations. It's the cancerous result of fanaticism, it's never enough with you guys and it never will be. This whole CT>CC/CC>CT bullshit is a redundant and recycled mess that just keeps on becoming more and more dense each time it repeats itself and it's a shame, because I personally love them both and I find both installments refreshing and engaging, but like Mitsuda said once about the development of Break: "There is too much politics involved" and I agree, not just on the creators side, but also on the players side, we can't reach an understanding and all this snobby "it's supposed to be like THIS" babble that constantly rears it's ugly head from time to time means that we're further away from the series ever reaching it's full potential as a solid and unique series.

I honestly hope Square never makes another Chrono sequel in the future, ya'll don't deserve it.

 

[Threi]

I honestly hope Square never makes another Chrono sequel in the future, ya'll don't deserve it.

 

[Mejilan]

In all honesty, Chono Trigger was never particularly strong in the character development category. Despite all the love it got back in the day, one criticism that always got levied against it (even in reviews, back in the day) was that it just didn't have nearly as much character development as say, Final Fantasy VI.

True to my word, now that I'm done with CT, I've decided to plop Chrono Cross onto my PSP and give the game another shot. Hated it back in the day and never was able to beat it. Hopefully that'll change. Just got to Another World Arni, so I'm still very early in. I will say one thing, I've grown to better appreciate the combat mechanics. They don't fit my idea for a Chrono sequel, but they are sound, from a JRPG perspective, IMHO.

 

[RevenantKioku]

I'm not big on story analyzing, so what do I know.
But Chrono Trigger succeeded greatly in creating moments. Just to name a few: Being on trial, escaping jail, approaching Magus, Chrono dying, being captured without the lead character of the fucking game in your party, recruiting Magus, all the side stories that Hash(? I forget his name and am not sure of the proper romanization of &#12495;&#12483;&#12471;&#12517 tells you about. I guess some of the characters may not exactly develop, but they definitely have events that define who they are and are memorable.

 

[SomeDude]

I'm not big on story analyzing, so what do I know.
But Chrono Trigger succeeded greatly in creating moments. Just to name a few: Being on trial, escaping jail, approaching Magus, Chrono dying, being captured without the lead character of the fucking game in your party, recruiting Magus, all the side stories that Hash(? I forget his name and am not sure of the proper romanization of &#12495;&#12483;&#12471;&#12517 tells you about. I guess some of the characters may not exactly develop, but they definitely have events that define who they are and are memorable.

Yeah, the overall storyline was entertaining but I didn't find the characters that developed.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Yeah, the overall storyline was entertaining but I didn't find the characters that developed.

Does that actually matter though? It was a highly entertaining story. Can't that be enough?

 

[SomeDude]

Does that actually matter though? It was a highly entertaining story. Can't that be enough?

I originally posted that I thought Chrono Cross suffered from to many characters and not enough character development. But I don't think Trigger's were that much better after just going through it.


The overall story of both games were good.

 

[Mejilan]

Does that actually matter though? It was a highly entertaining story. Can't that be enough?

I absolutely loved CT, and yes it had plenty of amazing scenes. Was it enough? Sure. I consider it a high mark for the JRPG genre. Nothing wrong with acknowledging its faults, though!

 

[RevenantKioku]

That's not really a "fault" though.
The big one is that there are not randomized monster sets that show up for battles.

 

[Mejilan]

Sure it is. It was a huge missed opportunity. For all the improvements and refinements CT brought to the table, it took a pretty big step back in character development. It was a shame.

 

[RevenantKioku]

I find that an odd way of qualifying the story.
A story's sole goal is to be entertaining and it can do that in a myriad of ways. Choosing to not focus on character development but instead events isn't a bad choice. I don't feel anything is "incomplete" or "missing" because of the non-heavy character development aspect.

 

[Mejilan]

I'm not qualifying the story. I'm qualifying the character development, which was almost completely non-existent for some characters, and unsatisfyingly barebones for the rest. I consider story and character development to be two different, yet complimenting categories when it comes to rating RPGs. Kind of like graphics and music are different, yet both are contributory to overall presentation. I like having both, not one at the expense of the other.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Ah, well, I don't and can't see it on that level. It's too unimportant to me to divide it that deeply, so we've not much more to say on the topic, I guess
Edit: Perhaps you're separating characters and story? I can see that, but then I still don't see anything wrong with how CT did its characters.

 

[vareon]

How come a thread about a person asking Chrono Cross' accent generator ends up with another battle of CC vs CT?