Chrono Cross is sucking

[trader342]

I am about two hours into Chrono Cross
It
SUCKS
It has none of the fun or personality of Chrono Trigger, in fact it is boringgg

There is no adventure, just a bunch of stupid meaningless crap happening, those goons who re-appear twice and fight you are just a copy of the Turks from FF7... then I can't talk to anybody in a town without them saying five boxes of meaningless dialog, while in FF7 people say one or two lines. I don't care about anything that's happening so far

Does it get better?

[skaar]

Hey at least you didn't have to pay 70 bucks for it.

It sucks. Then you get lots of people. Then it still sucks. And you get pissed off.

I'm sure somebody liked it. There's a vague tie-in to the first game somewhere. But also: it sucks.

[Aussie2B]

The beginning is fairly representative of the whole, except the plot grows more convoluted as the game goes along.

I didn't like it much either, but it does have plenty of its fans. At the very least, I'm glad I played through it to appreciate the excellent music and character art.

[Poofta!]

hey dont compare the turd that is Chrono Cross to the charm, affection and skillful story telling of FF7.

but yeah, it doesnt get any better.

[Sudo]

I loved it. It wasn't nearly as good as the first, but very few games are. It also happens to have one of the best soundtracks of all time.

[Cloud121]

Chrono Cross was the best RPG Square made of the fifth generation. And in my opinion, it not only kicked Chrono Trigger's ass, it handed it back to it after doing so. (What the hell did I just say?). Either way, CC > CT in every way.

I can assume you didn't like Shenmue either due to it's extremely slow beginning?

Then again, your reasoning for disliking Chrono Cross is the EXACT reason for my not liking Xenogears. To each their own I guess. Just play through the game entirely. Trust me, it does get a lot better. I assume you played Chrono Trigger beforehand? That makes everything a lot better.

[dao2]

Chrono Cross was the best RPG Square made of the fifth generation. And in my opinion, it not only kicked Chrono Trigger's ass, it handed it back to it after doing so. (What the hell did I just say?). Either way, CC > CT in every way.

I can assume you didn't like Shenmue either due to it's extremely slow beginning?

cross was absolutely horrible

[incubus421]

Yea, if you count it as it's own game instead of a "Chrono" game it's really not too bad. And it can easily be counted up there with the slew of other mediocre, yet fun, RPGs of the PS1 generation.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I never played it, but I did sell a TON of the promotional clocks in my very first trade-in to the Digital Press store.

[Cloud121]

Yea, if you count it as it's own game instead of a "Chrono" game it's really not too bad. And it can easily be counted up there with the slew of other mediocre, yet fun, RPGs of the PS1 generation.

But you can't count it as it's own game, since it does continue the storyline of the original.

***MAJOR SPOILERS***

Especially considering the fact Crono, Marle, and Lucca are in the game. As is Lavos, Schala, and Frog (Only in name as Glenn. Frog's a bit of a stretch though). Guile was supposed to be Magus, but that got changed at the last minute.

It's been a good six years since I played Chrono Trigger (July 2002), and Chrono Cross (August 2002), so my memory of the plot is fairly cloudy.

[Kid Fenris]

Chrono Cross may have a needlessly stiff battle system, a cast of mostly forgettable characters and one huge mess of a storyline, but I'll say this for it: it's still the most goddamn beautiful game I've ever played.

Guile was supposed to be Magus, but that got changed at the last minute.

It's depressing to look through the Chrono Cross artbook and see how everything, from the story to the character art, got worse as the game got closer to the final.

[roushimsx]

I've never been able to make it further than 3 hours into the game, though my last attempt was about 4 years ago. In comparison, I was able to waste ~10 hours of my life on Xenogears and another 12 hours on Final Fantasy VIII before deciding they were totally not for me. I'm sure if I'd fired up either one right about now, I could probably force myself through them...but why bother when there's other games I'm actually interested in playing for the first time?

That said, if a new Chrono game ever does get announced, I'll replay Chrono Trigger and plow through Chrono Cross just to bring myself fully up to speed.

I can assume you didn't like Shenmue either due to it's extremely slow beginning?

Oh no, Shenmue sucked for far more reasons than just the slow beginning. It also had the slow middle, repetitive end, slow and clunky control (good god did the control blow), an awful script and even worse voice acting. In hindsight, the beginning was the best part of the game. Well that and the arcade.

[Lothars]

cross was absolutely horrible

not at all, Cross is one of the best PS1 RPG's released better than FFVII which is an alright game that hasn't aged well but I replayed Chrono Cross a couple years ago and it's still a great game.

I don't know why you all are so down on Chrono Cross

It's not as good as Chrono Trigger but it's still a great game

[G-Boobie]

they should have cut the roster by eighty percent.

The soundtrack is one of the finest in video games, though. I finished CC just to hear every track.

[SpaceHarrier]

I loved Chrono Cross, it was a RPG I rented with no pre-conceived notions back in the day, then very quickly purchased. It is worth reiterating any number of times how awesome the music is. Personally I loved how many characters there were. I have to say that I am not that fond of the experience/battle system though, it is clunky to no end. Great color palette though, and Cross still has one of my favorite CG intros of all time.

By the way, I never played Chrono Trigger -- and by the sound of it, I'm glad I played Cross first. Should I stop putting off Trigger? Heh...

[skaar]

Y'know I managed to make my well all the way through like 70 freaking hours of Xenogears and couldn't stomach Chrono Cross more than 3 hours.

It did have a good soundtrack through.

[TonyTheTiger]

I happen to really like Chrono Cross. My complaints can be reduced to five main issues, some larger than others.

In no particular order:

1) Although it lends itself to generic characters, the battle/magic engine isn't bad but certain aspects within it are either rarely viable (summons) or flat out useless (dual techs). I feel like the summons were there simply because it became a Square trademark and dual techs were there simply for posterity because, at least as far as the latter, they never managed to be useful.

2) The script is very obtuse. The plot is no more complex than Chrono Trigger's but for some crazy reason the game takes a round about way of getting to the point. Very simple concepts are buried under pages worth of pseudo-philosophical existential nonsense. Think of Ansem's mindless banter about "darkness and shit" in Kingdom Hearts and multiply that about 10 times over.

3) Plot points are poorly distributed throughout the game. It's not like most games where you get sprinkles here and there. With Chrono Cross you basically play for hours and then get bombarded with plot. This is especially true at the end, which is where 90% of the connections to Trigger show up. In an ordinary game this wouldn't be much of an issue but after combining this with the obtuse script it makes it easy to forget what exactly is going on. It wasn't until my third playthrough that I really got everything down.

4) Each character's value is marred by the sheer number of available people. Out of 45 party members, a grand total of four are relevant throughout the game. One of those being Serge himself. About seven were important for a good chunk of the game, about seventeen were important for brief plot sequences revolving around them, and the remaining seventeen are essentially pokémon for you to collect. What this means is that once a character's stint in the story is over, they're reduced to just showing up in battle and once in a while reciting generic "party member #2/#3" dialogue in different funny accents. And almost 40% of them do that from the very beginning.

5) It sort of shits on Chrono Trigger. This might be a positive or negative depending on your outlook but, without spoiling anything, the game more or less does not speak particularly favorably about what Crono and the gang accomplished.



Despite these problems, I still really like the game and would easily recommend it as one of the best RPGs on the Playstation.

[Haoie]

I don't like it much either, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it sucked.

[Fuyukaze]

It wasnt the best RPG on the PS1 by any means. Not even the best Square RPG on the PS1 either. The problem with it was that those who grew to love the original didnt get the sequal they had hoped for, the new experience less system tended to be one giant headache for many, and over all it just didnt live up to many fans expectations. Both realistic and insane ones. The music, that was good. Story at parts wasnt bad either. That said, I just was not impresed and never bothered finishing it. There was just too many other good RPGs that deserved to be played.

[Volcanon]

Chrono Cross sucked for all of the reasons people gave before. I liked how there was branching paths and such, but the setting (some random stupid lagoon) and such were kinda nonsensical and annoying for me. Also the tons of characters who serve no point.

Xenogears was a great game all the way up to the end of the first disc, where the game obviously hit some sort of deadline and they spend hours telling you with very slowly-crawling nonskippable text about things they do. The world gets the usual "RPG-style" doom and death, but when you get to see the overworld again, everything is the same, cities are still there, just you can't go in them. Would it have been so hard to make the cities into giant smoking craters?