Chrono Cross was one of those Square RPG's that I always meant to get around to playing but never quite did. I'm a fan of the Final Fantasy series, and I did love Chrono Trigger back on the SNES, so Cross would seem like a natural fit for me. I've never had much luck in coming across the title in local game stores though, so I always delegated it to the back of my mind as something I'd eventually get around to playing.

A friend of mine, however, constantly praised the game, so finally I gave in and picked up a relatively cheap copy on Ebay. After sitting on my shelf for quite some time, I decided that it'd be the perfect game to get into for this article.

Chrono Cross, of course, was to serve as the sequel to Chrono Trigger, originally released on the Super Nintendo/Super Famicom. Not everyone from Trigger's development team was on board, but the title did see some remnants, like art director Yasuyuki Honne and sound planner Minoru Akao. Masato Kato, who also served as a story planner on Trigger, directed the game and was the director and scenario writer on the text based follow up Radical Dreamers. Character Design for Chrono Cross was provided by Nobuteru Yuki, who provided design for the Escaflowne anime series, marking a departure in design from the Chrono Trigger designer, Akira Toriyama of Dragonball fame.

The composer for Chrono Cross was Yasunori Mitsuda, who also worked on Chrono Trigger under the guidance of Nobuo Uematsu (of Final Fantasy fame). One thing I wanted to point out is that I really enjoyed the music on Cross. In fact, it's some of the best music I've ever heard in a game, and a lot of the tracks are so unique that it's easy to take note of favorites in particular areas. It'll also be one of the few video game soundtracks I'll ever buy. So my hat is off to Yasunori Mistuda, I look forward to checking out his other work in the near future.

Like most RPG's, I found myself struggling to get into the game in the first few hours. This is pretty typical for me, whether it's a western or eastern style of story, but once I learned more about Serge and Kid and the characters surrounding them, I really became drawn into the events. Creating an epic feel helps the game, not only with the sheer amount of playable characters and the multiple directions the story can take, but with the small nuances that appear between the two realities that you travel back and forth in. Sometimes its not all about the giant, epic battles, but also about how one guy could end up being a fisherman on one world and a complete statue worshiping nutso on the next, and how you can choose to effect that life or not. If you're playing without a guide on the initial play thru (which I do suggest, its easily viable), you should have a lot of fun trying to find the side stories and all the different ways you can effect the lives of the NPC's in both realities.

Actually, out of all the things in the game, I found the "innovative" battle system to be the least fun. Using elements (or magic) to color the battlefield and help improve a particular color's power (or decrease the opposite colors power) is useful at times, but hardly necessary for battle. I found more use in the innate attribute color that each character had when fighting the major battles than I ever did in trying to get the field all red, or green, or whatever. Also, the requirements for the summoning spells in relation to the field was a pain the ass, and caused them to be pretty much wasted for me (as in, I never used them).

I'm all for the leveling system in Chrono Cross though, or lack there of. The basics are that for each boss battle you get a star, and once you've gained a new star, each battle after that will generally give you some type of stat bonus to a point. When you stop gaining stat bonuses, you then know you've gone as far as you can go until you gain the next star. There are no experience points to acquire, or levels to be had. You gain stars, you get stat bonuses, and then you repeat. Easy as pie. By tossing out random encounters (thank god) this all helps to streamline the game, since you can generally avoid most monsters on the field or dungeons, and allows the story to proceed at a much swifter pace than a traditional RPG would normally allow.

As far as the actual story goes, I really enjoyed it. Like I said, it took a couple hours to get into the swing of things, but with all the cast members and little side stories that you could embark on, you really felt involved in the world. The main storyline with Serge and Kid was really well crafted, and even the secondary characters, like Harle, were extremely well fleshed out. If I had to complain about anything, it'd be that the end went on a bit longer than I would have liked. Especially after finishing up the events at Chronopolis, and the vague final boss battle (I got the worst ending, mostly because I didn't realize what I was REALLY supposed to be doing).

The small ties into the original Chrono Trigger were nice to see as well, especially the bits involving Lucca and Kid. It would have been nice to see an actual Frog cameo, but I'll cope somehow.

The game looks pretty fantastic still, especially when it comes to the pre rendered stuff. The characters are a bit blocky, and typical of most RPG's on the PS1. However, the environment is pretty varied, even for taking place on a somewhat small map. The dungeons aren't too drawn out, nor confusing to traverse. You can easily make your way thru them without the aid of a map, and shouldn't have any trouble finding treasure or items along the way.

The music is damn beautiful, easily one of my favorite game soundtracks. I'm going to hunt down the soundtrack on Ebay at some point; I enjoyed it that much. In particular, the theme of the second reality (where Serge didn't exist) was fantastic. I could easily listen to it over and over again, even after finishing the game (and hearing it over and over again).

So yeah, if someone tells you they love this game, they're not speaking crazy. No, instead they're speaking, pure, unadulterated truth, because Chrono Cross is pretty damn awesome. It stands out as one of my favorite RPG's of all time, and if you haven't played it, you're doing yourself a disservice.

Agree? Disagree? If you've got any comments, feel free to email me at dustin@gaming-age.com.

Eds. Note: Click Here for our actual archived Chrono Cross review.