Author Topic: Forum Retrospective #3: Chrono Cross - Everyone's favorite Chrono Trigger sequel  (Read 9265 times)

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Offline pokepal148

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Started this up on the Vita the other night. It has a nice soundtrack and I like the battle system. The Story so far seems interesting as well.

Edit: We're doing this. You can pick up a brand new physical copy for the same price as the PSOne Classics version and it can be played on every single PlayStation console except the PS4.

Those who wish to play it on Vita like I do will have to jump through some hoops. The game does not appear on the Vita's PSN store so you have to purchase it on the web store or PS3 and than go to your download history on the Vita and download it from there. I believe that you have to do the same thing with a PSP because the PSP's online store is long gone, although you can still download stuff from your download history.

This game does have an issue when you play it with Component cables on a PS2 where it may not display correctly because of how it switches between 240p and 480i. This is an issue with the fact that not all TVs can display 240p content through component cables (Component cables aren't necessarily meant to do that low of a resolution although most TVs can handle it just fine.) Your best solution will be to switch to a different TV or to switch to composite cables.

Also if you owned a physical copy in the past and decide to download the PSN version you will have to start from scratch. Because Chrono Cross was a multidisc game the PSOne Classics version had to be done in a way that renders it unable to accept save data from the disc version. Of course ideally everyone will play this game at the same time so that shouldn't be an issue.

Offline broodwars

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Re: Chrono Cross: Everybody's favorite sequel to Chrono Trigger
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2019, 11:10:58 PM »
Started this up on the Vita the other night. It has a nice soundtrack and I like the battle system. The Story so far seems interesting as well.

Yeah...don't count on that being the case for very long.

Seriously, outside of the soundtrack, **** this game. **** it for SO many reasons...reasons I'll let you discover for yourself on your own playthrough.
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Offline ejamer

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Re: Chrono Cross: Everybody's favorite sequel to Chrono Trigger
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2019, 11:46:16 PM »
I've heard enough mixed reactions on this game to be really curious.
Not curious enough to actually buy it on PSN yet, especially not at full price, but curious nonetheless.

Please tell us more as you play deeper into the game.
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Offline Stratos

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Re: Chrono Cross: Everybody's favorite sequel to Chrono Trigger
« Reply #3 on: May 19, 2019, 11:25:51 PM »
I bought it after a Crono Trigger replay a long time ago and still have it unopened as I never got around to it. I might break it out for grins and giggles.
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Offline lolmonade

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Re: Chrono Cross: Everybody's favorite sequel to Chrono Trigger
« Reply #4 on: May 24, 2019, 08:33:38 AM »
I've got a friend who absolutely adores this game.  I've avoided it over time because I figure it could never live up to the game it's a sequel to, and I worry it'll be a horrible time sink.

I'd be interested to hear Pokepal's thoughts as he gets deeper into it.

Offline pokepal148

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Re: Chrono Cross: Everybody's favorite sequel to Chrono Trigger
« Reply #5 on: May 24, 2019, 04:03:40 PM »
You holdouts are really tempting me to just name this as the next Forum Retrospective and see what happens.

Offline Ian Sane

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Re: Chrono Cross: Everybody's favorite sequel to Chrono Trigger
« Reply #6 on: May 24, 2019, 05:54:44 PM »
I got a PS1 around 2002 or so and I recall getting this as one of my first titles.  Why?  Because it reviewed astonishingly well at the time, notably with Gamespot giving it a perfect 10.  So this must have been Ocarina of Time good, right?

I didn't get that far and not because of the story.  I don't think I got far enough to have any issue with that.  At some point I walked by a save point for some dumb reason just to check one extra screen out and ran into some unskippable battle against a giant dragonfly and died and lost a fair amount of progress and rage quit.  But the game was proving to be a hard sell anyway because its battle system was incredibly weird and since I have never seen a game since then with the same approach it obviously didn't catch on.

The decision to go with a unique battle system is odd because Chrono Trigger's battle system is quite straightforward if you think about it.  The appeal of Chrono Trigger's gameplay is more that it's really user friendly and polished.  Trigger was developer by a dream team that combined talents from Square and Enix so the approach was more to make the ultimate RPG using all the lessons learned up to that point.  Such an approach with Cross would have been cool but instead they went with something creative that was probably done to distinguish it from the Final Fantasy series.  Actually Final Fantasy X probably comes across more as the ultimate RPG using all the lessons learned up to that point and it came out only about 18 months later.

Chrono Cross will always have the music though.  Man, they NAILED that part!

Offline pokepal148

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Here we go, let's just all chip away at this game together. That sounds fun.



Offline broodwars

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No thanks. As someone who praises Chrono Trigger as his favorite game of all time, experiencing the sheer cynical character and world assassination that Cross does to Trigger and its cast once was more than enough.


Again, **** this game. But, do enjoy your communal pain.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2019, 07:06:52 PM by broodwars »
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Offline pokepal148

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So I got to Termina and apparently I need to bust into a mansion or something. Also I apparently drowned 10 years ago. That's fun. The game seems to be making some interesting use of the two worlds parallel universe thing based on what I've seen of it but there just is not much for me to go off at this point since I don't have the ability to travel between the two worlds and I've only seen the starting town on both worlds.

I already have recruited four party members though. My current party is Serge, Leena, and Kidd

Offline broodwars

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I already have recruited four party members though. My current party is Serge, Leena, and Kidd

I hope you enjoy recruiting the other 41 playable characters and then bask in how the game does absolutely nothing with them.
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Offline Stratos

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Hah! Okay, let me see if I can get my PS2 dug out and setup this weekend. I can always play the original on DS afterwards as a palate cleanser.
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Offline pokepal148

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Cross is weird because it seems to incorporate a lot of elements from other more forgotten PS1 rpgs. The Element system feels like an evolution of the junction system from FF8 which in my opinion actually works better in this game than it did in Final Fantasy because Chrono Cross is much more willing to cast away more traditional RPG elements. A lot of the battle system apparently came from Xenogears as well. The PS1 had a ton of experimental RPGs and this feels like Square making an ultimate RPG based on that experimentation.

Offline Adrock

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I couldn’t get through Chrono Cross. I merely rented it at the tail end of the PlayStation’s life cycle (pretty much when my mommy bought me one for Christmas) so maybe I didn’t give it a fair chance. I’d love to see a de-make of Chrono Cross in the Octopath Traveler style with Akira Toriyama character redesigns and half the characters that have next to nothing to do with the main plot relegated to NPCs. Make it a more straightforward game that actually looks like a follow up to Chrono Trigger. It’ll never happen but a girl can dream.

Offline Ian Sane

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The PS1 had a ton of experimental RPGs and this feels like Square making an ultimate RPG based on that experimentation.

Hmmmm, maybe it's more similar to Chrono Trigger than I thought.  One is an attempt at the ultimate SNES RPG and the other is an attempt at the ultimate PS1 RPG.

Offline Shaymin

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Congratulations to pokepal for making a thread title so long I can't fix it for accuracy.
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Offline pokepal148

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It looks like the game is really starting to ramp up the difficulty now since I'm guessing it assumes I have a strong grasp on the battle system. That Moaman fight I had on the way in was absolutely devastating.

Offline Stratos

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So I cannot find my PS2, might have loaned it out to someone. Also moving real soon, so hopefully it turns up then so I can still hop on this crazy train.
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Offline pokepal148

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That's fine, I'll probably be picking away at Chrono Cross over time anyways.

Offline pokepal148

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So I have 3 $10 PSN codes that I can use to bribe people into joining this crazy thing. They're from the U.S. so I don't think they'll work for those Canadian folks.

It's enough to cover the price of Chrono Cross on the PSN store before sales tax so you have pretty much nothing to lose by joining in.

Offline pokepal148

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So I cannot find my PS2, might have loaned it out to someone. Also moving real soon, so hopefully it turns up then so I can still hop on this crazy train.
I decided to put this off for now so Stratos can get his stuff sorted and join us. As of now I'm still in the viper manor doing things.

Offline pokepal148

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Yeah, I can't resist this game any longer. It's so good!

Offline pokepal148

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I appreciate that this game actually addresses my biggest issue with Chrono Trigger which is it's dungeon design. Chrono Trigger's dungeon areas often devolve into running through a series of hallway areas and triggering the enemy encounters that the game rigs you to have to go through. It feels kind of nitpicky on my part but I feel like it's something that Cross actually improved on.

That forest/beach area where you hunt the lizard things at the beginning of the game had some unique puzzles that you had to complete to corner the little lizard things, that cave you go through early on branches out to a little optional area with some neat loot and an optional boss fight, and just to get into Viper Manor I had to scale a Cliffside while avoiding falling rocks and deal with an actually decent and brief stealth segment that has you dodging searchlights. It's a massive improvement on one of Chrono Trigger's few weaknesses.

Offline pokepal148

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So Chrono Cross is coming to the Switch! Let's get back to this.

Offline BeautifulShy

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Well this is the perfect time to bump this. 

I only played Chrono Trigger DS but this seems like a great game to step into and see if it is as malined as it seems to have the reputation of.
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