The enigma that is Chrono Cross

by Wisdom 

I have to ask myself, first off, exactly what it is that I'm arguing. Itâs going to be about Chrono Cross, obviously, but I donât think it will be in favor or against the game. I know thatâs an awkward stance to take, especially coming from a sarcastic bastard like me, but looking at Chrono Cross I canât bring myself to place my finger on what did and did not fit in the game. All I know is that in some ways, itâs a masterful sequel, and in others, it brutally rapes the format Chrono Trigger set down.

Even though itâs so reminiscent of Xenogears that I had to blink to make sure I was playing the right game, Chrono Crossâs storyline is, by far, its most appealing attribute as an RPG. With well-translated dialogue, sentences that actually seem to serve a purpose and not just take up space, (Give up for Xenogears!), and enough tangents between itself and its prequel to satisfy any Chrono Trigger fan, CC does something Iâve never seen an RPG sequel do before.

Chrono Cross struck the balance. It didnât just strike the balance; it bent that balance over backwards and beat the hell out of it. As far as plot progression goes, this game is the perfect sequel. The main storyline stands independent of the series, so to speak÷anyone picking up the Chrono series wouldnât have any trouble understanding the events taking place. But the incredible thing about Chrono Cross÷and Square deserves real credit for this÷is that having played the prequel, the storyline truly comes alive. The thousands of subtleties littered throughout the plot are never essential to it, but the amount of connections, and their credibility, is just astounding. Lavos, Belthasar, Lucca, Schala· even items in this game can tie back to what took place in the first game, especially if the gamer undertook the side quests involving Zeal the first time around. The Chronopolis is the most ingenious dungeon ever created. Finding out how closely Serge tied to Crono just blew my mind. And I sure as hell never saw the tie-in to the Reptites coming. (Although I think they could have done so much more with Gaeaâs Navel· how was that dumb little cave chick the only human being in the entire place?! That just pissed me off.)

The battle system is also highly reminiscent of the original game, although Iâm forced to agree with previous points made. Squaresoft made a huge mistake in limiting Double Techs to a handful, considering that there were so many characters. And the element system irked the hell out of me, by the end· having eighty-five element slots never did me any good. It just made it overly difficult to apportion the damn things, so that everyone had an element worth using. (But once I got the Mastermune, I stopped using elements with Serge anyway·) But the style of fighting, the music· I could be wrong, in fact I have an inkling that I am, but the battles just reminded me of Chrono Trigger, with some new touches. Someoneâs free to support/refute this point· itâs not too essential to the argument.

Perhaps the most important similarity between the two games is that they truly had the same feel. The atmospheric progression was identical: the game started out light-hearted and for a good deal of the game, the music and gameplay reflected that. (Although Iâll admit that Chrono Cross went dark a LOT faster than Chrono Trigger did.) But the progressions mirrored each other: the hero gets unwillingly pulled into a series of events he really had no control over, and eventually begins to realize that because fate is a fickle bitch, (literally and figuratively in Chrono Cross), he has to see them through. Crono and Serge both had incredibly important roles in both games, and yet theyâre both kids when the game begins. Hell, all Crono wants to do is go to a frickinâ festival. Serge is collecting shells. (In fact, both of the main characters sort of struck me as downright losers·) I gleaned the same sense of wonder and bewilderment from the two games, and thatâs why I think Chrono Cross is the perfect sequel: it doesnât have to be part of the series but it fits the mold so well.

But Chrono Cross is not without its flaws. Square blew its own foot off when it comes to character development. In fact, Chrono Crossâs entire assortment of characters is its most glaring flaw: theyâre nothing but stats. I picked up characters, in the course of the game, for the sake of picking up characters, and nothing more. People like Orcha and Greco never added anything to my party, and storyline-wise they had no relevance whatsoever. They had little monologues every now and then if you pursued some sub-quests, but in Chrono Cross, the only characters that matter are Serge, Lynx, Kid, and Harle. They comprise the bulk of the story, hands down. I never needed to get three-quarters of the characters that joined my party for any real storyline reason.

But in Chrono Trigger, I saw the beginnings of Final Fantasy VIII-level maturity between characters. All of the characters that joined your party were intrinsic to the progression of the game. There werenât any ãexcessä characters÷with respect to storyline and to gameplay, each character was completely unique. Chrono Cross does not have that at all. Battles are a process of determining what element type is most effective and choosing whose stats are the best in that sub-class. I never chose half of the characters in my party for anything. I still donât know why I even got that fungus guy, except for the fact that having a 'shroom in my party was vaguely amusing. As far as Iâm concerned, Square failed miserably in this category: there is no character development, or character importance for that matter, outside the confines of the aforementioned quartet.

So in many ways, Chrono Cross is the perfect sequel to Chrono Trigger. The storyline, the gameplay, and the sheer atmosphere of the games are replicas of each other, but both can stand independent. And yet, imperceptibly, Chrono Cross isnât the perfect sequel. The one department that made Chrono Trigger truly endearing is horribly neglected. The cross can outshine the trigger in almost every aspect, but not character development. Itâs not quite the perfect game. But it did come damn close.