Chrono Trigger Again, Only A Whole Lot Better

The long-awaited sequel to Chrono Trigger is all that was expected -- and more. If you've ever played Chrono Trigger for SNES, the best ending includes a room where a robot asked Crono if he would like to see a sequel to the game. I don't know about everyone else, but I hit "yes" about 75 times. When Chrono Cross came out, I told myself, "I have to have that game." For only 50 dollars, I think I got the best RPG available for Playstation (I don't count the FF series -- it's just getting old).

The game opens with a sequence in Fort Dragonia, where Serge, the main character who is from Arni Village, Kid, a mysterious traveler who meets up with Serge, and a randomly selected character are about to confront Lynx, the evil mastermind. Just as you reach the door, however, Serge gets a strange vision and then wakes up from what was all a bad dream. He then goes to meet his girlfriend, Leena, who instructs him to find her some Komodo dragon scales for her necklace. After collecting the scales, he meets Leena at Opassa Beach. A voice beckons him from out of thin air, a strange vortex swirls around him, and he goes unconscious.

Serge is woken up by an old man from Arni who seems to have no clue who Serge is. Serge runs to the village to meet up with Leena; however, she too is befuddled by this strange visitor. She seems to recognize his face, however, and says he looks like a boy she used to live next door to. However, Serge is startled when he finds out that the boy she knew died 10 years earlier. He goes to the gravesite to confirm this fact when Karsh, Solt, and Peppor, three dragoons from Lord Viper's manor, trap him and try to kidnap him. Kid, however, jumps in (literally) and helps him fight the attackers off. From here, the story takes a whole lot of different branches with the same background: Lord Viper has teamed up with Lynx to find the Frozen Flame, an object with the power to heal and change events. Lynx has a strange connection with Serge, Kid has a strange connection with Lynx, and yes, Kid does have a connection with Serge. All these events -- and more -- come out during the course of the game.

I absolutely loved this game. It has the same basic style of play as CT, but there are a few minor improvements. For one, rather than wait for a time gauge to fill up before you can attack, CC has a "stamina point" system. Each character begins the battle with a full 7 points. You have five different options with these points. Hand-to-hand attacks take either 1, 2, or 3 points depending on the strength of attack you wish. These attacks, if successful, fill up the power grid, needed to use elements. Elements, another addition, take 7 points to use. There are a whole lot of different elements, each of different powers, that can fit into the element grid. To use an element, you need to have built up your meter to that level and have at least one stamina point. After you use an element, the power meter decreases by the level of the element you used, and you also won't be able to use that element again in the same battle. You can choose to use all 7 points on attacks, start off with an element, or combine the two. Yes, you can use more than 7 points in a turn (if you use an element when you have 3 stamina points, for example, your gauge will go to -4), but you have to wait longer to do your next attack. Finally, if you defend, your defense power goes up (duh!) and you also add a stamina point to your meter. The stamina points also allow for cross-attacks, meaning you don't have to use all 7 points for a character at once. This allows you to use multiple characters at once.

A cool feature of this game is that there are about 40 different characters. With this, you'd think they're all the same, right? Wrong! The new "Auto Accent" feature creates a different dialect for almost every character; for example, Kid is Australian, mate, while Fargo gives yer lubber taste buds a bit of pirate talk. Yarrgh!

Once again, I think this was probably the best $50 i've ever spent. It's not hard, but at the same time it's not easy, and the added extras add a zip to the game that you won't find anywhere else.