Chrono Cross: Square Strikes Again

Back in 1995, as the Super Nintendo was nearing the end of its reign as the most dominant home console system on the market, RPG giants Squaresoft released a game that would become a certifiable classic--Chrono Trigger, a title that many gamers consider one of the greatest role-playing games ever made.

As far as games go, Chrono Trigger is pretty close to perfect—the gameplay, the music, the graphics, and most importantly, the story all joined together seamlessly to create one of the greatest gaming experiences of all time. Yet, while this title earned the love of RPG fans worldwide, Square never released a sequel—until now. It’s five years after the initial game’s release—times, and gaming systems, have changed significantly…can Square recapture the magic of the original?

Chrono Cross--The Rebirth of a Legend

To say that the story behind Chrono Cross is epic is something of an understatement. RPGs, by their very nature, often feature grandiose stories about worlds in danger and the young underdogs who must save humanity. This game is no different in that regard—you and a motley group of roughly 40 characters will be called upon to save the world. However, unlike previous Square RPGs (like Final Fantasy 8) the story here is something that the gamer can actually follow. Recent Square releases have come under fire for featuring tales so convoluted that not even the writers are totally sure what’s going on. Fortunately, that’s not the case this time out.

Instead, Square serves up a moderately complex tale about a young boy named Serge who discovers a ‘dimensional vortex’ that takes him to an alternate version of his world—only in this land, Serge died as a young child. This discovery throws the plot into motion, kicking off a story that will cover two worlds, lead you to countless characters and sidequests, and offers up some philosophical musings on the nature of fate and humanity’s impact on the environment.

To say much more would ruin one of the best elements of the game—the story. Chrono Cross tells an engrossing tale that’s better if you experience it without any preconceived notions.

One final point about the story itself: It’s not necessary to have played Chrono Trigger to enjoy Chrono Cross, but those who have played through the first game will get a little more enjoyment out of Chrono Cross since this is one of the rare RPGs that actually references the characters and events from the earlier game. There are numerous little things that are guaranteed to evoke a twinge of nostalgia in Chrono Trigger fans littered throughout the story here.

Graphics

Square once again makes the most of the Playstation’s limited hardware. With each recent release I’ve felt that the company had taken the system as far as it could go, only to see them release another title that improves upon its predecessor in terms of visuals. The leap in quality is smaller than it has been in recent Square releases (proving that the system has essentially been maxed out), but it’s still a noticeable improvement (and even more noticeable if you play the game on a PS2 with the texture smoothing on).

Aesthetically speaking, the game is simply stunning. The pre-rendered backgrounds are breathtaking in their detail and the rich and vibrant hues that seem to color every area of the world give the game an art-like feel. Comparing this game to Final Fantasy 8 is a fool’s errand--Chrono Cross is easily more lush in its presentation, making FF8 look bland in comparison. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that this is the most beautiful game ever released on the Playstation console—it looks that good.

The character animations are equally impressive. Once again, Square gives us full-sized characters who look decidedly human—a far cry from the super-deformed sprites of earlier RPGs. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s played Chrono Trigger, though—that game had some of the nicest animated sprites gamers had ever seen.

Yet, the animation is great across the board. Not only do the characters look real and move with proper human physics, the game designers have also given us animations in the backgrounds as well. In some caverns you can see spiders scurrying as the camera zooms into the battle screen. In other instances you can see birds flying over the ocean when you climb a stone peak near your hometown. This additional animation brings one more level of realism to the game—making it an even more immersive experience.

The battle sequences are just as stunning as wandering the world map or traversing through towns as well. Character animations really shine here, with each standard physical attack nicely drawn and fluidly executed. Factor in the elaborately crafted spell effects and you’ll find yourself looking forward to confrontations in this game.

Finally, like many recent Square RPGs, Chrono Cross features numerous CG cutscenes that are triggered whenever a significant event in the narrative occurs. These scenes, like the rest of the game’s graphics, are stunning. Fortunately, Square makes the wise decision to not use as many CG cutscenes as they had in recent releases—these things work better when used sporadically, otherwise gamers tend to feel like they’re watching a game as opposed to playing one.

Gameplay

Gameplay is the one element that can absolutely make or break a videogame. If you have poor quality graphics, or bad music, that can be overcome if the gameplay mechanics are solid. However, no amount of pretty CG cutscenes or interesting story twists will make a game with poor gameplay good. Fortunately, gameplay is one of the areas where Chrono Cross really shines.

One of the most obvious differences is that the game, like its predecessor, eschews the random battle system so popular in most RPGs. Random battles refers to games where you maneuver your characters across the screen while being attacked continually by unseen monsters. In Chrono Cross, you can see every monster in an area—and avoid it if you wish.

Another area where the game is significantly different from its brethren is that it allows you to run from battle—any battle, even boss fights. This makes the game more interesting, particularly in the boss fights. If you’re losing, or if you try to steal and fail, then you can simply exit the battle, adjust your equipment, and restart.

The story even becomes part of the gameplay since this is one of the few RPGs out there that allows you (in fact, this game requires you) to make decisions that affect the flow of the game. There are several branching points scattered throughout the narrative—choosing one path will lead you to various sidequests and characters, but close other events off to you, meaning that in order to fully experience the story, one has to play the game twice. Luckily, Chrono Cross, like Chrono Trigger before it, has a New Game+ feature that allows you to restart the game with your stats and weapons intact after you beat the final boss. This way, you can experience everything (including approximately 10 different endings) that this game offers.

However, while all of these innovations are nice, any real RPG fan knows the most important gameplay element in a title is the battle system. You’re going to be fighting a lot of monsters and bosses, so if the battle system is lacking, the game can become tedious. Fortunately, Chrono Cross features a battle system that is not only interesting and innovative, but also fun.

First off, the battle system allows the player to be slightly more involved in the proceedings than a standard role-playing game. When you choose to attack, you’re presented with three different attack choices—a light hit, a medium hit, or a hard hit (a la Xenogears). A light hit costs one point of stamina, but has a high chance of actually hitting the enemy. A medium hit costs two stamina points, and has less chance of hitting. A hard hit costs three points and has an even lower chance of landing. As battle begins each character has a maximum amount of stamina (seven points). Each attack subtracts from your stamina, but adds to your elemental magic pool. A character can continue to attack until his stamina reaches zero, then another character takes over.

You can tweak and customize this system even more, letting a character make one attack, then switching to another, then going back to the first character, etc. As you land blows, the percentages of you hitting the harder blows also increases, yet you can attack in any pattern you wish. This brings an added dimension to battle.

As I mentioned before, each landed blow adds the number of stamina points used to your magic pool (one point for weak, two for medium, three for hard). Each character has an element grid that can be equipped with magical spells that are either bought, found, trapped, or stolen throughout the game. As the game advances, characters get more slots. To cast a spell, a character must have at least as many points as the level of the grid the spell is located in. Casting the spell will drain that number of points, and stamina as well—with stamina being rebuilt through either defending or waiting while others attack and the magic points being built back up by landing more blows on the enemy. Trust me, it’s a lot simpler than it sounds.

Magic is broken up into elemental categories—red/blue, yellow/green, and black/white. Each character and monster in the game has an innate elemental color, which means that he/she is stronger at using elements of that color, but vulnerable to attacks of the opposite color. Depending on the strengths of an enemy, you will want to customize both the members in your party and the elements on their grid. This adds one more level of strategy to each major battle—you can’t really take a blue innate character into battle against a red dragon—he’ll be toast. As characters (and monsters) cast spells, it changes the color field on the top of the screen. The color field is a circular chart with three slots—each colored element casts pushes the other two forward, and moves one off the chart. If you cast three of the same colored elements in a row, the field effect changes to that color—making spells cast of that color even more powerful, and allowing a character with that innate color to summon an elemental attacker (providing you have one). Paying attention to this chart is important—allowing a boss to change the field to all of its innate color means that he can deal out some massive amounts of damage.

The elements themselves are pretty much standard—blue is for ice and water magic, red is for fire, yellow for lightning, green for earth attacks, white for space, and black for bad stuff. Most of the colors also feature healing magic as well as spells designed to strengthen your attacks or magic, improve defense or dexterity, or cure status ailments. No matter what your innate color, you can (and should) carry elements of every color (and since you can only use them once per battle, several of certain healing elements).

One more thing about elements…there are turn elements available throughout the game—use them. These elements will turn a boss or monster to a different element innate when cast, meaning you can turn a blue boss to white and let your black innate character level him, then change it to another color and let another character do big elemental damage. Again, this really brings a lot of strategy to the standard RPG battle.

Aside from the elemental magic, each character also has several tech skills. These tech skills are like special attacks. Most characters have three, one housed on the third level of their grid, one on the fifth level, and one on the seventh. Using a tech skill is just like casting a spell—you must have enough magic power built up to open that level of your grid, and you must have at least one stamina point available.

Another interesting angle to the tech skills are the various dual techs that certain characters can pull off. Dual techs are special attacks where two characters team up to deal out even more damage. To activate dual techs, you have to have two specific characters in your party at the same time, have both at the right element level, and have stamina. Experiment with your party combinations and you’ll find all kinds of powerful attacks to make your quest easier.

Weapons and armor play an important role, but the traditional armor and weapons shops aren’t part of the game. Much like Final Fantasy 8, you start with a basic weapon and forge new ones by finding various parts hidden in treasure chests, stolen from enemies, won as a spoil in battle, or you can even trade for some of them at element shops. Fortunately, the system has been tweaked and it’s nowhere near as much of a pain as it was in FF8. Finding the components to make better weapons and armor isn’t nearly as aggravating or time consuming in Chrono Cross.

Finally, what would a Squaresoft RPG be without some summoned monsters to aid you in battle? In Chrono Cross there are numerous summon elements that can be won in boss battles. Each can only be equipped in the 8th slot of the grid by a character with the element’s innate color. To cast one, the field effect must be completely filled with the innate color, which can be difficult in many of the battles. However, using them is well worth it—they really dish out the damage, and they drop ‘shiny pieces’, which are necessary for forging rainbow items, the most powerful weapons and armors in the game (for the most part). As is to be expected, the summon elements boast some very cool animations—but, unlike FF8, they don’t take several minutes to run. And while they do dole out a lot of damage to the enemy, achieving the full field effect required to cast them makes relying on them solely all but impossible. Overall, it’s a much better system than Final Fantasy 8.

Music and Sound

Yet another area where the original game shined was in its score. Chrono Trigger had no shortage of standout tracks that were memorable even though they were created on a 16-bit system with limited sound capabilities. At first, I felt as though the score for Chrono Cross was lacking—however, as I’ve progressed through the game, many of the songs have grown on me, and the inclusion of reworked versions of some of the original game’s music is a nice touch as well. I still prefer Chrono Trigger’s music overall, but this is an excellent soundtrack in its own right.

The rest of the sound effects are no less impressive. Swords and weapons slice through the air and clang noisily, walking on different surfaces makes different sounds, and the spell effects sound majestic and powerful. Overall, it’s not quite as impressive as the foley work in Vagrant Story, but it’s pretty close.

Conclusions

There’s no doubt that Chrono Cross is one of the best RPGs to emerge this year—it outshines Final Fantasy 8 in every conceivable way and is comparable with the best of Square’s 32-bit output. And yet, while it is a great game in pretty much every way imaginable, it’s not better than Chrono Trigger. I can’t say what it is exactly that makes the 16-bit original so mesmerizing, but there’s simply something about it that makes me want to play it over and over again. Chrono Cross is good—and I’ll definitely be playing through it a second time to see what I missed on the first go around, but I have a hard time imagining myself dragging it out for another run through every year.

Still, that’s not to take anything away from this title. Chrono Cross is a more than worthy successor to the Chrono Trigger legacy. It brings many of the elements that made the original game so great to a 32-bit system and brings along some new and innovative twists as well. This easily one of the best 32-bit RPGs that Square has made, powered by some beautiful graphics, a fun battle system, great music, and intriguing gameplay. Let’s just hope that we don’t have to wait another five years for the next installment in the saga.