Though a bit cliché, the story unfolds with a poem and the opening of an old book sitting atop of some unknown person's desk.
What follows is a series of in-game clips dancing to the Celtic rhythm of Yasunori Mitsuda's Time's Scar. Not since Super Smash Bros. Melee, have I been more intrigued to play a game, simply because of it's introduction. Oh, and, as if that wasn't enough, Squaresoft provides the player with one more pregame treat:
a cleavage shot of the tomboy protagonist, Kid, at the Save/Load screen.
I guess the Dream Team wanted to make a very good first impression.
In Chrono Trigger, if something was wrong, you could go back in time and fix it. Well, with Chrono Cross, your actions have consequences. Do this. Go there. Help him. Leave her. Yes. No. Maybe. It's a wonderful branching storyline with characters unique to each path.
Forty-five in all, the cast comes in various shapes and sizes.
Of course, the most common appears to be slim and sexy (not that I'm complaining).
Most will have signature attacks at levels 3, 5, and 7, in addition to numerous spells a player may allocate to their elemental grids. It's a lot like the materia system seen in Final Fantasy 7, except that summon and high-level magic spells are reserved only for those with a matching innate element. Chrono Cross does an excellent job explaining this through the shakin' teachings of Radius and the bumbly bumblings of Solt and Peppor.
While a few characters come with actual background information, most can be summed up in a couple of sentences: "Funguy is the father of Leena's friend Lisa, who runs the element shop in Termina. Finding him in the forest near Viper Manor, and feeding him a strange mushroom will cause him to turn into a mushroomlike humanoid, and he will join forces with Serge without delay" (Wikipedia.com). The reasons some of these people use to justify tagging along are absurb. Look at Van, for example. He and his father, Gogh (Yeah, yeah. I see it, too. Shut up!), are poor and about to be kicked out of their home:
Van: "Bye dad! I'm going to hunt down the Frozen Flame with these people I just met. Don't worry. I looked into their eyes, so, based on that alone, I'm positive that I won't be raped and beaten to death as soon as we walk out of the city."
Gogh: "Ok, son. Enjoy the world, and make new friends."
You may have noticed within the Wikipedia quote that the "mushroomlike humanoid" is referred to as "Funguy". About that, in the English version of Chrono Cross, several characters were provided with idiotic, though easy to remember, names. Some of these would include Skelly the skeleton, Draggy the dragon, Doc the doctor, and Turnip the turnip! I'm sure you'll love the puntastic titles of many of the signature moves, too.
Above: Proof that the names could have been a lot worse.
One amazing feature is a code system which allowed the use of accents by changing text templates. In any conversation, this system would be able to modify the given lines of an event for whomever was saying them. Another feature revolves around "how" some people join your party: "Luccia assimilated into your party.", "Greco tagged into your party.", and "Skelly became the life of your party!". Though unnecessary, these are the kinds of things that add personality and charm to a game... so, why remove what made the first game appealing?
In Chrono Trigger, the monsters had other things to do. Some were playing with each other, while some would be dancing or chanting; a few would be lying around... sleeping... eating... whatever; and, sometimes, you might disturb one of them and he would cry out for reinforcements, or a group of them would suddenly ambush you. They were clever and entertaining. The world isn't a giant prison, so why must the creatures wander back and forth like security guards throughout Chrono Cross? Also, why does each monster I run into turn into a battle with one or more other monsters helping him? With Chrono Trigger, what you saw was what you fought, and that made sense. If I run into a soldier, why would he be accompanied by two bats and an imp? Where the heck did they come from? And can they even speak to me? I'm guessing about half the bestiary of Chrono Trigger had something to say at one point or another,so it didn't feel like I was wandering around slaying mindless animals all day long. A few of them would even set traps for you, like in the sewer system. The most I got out of monsters in this sequel was near the beginning when I had to obtain three Komodo scales for Leena.
To add insult to mediocrity, several bosses lacked any real challenge. Most of the time, it was simply a matter of exchanging blows with them. The worst battle I fought was against the last boss. I won't go into much detail about it, but I will say that I had a tougher time dealing with Ketchop than with that deus ex machina Squaresoft decided to throw in at the end.
"S-S-S-SAAAUUUUCCCEEE!!!"
As for the parallel worlds, there isn't much to explore. Islands are not so much microcosms, as they are tourist traps for the handful of visitors found wandering each area. It's very eye-catching, however, and gameplay should take about 50+ hours to complete. Not bad.
You will be left with more questions than answers, and don't expect anything similar to Ozzie's foolishness or Dalton's camera winking near the end of the game, either. Up until you begin to watch the alternate endings (most of which are excellent), much of Chrono Cross plays as a serious and somewhat confounding adventure.
As I said at the beginning of this dribble, Chrono Cross does not measure up to its predecessor; but as a standalone, there is no reason to ignore it. I'd like to point out that the intent of the developers was to create something different from Chrono Trigger, which I feel was a gutsy move on their part, considering the wealth of material they could have pulled from the original game.
Play it. It's interesting.
"Shake it and say your prayers! ...Not that it'll do you any good!" ~Peppor
