Review
Release Date: 08.02.2000
Platform:
PlayStationDeveloper:
Square Co., Ltd.Publisher:
Square Electronic ArtsReviewed by
Christian Kontul on 4.11.2003
| Review Rating: 5/10 | User Rating: 8.14/10 |
In 1995, Square released an epic role-playing game titled Chrono Trigger for Nintendo's immortal Super Nintendo Entertainment System. For its time (read: before Final Fantasy VII), CT was a pretty popular game and even now, several years after it's debut, the game is still one of the most revered RPGs created. It's surprising, then, that Square has waited so long to craft a sequel to the classic. Unfortunately, those expecting a true or worthy sequel to Chrono Trigger are going to be in for a massive disappointment.
A brief history lesson: the original Chrono Trigger was a collaboration of sorts between RPG giants, Enix and Square. Dragon Quest director and character designer, Yuji Horii and Akira Toriyama respectively, temporarily joined forces with Final Fantasy creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, to form a "Dream Team" and develop a role-playing game like no other. With the help of two of Square's elite composers, Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda, the stage was set for what we now know as Chrono Trigger. It appears, though, that with Dragon Quest VII's difficult schedule and the Final Fantasy Motion Picture, along with the next three FF games, none of the "big three" were able to participate in the creation process for Chrono Cross.
Their absence is apparent.
One of the first things you'll notice after starting Chrono Cross is that with Toriyama MIA, Square was forced to recruit another artist to create the game's characters. That person was Nobuteru Yuuki, the designer for the popular anime The Vision of Escaflowne, among others. Unfortunately, his work in Chrono Cross doesn't match his previous animation efforts. As a matter of fact, Chrono Cross sports some of the worst character designs in role-playing game history. It seems like all rejects from previous RPGs have relocated to the El Nido archipelago, because this place is just loaded with freaks. Most of the characters are just too different to be interesting and even ones that are normal just aren't appealing.
Poor design would be forgivable, but none of the characters receive any substantial development. Out of a cast of 44 characters, you'd expect that a few people would be well-developed, but that's not the case; Serge, the main character, is a voiceless teen much like Chrono from CT, and he gets just as little development. Nothing about his actual personality is revealed, and only details about his past that are relevant to the plot are exposed; Kid, the second protagonist, is not even required as a party member for a large majority of the game. She receives a fair amount of characterization, but by average RPG standards, it's minimal at best; finally, Yamaneko (or Lynx) is the main antagonist in the game. Lynx has the potential to be a good villain, but since his motives aren't revealed until the end of the game, it's hard to feel any enmity toward him. He never really does anything to make the player hate him.
As for the other 41 characters, the amount of development they get doesn't equal that of the previous three combined. Some of the people seem interesting, but you never get the chance to find out about them. For a large majority, there's no characterization at all. The other ten or so characters get developed, but it's all optional. All their development takes place during the numerous side-quests, and it's not even that special. It's a shame that a person might become mildly amusing during a part, just to be dropped entirely after their five minutes of fame.
To make matters even worse, party members join for the stupidest reasons. There's nothing more annoying then characters that can "sense" when a main character is going to save the world. Apparently, a large number of people in the CC world have ESP, because almost everyone seems to perceive the problem. If they're too "dumb" to notice, they figure the Frozen Flame will grant them a wish, so they decide to risk life and limb so they can get the magic item to pay the rent. Some characters do some useful stuff like help you get into previously unavailable locations, but it's not a common occurrence.
The largest problem with Chrono Cross, however, and one that is unforgivable, is, due to the fact Square was determined to include 44 playable characters, the developers decided to sacrifice any pacing or plot development. Understand this: there's a reason nearly every RPG is incredibly linear. In order for a story to be relatively coherent, it has to be planned out and told in a certain manner. This seems like an incredibly simple concept, but for some reason, CC was created with the idea of non-linearity in mind. It's true that Chrono Trigger had several sidequests and multiple endings, but was the central narrative dropped so that these could be worked in? Of course not. When it becomes clear that what may have been an epic story was pushed aside for this cast of characters, suicidal tendencies may ensue.
Chrono Cross dictates the tale of a young, adolescent man by the name of Serge who lives in the small village of Arni located on a set of islands known collectively as the El Nido archipelago. One day, Serge's "lady friend," Leena, asks her stud to go collect some komodo scales for a necklace. Since Serge is unable to talk, he can't deny his gal the object of her desire, so traipse he does down the to local beach which just happens to be festooned with the little komodo bastards. After collecting the right amount of scales, Serge makes his way to the seashore to meet up with his woman, but as they're sharing a moment something goes horribly awry and our hero is sucked into a black hole.
Serge later regains consciousness to find himself lying on the beach with Leena nowhere in sight. So, after cleaning the sand out of his shorts, he begins to make his way back to Arni. Upon arriving in his hometown, Serge is faced with several mysteries: his mother is gone, his house is occupied by complete strangers, and no one recognizes him. Even when the young beefcake talks to Leena, she claims that a boy with the name "Serge" was killed ten years earlier.
Considerably upset (and understandably so), Serge goes to visit his grave site. While grieving over the loss of himself, Serge is attacked by a couple of Acacian dragoons named Solt, Peppor ("Who are the ad wizards that came up with this one?!") and Karsh. Even though he begins preparing himself for a death he'll actually remember, Serge is helped at the last minute by a spunky "lass" who goes by the name Kid. Together, the two strapping youngsters manage to force the dragoons to retreat. After the battle, Kid explains that she is looking for a demi-human who goes by the name Lynx and, more importantly, she seeks a magical artifact called the "Frozen Flame."
While more and more modern RPGs take some time to get going, Chrono Cross immerses the player immediately with its unique and interesting plot. Right from the start, Serge is presented with a problem, and it remains fun and keeps you playing for the next four or five hours, trying to solve his conflict. After encountering another story scene, more questions are proposed, and it's another four or five hours 'til the next major plot scene, where even more conflicts arise. Herein lies the problem with Chrono Cross: as was previously mentioned, the pacing in the game is horrible.
Despite the fact the plot is intriguing and some of the key moments are spellbinding, it doesn't mean much when the game just keeps throwing problem after problem at the gamer without ever answering any questions. To add insult to injury, you have to play through hours of CC at a time just to get to the next mystery. The only motivation to press on is to find out why the hell the El Nido Archipelago wasn't in Chrono Trigger, where it came from, and how this game is in any way connected to its predecessor. It certainly isn't to find out what happens to any of the characters; none of them have any personality beyond their "nifty" accents, which are apparently supposed to make everyone forget they have no individuality, and it's really difficult to care whether they live or die.
Serge, in particular, is horribly guilty of this crime, except he even lacks a unique dialect. While Chrono was a speechless character, CT's supporting cast was bursting with charisma and it was easy to get some sense of the hero's personality through them. Serge, on the other hand, is surrounded by people as faceless as himself. It's hard to relate with a character when you have absolutely no idea what he's like, and due to this, Chrono Cross fails immensely as the plot completely revolves around a drone.
Even though Chrono Cross' story is a disappointment on most levels, some RPGs are able to stand out because of their unique and enjoyable gameplay. Chrono Cross' battle system is certainly unusual; it blends elements from Chrono Trigger and Xenogears, plus it throws in a new twist. It seems, however, that the developers forgot two very important things regarding CC's source material:
1) They've disregarded whatever it was that made CT so much fun to play and
2) Square overlooked the fact that Xenogears' gameplay pretty much sucked.
Much like the original game in the series, enemies are visible onscreen, so you have the opportunity to avoid them. When you encounter a monster, the screen changes to a perspective very similar to that of the Playstation installments in the Final Fantasy series. The most original aspect of CC's battle system is the lack of any active time bar. Instead, the player gets to choose the order in which his or her characters attack. Each party member has seven ability points and, much like Xenogears, there are strong, medium, and weak attacks which are worth three ability points, two ability points, and one ability point, respectively. When a person is finished attacking with a character, the game itself switches to the next available ally automatically, or the player can hit the shoulder buttons to shift between them. The only way to regain lost ability points is by waiting through other affiliate and enemy actions.
It's also possible to combine attacks with spells, or elements. Each character in Chrono Cross has a certain color attribute; yellow is lightning/thunder, blue is water, white is holy, etc. It's possible to equip each character with a certain number of elements, of either their color or others. There are six colors in all. Some spells are only available for use once a battle, but the player can give a character more than one of them. Others, like items, can be used as many times as they're "in stock," so to speak. It becomes possible to string together physical attacks with elemental attacks, though it can take the attacker into negative ability points, thus making it more difficult to recover all the way.
One idea from Chrono Trigger that makes its return in CC is the ability to do combo attacks. Much like Chrono and Frog, the characters Serge and Glenn (not Frog) have an X-Strike. Unfortunately, these don't play as large of a role as you may hope. There aren't many combo attacks, and they don't have as large of an impact as you might think. Also, apparently due to the popularity of their brilliant spells in the FF games, Square has added the ability to summon monsters in Chrono Cross.
Another important part of Chrono Cross' gameplay is its experience system. Unlike previous RPGs in the past where characters leveled up when they collected the right amount of experience points, Chrono Cross distributes upgrades to different attributes when you encounter new monsters or after a boss fracas. So, if you fight a few monsters in a dungeon, it's possible to avoid enemies the rest of the way through, and when you get to the boss, you'll still be leveled up enough. The developers did this to make CC more playable for all gamers, long time RPG fans and newbies alike.
It's tough to say there's anything is horribly wrong with Chrono Cross' gameplay; really, there isn't. For an original idea, the battle system has a fairly solid foundation. If Square ever decided to build on it, they might create something truly revolutionary. As it is, however, it's not even necessary to fight most of the time. Why the developers would go to so much trouble to make something creative, and then base the game on the concept that you don't have to use it is beyond this reviewer.
Another bother is there isn't much depth to the whole element system. It would be cool if you could customize the characters to a large extent and it would give you a massive advantage. However, Chrono Cross, for the most part, is a very easy game. There's no point investing a lot of effort into something that isn't necessary. All the player has to do is continue to upgrade to the most powerful elements as you find/buy them, and everything else is gravy. It's also fairly disappointing that there are so few group attacks. A lot of the fun in CT involved discovering and seeing all the new combinations for people. It's only fair to assume that with a cast of 44 playable characters, there would be a lot of unique offensive options but it just wasn't meant to be.
Chrono Cross also has the "New Game +" option first made famous by its ancestor, which opens up after you finish the game the first time. This mode lets the player start with an already powered up character to unlock several new endings.
Despite the fact Chrono Cross doesn't supply the depth that most gamers look for in a good RPG, it certainly provides enough superficial thrills for anyone. In typical Square fashion, CC is outfitted with the best in both graphics and sound.
Visually, there exists no game on Playstation as beautiful as Chrono Cross. Period. Even though Square choose to use prerendered backgrounds instead handdrawn graphics, it's incredibly difficult to make the distinction. Each backdrop is just loaded with bright, beautiful colors and tons of detail. The character models are made up of polygons, and they're accurate representations of Nobuteru Yuuki's designs (::shudders::). In battle, the characters, enemies, and environments are all painstakingly rendered to near perfection.
Nobuo Uematsu may not have been able to break away from his busy schedule to help score the music for CC, but his absence is hardly missed. Yasunori Mitsuda makes his triumphant return with a soundtrack like no other. Most gamers will be hard-pressed to find a bad song in this game. The remixed tunes from CT are incredible, but the new compositions, like "Dragon God" and "Dead Sea ~ Ruined Tower," really steal the show. Each song brilliantly fits each setting, from the village of Arni to the dark Chronopolis. The music is definitely the best part of Chrono Cross, and the soundtrack is one of my personal favorites.
Finally, there's one thing in Chrono Cross that really deserves mentioning. While strong ties to Chrono Trigger aren't very apparent through most of the game, the parts that do hark back to the classic game are simply awesome. These events, like watching the Day of Lavos all over again or coming face to face with some familiar friends, rank among the greatest moments in gaming. It's for this reason that I can not NOT recommend Chrono Cross.
Even though the game's director claimed after its release that Chrono Cross was never meant to be a true sequel to Chrono Trigger, it certainly was hyped that way. To this day, it stands as one of the largest disappointments in videogame history, but on a few occasions, when you're sucked into the game's great atmosphere, it's nearly forgivable. But these moments are too few and far between. The fact remains that CC's plot and characters are horrible. As an RPG, a game based on story and development, Chrono Cross commits a cardinal sin. May God have mercy on its soul.
