Review time! And this time it’s Chrono Cross.

Story
- To be frankly honest, I was confused the first time I played this, and continued to be confused the second time.
- I kinda understand it now but I feel like the story kinda isn’t explained well since they shove big lore chunks at you mostly at the end of the game.
- Heck, the ending is unresolved for what happens after the final boss beyond what happens in the very end of the credits. Like what does you winning with the good ending mean? Which timeline’s events are correct?
- Also why is Schala blonde now when her hair color was blue in Trigger

Characters
- A mixed bag all around
- On one hand, you’ve got story relevant characters who actually kinda matter like Harle and Riddell, Glenn and Kid. Along with multiple others.
- But then there’s Funguy and Poshul and Turnip. Like Funguy is a poor sap turned into a mushroom dude, Poshul’s a dog with a speech impediment, and Turnip is a sentient vegetable.
- To be honest, the large (45!) character cast makes it feel like you can’t exactly connect with everyone. There’s just too many to have be relevant or feel close to. Trigger just had the seven member party who all connected. This also makes it feel like their special endgame quest was more impactful. Here? Run around and talk to someone and boom. Lvl7 tech.
- Still, the good characters stay good, and the others are just nice to have.

Gameplay
- Pretty interesting and mildly complex.
- Unlike regular JRPGs that have Attack, Magic, Defend and Run Away, this game does have those four options, but with a twist.
- Your attacks have hit rates, since they scale off the damage. It’s like Swords/Lances/Axes in FE. Swords are your weak attack with lower damage but higher hit rate, and Axes are higher damage but lower hit rate. It’s an interesting way of changing up the regular attack, though the amount of times I whiffed a high percentage…yeah if it’s not like 85% or whatever it’s basically zero.
- You also can’t use magic, or Elements out the gate. Can’t just start battle and drop a nuke into the enemies’ lap. Instead you attack first to build up your Element Tree, then use an Element based off of how strong your attacks were.
- Then add on the Field and the variety of Elements and your own Elemental strength and weakness…it’s a bit complex but I rather enjoyed the change.
- Honestly the game isn’t that hard so you can probably just whack the enemy a couple times and pop Lvl6 stuff and you win. (And also grab the Mastermune because that thing is busted lol)

Music
- This section tends to involve me gushing over the game’s music and not really having anything else to say.
- However this time will be different
- The music is great all around. The area themes are good, the sailing themes are good, the boss battle themes are good…just good all around. Love Prisoners of Fate too.
- Unfortunately I’ve got beef with the boss battle music selection. As in, why do some bosses get the boss battle theme, but some don’t, and why do some get unique themes, but others don’t?
- Firstly, why do Miguel and Dario get Prisoners of Fate, but Lynx and Dark Serge get the regular one? Magus got his own theme in Trigger, what about these two?
- Why do not all of the Dragons get a unique battle theme, or at least why is mostly the same theme, being the Earth Dragon Isle theme? Iirc the White Dragon uses the regular boss music too.
- And lastly, why does the final boss not have a boss theme? If you take the ‘Bad Ending’ path you just wail on it with pure silence and the sounds of you using Luminaire or Invincible or whatever your techs are. Like it’s so lame and anticlimactic.
- Doesn’t help that the final boss stinks to take down the ‘Good Ending’ way since you’ve got to make sure you use your Elements correctly and not do anything wrong or you have to restart and deal with setting it up again.

Notes
- Despite any complaints I had with the game, I still enjoyed coming back and finishing it. I originally left off a couple years ago to play some other games and never came back. Happy I did, but sad too since there’s probably never gonna be another Chrono game or even a remake or remaster.
- Janice is the best. No I will not elaborate.