1) It doesn’t actually have anything to do with Chrono Trigger.
2) There’s 45 playable party members.
3) The soundtrack rocks.

What I knew about Chrono Cross before going in. Funnily enough, only #3 ended up being true, or, at least, really really true. 1’s wrong both literally and metaphorically: there’s a ton of story ties (although they really only start cropping up near the very end of the game), but the more major goal here is continuing Chrono Trigger’s combat philosophy, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first. You no longer fight straight on the overworld, and there aren’t any positioning mechanics, but battles still have an air of fluidity to them that stands in contrast to most other games in the genre. “Flexibility” is the word of the day here, and nearly every traditional JRPG system has been overwritten to fit in with this theme: there’s no set turn order, instead any party member can go at any point if they have at least one stamina point; your basic “attack” command is now a choice between three different attack tiers, which increase in damage but use more stamina and have less accuracy; the classic mana meter is replaced with the fact that every element (i.e. spell) can only be used once per battle, and elements are equipable a la FF7’s Materia rather than permanently learned. It’s definitely overwhelming at first, especially when considering how many intricacies there are regarding how these mechanics overlap, and I haven’t even mentioned the Pokemon-esque weakness/resistance system where the color of the three most recently used elements affects the strength of the next one, but it ends up being a resounding success. Melding the typical individual turns together into one single group turn means you’re always thinking about how one party member’s action is going to synergize with the next’s instead of just mashing the attack button. There isn’t a single point during battle where you’re not setting something up, or managing two things at once, or at least feeling like you’re making some sort of decision, which is far beyond what I can say about the majority of JRPGs I’ve played.

This mantra of flexibility extends even beyond the confines of battle. Your stats individually increase from time to time instead of having an visible EXP bar, you’re allowed to just walk away in the middle of NPC dialog, and, my personal favorite, you can run from any fight in the game. Even boss battles, even the final boss, which is kind of incredible. If you’re about to die you can just cut your losses, exit the encounter, and, since you’re able to use your healing elements on the results screen (which is another clever idea), shore yourself up and try again. Unfortunately, this exacerbates the common JRPG problem where boss fights are awesome but common enemy fights are a snoozefest: having a reset button means bad RNG is never the sole cause of a game over, and if you think of a better strategy halfway through a long battle you can try it out immediately, but normal encounters don’t really mean anything if you’re always at full health after all of them. But, the game accounts for this, often having you fight two or even three bosses without a save point for climactic moments in the narrative, which are always great fun. As for the story itself... I enjoyed it, but it’s incomprehensible past a certain point, and Radical Dreamers didn’t help. Before that, it’s more than happy to have things just sort of happen without much of a narrative throughline, which is fine by me, and there’s a surprising amount of what-do-I-do-ism, which is even finer by me, especially when since it gives its numerous sidequests room to breathe. Which leads into lie #2...

Yes, there are 45 characters (although I only found around 30 of them), but is it really fair to call them characters? This should be the most diverse cast ever assembled in a JRPG- a silent protagonist, a musketeer, a fairy, a pirate, a mermaid, a mad scientist, her lab-created monstrosity, a princess, a spaceman, a blacksmith, a backup dancer, a village elder, a shrine maiden, a luchador, a goblin- but the sheer number of them means there’s hardly any flavor text or unique interactions. Likewise, everyone is only distinct in battle through a handful of exclusive elements, the majority of which just do a lot of damage without any extra effect. This was my biggest problem with FF7 after coming from 6: a much more character-focused narrative where no one’s personality felt reflected during combat because of the general-purpose Materia system. But, Chrono Cross circumvents this issue by going in the complete opposite direction. These guys feel so little like actual people (or actual beasts, robots, demi-humans, etc...) that I don’t really care that none of them have unique battle commands. The fun then becomes speculating on who you can recruit and then trying to figure out how to. Every single named character feels like a potential party member, and a permanent addition to your roster will always trump a helmet that gives you +2 M. Res as a reward for completing a sidequest. It’s surprising how cleverly this ends up being implemented, which is a pretty good tagline for the entire game. Really wasn’t sure what I would end up thinking of this one, but I’m impressed. Easily my favorite of the PS1 JRPGs I’ve played so far, and, for my money, it’s one of the better games in the genre altogether.

Die in No More Heroes 3 and you get to spin a roulette wheel to potentially get a buff on your next try. With each successive death, the wheel spins more slowly, meaning that if you lose enough times in a row you effectively get to select your powerup, and, therefore, since one of the choices is an instant revive, beat every fight for free. Funnily, this feels more patronizing than empowering, and getting handed a pity victory is honestly more effective as a sort of psychological punishment than, say, the King of all Cosmos berating you for failing a level in Katamari. Though, it feels like it’s missing something- if a mechanic like this was in No More Heroes 1, it’s easy to imagine that, like nearly everything in that game, it would be contextualized as something less abstract. My favorite example of this is increasing your attack power: while Travis lifts weights, you play a buttonmashing minigame that’s almost reminiscent of MGS’s torture sequence. As you progress, this gets to the point where it’s physically painful to level up, which sort of makes you think... couldn’t I actually be working out and improving myself right now instead of playing this stupid game? Whether you find this kind of thing humorous like I do or just annoying, I think we can agree that this is the No More Heroes identity. It’s remembered as the action game where you have to do literal chores in between fights, because, if it didn’t have this kind of stuff, it’d just be a subpar hack-n-slash.

No More Heroes 3 is this hypothetical game. Chores are still here, but you’re always given enough money from mandatory designated fights so there’s never any reason to do them. There’s two types of currency so you don’t have to choose between paying for the entrance fee and upgrading your stats. Besides the retry roulette, the only two unique additions to this game are a completely flavorless crafting system and some new abilities for Trav. This has by far the best combat out of any No More Heroes, which is a low bar, and means it only really rises to the level of “serviceable”- there’s not enough options or customizability to stop things from getting stale, like, c’mon, even the first game had alternate katanas. But I don’t like the original No More Heroes because I find it particularly good, I like it because it’s interesting. I think Suda fans will agree regarding his other games, but the disconnect for me with something like Killer7 (and most other story-focused classics slash masterpieces) is that I don’t think I have the ability to connect with a game’s narrative themes when they don’t seem to be reflected in its interactivity. In other words, I tend to zone out during cutscenes, but I’m wide awake while trying to figure out why an action game might force you to partake in lawnmowing and garbage collection to get by. This is what’s so disappointing about other No More Heroes games, but here, it seems extra intentional. The small details- naming one of the locations “Perfect World,” Travis no longer running out of breath after sprinting for two seconds, and even being able to teleport your bike to your location instead of needing Bishop to drive it up for you. Truly, this is a world that aims to cater to you at every opportunity, and, coming from a director who seems to delight in designing experimental, often anti-player mechanics, feels like a letter of resignation.

Strangely, same issue I had with Mario Wonder earlier this year: can’t say I was ever really bored or annoyed while playing it, but I kind of wish that I was, because then I might’ve walked away with something beyond admiration for the pretty colors. It’s aesthetically great (obviously), I laughed at a good chunk of the cutscenes and dialogue (favorite bit, by far, was Travis constantly trying to recommend animes to a grieving Badgirl) and I found the combat passable. But mostly I’m just thankful this was on Gamepass so I didn’t have to spend any of my precious Utopicoins on it.

Shoot someone and they die. But you have limited ammo. But you can pick up other people's arrows if they miss. But if you hit someone and they dodge through it, they get the arrow instead. But...
Singleplayer games are often judged on how well they're able to accomplish something like the above: taking a simple base concept and constantly twisting it to throw players off guard while still keeping the same mechanical core intact. Multiplayer games, though, are an entirely different beast- learning how to play one is almost always getting the rules explained to you, whether it be through a heavy handed tutorial or just from one of your friends. The reasoning for this is apparent, as intuitive teaching isn't really possible without some kind of linear progression, and when you can't predict the "difficulty" (skill level) of your "obstacles" (other players), there's really nothing you can do. That is, unless you're playing with a group of people who also have no prior experience with the game, which was exactly my situation with Towerfall, and it was a blast! Slowly picking up on all of the little quirks in the platforming mechanics and immediately experimenting with them in the next round, laughing or gloating during the instant replay after a crazy finish, and that one moment, at match point, where the last two survivors are using all of the tricks they've learned to to try and outwit each other. Fittingly, it's reminiscent of discovering what Jigglypuff's down-B did or that Luigi's taunt could deal damage back in the day, on a much more limited scale. There's not really any worthwhile singleplayer content, but that only speaks to how lean it is- each and every part of Towerfall is both intuitive and highly conducive towards the controlled chaos that makes for a great party game. Considering you can disable anything you might find to be BS, like the auto-handicap that happens when someone lags too far behind in score, there's a temptation to call this game perfect... but I'm able to resist it. My crusade against loading screen tips continues to grow, as too much stuff is revealed to you via popups in between rounds, and it does feel like it's missing a lot in terms of personality, which makes you realize how much heavy lifting Celeste's soundtrack would end up doing. All the stages' individual mechanics are well designed, and rotating between several layouts rather than sticking with a static one is particularly clever, but a lot of them don't really fit the theming of each individual level and so it's kind of hard to remember which one contains which gimmicks. But can you call them flaws if they don't dent your enjoyment? Loaded my Switch up with party games for a meetup with college friends and we had so much fun with this one that we didn't get to any of the others, which just about says it all. With the Smash Bros. series treading water and only feeling more and more bloated since Melee, this just might be the new go-to.