One of the most deranged and thrilling RPG experiences I've ever had.
The first 2/3rds are almost beat-for-beat what I would want from a Chrono Trigger sequel - a compelling conceptual hook, a gorgeous and cozy world to explore, a wild and unpredictable story with plenty of interesting characters. Up to entering the Dead Sea, I was so on-board with the game that I was almost confused by its infamously mixed reputation.
Then I hit the final 1/3rd and all things were made clear. As an indirect sequel to Chrono Trigger, Cross is an excellently inspired pivot that feels thematically linked to its predecessor without too much in the way of narrative baggage. The last act of the game, then, serves to throw out all the goodwill of what you've played thus far and exchanges it for some of the most batshit and frustrating creative backtracking you're likely to see. Nearly every element of the game is retroactively shoe-horned into being related to the story of Chrono Trigger, and at a certain point it reeks of a kind of cowardice that the developers didn't have enough faith in this story to let it stand its own merits, instead content to link its identity inexorably to a game that was already beloved for its own singularity.
All that said, I still loved my time in Chrono Cross and wouldn't trade a minute of it - I even played the "Radical Dreamers" visual novel and had a good time with it. I just wish that the game's final impression wasn't one so compromised and malformed, that it had been confident enough to stand on its own strengths and craft a story worthy of the spectacular work that surrounds it. Instead, we get a great but flawed game, idiosyncratic in all the best and worst ways. I love it to death and simultaneously wish that I could change whole swaths of it. In that way, the game perfectly encapsulates its own metaphor - there could be another life, another reality where Chrono Cross could be the game I want it to be, but would it be the same life where I love it as much I do now?
The first 2/3rds are almost beat-for-beat what I would want from a Chrono Trigger sequel - a compelling conceptual hook, a gorgeous and cozy world to explore, a wild and unpredictable story with plenty of interesting characters. Up to entering the Dead Sea, I was so on-board with the game that I was almost confused by its infamously mixed reputation.
Then I hit the final 1/3rd and all things were made clear. As an indirect sequel to Chrono Trigger, Cross is an excellently inspired pivot that feels thematically linked to its predecessor without too much in the way of narrative baggage. The last act of the game, then, serves to throw out all the goodwill of what you've played thus far and exchanges it for some of the most batshit and frustrating creative backtracking you're likely to see. Nearly every element of the game is retroactively shoe-horned into being related to the story of Chrono Trigger, and at a certain point it reeks of a kind of cowardice that the developers didn't have enough faith in this story to let it stand its own merits, instead content to link its identity inexorably to a game that was already beloved for its own singularity.
All that said, I still loved my time in Chrono Cross and wouldn't trade a minute of it - I even played the "Radical Dreamers" visual novel and had a good time with it. I just wish that the game's final impression wasn't one so compromised and malformed, that it had been confident enough to stand on its own strengths and craft a story worthy of the spectacular work that surrounds it. Instead, we get a great but flawed game, idiosyncratic in all the best and worst ways. I love it to death and simultaneously wish that I could change whole swaths of it. In that way, the game perfectly encapsulates its own metaphor - there could be another life, another reality where Chrono Cross could be the game I want it to be, but would it be the same life where I love it as much I do now?