Where I stand

 With the previous article out of the way, I'd like to immediately fall into the trap by expressing my opinion of a game that I've been hearing a lot about lately: Chrono Cross. I'll be straight; I did not like this game. Before anyone tramples my e-mail address saying that I do not understand what happened in the plot-line, you are wrong.

 Chrono Trigger was one of the best games ever published, and no one can argue that fact. Some even consider it to be the best RPG ever made, and that is debatable, but it makes a very strong case for itself. There's almost nothing wrong with the game, and anyone willing to look past the very childish, so-so nature of the opening will find one of the deepest, intellectual, and arguably dark RPG's that have ever graced a console. I say dark because the game is all about the very serious "end of the world" scenario, except the difference is that you actually see it first hand. Should you lose, you are reminded that your failure causes apocalypse to rain down from the skies. What's even worse is that the thing causing it is at your front door the entire game, and there's very little you can do about it until later on.

 The plot itself is very solid, and I think that one of its strengths is that it tends to avoid confusion, playing safe and keeping things simple while hammering home its points. Pair that up with a chilling, epic, "ticking" soundtrack, and you have yourself a story theme that's hard to forget.

 So with all of this perfection floating around, the game presented the then-Squaresoft with a double edged sword. Obviously, they followed up with its popularity and money making potential, but they had the capability to get in-house and borrowed top-tier talent to create one of the few legendary sequels ever. Or, they could have failed miserably and sullied the upstart series.

 Let's get this out of the way: neither happened. The game was not legendary by any means, though it carries too much perfection to be considered a failure. I prefer to see this game the same way I would imagine Kobe Bryant showing up drunk during game seven of the NBA Finals.

 Everything about this game, aesthetically, screams perfection. The soundtrack was more subdued than the first, but it nonetheless became as memorable as the first. While you may find that there are few epic tracks to be found, the same sense of "ticking" could be found, thankfully preserving the theme from the first game. The graphics are outstanding for a PSX game (because I refuse to use the PS1 title), and the controls do anything to hurt the already patented RPG methods. What's most surprising is how well the oft-bashed battle system works out. It has several shortcomings, coming across as a stamina-based card battler at times rather than using a turn-based, menu driven system. Anyone coming over from Chrono Trigger one has the right to curse, but I have to give a little credit for its attempt at innovation.

 The troubles begin with this "attempt". Once you've discovered the intricacies of the battle system, it's very hard to look at it and think that things are at all upgraded. Say what you will about how this system works and defend its uniqueness all you want, but the system is terrible when compared to the big boys. Can you do techs in Chrono Cross? Well, yes, except they are extremely rare, and with the sheer number of characters in the game, odds are high that your particular group won't have one available to them. Techs were second nature in the first game, and part of its innovation was that things were moving on the battlefield, affecting the way you used your skills. Not only do enemies not move in this game, which is completely understandable, but techs are never once second nature to the player, thus removing a good part of nostalgic charm and replacing it with a color wheel.

 On the topic of characters, think back to your standard RPG. Even in the good ones, you meet a character with an important place in the storyline of the game. In almost every instance (Suikoden aside), these are NPC's with little use to you except being the bearer of an important sidequest, or the catalyst for the next story arc. Maybe it's not even that important. It could be that drunk old man that's hiding out in the corner of town that happens to have more dialogue than most of the narrow minded world you're in. Well, this game encourages you to stick them all in your bag-of-tricks. There are over 40 acquirable characters in the game, and very few of them have any real significance to your story. Some of them don't even have stories.

 Case in point: Starky. You find this alien crash landed on your planet, and he eventually joins you with the pretty predictable wish of getting his ship repaired so that he can leave the cursed rock. That's it. At the end of the game, I thought I did something wrong, because I didn't learn anything about him. Turns out, that's exactly what the developers meant. He serves as more cannon fodder for the team, and his personality doesn't go beyond that. Here I was hoping that he was going to bring this tearful story about being from a previously destroyed planet that Lavos had been to at some point, or some alien viewpoint about what's going on, or even just an investigator wondering why this planet was so effed up all the time. No, none of that.

 Trouble is, there aren't many characters that progress much further than Starky. Only a select few get their moment of fame, and the developers' gimmick was to taunt you with the interesting potential of the rest, then leaving you high and dry. What is the point of introducing that many characters if there's really no good reason for them to be in your party anyway? There are some reasons, I suppose, but they all sound like bad excuses. I barely remember half the characters I used (and didn't use), and yet another character drove me absolutely insane for just being there. What's worse is that I'm not sure why Squeenix even bothered to give some credibility to this character with their DS remake of Chrono Trigger.

 You meet someone in the game that looks like someone you're VERY interested in having in your party, except even Square said that even though they wanted it do be, it wasn't the droid you were looking for. They flip flopped for a while, but in the end it didn't matter, as even if it WAS the character you were desperately hoping to recruit, he didn't do anything important or advance any fanwanks. Basically, Square half-developed a character to the point where he had the most basic of personalities, then tried to figure out what they wanted to do with him, and when they couldn't, they left him at blah and called it a day.

 If that doesn't clue you in to the quality of the plot, then I shall enlighten you. 80% of the plot, a very generous number, is utter crap. The ending is the only thing that merits it being in the series, and unfortunately, the entire premise of the ending is dumped onto you all at once like a garbage truck emptying its payload. "Bond-monologue" doesn't even begin to describe it, mainly because the plot gave you so few connections to the revelation by that point. It's really hard to connect the dots when you aren't given dots to start with. Yes, things happen in the plot about the Frozen Flame, but it still doesn't make sense why they approached it in the way they did.

 My theory on this is the exact same one that I gave that certain character. Squaresoft had a game on their hands that was meant to be standalone, and they developed it up to the point where the plot was barely passable. Somebody decided to slap the Chrono label on it, and instead of tailoring the game to be a true part of the series, they just slapped a few extra areas, a monologue, and an end boss to link the two games and called it good. What's troubling is that because of this, I can't recommend the game as a standalone, because the game relies so heavily on these thrown in plot-points that a newbie wouldn't get what was really going on. The only way to recommend the plot to a series fan is to tell them to load up the game 80% of the way through and start fresh from there. Sure, they'll be confused at first, but a couple people step in and explain everything in the most long-winded ways possible, so it works out.

 That's why I have a very hard time with this game. It is quite possibly the most perfect bad game to ever come out. If it wasn't for 80% of the plot, this game could be a worthy heir, because everything else about the game is done with extremely high standards. From the opening scene and the accompanying music to the ending, this game has greatness written all over it. Yes, the ending is great, because what you ultimately buy the game for (its link to Chrono Trigger) is worth experiencing despite the reasoning for it being shoved down your throat. The rest of the plot just keeps hacking away at the credibility of it all.

 Also, in the first game, there were several moments of true badassery. Remember Crono and the Mammon Machine? You'll find none of that here.

 As promised:

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