Chrono Cross (Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition) (Switch)

 

Through the Dimensions

Took me a while since I started it right after playing through the Radical Dreamers. And that post was published in 2023 and I assume I played it some months before that. It's a remake of a PS1 game from 1999 and a sequel to the SNES Chrono Trigger. Story is that the young boy Serge have dream of him, a girl and a puppy wandering through a fortress, he wakes up and has too collects items for his... I assume they hint at girlfriend... and he is transported through a dimensional portal. He ends up in the same world, albeit different. Like the fact that he was supposed to have died 14 years earlier drowning in the ocean. He gets the help of Kid, the girl that appeared in Radical Dreamers and he helps her to find the Frozen Flame in Viper Manor... this is basically the Radical Dreamers again. Lynx is also here as the main antagonist. After a lot of adventures you end up at the Fort Dragonia which is where the game started. And redoing the steps you face Lynx, Kid gets killed (?) and suddenly Lynx steals your body. You play as Lynx from this time on and tries to get into the Sea of Eden where the connections with Chrono Trigger becomes apparent. Shadows of Chrono, Lucca and Marle is there and the Bell in the town square. And the first boss I really has trouble with. To fix it I guess I had to go back to town, get red elemental magic to combine with and choose a team that adhere to that. I didn't so I got beaten up and in the end I quit for a time. 

And a year or so later it hit me, all these remasters Square Enix put out have things that make this game easier right? Speed-up and boost right? So I got to it and what did they do? They made you invincible since the battle system doesn't work like Final Fantasy games where they just gives you constant special attacks. And here is probably best to describe the game mechanics. There is levels, and yet not. Defeating a boss gives you a star level and with it a stat boost that goes to all characters. In between the bosses you can fight say 5-10 enemies and get mini stat boosts, like HP and one of those gives you something better. After that you don't level up until the next boss. Meaning the challenge is constantly scaled. Which forces you to learn the magic system and such. And I'm bad at that. Maybe if the equipment side would compensate, but either I didn't get it, since I ended using the quick smithy thing and decked them out with that and nothing else seemed to come up, except the rainbow equipment, which I never got around to since I couldn't get the hammer the smith asked for.

And that isn't mentioning the most problematic thing about this game. It has 45 characters to play as... Jesus. And people complained that Final Fantasy VI had 16 characters. You see the problem here? If you only get those mini-level ups by fighting monsters? Do you need to use them all? Yeah, if you want to min-max yes but doesn't matter. But how can you keep all these characters separated? Especially hard since they actually have counterparts in the other dimension. So you are gonna confuse them. I prefer parties that have set characters for this reason, I might grow with them and feel for them. The only one that matters is Serge, and Kid, but she is killed half-way through. And in the end I just used Pascal the pirate and the alien guy, who for some reason is very important for the story since you need his UFO to get to Terra Tower where the Time Devourer awaits... and you fly there with a machine from the UFO installed on the sail boat. It's f***ing awesome!

I might not like the battle system and all the characters, but it was a bit of fun. Graphics are nice, music great and the story draws me in. First the question on where Serge ended up and then what happened at Fort Dragonia. Then getting to Chronopolis, a city pushed back 10 000 years from the future and Terra Tower, another city brought back 10 000 year. How the story begins claiming humans to be infestation on the Earth since they are "children of Lavos" compared to the Reptites and the dragons that are part of the Earth. Lynx is actually your father corrupted by FATE, the computer that... I don't remember, the story goes crazy here. Kid is actually the clone of Schala and so on. It's so convoluted I actually like it.

The problem though makes it hard for me to know where to go. Several points I ran back and fourth through all locations in order to figure out where to go, and I didn't use the no encounter button. Gets tedious, especially since you don't gain levels beyond the first points. Don't say no to money and items and such. Doesn't help that you might need the right character, do you have the item? So many variables that it makes it hard to get it for me. Coming back a year or so later made it rather hard to guess what all items I carried did, but at least I got it working to power through the end. Helped that all battles was made easy by being invincible. Still, found the final battle interesting since you have to use the Chrono Cross to get the good ending, and how do you use it? I got that since the chimes and colours that appears after getting it is important and that being seven means I have to use the different magics to create a pattern. But it only works on the end boss and I get that climbing the Terrra Tower tells you the pattern, and that the second to last boss uses that pattern himself. I got that since I looked it up before and could see that it was the pattern. The game is a bit obtuse is all I'm saying. 

Still, I can't say I didn't like it. Maybe playing it in New Game+ works better, but this is a game that if you gotta 100% it you need a guide. Another complaint people have was that this game actually undoes everything you did in Chrono Trigger. That message was that you could change the future, every game over screen have that the future refused to change and in the end you did it, Lavos defeated and everyones happy. Well, not here. Lavos conjures a city back in time which forces the dragon gods to summon a reptilian city from the future and so on. What then do I think about it? Eh, in another dimension Chrono succeeded, this is more like a what if. They even hint that Radical Dreamers is an alternate dimension so why not the original Chrono? Like the third timeline in Zelda it might be one part where they die and so on. Really, the only time that bothers me would be if it goes in a boring direction. I can't say they went there. As said the story goes bonkers and I kinda like it. Can understand why not the whispered about third entry Chrono Break never got made cause where are you gonna go? Didn't think Xenoblade Chronicles 3 would tie in with the others, but they did. And I saw it floating around that they registered Chrono Break again so who knows.

Radical Dreamers (Switch)

 

Hard to see how it is a Chrono Trigger-game at first glance.

Finally got Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition, the remake... remaster... port(?) of the sequel of Chrono Trigger which I played before... a couple of times. Not only does it have the game Chrono Cross, but also the Satellaview-game Radical Dreamers. I almost bought a reproduction cart of that game, but decided to push it back since my assigned budget for video game expenses couldn't cover it at the time and this game was announced in the meantime. Which probably was lucky since my Retron-5 is a hit or miss with reproduction carts, especially games that officially wasn't released. And one of my sisters stills hogs the family Super Nintendo.

So what is Radical Dreamers? It's a visual novel game with random encounters where your action can get you killed in several ways, like being killed by monsters or traps out in the mansion where Serge, Kid and Margil (the thieving group Radical Dreamers) are looking for the jewel the Frozen Flame and the lord of the manor, Lord Lynx that Kid wants to kill. The first notion I got it was a Chrono Trigger-game (besides being bundled with Chrono Cross) was that they mentioned an army from Porre which was the southern continent of Trigger, and then it is revealed that the caretaker of Kid that was killed by Lynx was Lucca and that she gave the Time Egg (aka The Chrono Trigger) to Kid for safe-keeping. I also assume Magil is Magus since they look a lot like each other for the few instances of art that appears on the characters. The wikipedia article about the game also mention that Kid might be Schala as well, and that the Frozen Flame is part of Lavos and found in ruins from Zeal... I didn't get that dialog in the game, but since there appears to be 7 endings that might be understandable.

Was it a good game? Music is nice, you can't really talk about graphics but the art they show is wonderful and the story is rather good. Didn't die, but it appears to keep track on my health after battles and traps so it wouldn't surprise me. A bit short since it only took me 2-3 hours to get through without a guide (might have been faster if I would have mapped out the place). Now it's on to the real game in the package.

Chrono Trigger

 

I'm gonna cheat since I've already wrote about this game back when I got the DS game back in 2009, but look at it... it was horrible written giving no explanation to why it was a good game. Really, 6 years later changes a person... and that I picked it up again and played it for the first time on a 3DS which I got in 2011. So, the best JRPG of all, was it true? It still holds up for me. The story is that Crono on the day of the Millennial Fair run in to the girl Marle who you take on a tour that ends at your best friends Lucca's recent invention, a teleporter. Well, Marle gets sucked in and it's up to you to follow her so you ends up in the year 600 AD where she is misstoken for the queen that gone missing that creates a paradox and she disapears. Together with Lucca and a frog knight named Frog saves the real queen ad restore Marle, who, if you didn't guess it is princess Nadia, decendant of the queen. Back in your own time you gets sentenced to death for kidnapping the princess so you break out, but are forced into another time gate, this time in the future were you meet Robo and discovers that in the year 1999 the monster Lavos emerges from the Earth and destroy the future of humankind. So you set up to stop it. All this sets up the game and are hardly spoilers. AWESOME!!!

Really, the story is fantastic. The characters grows on you, you feel for them and you want them to succeed. Also, the story is optimistic. The music also empathize this with a real can do attitude and hope. And that is what drives the motivation of the party, they can change the future and bring hope to a dying world. Also, Lavos is a great enemy. The theme is foreboding every time it shows up and then we have the battle themes. The final struggle with glimmers of hope in them. I love it. The music overall is fantastic as it portrays every age fittingly, the desolute world of 2300 and 12 000 BC, the magical sky world of 12 000 BC, the peaceful 1000 AD, the other battle themes, the main characters themes. I love it. And the graphics are... well, they look good and for many of them quite expressive, sadly one of the negatives is that besides the main characters there is hardly any unique sprite... and that includes important story characters like the kings, chancellors, Cygnus and so on. Would have been nice with character portraits or unique sprites for these characters. Granted, it makes it easy to see who is related to who between certain ages, but take Cygnus. This important knight that everyone talks about, that fights Magus and have a huge impact on Frog... and he looks like every other knight, you couldn't have spruced him up? The commander in gold armor had at least a gold armor.

Mechanics then. One of the first JRPGS without random encounters... instead they had scripted battles at certain points. Don't get me wrong, you could get away from some of them, but many you must fight if you want to pass a certain area... but at least you see them... most of them that is, sometimes they just shows up. Another thing I guess is the New Game + feature (although Zelda II might have introduced it) that enables you to play with full inventory and level from the start (which incidentally is how I played it this time, shortening the play time to 10-15 hours... what, it's not cheating if it's part of the game). At the moment all characters are level 99 and maxed out on strength and magic for the most of them. Of course, tech are mostly worthless at this point (when there isn't some puzzle enemies and you can bypass that with Ayla and Robo 9999 critical hit weapons), but it allows for experimentation so go wild I guess. The DS version also allows you to play the game with the touch screen. Works fine for the most part, but at least you got a choice, isn't that right Magical Starsign? Another good thing with the DS version is the animated cut-scenes that I guess was made for the PS1 version which are really good. Mostly for introducing certain characters and pivotal moments in the story. 

Still, after playing it again it feels so heart warming following the story overcoming the odds and so on, even though I probably overdosed on it the last time since it took me 4 years to play again. It has it's really dark moments (the Frog and Cygnus back story or Magus motivation), but still, finishing it saving everyone and made the world better feels so satisfying watching the first ending as Marle, Lucca and Cronos travels with the Epoch to search for Crono's mom that got caught in the final time warp. Sadly there is no continuation of the story. They made a sequal, but that split the fan base since it apparently took away the good ending for the characters. Since I haven't played it, mostly seen other play it, it just feels like a betrayal for the idea that you can change the future and that there is always hope. Sadly, we will probably never see such a bright story with these characters. Best hope is the game only released in Japan on some sort of satellite service.