/vr/ - Retro Games

>>1383901
Well, I can tell you why I liked it.

The game is beautiful in both art and music. The graphics are amazing for PS1, but what really makes them memorable is the art direction. Everything is organic, colorful and alive, a far cry from the sterile style of most games of the time.

The music is amazing, it has the best soundtrack of any game I've ever played. There's a thematic cohesion to the soundtrack that also manages to keep a wide range of emotions. Most people complain about the battle theme being annoying, and while it's not the best song ever it's a far cry from being bad in my opinion.

The plot is unlike that of most games. In Cross you're limited to a small region of your world, and thus the journey is more quiet and personal. Most NPCs like to wax about philosophy and many of them have an ethereal quality that I found intriguing. The story is well-planned both thematically and as a sequel to CT, but the pacing is way off. Think Xenogears off if you've ever played that. It also leaves many things up for speculation, which I think is cool but your opinion my vary. All in all, it's very dream-like.

The gameplay is miles ahead from ATB. Instead of waiting for a bar to fill, you have turns with certain stamina points. This lets you choose different levels of physical strength attack, use a customizable magic/tech system, or run away, all within one turn. You can run away from every single battle, even bosses. You also get 40+ characters to use. Some tie up with the plot, others are just for fun. You don't get EXP, instead battles build your stats up slightly. I thought it was really fun and there was always something new to try out.

I dunno, it's just a very memorable game. It feels rather experimental and unique. Most people who hate it hate it on the basis of not being exactly like CT, but if you really didn't get into CT you may want to try CC out. Watch the opening, it's the best game seller there is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=923fVDDwaHo

Chrono Cross was divisive because it goes against what most people want from sequels. CT fans wanted another Electric Boogaloo lighthearted adventure, but CC just changed everything.

In CT you played as a small band of cliches that had to face an absolute evil. There were dark parts, but most things stayed lighthearted. Combat was simple with techs adding variety and music was great. Story was a simple affair as well.

In CC you have a legion of characters. Some have a lot of development, many have virtually none. You are confined to an area that was never in CT. You fight against ambivalent foes that sometimes are sad to fight against. The battle system was much more in-depth and customizable. The story suffers from severely weird pacing, and it implies that everything you did on CT had a catastrophic consequence you had to deal with now, because those consequences killed your band of cliches and a whole future. And your character's existence is responsible for undoing what CT characters fought for.

Cross is about things that are not meant to exist, but that strive to do so anyway: Serge, El Nido, human beings in general. It makes you question why these things should exist if they're destroying what Crono did, and it ultimately goes back to the same question CT did: we don't know how things will turn out, but we can fight for a better future. And in the end, the things that aren't meant to exist are the ones that save all of existence. How you actually win, by using love and hate to create harmony instead of fighting, integrates plot with gameplay and ties everything up.

But it does take a simple, lighthearted tale and twists it inside out to tell a darker, more serious story that implies your CT favorites are flawed, so if you're not willing to accept that you'll never like it.

In my case, I grew up with CT and loved CC. I loved how it wasn't another sequel. It was its own separate, yet interwined, tale. I wish more sequels were that way.