So, Its the year 2000. I'm a happy, cheerful highschool kid, and played Chrono trigger so much as a child 5 years prior that I could probably do the Underwater Palace in my sleep. Then suddenly, a miracle occurs, and one day in my internet searchings, I come across the release date for a sequel to CT, and quickly rush out after its release and buy it. So began a love affair that oddly not many people seem to share.
Yes. I'm talking about Chrono Cross. From the moment the game began, the haunting, beautiful soundtrack, practically drew me in like a moth to the flame.
Now THIS is how you open a game with epic.
Say what you will about Uematsu, but in my opinion, the man's got nothing on Yasunori Mitsuda. Few of Uematsu's works quote compare to me to tracks such as Dragon God, On the Beach of Dreams ~ Another World, Victory ~ A Cry in Summer (Fuckyeah LUCCA)), or the hauntingly sad Girl Who Stole the Stars.
I admit, at first when I played it I was a bit disappointed to not see Lucca or Crono or the rest of the gang around except in the occasional hint or offhanded remark. But then I found the Dead Sea..and Nadia's bell. And the full scope of my actions in Chrono Trigger were quickly hammered home. Chrono Cross rarely pulled punches in pointing out that endings don't always stay happy, and that there's consequences to every action. And don't get me started on how much I cried when i found out Lucca's ultimate fate.
The battle system I know some people had problems with , but I found it interesting and fun, a welcome departure from most standard battle systems, and while even I admit the plotline could get a bit vague in its explanations at times, it did tie up a lot of dangling plot ends (especially for me, one of the idiots who believed all the silly rumors about recruiting Schala in Chrono Trigger. Sue me, I was in middle school).
And then there's the characters. So many unique and strange characters. From the Wisecracking badass that is Kid, to the mysterious and enigmatic Harle, to everything from psychic pro wrestler Greco, to cheerful faerie Razzly, and Pip, yay Pip! There's just so many interesting and weird characters interspersed throughout the game even in the non-recruitable side..such as one of the first appearance of the now common trope of dumb soldier henchmen that keep recurring and looking like idiots, to the crazy heel turns certain bosses pull halfway through the game, not to mention the backstory on Lynx and Harle was so fresh and exciting at the time for an rpg.
On the whole, what I really would love would be a full remake, maybe for both 360 and PS3, along with maybe a soundtrack CD. Course, that's probably unlikely, but even a PSN release like ff7 got would be perfectly okay by me. I'd buy a copy instantly, as I've long since misplaced my copy, and while some people are devoted to Chrono Trigger as the best game ever..I'm one of those rare few who still thinks the sequel blows it and pretty much anything else away.
In short. Hurry the fuck up SE. Release the best damn game ever on psn.
Yeah, sure. I will admit that the music was pretty good, but that's about it. The story was just plain weird and kind of too out there, the characters were boring as hell (and with so many characters, it's hard to even try to like just a few), and the graphics made me want to puke. Even today, it's just hard for me to understand how people could like a game like CC...
PS: Don't hate me, hate my opinion. Please?
That said, Square Enix seems very leery to release any of their classic on a download only basis. I think they are saving them for retail re-releases on portables, because there is more money in it.
The gap between our PSN's is already huge.
PAL regions were never blessed with this game. Releasing it on PSN is rubbing it in even further.
You're getting FFT, MGS1 is unconfirmed for PAL.
Enjoy your disk copies and let us wallow in our shitty 10 miles behind PSN instead of our 20 miles behind PSN.
Mitsuda rocks.
http://www.amazon.com/Chrono-Cross-Playstation/dp/B00004TC6E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1245512941&sr=8-1
They'd be better to copy the Hanabi festivals, which come up about twice yearly. At least Virtual Console can release its undone import games to us Brits; I cant think of a single time the PSN has done that. It just makes it extra depressing when an awesome PS1 game is revealed, and I realize that no, we never had it over here on the Playstation so its not really coming.
I think the only bone Europe has been thrown was the original Silent Hill, but that got pulled from the store within two weeks. Now that's downright criminal.
Anyway I will make up for it and get it when I've played through what I'm playing at the moment.
There definitely seems to be a huge split over the game but I'll judge for myself when I complete it, good blog though, I could feel the love :P
Chrono Cross, Legend of Dragoon, Grandia, Breath of Fire, anything Lunar, Suikoden 2, and so many others... games that I would love to buy if they were available on PSN. I don't think it's going to happen though, to our dismay.
HOPE!
Anyways, this is why people should have jumped on PS3s early while BC was still available.
Still, it would be great if they did this eventually.
After I found out it had 0 to do with Chrono Trigger, I opened my mind to it anyways. A lot of people hated on this game because they expected a true sequel. Just give it a shot and think of it as a separate entity.
I bought it like many others expecting a sequel and was incredibly disappointed, just an absolutely terrible sequel with none of the charm of the original.
I left it alone for months and went back to it, I decided to play it as its own entity, I ended up hating it even more, there's just nothing good about Cross, terrible battle system, terrible tech system, an overabundance of useless characters and a crappy story that seems to screech to a halt after a major plot event.
And yet its hailed as one of the greatest games of all time, it remains a mystery to me, I have no clue why so many like it beyond differing opinions of course, I can name plenty of PSone RPG's that where miles above Chrono Cross.