Second Opinion: Chrono Cross

A few weeks ago, the unthinkable became a reality: Square was releasing a sequel to Chrono Trigger. After we played the demo included with Legend of Mana, the unthinkable became thinkable once again: The sequel to Chrono Trigger may not be as good as hoped. The demo paints Chrono Cross as a graphically pretty, if unextraordinary, traditional RPG. While the full title may yet redeem itself - Square games have a habit of improving in great leaps and bounds from their demo versions - fans of the SNES classic Chrono Trigger have been almost universally underwhelmed.

The Chrono Cross demo focuses on three characters: Serge, a spunky by-the-numbers, treasure-hunting youth; Kid, a quick-tempered, scantily clad heroine; and Glenn, a beefy knight. Whether this Glenn has any relation to the Frog-Glenn of the first title has yet to be seen. The trio runs across all sorts of trouble as they try to escape a monster-infested cavern. If this setup sounds generic, that's because it is: Chrono Cross' greatest sins are bland character designs and an uninvolving scenario - at least in the demo. While it's still too early to judge the party completely, most gamers find it difficult to muster up any emotion stronger than indifference toward the crew. Where art thou, Akira Toriyama? (That's right - working on Dragon Quest VII along with Chrono Trigger scenarist, Yuji Horii.)

The gameplay is standard RPG exploration on prerendered backgrounds, as in Final Fantasy VII and VIII. Battles eschew the original's Active Time Battle system for a more traditional turn-based system. "Turn based" may be an oversimplification; instead of taking turns, each character attacks whenever he pleases, for as long or as short as he chooses, in whatever order the player ascribes. The only limitation is each character's stamina bar. Depleted by actions, a character's stamina bar refills during other characters' and enemies' turns. As in Xenogears, characters choose from three different types of attacks and a rudimentary chaining system seems to support the mixing and matching of attacks. As a character attacks, his elemental bar fills up. Once the bar fills to a certain level, equipped elemental attacks (spells) of that level can be used. Elemental attacks are colored by type and can be arranged in the player's inventory into patterns - how this affects the game remains to be seen. Although this writer was unable to find any of Chrono Trigger's signature Double or Triple techs between multiple characters, they may yet be discovered.

Graphics fall somewhere between Final Fantasy VIII and Legend of Mana in style; the game has a highly textured and "sketched" computer-graphics look. Battle sequences run at a brisk frame rate - too brisk, it seems at times. The occasional CG sequence spices up the storyline, although they're not as tightly integrated as Final Fantasy's. Music and sound effects are passable, if unmemorable.

An analogy: Imagine that your favorite movie is finally getting a sequel. But the original's director, producer, screenplay author, dialogue writer, costume designer, and composer are not returning. Moreover, none of the original game's characters are anywhere to be found. Such a movie wouldn't be a "sequel" in anything but name. Perhaps Chrono Cross is best viewed in a similar fashion: as a standalone RPG arbitrarily assigned a popular name. With almost none of the original's crew returning, Chrono Cross will ultimately be judged on its own merits alone.