While I don't buy into the hype of most of these games chrono cross is a decent game but its not for everyone.
You start out as serge and your life is great your a care free boy from a small but friendly fishing village.You talk to your girl friend leena and she wants some scales off a komodo dragon to make a necklace.You go down to get the scales and after that your waiting on a beach and then something so bizzare happens you know it could only happen in a jrpg.Your some how thrust into an alternate world where you died as a child and the whole world is not like it was.Some of this is due to the fact that lynx this strange cat like man is trying to wreak havok on the world.Well you start out on a journey to find out what has happened to you and whats going on with the world.
Along the way you will meet tons of characters.This is one of chrono crosses
perks.You can recruit tons of people to join your cause and they all factor into the story in some way.This gives the game some replay value and makes sure that you have a fresh experience at least for a couple of play throughs.This factor also depends on if you even care about that kind of stuff.Still I must admit it does help to freshen things up some and makes the world seem a little more alive than your average jrpg of that era.
The next catch is there are no random battles.While some are hard to avoid you can avoid many of these battles if you want.You gain a level of growth only in boss fights.Still you get some perks from the other creatures like money,loot and even some added hp,or even a stat increase from time to time.So its better to take part in some of these and when you get sick of them you can try and avoid them and it really helps out the pace of the game.Everyone knows how bad it can get when your trying to explore or figure something out and your thrust into a million random battles,well you don't have that head ache in chrono cross.
Oh how about a new battle system well its got that too and its actually pretty good.Every character has an affinity to a certain element like fire,ice, or something to that nature and if your guy is more attuned to fire then equiping red or fire elements into his slots will be slightly more effective than other elements.Also you can equip other elements on that character too for added options.Like if your guy is a fire element guy then you obviously want to equip he or she with some of those but you also want to equip he or she with others so they can be effective against more enemies.Even your normal fight option has ben replaced.You now have to option to hit with three kinds of power,you can attack with a light blow,a medium blow and a strong blow.Each one consumes different amounts of stamina and each one has a different chance to hit.
The graphics are really out dated today but some of the best you'll see from that era.The music and sounds still hold up really well though with lots of good music and sounds that you'll remember for a time to come and you'll also wonder why modern video games don't make music this memorable anymore.
Still I must say that this game is not for everyone.It has some silly stuff in it and tries to mix in realistic points and issues with a bizzare fantasy world and it sometimes comes off as really odd or at least to me.I think this is one turn off of the game.I also encourage you to not use a game guide because you will have way more fun , even though it may take some time you will get through it.Game guides take away one of the key elements of this game that is exlporation and wonder.
So if you can stand some of the crazy japanese elements then you will find a game that is still fun and blast to play even now.Some of it didn't age well but for the most part crono cross is one of those games that I think will be around for ages to come.