Overrated but still a very good game.
User Rating: 7.5 | Chrono Cross (PSOne Books) PS
Although Chrono Cross was released about a decade ago, it's only now that I've got my hands on it and played it through to completion, which took me just under 40 hours. I'm a huge RPG fan, my favourite game of all time being Final Fantasy VII, so I was really looking forward to playing Chrono Cross given its sublime reputation. It was definitely a fun and worthwhile experience, but wasn't quite the epic game I was expecting. Most people who have issues with Chrono Cross appear to be big fans of the original and thus were disappointed that it's quite a different game. I've never played Trigger so that wasn't a problem for me. Chrono Cross has 40+ playable characters which might sound great but it's at the expense of character development. Serge and Kid are the only two characters I really cared about and had no particular affection for the others, because I simply didn't know enough about them. Having so many characters join the party so frequently seems pointless and gratuitous. The story is interesting and has some great twists but can be confusing and the ending in particular is very vague and left me feeling dissatisfied. Some games like Final Fantasy IX have epic endings which really make you feel like the game has been worth it, I'm not saying it has to be a happy or 'all questions answers' ending, it could still be open to interpretation but a few lines of text don't really leave you feeling like you just completed the game and it's all over now. The battle system is original and intruiging, I personally didn't particularly like the way you had to build up elements before you could use them but it did add to the challenge and stopped the game being too easy, it wasn't very challenging anyway. Random battles can be frustrating though and take longer than they should, partly due to lengthy element animations which should be skippable. The graphics are great for their time and the music is consistently solid, although there are only a few stand-out tracks. Overall I enjoyed Chrono Cross but probably won't play it again, I would recommend though as long as you try not to let the hype get your expectations up too much. It's a fun game but something didn't fully grab me and I can't really put my finger on what really made me enjoy the game and what didn't. My real score for this game is 7.9 but I gave it 7.5 as I feel that it doesn't quite deserve an 8. Overrated? Yes. A good game? Most definitely.
