I had a dream about a game like this once. I got murdered at the end. That's what it feels like to play this game.
After popping it into my PS3, I was greeted by a semi-catchy j-pop tune. After the initial hypnotic cadence, I began to install the game software. After 20 minutes, the game was one percent installed. I then decided to do the laundry, clean the bathroom, make my bed, eat second breakfast, mow both of my grandparents' yards, read "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, re-read all my volumes of Hayate the Combat Butler, and re-complete Myst V from the beginning (without using the cheap way). Once finished, the game still had 45% to go, so I caught a nap.
Once that had finished, I began the game. I was instantly stunned by it's graphics, and not in a good way. The game possesses graphics that could easily have been handled by a PS2, or a four year old Macintosh computer. With this in mind, I assumed all of the storage space that blu-ray discs have to offer would be spent on nudie pics of the female characters.
Speaking of which, the game offers an impressive 47:1 female to male character ratio. The characters' stats can be changed with different costumes and outfits, though... mysteriously... only the female characters change appearances... In Sailor Moon style transformation sequences.
The game wasted no time in dumping me into its combat system, and this is one part of the game I enjoyed. Each attack is assigned to a button. The attacks cost a certain amount of action points, and as long as you have enough to pull off an attack, you can rack up hit combos like crazy. In addition, you can pull off team attacks with other party members and continue to bring the pain to hordes of baddies. The combat system is as deep as it is complicated, which didn't bother me all that much. I don't mind having to think as I fight.
This is where the fun stops, though, as such a system makes leveling up one of the most soul-crushingly boring experiences you will ever endure. What makes this worse is that you will HAVE to go level grinding if you're to have any hope of defeating bosses (like, say... Etna and the Prinny squad, to cite an early example).
Still, the combat is many levels deeper than the story. I know it's a crossover game, but even Brawl's "Subspace Emissary" wasn't this insipid. I correctly guessed that the first (or among the first) line in this game to be "... whe... Where ARE we?" and it gets lamer from there. Then we meet Morrigan, who makes Paris Hilton look like an Amish nun; May, whose demeanor made me seriously reconsider naming a character May in a story I'm writing; and Marie, who is a cutie. :3
Interesting fact about Marie, she's from a game that was never released outside of Japan. Having characters that neither I nor the majority of gamers have never heard of begs one question, "Why the hell do I care?" Oh, that's right, because she's marginally attractive and looks good in a school uniform. Sorry for my insolence , o great NIS.
All this aside, the thing that killed the game most for me was the sound. The music was decent; everything else wasn't. The voice acting in this game is a serious sucker-punch to the testicles for those (like me) who believe that American Voice actors can do just as good a job as Japanese seiyuus (as the elitists call them). The game stars Yuri Lowenthal, Michelle Ruff, Kari Wahlgren, Yuri Lowenthal, Sam Riegel, Yuri Lowenthal, Laura Bailey, Yuri Lowenthal, and Yuri Lowenthal. While some very good VAs are in this game, this is in no way their best work. This is made more annoying by the fact that every time an attack is performed, a character says the same line over and over again. So when Yuri Lowenthal as Raze (Roze?) from Mana Khemia 2 performs a certain attack multiple times, you wind up listening to him say "I can do it!" over and over and over again. It really makes you wish he couldn't do it. Christ, not even I need that much self-reassurance.
So in all honesty, Cross Edge amounts to nothing more than a 40 hour masturbation odyssey that was the result of a fanfiction that got forwarded to NIS, Gust, Capcom, and Idea Factory as a joke. Only buy this game if you can get it for $20 or less so that you can sell it to some shmuck in a school anime club for twice what you paid.