I went all out on this one!
This storyline revolves around ideas of parallel / tangent universes, time travel and other philosophical ideals. The game play consists of two main parts: the adventure and the battle system…
Battle System (Part 1)
First off, there are no random battles in this game! This is a huge breath of fresh air because you can choose to avoid enemies that you see walking around. This game has a very unique turn-based battle system, which I really liked and will try to explain the best as I can…
You fight with 3 characters at a time and you have 4 options which are as follows:
Attack
When attacking you have a choice of three options weak, medium and strong attacks. Each attack will have a percentage rate of how often you will hit. Example: If you had a 93% chance of hitting an enemy, there would be a 7% chance of missing. Here's how it's laid out:
1 – (93%) - Weak Attack, with the highest percentage to hit.
2 – (82%) - Medium Attack
3 – (72%) - Strong Attack, with the lowest percentage to hit
After attacking if you have elements associated with your character you will now be able to access them. For every Weak attack you land on your opponent you gain an single element slot. Medium attacks give two, and Strong attacks let you access 3 element slots. Now if you were you successfully land a 'strong attack' your next set of attacks would have a higher percentage of sucess and would be as follows:
1 – (99%)
2 – (98%)
3 – (95%)
Critical Attacks are separate from this system and come at random depending on your weapon.
Element
You can access elements after attacking with your character. In this game elements represent different colors: red=fire, blue=water, green=wind etc. Different initiate coloured foes have different coloured weaknesses. For example if you were to encounter a foe with an initiate colour of Red(Fire) you would want to use Blue(Water) attacks to hit the greater damage. This is similar to the weaknesses seen in Pokemon or Final Fanatasy VII. The weakness scheme is as follows:
Red Counters Blue
Blue Counters Red
Green Counters Yellow
Yellow Counters Green
Black Counters White
White Counters Black
Defend
Defending is a good idea after you've dealt out some attacks, this will allow your character to receive less damage upon an enemy attack.
Running away
The cowards way out… Although, it's extremely useful in this game because you can run if you have failed to steal an important item OR if your just plain getting your ass handed to you.
Other Battle Notices
Field Effect - The field effect is located in the top left-hand corner of the battle screen. Depending on what colours the field effect is the better chance you will have of your elemental attacks dealing more damage. For example: If the field effect is all white and you use a white attack against a dark enemy you will deal some serious damage
Techs - There are also skills called "techs" which every character learns after reaching a certain level and are located for use in the elemental section. For example: Serge learns his Level 3 attack Dash & Slash early in the game. There are also Dual and Triple Techs. These can be used when you have a combination of two or three characters who have compatible attacks. For example: If you had Glenn and Serge in your party and they have attacked enough to have gotten both their Elements to Level 3. Together they will combine Dash & Slash and Dash & Gash to perform the X-Strike. This X-Strike is remenisant of Frog's and Crono's X-Strike known in Chrono Trigger.
Thieving Techs - There are afew characters in the game who have the ability to steal items from enemies. This comes in very handy during the course of the game because you can steal some very useful items.
Summoning Elements - These are Level 7+ and are marked with a *star. They deal massive damage and can only used when you have the field effect all one colour.
The Adventure (Part 2)
One of the most notable facts which sets Chrono Cross apart from other RPGs is that there are 45 playable characters! These characters all have different techniques, weapons, profiles, forms of speech, ways of walking, initiate colours, and a wide variation of appearances. When I finished this game I had… lemme check… 29 characters. (I got the chose the characters that were the strongest and ignored the lame ones) Note that not all of these characters are cool looking or have major roles in the story's progression but the ones that do are completely genius.
Besides the fact that there is a load of characters there are also a load of weapons, armor and accessories. You equip to your characters to boost stats as in most RPGs. Weapons, Armor and Accessories are comprised of different materials, which you can forge or disassemble. Some of the materials are: Copper, Iron, Mythril, Leather, Feathers, Scales, etc. These materials can be obtained after a battle or found in treasure chests. There are Smith shops, Element shops and Inn's. Forging and buying items requires Gold, which is also gained at the end of battles and in other places.
Chrono Cross consists of two different worlds, the Home World and the Other World. You must travel back and forth between these worlds defeating bosses, obtaining items and gaining characters to beat the game… I can't say anymore without spoilers.
There are points in the game where you have to make a choice and the choices you make effect how the story will unfold. This factor adds replay value to the game. Another factor is that there are a few multiple endings; some better then others.
Graphics 10 / 10
As one of the latest PS1 games made by Square in 1999,2000 the graphics were no doubt some of the best on the Playstation. The sprites are somewhat pixilated for today's standards but were top-notch at the time. Although, the CGI cut scenes are flawlessly outstanding looking for the time and hold up to this day. The environments are extremely colourful and are a stationary backgrounds very similar to Final Fantasy 7's. Battle sequences have a lot of slick camera angles, which make for some epic battles.
Music 10 / 10
This is the Best soundtrack of any video game ever. Yasunori Mitsuda composed it, and was known for his previous done work on Xenogears. It is a fully orchestral soundtrack complete with a lot of different instruments. The in-battle sound effects of elements, attacks, and monsters are perfect. The music is epic and probably will stick with you the rest of your life.
Here's link to a video of the PLAY! Orchestra playing music from both Chrono Cross and Trigger:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NITRZK8z0ek
Final Score: 10.0 / 10.0