This post got too long so it is a new thread:
I just got to The Twist in Chrono Cross. So it is time to talk about it. This was my last Pledge Game of the year after giving up on Card Fighter’s Clash, Dragon Quest 1, and Final Fantasy Tactics. I started Cross at the end of last year and as opposed to those other games giving me reasons to quit Cross is so indifferent to giving you a reason to play more.
It is so indifferent to the player’s presecence. It is like bureaucracy. Everything takes a little too long. Everything in the main city is screens apart from another and in barely marked doors. There is little 4 second pauses all over the game. The pile of tutorial text does nothing to explain how to play the game. It is continually more and more open and your only clue where to go is one thing a character said somewhere.
Trying to recruit characters demands a guide. It’s obtuse and arbitrary. I got mad a semi-required item was hidden behind talking to an NPC three times that wasn’t even near the place it was needed (it makes sense contextually but it’s an example.)
Then you need to make sense of the Elements system and what is finite and what you just need to equip. Or how to upgrade weapons. Do you dissamble weapons? Do you trade in elements or body parts? What exactly am I doing? Crap where am I supposed to go now? This feels like a SaGa Game.
Luckily there are dozens of FAQs though I would love just a meaty physical guide to flip through. And the game is not that difficult in practice though the first 10 hours of random battles are slogs. I’ve been playing the game on mute because at this point I hate the normal and boss battle themes. Don’t worry everyone I’ve listened to the soundtrack for 21 years ever since @geist praised it 6 forums ago. It’s really great just…the battle themes remind what I am about to do for 2-5 minutes of my life.
Also that without a guide the most efficient way to do the boss battles is wait for the boss to cast A Big Spell, run away, equip a trap (also buy all the trap spells), and get back in the battle. You can run from every battle and are supposed to play in this well not tedious, but it takes longer than you’d like. Everything in the game takes a little too long. This is why people use guides I yell, also clearly part of the design doc for this one.
All that said. Boy is the game pretty. Thanks 99% accurate Mister Core. Your save states save me time. I have regularly sat in awe at what the Playstation 1 was pumping out. There was the elevator door that pulled open and flooded the light of the prerendered background and I went “Now that’s Ray-tracing.”
It is so full of decisions even when that decision is This Is Not a Sequel To Chrono Trigger. Except when it is. You can’t even get all 44 characters in one playthrough. Not that the characters matter really. They are all flavor. Again player indifference.
Unlike say Xenogears or even FF7 this is the most coherent so far PS1 Square game With Themes. Even though I think I need to replay the beginning of the game again because I do not remember or understand what happened in the past that is affecting the present. Or maybe I am not supposed to yet. It’s unclear!
Oh yeah going between the worlds is so obtuse as well.
Okay trying to be all positive for this final paragraph. The music is stunning. The graphics are unbelievable. I have to think just enough in the battle system and that it auto-heals you is so great. The character designs are excellent. The characters themselves are sharply enough written given the constraints. It is cool that it has dozens of heavily buried secrets that maybe you could figure out on your own if you tried really hard. I want to keep playing it now and I think I can stick with it till the end.
