Okay, I'm done with Chrono Cross. Overall, my feelings are mixed. I'll just get the bad out of the way.
- I think I've made it clear that the pacing is my biggest issue with this game. Why did I have to do all that stuff with Marbule? And S.S. Invincible? Hydra Marshes? It was obviously progress, but it didn't feel like I was doing anything at all for like 30 hours of the game.
- Huge cast of characters. I have to admit that this didn't end up bothering me as much. I think if you just consider Serge, Kid, Fargo, Riddel, Karsh, Radius, and maybe Steena and Viper, then it isn't so bad. Still, I would've expected Leena to be a party member. As I mentioned earlier, I think the pacing could have been more bearable if I had a strong crew. The ones I listed were good (especially the sidequest with Dario; that ended up being a lot more interesting than I expected), but if the game cut out almost everyone else and focused on the aforementioned, then maybe I would've actually felt like I was on a real adventure. It didn't really start to feel like that until the latter third of the game.
- I literally have no fucking idea what was going on. Everything is revealed towards the end (which again is just bad pacing), and nothing made any sense. I felt like I was playing Kingdom Hearts all over again. I only have a very nebulous idea of what just happened.
- Guidance. There are a lot of things I don't think I would've known to do if I didn't look it up or spend a ton of time talking to a bunch of NPCs.
- No Magus. Why.
I'm coming off as too harsh on this game. It does have a lot of problems, but the game does have its moments of glory. The atmosphere and music, for example, are top notch. Everything felt so somber, even poignant. The game was just so evocative towards the end. I lalso ove that Cross is a distant sequel to Trigger. It questions everything the main characters did in that game, which isn't something you usually see. The concepts and possibilities are endless, and like I said, I do think this game had more potential than Chrono Trigger. There's an excellent game hiding somewhere in Chrono Cross, but I don't think they were able to crack it. I'm glad I played it though. I think it'll be a memorable experience, and I'll probably spend all of tomorrow reading the Wiki to understand what the hell just happened.
Btw Radical Dreamers is an amazing song; sometimes I feel like this game's flaws are redeemed by its soundtrack, which admittedly is half the reason I played it in the first place.
