"We alone do not have the power to heal the world's woes, or to solve all its mysteries.
And yet, even then...
It was bloody good knowing ya, mate!
Thanks for being born 'you,' Serge!"
Is it really so radical to dream of a better, kinder world of our own making?
We mourn that which we once were, what we could have been, and the lives that we may have once been able to call ours. We embrace who we are, who we will become, and the lives that we do call ours.
Conflict, grief and loss are all inevitable. Joy is scant, fleeting, something that must be found and forged rather than something that is promised. Even so - we endure, we survive, and against that which attempts to persuade us to falter and cease... we do our very best for the world around us, for those within it, and for ourselves. For what more can one be expected to do with their existence? What is the gift of life if not meant to be seized for all that it has to offer, against all odds, against all obstacles, and against all pretenses of what one is supposed to be?
Chrono Cross is my favorite game of all time and my favorite work of narrative fiction in general. I will probably never have enough to say about it that would be even remotely worthy of communicating the sentiment, value and importance that this game holds in my heart.
And yet, even then...
It was bloody good knowing ya, mate!
Thanks for being born 'you,' Serge!"
Is it really so radical to dream of a better, kinder world of our own making?
We mourn that which we once were, what we could have been, and the lives that we may have once been able to call ours. We embrace who we are, who we will become, and the lives that we do call ours.
Conflict, grief and loss are all inevitable. Joy is scant, fleeting, something that must be found and forged rather than something that is promised. Even so - we endure, we survive, and against that which attempts to persuade us to falter and cease... we do our very best for the world around us, for those within it, and for ourselves. For what more can one be expected to do with their existence? What is the gift of life if not meant to be seized for all that it has to offer, against all odds, against all obstacles, and against all pretenses of what one is supposed to be?
Chrono Cross is my favorite game of all time and my favorite work of narrative fiction in general. I will probably never have enough to say about it that would be even remotely worthy of communicating the sentiment, value and importance that this game holds in my heart.
Xenoblade rip-off
This review contains spoilers
i don't get nostalgia.
i talk to a lot of people who do, and hold that sort of thing pretty close to their hearts. and on a level of pure understanding, i suppose i understand the concept - but on an intimate level of relatability, i just don't see it. maybe it's because my childhood didn't exactly harvest positive memories, maybe it's because much of what i held dear in my formative years i continued to revisit and recontextualize my feelings towards as i entered adolescence and my early adulthood... maybe it's a bit of both. but yes, as i've said - i don't get nostalgia.
i do, however, know chrono trigger. i know most of it pretty much like the back of my hand. it's a game i've played through like six or seven times now - twice in the last year - and i think it's a game that, when considered within its own vacuum, i have largely come to understand and solidify my opinion on. a marvel of technical achievement and pacing, but largely uninteresting and uncompelling to me as far as narratives within the jrpg genre go. a zenith of the first decade of the development of the genre, to be sure, but that first generation largely isn't what pulls me into my favorite titles within the jrpg canon.
when recontextualized, though, as a necessary step to get to chrono cross, and in considering the narrative symbiosis of these two titles - neither "distant" sequel nor alternative, rather two parts of an epic that cannot exist without either piece - chrono trigger becomes a subversion of itself. chrono trigger becomes an ouroboros-like monster with "FATE" written on both head and tail. would it be better to let history stay its course, or to revise the future for the sake of humanity? or is it perhaps humanity's fate, in turn, to protect itself at all costs?
the ripple effects stir and create the crashing waves of opassa beach, and when chrono cross rears its head, everything locks into place. chrono trigger becomes heightened in its execution because it is, ultimately, set up for a game truly first of its kind: a metafictional reanalysis of the first 15 years of jrpgs, the hero's journey, the satisfaction of victory, the thrill of the hunt vs. the plight of the prey. chrono cross does not look back in anger at the heroics of crono, lucca, and marle - a very common misconception held by decades of detractors. no - like the oceanic backdrop of the entire game, from title screen to final fmv, chrono cross simply considers the ripple effect. these are not the stories of haughty, self-righteous children, nor are they exactly the legendary tales of virtuosity that trigger would have you believe. it's as simple as lucca's plight at the orphanage. these are just people doing the best they can to do what's right.
it is no coincidence how young and innocent the trigger kids appear in their spectral forms throughout chrono cross. it drives home their naivete, their innocence and purity. the world was too big and it swallowed them whole. there is no saving them, there is no stopping the hands of fate. it's a ballsy move to kill them off screen, but it asks the player to stake their nostalgia, their memories, their attachments by the throat. this is not what was, or rather, what these children and the children who fell in love with chrono trigger, thought it to be. as citan uzuki in sister title xenogears says - "this is reality". the story didn't work out the way we thought it would. the ending wasn't the ending, just as chrono cross's start isn't the beginning...
in reading chrono cross as a post-modernist work, i'd like to consider the notion that despite the entire story literally revolving around an oppressor called FATE, the irony of cross is that its plot has already concluded by the time the game begins. where trigger grants the option to literally warp the events that will play out, FATE remains constant in cross. you cannot go back, you cannot revise history, you can only make lateral moves. harle remains damned to her fate, schala remains to be captured each and every time. chrono trigger's choices seem liberating and wildly free in comparison, but when the player meets miguel in cross, that illusion is stripped away entirely. the hero's journey of chrono trigger was itself an illusion, a jrpg narrative boxed in and around its central characters, but indeed, as the player learns, the world was larger than those children understood, and the future did refuse to change.
again, they were just people doing the best they could.
cross only leans into absurdity and borderline nonsensical nature further, with mid-dimensional travel, a biblical last act of cataclysm and apocalypse, and the unyielding terror of true chaos around every bend. you begin to get the feeling that serge, nor kid, nor harle, was every the real protagonist of this story, because they lack the ability to change that these things happen. indeed, as i said earlier, the story has already happened, but these kids must make lateral moves in an attempt to reconcile fate and redefine the future - the only way forward, literally - for their world.
you can't stop the orphanage from burning,
but you can give the kid a place to call home.
and in that final fmv, as schala wistfully sets out on her journey, it's silently understood that the best those people could do, it turned out to be good enough.
i talk to a lot of people who do, and hold that sort of thing pretty close to their hearts. and on a level of pure understanding, i suppose i understand the concept - but on an intimate level of relatability, i just don't see it. maybe it's because my childhood didn't exactly harvest positive memories, maybe it's because much of what i held dear in my formative years i continued to revisit and recontextualize my feelings towards as i entered adolescence and my early adulthood... maybe it's a bit of both. but yes, as i've said - i don't get nostalgia.
i do, however, know chrono trigger. i know most of it pretty much like the back of my hand. it's a game i've played through like six or seven times now - twice in the last year - and i think it's a game that, when considered within its own vacuum, i have largely come to understand and solidify my opinion on. a marvel of technical achievement and pacing, but largely uninteresting and uncompelling to me as far as narratives within the jrpg genre go. a zenith of the first decade of the development of the genre, to be sure, but that first generation largely isn't what pulls me into my favorite titles within the jrpg canon.
when recontextualized, though, as a necessary step to get to chrono cross, and in considering the narrative symbiosis of these two titles - neither "distant" sequel nor alternative, rather two parts of an epic that cannot exist without either piece - chrono trigger becomes a subversion of itself. chrono trigger becomes an ouroboros-like monster with "FATE" written on both head and tail. would it be better to let history stay its course, or to revise the future for the sake of humanity? or is it perhaps humanity's fate, in turn, to protect itself at all costs?
the ripple effects stir and create the crashing waves of opassa beach, and when chrono cross rears its head, everything locks into place. chrono trigger becomes heightened in its execution because it is, ultimately, set up for a game truly first of its kind: a metafictional reanalysis of the first 15 years of jrpgs, the hero's journey, the satisfaction of victory, the thrill of the hunt vs. the plight of the prey. chrono cross does not look back in anger at the heroics of crono, lucca, and marle - a very common misconception held by decades of detractors. no - like the oceanic backdrop of the entire game, from title screen to final fmv, chrono cross simply considers the ripple effect. these are not the stories of haughty, self-righteous children, nor are they exactly the legendary tales of virtuosity that trigger would have you believe. it's as simple as lucca's plight at the orphanage. these are just people doing the best they can to do what's right.
it is no coincidence how young and innocent the trigger kids appear in their spectral forms throughout chrono cross. it drives home their naivete, their innocence and purity. the world was too big and it swallowed them whole. there is no saving them, there is no stopping the hands of fate. it's a ballsy move to kill them off screen, but it asks the player to stake their nostalgia, their memories, their attachments by the throat. this is not what was, or rather, what these children and the children who fell in love with chrono trigger, thought it to be. as citan uzuki in sister title xenogears says - "this is reality". the story didn't work out the way we thought it would. the ending wasn't the ending, just as chrono cross's start isn't the beginning...
in reading chrono cross as a post-modernist work, i'd like to consider the notion that despite the entire story literally revolving around an oppressor called FATE, the irony of cross is that its plot has already concluded by the time the game begins. where trigger grants the option to literally warp the events that will play out, FATE remains constant in cross. you cannot go back, you cannot revise history, you can only make lateral moves. harle remains damned to her fate, schala remains to be captured each and every time. chrono trigger's choices seem liberating and wildly free in comparison, but when the player meets miguel in cross, that illusion is stripped away entirely. the hero's journey of chrono trigger was itself an illusion, a jrpg narrative boxed in and around its central characters, but indeed, as the player learns, the world was larger than those children understood, and the future did refuse to change.
again, they were just people doing the best they could.
cross only leans into absurdity and borderline nonsensical nature further, with mid-dimensional travel, a biblical last act of cataclysm and apocalypse, and the unyielding terror of true chaos around every bend. you begin to get the feeling that serge, nor kid, nor harle, was every the real protagonist of this story, because they lack the ability to change that these things happen. indeed, as i said earlier, the story has already happened, but these kids must make lateral moves in an attempt to reconcile fate and redefine the future - the only way forward, literally - for their world.
you can't stop the orphanage from burning,
but you can give the kid a place to call home.
and in that final fmv, as schala wistfully sets out on her journey, it's silently understood that the best those people could do, it turned out to be good enough.
playable schizophrenia. hey, don't like it? give me a call at 968-173-3825464-788743 so i can tell you about how wrong you are for saying this ruins chrono trigger. get a better favorite game while you're at it, nerd
anyway apart from the sonic nightmare that is navigating the zelbess for 36 hours and the testicle-twisting experience of acquiring all the colored relics, there aren't really any low points here. the plot throws what-the-fuck moments like free candy and the cast is so abundantly varied that there's bound to be at least a couple you'll be happy to ride along with. battle system's pretty neat albeit not nearly as snappy as trigger's, but it makes the later bosses pretty fun and strategic
i recommend the radical dreamers edition for encounter disabling and speedup. trust me those nigh unavoidable battles in the backend really become tedious as hell, and the slowdown isn't any worse than the ps1 release. just keep the graphics on classic and you're good to go
anyway apart from the sonic nightmare that is navigating the zelbess for 36 hours and the testicle-twisting experience of acquiring all the colored relics, there aren't really any low points here. the plot throws what-the-fuck moments like free candy and the cast is so abundantly varied that there's bound to be at least a couple you'll be happy to ride along with. battle system's pretty neat albeit not nearly as snappy as trigger's, but it makes the later bosses pretty fun and strategic
i recommend the radical dreamers edition for encounter disabling and speedup. trust me those nigh unavoidable battles in the backend really become tedious as hell, and the slowdown isn't any worse than the ps1 release. just keep the graphics on classic and you're good to go
Another entry from my List of the Thirty-Five Best Games I Played in 2023, now available à la carte:
On Chrono Cross (Or — "How I Developed a Palate for Poison")
My grandmother doesn’t live in Vermont anymore. A couple years ago, she and I went back there together and rented a place to relive those days. Naturally, the rental had some similarities to her old place. We drove around, taking in familiar sights, waiting for the rest of the family to join us. I fired up Chrono Cross for the first time one evening, and promptly came down with a case of water poisoning.
If I believed in omens, I’d take that as a bad one. I touched a game about a character who finds himself in an eerie facsimile of home, itself the strange and twisted sequel of a beloved favorite, and it left me hurling into a toilet. The water supply we’d been drawing from was unfit for human consumption. I spent the recovery period with Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest V on DS, beneath the more familiar ceiling of a family friend’s house. I’d later start writing a non-review about how I didn’t have to play Chrono Cross, eschewing the pretense of being some aspiring member of the Backloggd “videogame intelligentsia.” I don’t need “cred,” right??
Well.
I played Chrono Trigger again in 2023 at least twice, depending on how you define a “playthrough”. The first was because I’d just finished Final Fantasy X and wanted to make some unfair comparisons. The second was because I was three-fourths of the way through Chrono Cross and…wanted to make some unfair comparisons. Even in the thick of it, I was avoiding the inevitable.
So…About the Game
Cross makes every effort possible to be anything but a clean, obedient sequel to its father. And you know what? Good. Trigger’s development was predicated on originality, and should likewise be followed up with another adventurous convention-breaker. The “Chrono Trigger 2” advocated by the likes of Johnny Millennium doesn’t appeal to me; lightning doesn’t strike twice. Still, Cross is Trigger’s opposite even in ways it really shouldn’t be.
With the exception of its original PSX audiovisual presentation, some of the most colorful and lush I’ve ever experienced, just about every one of its ideas is noncommittal and indecisive. Monsters appear on the overworld again, but you won’t find anything as deliberately paced as Trigger’s level design to elevate this from the status of "mild convenience." The conceit of its combat system is worth exploring – characters deal physical damage to build spell charges — but the deluge of party members and fully customizable spell slots amounts to a game that would’ve been impossible to balance. Level-ups are only granted during boss fights, and the gains acquired in normal battles aren’t worth the effort, so the whole thing snaps in half not 50% of the way through. It isn’t measured to account for the fact that you can take down just about everything with an onslaught of physical attacks by the midgame.
Then again, if the combat had been as challenging as the story is bizarre, I don’t know that I would’ve stuck around all the way to the end. Maybe I wouldn’t have been as gung-ho about swapping party members around and collecting them like Pokémon. Amid its spectacle and ambition, the wonder of sailing the seas and crossing dimensions, I left most events unsure of what to think, positive or negative. It wasn’t ambivalence, exactly.
SPOILERS AHEAD
It’s like this: Fairly early on, you’re given an infamous decision. One of the major protagonists, Kid, is dying of a magically-inflicted illness, and the only antidote is Hydra Humour. If you agree to go after it, you’ll find that it can only be extracted from the Guardian of the Marshes, and its death would mean the deterioration of the ecosystem which relies upon it. The dwarves and all other life in this biome would be put at risk. I weighed my options. I decided to reload a save and refuse the quest. Kid wouldn’t want her life to come at the cost of hundreds, if not thousands of others. So I start down the opposite path…
…Only to find that, in this route, a squad of human soldiers kills the hydra anyway, leaving the dwarves to flee their uninhabitable home to lead a genocidal attack on the fairies’ island to claim it for themselves. Jesus. The dwarves’ manic strangeness did little to downplay how chilling the result of my little coin flip was.
After an effort to defend the few remaining fairies and keep the dwarves at bay — leaving the survivors to process the turmoil of their new reality — after all that…it turns out that Kid is fine. She got over the illness by herself, offscreen.
For as many words as it goes on to spew, no moment of my Chrono Cross playthrough spoke louder than this one. Chrono Trigger’s party was faced with a choice — allow Lavos to erupt from the planet and drive everything to the brink of extinction, or risk everything to prevent the apocalypse. It’s a thousand years away, these three characters can live out the rest of their days comfortably and never have to concern themselves with it. They’re shown an End of Time, proof that the universe won’t last regardless of what they do, and still decide to fight on behalf of the world. It’s worth trying, if only to preserve a few more precious seconds of life for their descendants and their home.
Chrono Cross (eventually) reveals that their meddling allowed Lavos to become an even more devastating monster. We can defeat it, but who can say that won’t result in an even more cataclysmic fate? Because he lives and breathes, Serge’s timeline is worse off. It’s hard to tell whether that’s lore nonsense, self-flagellation on the game’s part, or genuine philosophizing. It wouldn’t be alone in that. As a chronic “downer,” I can’t help wondering if there’s no way to survive in the modern world without directly or indirectly participating in human suffering.
Maybe Writer/Director Masato Kato couldn’t either. He seems bent on reminding the player that they are but a speck in a cosmic puzzle, and there’s no defiant “so what?” answer to that problem. Even the thing we’ve been led to accomplish isn’t revealed until seconds before the finale of this forty hour game (and that's NOT a joke). You can’t see the credits without recognizing that it’s an unfortunate victim of mismanagement and a little too much Evangelion, but that doesn’t mean it fails to resonate. I don't think there’s another game that so thoroughly captures the existential confusion of being alive.
On Chrono Cross (Or — "How I Developed a Palate for Poison")
My grandmother doesn’t live in Vermont anymore. A couple years ago, she and I went back there together and rented a place to relive those days. Naturally, the rental had some similarities to her old place. We drove around, taking in familiar sights, waiting for the rest of the family to join us. I fired up Chrono Cross for the first time one evening, and promptly came down with a case of water poisoning.
If I believed in omens, I’d take that as a bad one. I touched a game about a character who finds himself in an eerie facsimile of home, itself the strange and twisted sequel of a beloved favorite, and it left me hurling into a toilet. The water supply we’d been drawing from was unfit for human consumption. I spent the recovery period with Chrono Trigger and Dragon Quest V on DS, beneath the more familiar ceiling of a family friend’s house. I’d later start writing a non-review about how I didn’t have to play Chrono Cross, eschewing the pretense of being some aspiring member of the Backloggd “videogame intelligentsia.” I don’t need “cred,” right??
Well.
I played Chrono Trigger again in 2023 at least twice, depending on how you define a “playthrough”. The first was because I’d just finished Final Fantasy X and wanted to make some unfair comparisons. The second was because I was three-fourths of the way through Chrono Cross and…wanted to make some unfair comparisons. Even in the thick of it, I was avoiding the inevitable.
So…About the Game
Cross makes every effort possible to be anything but a clean, obedient sequel to its father. And you know what? Good. Trigger’s development was predicated on originality, and should likewise be followed up with another adventurous convention-breaker. The “Chrono Trigger 2” advocated by the likes of Johnny Millennium doesn’t appeal to me; lightning doesn’t strike twice. Still, Cross is Trigger’s opposite even in ways it really shouldn’t be.
With the exception of its original PSX audiovisual presentation, some of the most colorful and lush I’ve ever experienced, just about every one of its ideas is noncommittal and indecisive. Monsters appear on the overworld again, but you won’t find anything as deliberately paced as Trigger’s level design to elevate this from the status of "mild convenience." The conceit of its combat system is worth exploring – characters deal physical damage to build spell charges — but the deluge of party members and fully customizable spell slots amounts to a game that would’ve been impossible to balance. Level-ups are only granted during boss fights, and the gains acquired in normal battles aren’t worth the effort, so the whole thing snaps in half not 50% of the way through. It isn’t measured to account for the fact that you can take down just about everything with an onslaught of physical attacks by the midgame.
Then again, if the combat had been as challenging as the story is bizarre, I don’t know that I would’ve stuck around all the way to the end. Maybe I wouldn’t have been as gung-ho about swapping party members around and collecting them like Pokémon. Amid its spectacle and ambition, the wonder of sailing the seas and crossing dimensions, I left most events unsure of what to think, positive or negative. It wasn’t ambivalence, exactly.
SPOILERS AHEAD
It’s like this: Fairly early on, you’re given an infamous decision. One of the major protagonists, Kid, is dying of a magically-inflicted illness, and the only antidote is Hydra Humour. If you agree to go after it, you’ll find that it can only be extracted from the Guardian of the Marshes, and its death would mean the deterioration of the ecosystem which relies upon it. The dwarves and all other life in this biome would be put at risk. I weighed my options. I decided to reload a save and refuse the quest. Kid wouldn’t want her life to come at the cost of hundreds, if not thousands of others. So I start down the opposite path…
…Only to find that, in this route, a squad of human soldiers kills the hydra anyway, leaving the dwarves to flee their uninhabitable home to lead a genocidal attack on the fairies’ island to claim it for themselves. Jesus. The dwarves’ manic strangeness did little to downplay how chilling the result of my little coin flip was.
After an effort to defend the few remaining fairies and keep the dwarves at bay — leaving the survivors to process the turmoil of their new reality — after all that…it turns out that Kid is fine. She got over the illness by herself, offscreen.
For as many words as it goes on to spew, no moment of my Chrono Cross playthrough spoke louder than this one. Chrono Trigger’s party was faced with a choice — allow Lavos to erupt from the planet and drive everything to the brink of extinction, or risk everything to prevent the apocalypse. It’s a thousand years away, these three characters can live out the rest of their days comfortably and never have to concern themselves with it. They’re shown an End of Time, proof that the universe won’t last regardless of what they do, and still decide to fight on behalf of the world. It’s worth trying, if only to preserve a few more precious seconds of life for their descendants and their home.
Chrono Cross (eventually) reveals that their meddling allowed Lavos to become an even more devastating monster. We can defeat it, but who can say that won’t result in an even more cataclysmic fate? Because he lives and breathes, Serge’s timeline is worse off. It’s hard to tell whether that’s lore nonsense, self-flagellation on the game’s part, or genuine philosophizing. It wouldn’t be alone in that. As a chronic “downer,” I can’t help wondering if there’s no way to survive in the modern world without directly or indirectly participating in human suffering.
Maybe Writer/Director Masato Kato couldn’t either. He seems bent on reminding the player that they are but a speck in a cosmic puzzle, and there’s no defiant “so what?” answer to that problem. Even the thing we’ve been led to accomplish isn’t revealed until seconds before the finale of this forty hour game (and that's NOT a joke). You can’t see the credits without recognizing that it’s an unfortunate victim of mismanagement and a little too much Evangelion, but that doesn’t mean it fails to resonate. I don't think there’s another game that so thoroughly captures the existential confusion of being alive.
This review contains spoilers
How beautiful humanity is, in being given the opportunity to take and to give with no real repercussions. At least in the animal kingdom, where we can successfully wipe out and destroy homes of entire species. To be given the opportunity to have the world and all its possibilities given to you to use as you please. For good or for evil. But how can we appreciate what is good without ourselves committing evil, most painfully when we thought what we were doing was best.
Chrono Cross is a truly beautiful experience. It’s a game that really wants to push boundaries and ask uncomfortable questions. What is it like discovering evil in what only has brought you good? What lengths are you willing to go to help the ones you love? Can you blame those that choose to follow in your footsteps?
Serge and cast go through these difficult questions with the inability to look away from them. Serge sees the ugly in a world he had only seen beauty in before. He experiences hate and racism received from Lynx’s eyes in the hometown Serge had only known for providing him comfort and safety; he goes to help a friend escape death only to create total environmental warfare; even when saving a child from a literal burning building, Serge unfortunately has no other option but to abandon her afterwards, resulting in her having only two pathways: burning to death in the fire, or growing up forever traumatized and hurt.
It continues the cycle of what man has always wondered. Why does so much pain result from trying to create beauty? Why weren’t my good intentions recognized, or helped in the way I intended? Why does bad still happen when I try so hard to create only good?
The answer is simple! As Cerebral Fix famously said, “Life sucks… and then you die!” Life can hurt in unimaginable ways, both physically and emotionally. Happiness is fleeting. It flies in and out of our days like a bird, singing a beautiful song that we want to revel in all our life, for one moment while the sky is blue, not to be found on the days with dark clouds and gray skies. But fullness - that is deep in our soul. When we have that, it never leaves. Fullness encompasses everything. It’s what allows us to be fully human in all the raw, real ways. How can we know true joy if we never learn to know sorrow? It’s something fairly common in Eastern religions, with the taijitu (Yin & Yang symbol) being the visual representation we most often see in the West. What is yin without yang, and vice versa. We see it poetically compared with fire and water, light and dark, a Home World and Another World.
Chrono Cross involves many elements and themes that games like Undertale get (rightfully) praised for, yet instead gets a very large amount of hatred for its incredibly interesting message and way it goes around telling it. Undertale more directly points its finger at the player, and states to them its message and 4th-wall break. Chrono Cross isn’t as direct about it, but still makes it clear its intention. At the end of the day, I guess being connected to the very popular Chrono Trigger and changing the formula as much as it did would just never be a popular choice with the fanbase.
I genuinely can understand the immediate dismissal of the new fighting system, especially if you loved the format of Chrono Trigger, but I ended up really loving the color fight system. I liked playing around with which party members to use and making good armor and weapons for the ones I used the most. The story progression was similar to parts in Chrono Trigger I really liked, such as the eventual open world aspect to exploring and finding more optional lore to party members, as well as playing around with the environment to find/upgrade weapons to insane strengths. It worked well with the story too, with Serge getting the player used to white elements, and completely getting it switched once transferred to Lynx. I always am a sucker for good story and gameplay mixtures.
Chrono Cross is a very strong and emotional experience. The graphics are some of the best I’ve ever seen on the PSX, the music is unbeatable, and the main cast of Serge, Kid, and Lynx create an unbelievable story. Chrono Cross has the player sit and internalize both the beauty and suffering that human life entails, gives, and forces onto all others. Life can be a disgusting, miserable, little thing, but in the end, if given the opportunity, should we really throw it all away?
Chrono Cross is a truly beautiful experience. It’s a game that really wants to push boundaries and ask uncomfortable questions. What is it like discovering evil in what only has brought you good? What lengths are you willing to go to help the ones you love? Can you blame those that choose to follow in your footsteps?
Serge and cast go through these difficult questions with the inability to look away from them. Serge sees the ugly in a world he had only seen beauty in before. He experiences hate and racism received from Lynx’s eyes in the hometown Serge had only known for providing him comfort and safety; he goes to help a friend escape death only to create total environmental warfare; even when saving a child from a literal burning building, Serge unfortunately has no other option but to abandon her afterwards, resulting in her having only two pathways: burning to death in the fire, or growing up forever traumatized and hurt.
It continues the cycle of what man has always wondered. Why does so much pain result from trying to create beauty? Why weren’t my good intentions recognized, or helped in the way I intended? Why does bad still happen when I try so hard to create only good?
The answer is simple! As Cerebral Fix famously said, “Life sucks… and then you die!” Life can hurt in unimaginable ways, both physically and emotionally. Happiness is fleeting. It flies in and out of our days like a bird, singing a beautiful song that we want to revel in all our life, for one moment while the sky is blue, not to be found on the days with dark clouds and gray skies. But fullness - that is deep in our soul. When we have that, it never leaves. Fullness encompasses everything. It’s what allows us to be fully human in all the raw, real ways. How can we know true joy if we never learn to know sorrow? It’s something fairly common in Eastern religions, with the taijitu (Yin & Yang symbol) being the visual representation we most often see in the West. What is yin without yang, and vice versa. We see it poetically compared with fire and water, light and dark, a Home World and Another World.
Chrono Cross involves many elements and themes that games like Undertale get (rightfully) praised for, yet instead gets a very large amount of hatred for its incredibly interesting message and way it goes around telling it. Undertale more directly points its finger at the player, and states to them its message and 4th-wall break. Chrono Cross isn’t as direct about it, but still makes it clear its intention. At the end of the day, I guess being connected to the very popular Chrono Trigger and changing the formula as much as it did would just never be a popular choice with the fanbase.
I genuinely can understand the immediate dismissal of the new fighting system, especially if you loved the format of Chrono Trigger, but I ended up really loving the color fight system. I liked playing around with which party members to use and making good armor and weapons for the ones I used the most. The story progression was similar to parts in Chrono Trigger I really liked, such as the eventual open world aspect to exploring and finding more optional lore to party members, as well as playing around with the environment to find/upgrade weapons to insane strengths. It worked well with the story too, with Serge getting the player used to white elements, and completely getting it switched once transferred to Lynx. I always am a sucker for good story and gameplay mixtures.
Chrono Cross is a very strong and emotional experience. The graphics are some of the best I’ve ever seen on the PSX, the music is unbeatable, and the main cast of Serge, Kid, and Lynx create an unbelievable story. Chrono Cross has the player sit and internalize both the beauty and suffering that human life entails, gives, and forces onto all others. Life can be a disgusting, miserable, little thing, but in the end, if given the opportunity, should we really throw it all away?
Chrono Cross steps out of that "Dream Project" Final Fantasy x Dragon Quest concept, and forms its own identity, and hoo boy, what a fuckin' identity that Masato Kato and his team have managed to pull off. This is without a doubt the coolest RPG on the PlayStation, at least among Square's output for the console. Not sure if I'd rank it above too many of their other PS1 titles, but it absolutely fucks thanks to that late 90s Square AAA budget mixed with those lofty and unreachable narrative and technical aspirations that only a PSX RPG can truly deliver on.
Right from the start I was a big fan of the combat system; the phrase "Pokémon if it was art" kept popping up in my head throughout my playthrough. Don't ask me what that means. Though I feel like it's simultaneously way too much and not really enough to carry a 30+ hour game's worth of combat scenarios; by the very end I was just ready to get it over with and play "normal" video games again. But Chrono Cross has this magic to it, so even when I was ready to seriously question the longevity of its systems, it manages to lend the elements system a thematic and narrative parity that most RPGs only wish they could have with their game systems -- so that's more than enough to make up for the transgression of making me a little bit bored at times for the last 10 hours or so.
The whole 40+ playable characters thing is sick as hell. It's also just not a very well-thought-out idea, probably just exacerbating a lot of the game's biggest issues, but I also don't feel the game would be the same unforgettable experience without it. I do wish there were more characters directly anchored to the thrust of the narrative or that Serge spoke or something cuz there are portions of the game that are left relatively flavorless since they're composed of cookie cutter dialogue that has to be applied to every single character. It's really clearly rushed overall, but the devs were clearly invested in getting their message conveyed even if they had to resort to less than intuitive methods of delivering said story. It's a game clearly made with love and raw ambition, and I can absolutely see why those who adore the game are so passionate about it.
As for the music, Mitsuda did an incredible job -- in fact I'd say incredible is almost an understatement -- Chrono Cross' soundtrack is transcendental. The only place it really falters is, seemingly like most soundtracks he's worked on solo, the battle music. Like, it's definitely good and I enjoy it in a vacuum, but man the main battle theme gets pretty grating after the first 15 hours or so of battles. It was a genuine relief during the sections where they'd forgo the battle theme for whatever ambient music is currently playing. But it's only a small blight, if you could even call it that, on what's easily one of the most beautiful and meaningful game OSTs of all time.
But even when you kinda aggregate the highs and the lows, I really did enjoy my time with the game. Not sure why it took me so long to get around to fully playing through it, but I'm really, really glad I impulsively just popped this on last weekend and really made myself stick to it. I feel like it's taught me new ways to engage with and even love media more effectively. I'm not sure it's the best game it could possibly be given the circumstances, but I feel what it actually is is a vastly more valuable, exceptional experience than hypothetically achieving mechanical and structural perfection.
Right from the start I was a big fan of the combat system; the phrase "Pokémon if it was art" kept popping up in my head throughout my playthrough. Don't ask me what that means. Though I feel like it's simultaneously way too much and not really enough to carry a 30+ hour game's worth of combat scenarios; by the very end I was just ready to get it over with and play "normal" video games again. But Chrono Cross has this magic to it, so even when I was ready to seriously question the longevity of its systems, it manages to lend the elements system a thematic and narrative parity that most RPGs only wish they could have with their game systems -- so that's more than enough to make up for the transgression of making me a little bit bored at times for the last 10 hours or so.
The whole 40+ playable characters thing is sick as hell. It's also just not a very well-thought-out idea, probably just exacerbating a lot of the game's biggest issues, but I also don't feel the game would be the same unforgettable experience without it. I do wish there were more characters directly anchored to the thrust of the narrative or that Serge spoke or something cuz there are portions of the game that are left relatively flavorless since they're composed of cookie cutter dialogue that has to be applied to every single character. It's really clearly rushed overall, but the devs were clearly invested in getting their message conveyed even if they had to resort to less than intuitive methods of delivering said story. It's a game clearly made with love and raw ambition, and I can absolutely see why those who adore the game are so passionate about it.
As for the music, Mitsuda did an incredible job -- in fact I'd say incredible is almost an understatement -- Chrono Cross' soundtrack is transcendental. The only place it really falters is, seemingly like most soundtracks he's worked on solo, the battle music. Like, it's definitely good and I enjoy it in a vacuum, but man the main battle theme gets pretty grating after the first 15 hours or so of battles. It was a genuine relief during the sections where they'd forgo the battle theme for whatever ambient music is currently playing. But it's only a small blight, if you could even call it that, on what's easily one of the most beautiful and meaningful game OSTs of all time.
But even when you kinda aggregate the highs and the lows, I really did enjoy my time with the game. Not sure why it took me so long to get around to fully playing through it, but I'm really, really glad I impulsively just popped this on last weekend and really made myself stick to it. I feel like it's taught me new ways to engage with and even love media more effectively. I'm not sure it's the best game it could possibly be given the circumstances, but I feel what it actually is is a vastly more valuable, exceptional experience than hypothetically achieving mechanical and structural perfection.
there's 45 characters and they all have mostly the same speaking roles in cutscenes but they all have a different accent that they use via some accent generation machine
Fields of Time -Home World- is my favourite song
Might edit in more detailed & serious thoughts later
But good god this touched my soul on top of being very fun
Might edit in more detailed & serious thoughts later
But good god this touched my soul on top of being very fun
O facto de alguém dizer que isto é melhor que o Trigger é um crime
It's unfortunate that Chrono Cross had to follow Chrono Trigger, because if it were free of those comparisons people would rave about it instead of ragging on it all the time. It has one of the greatest soundtracks in gaming, a unique setting, a cool (though confusing) story, and an interesting battle system.
I've been in a burnout these days, not feeling gratification in gaming and lacking a feeling of vitality I get whenever I play something that connects strongly. I've tried other games from my list only to drop them due to lack of interest, or something at the moment not clicking. On a whim I tried Chrono Cross again because of the score for whatever reason resonating deeply at this moment in my life. Looking back now after finishing, I can't believe I allowed myself to gloss over this game for so long. It hit every check-mark and once in-tune with the battle system, it felt like the most intuitive gameplay in an rpg I've ever played.
Its story is surprisingly somber and philosophically absurdist, taking the right approach by branching from Chrono Trigger thematically in taking a introspective method of reflection of impermanence, self-purpose and whether life has inherent value or meaning, reasserting our own purpose and domain than assigned purpose, and how time travel would change us as a species in diminishing value of life. This is all perfectly cohesive to the hand-drawn art direction for its backgrounds and post-impressionist influence the game designers ran with as the artists and movements, too, embraced imperfection and the natural world being subjective; living simultaneously amongst other realities along our own; the moments that pass and the rhythms that surround us daily, capturing the ephemeral. The score has been spoken ad nauseam at this point, but is a testament to music enhancing experience and thematically emphasizing tone and story.
One of its biggest complaints is its roster being mainly swappable characters lacking in personality other than some colloquially written dialogue bits with some obtuse story/game design when it comes to obtaining certain members. Personally I'm in the minority thinking it as integral to its overarching theme, albeit its delivery could be stronger. We have ripple effects in the every-day interactions with people, some we resonate with while others we may not, the best friend in another world living outside our experience. It emphasizes this chain reaction the player creates in its world, as though the player is working collectively with humanity as a whole - people I've touched in whatever way or another joining hands, and others as missed opportunities that require xyz interaction to lead into them being a part of my life; the real-life Schroedinger's Cat we experience daily, beautiful to pontificate yet a somber reality.
Over the past years, I've tried playing Chrono Cross for honestly don't know how many times, having dropped it and lost interest rather quickly - from its unconventional battle-system at first glance being overwhelming to hearing how it lacks the same quality to Chrono Trigger. Just 2 years ago I also got through Chrono Trigger and was surprised how much it lived up to its hype, never growing up or having sentimental value towards it. Now playing Chrono Cross and also having no attachment, it's been treated unfairly despite its imperfections in obvious regards. However, after finally playing both and appreciating them for different reasons, they're akin to Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Both well crafted experiences, one more straight forward than the other one and doing it well, and the other an experimentation on fate, animism, absurdism, and psychology. It's a poignant piece of art that will mark a lasting impression longer than CT personally, and is now one of my favorite pieces of media. It will always live in memory, as the story itself begs us as a species to not forget ourselves nor the ones we love: in an absurd world, that is all we can place faith and value on.
Its story is surprisingly somber and philosophically absurdist, taking the right approach by branching from Chrono Trigger thematically in taking a introspective method of reflection of impermanence, self-purpose and whether life has inherent value or meaning, reasserting our own purpose and domain than assigned purpose, and how time travel would change us as a species in diminishing value of life. This is all perfectly cohesive to the hand-drawn art direction for its backgrounds and post-impressionist influence the game designers ran with as the artists and movements, too, embraced imperfection and the natural world being subjective; living simultaneously amongst other realities along our own; the moments that pass and the rhythms that surround us daily, capturing the ephemeral. The score has been spoken ad nauseam at this point, but is a testament to music enhancing experience and thematically emphasizing tone and story.
One of its biggest complaints is its roster being mainly swappable characters lacking in personality other than some colloquially written dialogue bits with some obtuse story/game design when it comes to obtaining certain members. Personally I'm in the minority thinking it as integral to its overarching theme, albeit its delivery could be stronger. We have ripple effects in the every-day interactions with people, some we resonate with while others we may not, the best friend in another world living outside our experience. It emphasizes this chain reaction the player creates in its world, as though the player is working collectively with humanity as a whole - people I've touched in whatever way or another joining hands, and others as missed opportunities that require xyz interaction to lead into them being a part of my life; the real-life Schroedinger's Cat we experience daily, beautiful to pontificate yet a somber reality.
Over the past years, I've tried playing Chrono Cross for honestly don't know how many times, having dropped it and lost interest rather quickly - from its unconventional battle-system at first glance being overwhelming to hearing how it lacks the same quality to Chrono Trigger. Just 2 years ago I also got through Chrono Trigger and was surprised how much it lived up to its hype, never growing up or having sentimental value towards it. Now playing Chrono Cross and also having no attachment, it's been treated unfairly despite its imperfections in obvious regards. However, after finally playing both and appreciating them for different reasons, they're akin to Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Both well crafted experiences, one more straight forward than the other one and doing it well, and the other an experimentation on fate, animism, absurdism, and psychology. It's a poignant piece of art that will mark a lasting impression longer than CT personally, and is now one of my favorite pieces of media. It will always live in memory, as the story itself begs us as a species to not forget ourselves nor the ones we love: in an absurd world, that is all we can place faith and value on.
what
best rpg ever in my opinion.
CWs for Chrono Cross: child abuse, sexual harassment, burning alive, mind control.
Maybe the boldest and most tender RPG produced at Square pre- and post-merger, Chrono Cross is a pastoral re-phrasing of Chrono Trigger's thesis on the will of the individual. Where Trigger gives you buckets of endings to fulfil the endless possibility of time travel and the player's will as represented by our avatar Crono, Chrono Cross says you must live in society. Every day may feel like you're working with systems beyond your individual control which you don't yet understand, but the people you surround yourself with, how you order the tasks set before you, and who you share collective memory with create a bold and irreplaceable picture of life. Simply designing a vibrant world and filling it with life in animation and visionary approaches to pre-rendered backgrounds grants Chrono Cross a precious vitality I've always wished could poke through in Trigger.
The combat system is a little dinky and it's unbelievable that this game still runs like dog shit on its modern ports, but most video games to this day wish they could land their fantasy allegory for modern society like this game does so effortlessly. There's not really that much nuance because it just doesn't need it! Living in society has boundaries and structures that can hurt and help us and it's in our power to band together and do something about the ones that harm, send tweet.
Maybe the boldest and most tender RPG produced at Square pre- and post-merger, Chrono Cross is a pastoral re-phrasing of Chrono Trigger's thesis on the will of the individual. Where Trigger gives you buckets of endings to fulfil the endless possibility of time travel and the player's will as represented by our avatar Crono, Chrono Cross says you must live in society. Every day may feel like you're working with systems beyond your individual control which you don't yet understand, but the people you surround yourself with, how you order the tasks set before you, and who you share collective memory with create a bold and irreplaceable picture of life. Simply designing a vibrant world and filling it with life in animation and visionary approaches to pre-rendered backgrounds grants Chrono Cross a precious vitality I've always wished could poke through in Trigger.
The combat system is a little dinky and it's unbelievable that this game still runs like dog shit on its modern ports, but most video games to this day wish they could land their fantasy allegory for modern society like this game does so effortlessly. There's not really that much nuance because it just doesn't need it! Living in society has boundaries and structures that can hurt and help us and it's in our power to band together and do something about the ones that harm, send tweet.
initially was going to convey this in a meaner, snarkier way for the bit but with how this game tied into trigger closer to the end i decided not to. the game is not subtle about how it feels having to follow up a dream team project like trigger and a certain set of characters basically have to refrain themselves from explicitly saying serge ruined chrono trigger, and because of that i would honestly feel kind of bad bringing that kind of attitude with this review. regardless, while i played chrono cross, the main thought that went through my head was "how is it that people thought cross didn't live up to trigger rather than the other way around?" but as i finished the game and write this review i feel as though cross didn't need to live up to trigger and that hinging its value on whether or not it does is a very childish way of looking at things.
to me, chrono trigger is a game that is held back by how near perfect it is. there's so little wrong with it that at least to me nothing really stands out anymore. there's nothing to grab onto, no imperfections to make it feel "complete" to me and as such i feel as though its reverence, while not necessarily misplaced, is harder for me to grasp because to me a "perfect" game without imperfections, as contradictory as it sounds, will never be perfect to me. meanwhile, chrono cross i found to be an amazing, thought provoking, mesmerizing game that pushed the playstation to its limits aesthetically, a game with so much to say about what it means to live and exist, what it means to dream. chrono cross is messy and imperfect in such beautiful ways, it knows its following up chrono trigger and while it still intends to be a continuation of a work like trigger it doesn't care what kind of shadow its living in and intends to be its own experience, flaws and all.
whether or not it lives up to chrono trigger is irrelevant, the arguments surrounding such are just attempts at insecure and childish posturing because these games, while connected are so different that its hardly worth comparing in that sense. i understand that nothing exists in a vacuum, let alone a sequel, but maybe it would do some people a lot of good to both understand the context of something like chrono cross while also letting it be its own experience.
to me, chrono trigger is a game that is held back by how near perfect it is. there's so little wrong with it that at least to me nothing really stands out anymore. there's nothing to grab onto, no imperfections to make it feel "complete" to me and as such i feel as though its reverence, while not necessarily misplaced, is harder for me to grasp because to me a "perfect" game without imperfections, as contradictory as it sounds, will never be perfect to me. meanwhile, chrono cross i found to be an amazing, thought provoking, mesmerizing game that pushed the playstation to its limits aesthetically, a game with so much to say about what it means to live and exist, what it means to dream. chrono cross is messy and imperfect in such beautiful ways, it knows its following up chrono trigger and while it still intends to be a continuation of a work like trigger it doesn't care what kind of shadow its living in and intends to be its own experience, flaws and all.
whether or not it lives up to chrono trigger is irrelevant, the arguments surrounding such are just attempts at insecure and childish posturing because these games, while connected are so different that its hardly worth comparing in that sense. i understand that nothing exists in a vacuum, let alone a sequel, but maybe it would do some people a lot of good to both understand the context of something like chrono cross while also letting it be its own experience.
chrono cross represents square at their best to me: sloppy, scatterbrained execution leading to overly passionate, expositional tantrums of art pieces slapped together to make a functional and generally enjoyable gaming experience vastly overshadowed by the fact that the writing and artistic profoundness overwhelms and oh-so-moves me.
chrono cross wouldn't be chrono cross if it were perfect. it wouldn't be chrono cross if i couldn't ruin a man's life by horribly disfiguring him and then never addressing him for the remainder of my time with the game after he resolves to join my party. it wouldn't be chrono cross if a half-pint mecha-toting alien with a speech impediment didn't waddle around and balance himself on his fish-bowl helmet during crucial dialogue. it wouldn't be chrono cross if bosses didn't end up pulling megaten-like preparational requirements out of nowhere and forcing my hand in tight scenarios i was woefully underprepared for. it wouldn't be chrono cross if i didn't reach for the tissues every. damn. instance. "the girl who stole the stars" sweeps the scene. and it wouldn't be chrono cross if it didn't comment on its roots with such daringness, such audacity, and such passion that it isolated and infuriated people.
i'm glad this game gets a reaction out of people. i'm glad there are people who can't see the heart in this game. true, ballsy art doesn't exist without burning a few bridges or ruffling some feathers. this game is fucking beautiful - far from perfect but objectively cleanliness is vastly overrated anyways. a timeless, boundless journey and a worthy entry in square's gold-standard late-90s catalogue.
chrono cross wouldn't be chrono cross if it were perfect. it wouldn't be chrono cross if i couldn't ruin a man's life by horribly disfiguring him and then never addressing him for the remainder of my time with the game after he resolves to join my party. it wouldn't be chrono cross if a half-pint mecha-toting alien with a speech impediment didn't waddle around and balance himself on his fish-bowl helmet during crucial dialogue. it wouldn't be chrono cross if bosses didn't end up pulling megaten-like preparational requirements out of nowhere and forcing my hand in tight scenarios i was woefully underprepared for. it wouldn't be chrono cross if i didn't reach for the tissues every. damn. instance. "the girl who stole the stars" sweeps the scene. and it wouldn't be chrono cross if it didn't comment on its roots with such daringness, such audacity, and such passion that it isolated and infuriated people.
i'm glad this game gets a reaction out of people. i'm glad there are people who can't see the heart in this game. true, ballsy art doesn't exist without burning a few bridges or ruffling some feathers. this game is fucking beautiful - far from perfect but objectively cleanliness is vastly overrated anyways. a timeless, boundless journey and a worthy entry in square's gold-standard late-90s catalogue.
Ideally there is no sequel to Chrono Trigger. As is, this is about as good as any sequel to that once in a blue moon game had any right to be. As a stand alone game it's also one of the greatest of all time all by itself.
All that said, it had a profound effect on me as a teen/pre-teen whereas Chrono Trigger was the game I played a million times as a kid. They were basically exactly what I needed when I needed them, regardless of whether they were connected or not.
All that said, it had a profound effect on me as a teen/pre-teen whereas Chrono Trigger was the game I played a million times as a kid. They were basically exactly what I needed when I needed them, regardless of whether they were connected or not.
really special game, lovely in ways you don't necessarily expect video games to be, so earnest and passionate and cute and sad...has this palpable sense of anger and despair and lost possibilities and best wishes gone to the wayside underneath it all too. it's impressive how well the game manages to convey both genuine anguish and tempered hopefulness without becoming nicecore or fake-angsty (but actually vapid) a la persona. absolute stellar collection of funny little guys that you can assemble and i really appreciate how (aside from one or two hiccups) you really can organize your team on the basis of aesthetics and style over pure functionality....biggest complaint is in the second to last boss fight the RNG fall damage is hilariously busted and can instakill you at any point despite doing 0 dmg 90% of time
Every review website is prone to blatant amounts of hyperbole and grandiose, all-encompassing statements made by people who completely lack the necessary foresight and experience to make them.
I'm about to use my one free pass for such statements here: Chrono Cross is the best JRPG of all time. Hell, it's probably the best sequel of all time. Play Chrono Trigger first, and then go into Chrono Cross without any pretenses of what a Chrono game should be that you may have picked up from others' opinions, or whether or not this is "truly" a sequel to Trigger.
Radical Dreamers (released in 1996 for the SNES via Satellavision) is a mandatory companion piece and sister story (specifically for the sake of understanding Kid, the deuteragonist of Cross), but best saved for after playing Cross despite having been released earlier.
I'm about to use my one free pass for such statements here: Chrono Cross is the best JRPG of all time. Hell, it's probably the best sequel of all time. Play Chrono Trigger first, and then go into Chrono Cross without any pretenses of what a Chrono game should be that you may have picked up from others' opinions, or whether or not this is "truly" a sequel to Trigger.
Radical Dreamers (released in 1996 for the SNES via Satellavision) is a mandatory companion piece and sister story (specifically for the sake of understanding Kid, the deuteragonist of Cross), but best saved for after playing Cross despite having been released earlier.
How to recognize a stroke?
1. Twisted mouth
2. Arm paralysis
3. Incoherent speech: “Cross is better than Trigger.”
1. Twisted mouth
2. Arm paralysis
3. Incoherent speech: “Cross is better than Trigger.”
If they made Xenoblade Chronicles a good game.
This > Trigger deal with it nerds
This review contains spoilers
Humans are the real monsters
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/300037814316433408/894466527145914378/Screen_Shot_2021-10-04_at_1.png
Humans are the real monsters
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/300037814316433408/894467020911947806/Screen_Shot_2021-10-04_at_1.56.37_AM.png
Humans are the real monsters
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/300037814316433408/894467330162192404/Chrono_Cross_writing.jpg
Maybe…humans are the real monsters?
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/300037814316433408/894466527145914378/Screen_Shot_2021-10-04_at_1.png
Humans are the real monsters
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/300037814316433408/894467020911947806/Screen_Shot_2021-10-04_at_1.56.37_AM.png
Humans are the real monsters
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/300037814316433408/894467330162192404/Chrono_Cross_writing.jpg
Maybe…humans are the real monsters?
they should've named this Kino Cross
i was the real serge all along
If you really think about it, we're all just little sperms writhing our way along this egg cell we call Earth.
Humans are the real monsters
Humans are the real monsters
Humans are the real monsters
...hey guys did I mention humans are the real monsters enough times?
Humans are the real monsters
Humans are the real monsters
...hey guys did I mention humans are the real monsters enough times?
Expansive and complex story that's a joy to unravel, alongside my favorite battle system of any JRPG ever. Absolutely an underrated gem.
a glorious mess (complimentary)