Chrono Cross is honestly, genuinely, one of the best games I have ever played. I spent 40 hours on this game, double what it would take to finish its predecessor, Chrono Trigger, and yet it FEELS like they're the same length. The battle system is simple, but pretty fun, has a plethora of enjoyable characters to have in your party. The story is incredible and the OST is one of the greatest of all time. This game has one of the most memorable, well designed worlds I've ever experienced in a video game, to the point that even some locations, despite only being there for 5 minutes, have designs so easily memorable that I feel I could draw a map of nearly any area of the game and have it be at least mostly accurate. This game is incredible and you should do yourself a favor by playing it

While apparently attempting a highbrow version of Chrono Trigger's time travel design, Chrono Cross is more linked to the 'open' approach of SaGa than a proper followup, with a hefty amount of optional unlockable characters and their related side quests. However, there are two key differences: Stressing its theme of choices and their consequences meant that many characters can be rendered permanently missable, and its alternate realities mechanic created room for some truly innovative ideas. But like SaGa and Star Ocean before it, the large cast and their mostly inessential nature comes at the price of gameplay depth, instead relying on minor side quests to identify its otherwise faceless roster, and it wasn't compensated by a feature tying them all together à la Suikoden, either. Part of it is due to the battle system - a strange amalgamation of Xenogears and Final Fantasy VIII, and its surrounding elemental system providing much of its linearity. Despite its vast customization options, the hyper-focus on elements via type weakness and field effects ruins its potential, paring down strategies and limiting 'builds' to simply rotate depending on the boss/dungeon, even if the merger of spell tiers, attack levels, and stamina is a novel approach to combat.

Chrono Cross' greatest strength turns out to be the plot, albeit a little muddled. Bits of philosophical concepts and existential discourse are peppered all throughout the story, instead of - say, the final boss (as most JRPGs are wont to do) that creates a disorienting but compelling means of storytelling. Its overarching themes lead to some memorable dungeon designs/aesthetics and truly heartfelt moments both during and even outside the main storyline.

Chrono Cross is just not a good game, and as a sequel to Chrono Trigger...for some reason, it's also a disappointment. From weird battle choices, characters leaving the whole time, story narratives straight up being different, mundane graphics, and a slow soundtrack; Chrono Cross steered itself so far away from Trigger that it just doesn't feel like it was trying to do anything right, just different.

While I can certainly get not wanting to be stuck in the same role, Chrono Cross is just an odd game all over. Why this game deals with different dimension instead of time travel is already different enough, but they really just changed everything they could. Combat is often slow and tiresome with how often you have to manage it, and most of this comes down to the magic system. Magic in Chrono Cross is dumb and stupid and I hate it. Why do I have to buy magic? Why can I still not understand the combining system, WHY DID THEY BREAK SOMETHING THAT WAS SOLVED. I really, really don't know, but just having traditional combat would have been miles better. Instead you can just run out of magic and be SOL. Then you also have a stamina bar that just sort screws a lot of the system. It's like a proto proto version of the bravery default system, but with next to nothing of that systems coolness of risk and reward. We also have over 40 characters that would have to be trained and used properly that it just ends up being a waste. It's very clear that there are just better characters to use and having a bigger party is often just a status symbol over something useful like Suikoden.

Honestly how they went from having gripping characters in Chrono Trigger to just an outright mess of a character cast in Chrono Cross is perhaps it's biggest offensive. With like only 5 characters getting any proper screen time, and the rest getting small neat parts just makes for a far cry of the dynamic the Chrono Trigger group had. Really this whole game's story is a mess, and while I understand it has a bit of connection to Chrono Trigger, it really shouldn't have. The games plot is too vastly different, tone and otherwise, the game does have an interesting plot twist, but before you can even get there the game would have shown you it's ugliness and either you're in for a pound or just left for something more interesting. Largely the different dimensions only holds interest for so long, mainly because you think they do something interesting with it, but they just don't. The dimensions are just too similar to one another, and it never really exploits the parallel dimensions the way Trigger did with time travel.

Really Chrono Cross is an ambitious game that was a huge disappointment and a let down for anyone that liked Chrono Trigger. Why this game has to share the same name is also as maddening as it is disheartening. Honestly you're just better off playing Chrono Trigger again.

I really wish I understood more of what this game was trying to say. It's not a good sequel to Chrono Trigger - if you go in expecting something that follows up on the plotlines of CT and will let you see your favorite characters again, you'll be sorely disappointed. But Cross is a damn good game on its own right. I feel that it could have benefitted from more time spent writing the plot and fewer party members - the game's main gimmick, its 45 party members, actually bogs it down somewhat since so many of them go undeveloped. But Cross's core story, about Serge, Kid, Lynx, and Harle, is a very creative and poignant one. I just wish that so much of the lore wasn't crammed into the last five minutes of the game.

Conheci Chrono Cross ainda na infância, vendo o meu irmão mais velho jogar. E a partir daí, surgiu uma paixão incessante por esse game que iria durar por toda a minha vida. Tudo nesse jogo é perfeito: sua história, seus personagens, seu sistema de batalha, e principalmente sua trilha sonora, com Yasunori Mitsuda mantendo o nível espetacular que já havia apresentado em Chrono Trigger. É simplesmente o meu jogo favorito de todos os tempos, uma das coisas mais importantes a ter acontecido em toda a minha vida!

Chrono Cross is an audiovisual masterpiece, every single pre-render looks like it came from a breathtaking alien world, and the soundtrack is immaculate. The gameplay systems and narrative are both extremely ambitious. It tries to juggle the task of being a follow-up to Chrono Trigger with tons of new ideas of its own. However, I do think the gameplay & writing both live and die by the overabundance of party members.

Chrono Cross features 45 (!!!) party members, something which is completely unprecedented in the genre outside of monster catching games like SMT. On its face this is a really cool idea, it allows you to adjust your party to deal with just about any situation you come across and you're bound to find some characters you love. Unfortunately, I do think the game ends up suffering for it in a lot more ways than it benefits. Due to the overabundance of characters most of them don't have an arc, an interesting personality, agency in the story, or compelling gameplay reasons to use them specifically. Most of the characters can be boiled down to an Element, a speaking quirk, and their 3 unique attacks. This makes it extremely hard to get attached to anyone outside of a handful of characters.

On the gameplay front Chrono Cross is pretty neat, it utilizes the Element system which feels like an expanded Materia system from FF7. This allows for every party member to be highly customizable, and gives you a ton of options in battles. The combat system here is really unique too, it's turn based, but features a combo system that allows you to chain normal attacks into higher level spells. It feels really good, if not a bit too easy at times.

I think the real reason I would recommend this game is for the story. It's paced kind of poorly, to the point where almost nothing happens in the middle 1/3rd, but OH BOY that last 1/3rd is a fucking ride. It's extremely convoluted and stupid, but in a way that is really satisfying on its own and as a follow up to Chrono Trigger.

Overall, I think Chrono Cross is phenomenal. If the entire game matched the energy of the last 1/3rd, and the party members were a bit more fleshed out this would easily bed one of my favorite JRPGs.

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.

Plot of this game is so hidden and over the top! I love it, damn it is so convoluted but I love it. Only thing I do not like is plot dump at the end, when some of these stuff could be dropped while plot is going on, not just by 1 npc at end of the game. It feels like Xenogears CD2, but Xeno CD 2 did it better.
I am such a Chrono fan. So much things from Chrono Trigger connects by thin threads than can only be understood by fans. If you do not know Chrono Trigger game won't be worse but if you know CT stuff CC will be deeper. Played it in 2020 and still think it is great game. Branching events have impact on who will be in your party. Doing something in Chrono Cross makes you feel that what you do has consequences. It is not perfect but novelty even in 2020 launches this game far above many other titles.