Chrono Cross is a game I have had an interest in for years now, I initially played it like 8 years ago before I had even finished Chrono Trigger, but I dropped it fairly early, and now I picked it up a couple months ago with the remaster that was released.

Anyways, on to the actual game. I generally think it is a very bold sequel to Chrono Trigger, despite what the first 10 or so hours might lead you to believe it is heavily connected to that game and resolves some plot points, gives extra lore, and most of the games 5 or so last hours rely on you having played CT to make sense of it, I generally think this is one of the games strengths, I appreciate giving a different perspective on the events of that game and resolution to several plots, and it does so in very unique ways, not being afraid to do things that might not be very popular with CT fans who just wanted a straight continuation, but doing so in ways that I think strength the games themes and messaging. I particularly appreciate the way the Lucca plot got resolved, she was always one of my faves in Trigger and her conclusion was both heartwarming and tragic while fitting the character. I am a little more mixed on Schala's conclusion, I like the overall idea of having to save Schala from being consumed with merging with Lavos, however I don't really like how Kid seems to lose her agency when seemingly merging into Schala.

Although, I think generally the game would have been improved had they made the connections more obvious earlier on, there are references hidden all throughout the game you can find if you pay attention, but because of the game trying to keep the connections somewhat secret until the end you end up with a lot of the later scenes just dumping a lot of exposition at you, I think it would have helped the pacing had they revealed things more gradually.

Another unique aspect of Chrono Cross is its huge cast with a grand total of 45 characters who requires at least 3 play through to recruit, and while this is a strength in some ways; making the world feel more fleshed out and having a ton of secrets and just general stuff to do is good, overall I think the game would have been improved with a smaller cast. There's just too many joke characters in the game, I will admit I am a fan of some of the joke characters, I like Pip, Skelly, and Starky for example, but there's another around 10 joke characters that add nothing to the plot or story and are just an underwhelming reward for some side quests, I couldn't even name you most of them if you asked and I used some of them for a while. I think the game would have greatly benefited from a smaller cast that is more connected with the overall plot, and it doesn't help that 99% of the characters basically all say the same thing in the plot with just different accents, so there's basically no reward for going out of your way to get the characters story wise. And gameplay wise? Well, now I would have to talk with my main issue with the game.

The game kind of sucks if we are talking about gameplay, it is at least very easy, so it's not frustating or anything, it's just not very engaging. How the game works is basically that every character, magic and enemy in the game has one of six elements. Each element has one weakness and resists itself. All magic in the game, with a few exceptions, can be equipped by everyone and freely removed at any time. The game is so easy there's no real reason to bother with that, and the damage increase isn't that significant either. Serge does so much damage with his physical attacks he could wail on most characters on his own, or you can use a summon and one shot most bosses. But either way, the game isn't very engaging.

Every character can equip every magic spell, so what differentiates characters? Well, each character gets 3 unique spells basically, as with all spells they can only be used once per battle on normal circumstances which means most of the time they are the same character. To make matters worse 99% of them are just "attacks one enemy/the enemy party", with the better characters just having some stronger ones or some unique strong equipment. There are stats differences, but basically all characters can be divided by whether they have high magic or high strength, this makes getting new party members very unappealing and there's basically only like 3 or so characters that stand out in any way. A bunch of characters that stand out for being bad and have no reason to use, I guess. To make matters worse, double and triple techs are basically gone from the game. They still exist via technicality, but to make it clear how few they are: Serge, the main character who is forced into the party the entire game has a total of one double tech, with an optional to get character (Who I didn't get bc I didn't choose his route) Because of this, I don't believe the cast of characters adds much replay value to the game, but thankfully the game has some route splits and a lot of small moments that vary depending on your actions that I think would make me willing to replay it, especially to get a stronger grasp on the plot.

Overall, I would say Chrono Cross is a very bold game that tries to be unique in ways that are still very astounding more than 20 years later, and I think it is definitely at least worth a shot to see a very different JRPG and see a different type of sequel than you would expect, with some strong plot and characters but gameplay that is a little disappointing.