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?