I came to Chrono Cross ready to be in love, having seen its art direction and heard its wonderful music for years. Unfortunately, what I found was that every facet of Chrono Cross's story and gameplay feels like it was failed by an editor. The writers needed someone to trim the fat and point out that maybe multiple big reveals at the end of the game would be more impactful if any time was spent with the player to offer them emotional weight. The game designers needed someone to look at the concept of changing out elemental spells to fight specific bosses and suggest "will this not be extremely tedious when there are 30 spell slots and 60 characters you may be switching in and out of your party?" Instead, we were left with a mess of a game memorable only because of its art and character design & it's incredible soundtrack. In other words, I enjoyed Chrono Cross most before I'd played it.