Instead of dancing around the fact that this is a sequel to chrono trigger let’s embrace and define what made made it special to everyone because it's hard for me not to talk about it when comparing and contrasting. To someone who might not have played a lot of RPGs, pretty much everything about the game would stand out to them and realistically they wouldn't be able to realize what actually made it special because they haven't played the games that lead to it's creation, namely final fantasy and dragon quest. I'm not going to act like trigger had an incredible story or cast of characters, because it didn't. It was fine it had it's moments and it wasn't bad by any means but it was refined, a word I could use to define the entirety of the game. I'm also not going to act like a lot of what trigger did wasn't done before, because pretty much everything was done before and it's a common misconception and because of the lack of knowledge people have everyone acts like it's the best without actually realizing it, or at least that's the conclusion I came to.

It's important to look at chrono trigger as a meta-analysis for rpgs which sounds extremely fucking pretentious and trust me it is but it means combining the efforts and work of many others work and making it one big easily digestible whole for everyone to enjoy. I loathe yapping about trigger as much as i do like and respect it but i had to get it out of the way before i started talking about this gem

What confused me about chrono cross is that all i've ever heard about it is a bunch of 50/50 bullshit where people either love it or hate it. I'm sitting here playing this fucking game and all im experiencing is what made trigger special and then some. By that i mean the meta-analysis bullshit i mentioned except it expanded on it and made everything it did even better. I'm talking about the extremely minute shit like running from boss battles, something I wouldn't have even noticed until I accidentally pressed the button and feared that I wasted a turn, only to find out that it backed me out of the fight and pulled up the menu screen so I could reorganize my magic and heal. Normally I would say that this is making the game far too easy, but because the game doesn't have a conventional leveling system it forces you to learn the combat and utilize your tools. It doesn't want you to lose 2 hours of progress unless you're a dumb ass and forgot the option to run existed because you're burned from horribly designed 90s rpgs that work against you, it wants you to learn and have fun. That is true accessibility beyond yellow paint and map markers

I can understand why it's combat might not be for everyone, because it really is jarring at first and makes little to no sense but once you understand the system it fucking rocks. I ended up liking it just as much as triggers once more magic spots opened up on my characters. What I don't understand is why the fuck people hate this story. You guys actually fucking suck for telling me it was bad stop with the horrible follow up to chrono trigger brainwashing and take the updated media literacy test. The test is enjoying this game and the price of failing is your backloggd account which will get removed if you type the words "bad follow up to chrono trigger" in your review. I think if this game had the same art style as trigger there would have been no controversy or bad follow up bullshit to be heard and everyone would have loved this game just as much if not more