“...you’ll find the sea to be vast, deep…full of strength and energy, yet kind and gentle.”
- Fisherman at the docks of Arni Village

Early on in my blind playthrough, I encountered an NPC who uttered those words to me and as I sailed the calm seas and battled my way across countless biomes, the quote resonated in my mind again. Even as I landed the final blow on the final boss I still felt it. Only when the end credits rolled around, did I realize. If I were to replace the word “sea” with “Chrono Cross(CC)” I feel the statement would still work.

The game is vast, but not to the point of a barrel of filler content. Vast in the sense there is enough to explore off the beaten path to satisfy those who want to take a break in the story, but also enough to hold your satisfaction from the beginning, middle, and end of the narrative. Deep in the themes conjured both subtly in NPC conversations and by important characters, you meet. Evoking thoughtful provoking questions as well as nuggets of lore. Occasionally, you may find a clue to your next destination to progress the plot. Without being too complex to comprehend. Full of strength and energy permeates every inch of my playthrough. Environments are eye candy and have every color in the rainbow I could think of. Settings come alive from forests, beaches, caves, jungles, and more! Each monster is carefully designed to fit in their natural habitat. So you won’t find a lava monster in a desert ya know? Or let's say a robot in an underwater cave. Heck, you won’t see fairies or dwarves in cities or towns!

So much kindness and gentleness In the music. Often I would close my eyes, listening to a new track I haven’t heard, and let the melody fill my soul with tranquility. Ahhh… I have to give props once again to Yasunori Mitsuda and more for gracing me with a beautiful soundtrack. This man does not miss. If I were to describe the whole soundtrack in as few words as possible. I would say. Upbeat, soulful, and mesmerizing. Like, I have been transported into the world of the tropical archipelago El Nido and every track felt so pleasing to grace my ears. Especially one track I want to drop. But, best to experience it in-game since it feels almost magical to hear. But for a taste listen to a small part from Etude 1. Other tracks I love are Arni Village - Home and Termina - Another which brought to mind powerful emotions to me. I could gush pages, but I'll keep it short. Resonant Arc describes it better than me. In How Music Moves Us. Plus the soundtrack within the Radical Dreamers edition is a refined one & rpgsite clarifies Square Enix’s vague response here “These tracks are not arrangements, but instead, these are simply cleaned-up versions of the original music with small adjustments to noise compression, equalization, etc. This is the only soundtrack found when actually playing the game, and you cannot toggle it.”


Gameplay is a mix of standard JRPG turn-based battles and exploration. Except you don’t have any levels to grind for. A blessing. Since it eliminates the grind. So, your party will naturally grow stat-wise as you defeat enemies. The main bread and butter for combat are the elements. Each character comes equipped with them. Though, you need to start filling up the slots by attacking enemies with melee. They must hit as well to count. No point in missing attacks. I recommend attacking foes with the first option during fights. The second and third options have a lower chance to hit and therefore miss, wasting an action. So spamming the first option can quickly fill the elemental slots. You don't get a full tank of elements out the gate. Think of them, like consumable spells. You can equip various spells onto each ally like healing, buffs, debuffs, attack, and attack all spells. Designated by six colored elements: red, green, blue, yellow, black, and white. As you win battles you can slot more elements onto each party member, the caveat is each time you use one during combat you cannot use them again. So no spamming willy-nilly. Players must carefully equip the right amount of elements to manage future battles while contending against enemies who can alter the field effect. Each time you or the enemy cast an element during a fight. A circle will change to correspond to the use of the spell. Let's use three fire attacks. The field effect transforms accordingly and in effect, my attacks with fire will become stronger. So, players should keep that in mind if a monster constantly uses water attacks. Perhaps I should transmute the field or an opposite element to counter their strong attacks.

Plenty of awesome quality of life(QOL) features that make the remaster very appealing. Auto-battle, fast-speed mode, and slow-speed mode are available. I don’t see slow-speed mode very often in other JRPG ports, but I have to admit the inclusion of it is useful to admire animations. Or literally, embrace a very slow playthrough. No random battles & battle boosts. These are welcome additions. The former is self-explanatory, the latter gives your whole party invincibility, all enemy attacks miss and you will have filled elemental slots that will never deplete until you turn off the option. These enhancements are a godsend for quickly defeating enemy mobs. Allowing players to move at a turbo pace. Ever so often, I felt the natural speed of the game was slow. So the QOL features greatly enhanced my experience making the combat system faster and eliminating the process of actively avoiding enemies in your field of view. Thereby, not wasting your time and effort. In my case, I was able to finish the game quicker than I initially thought from CC's How Long to Beat(HLTB) time. At just a little over twenty-three hours completing a decent amount of sidequests and recruiting a lot of characters too.

In addition to exploring, you can enlist new party members throughout your journey. Some of which are missable and non-missable. Reminds me heavily of the Suikoden series except you don’t have to recruit over a hundred people. Instead, you have forty-five possible units to join your merry band. It is important to note, you cannot enlist everyone from the get-go. A few can only be gathered in a New Game+ playthrough or using the “Continue +” option with multiple save files. They can range from the story one’s, you’ll gain naturally as you progress the plot. And others are tucked away in sidequests. More often than not, they're pretty straightforward to get them to join your crew, but others may take extra steps depending on their requirements. Revisiting them later on, to give an important key item, defeating a monster, battling them, or helping with a small or large task. Usually, if you see a unique portrait when speaking. Most likely, a new ally that can join you in the near or far future.

Battles are fair and balanced. Enemies didn’t feel absurdly difficult with outrageous health points and even in the final act, they were reasonably challenging. Not to the extent, I was battling against a sponge every chance I encountered an enemy. And as a result, the narrative moved at a comfortable pace, since I could adjust the speed at my leisure. Item drops, shops, and upgrading my equipment felt painless and easy. Didn't feel the urge to meticulously arrange new elements for my new allies since an option exists to auto-fill or auto-remove them.

Speaking of which, the story starts with the player controlling Serge, Kid, and one random companion coming outside of an elevator in a large stone fort. Kid will remark about Lynx’s day of reckoning which sums it up best. Your group must defeat Lynx in the fort. Why? What? How? Questions don’t matter for now. Once you finish your task at the fort, important events steadily rise. Forming an interesting pace, full of twists and sailing by turbulent storms and tides. Whether or not we succeed in defeating Lynx is a major device, the plot cleverly hides until an opportune moment. Surely more is underneath the simple objective to kill one man right? Well…

Yes! Yet, to go into further detail on what happens is to delve deeper into spoilers. And this review is a non-spoiler one. So I’ll move on. I'll talk about my mixed feelings about the remaster. Not a positive or a negative. But for the sake of transparency, I'm noting them down.

There is a point in the game, where major revelations are told to the player, and quite frankly a lot of JRPGs like to do this to varying degrees. CC is weird in that respect. Whereas their predecessor Chrono Trigger(CT). A title I played years ago and think fondly of. Executes the revelations in a condensed and easily digestible form in such a way, I feel a majority of players understand. Hence the reception. Here that also exists, although Masato Kato(The director and writer for CC) tries to bite off more than he can chew. The executions of said revelations make the impact of a certain point, a bit shaky and as a result, it’s not as strong as CT in that regard. Be that as it may, to play a devil's advocate(DA). I do applaud the bold move to tip the scales a tad to make CC rise above CT in ways. If we consider, the topic of ‘time travel’ in its entirety with all its aspects and subcategories can be a daunting task to link each thread. Other titles take a stab at the topic: FFXIII-2 delved into a pothole of time periods. Radiant Historia refined the aspect of producing a fresh product and palatable to newcomers. And while I haven't played 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim yet(Trust me, I'll get around to it someday). The countless praise I've heard deserves a spot here for time-travel stories worth looking into. So in a way, some parts could've been gently fed. Allowing the player to digest the revelations easily. Perhaps, less on lore dump, but further on the "show, don't tell" method.

As much as I’ve turned a 180 on the combat system long ago, I still have a small voice in my head saying it is possible newcomers will become confused. And I’ve consulted several friends of mine who had similar feelings. To this, I advise you to try it out first and experience it. If you’re having trouble, do what I did and undertake a tutorial battle against the chief in Arni Village. They explain all the terms, unique field effects, elemental usage, and attacks. Honestly, he did a good job explaining things and I can’t help wishing I had a machine to go back in time to slap my old self silly for quitting early on... Anyway, besides the combat, you can use QOL features to breeze fights and perhaps check out Before I Play on CC in case you want to know extra tips and maybe a spoiler-free missable guide for a first playthrough.

Some units' requirements to enlist them onto your party can be a bit vague on where to go or what to do. Perhaps a new location holds the key or clue to visit another location or converse with another NPC to progress further. I would scratch my head a bit and ponder my next course of action. Intermittently, I can take the loss and move on. The plot in the middle to the final act shares this dilemma as well. I only had to consult a walkthrough once since I became lost on where to go. But for the most part, important story characters will lead you in the right direction. Just try to remember what your next objective is. You may have an easier time than I did!

Usually, story units rather than the optional members, receive more spotlight in their backstory, relationships, and lore. And while I can understand this, I wish it was the same across the board. On the other hand, I did experience quite a decent chunk of noteworthy sidequests which delved deep into a couple of characters. Could be a "your mileage might vary" type of deal. Granted, if I were to play DA once again the added backstory, relationships, and quality sidequests would inflate the game's hours more. Maybe it's not a good idea to have every side character fleshed out... But the potential... Hmm…

Undoubtedly, the question of whether or not you need to play Chrono Trigger will spring up. Maybe. Chrono Cross plays safely enough without the knowledge of CT. Hell the director states it! However, playing the first entry, rewards players with important lore from their predecessor. Constructing a sort of foundation for players to settle upon and see once they play CC. Providing context as to how and why the events that occur. And perhaps enhance their experience. So I'm on both sides if you played CT or not before playing CC. Like their predecessor, there are multiple endings here. So if you were unable to earn the true ending in the first go. You can see it via youtube. So don't worry if the ending you obtained felt meh. I didn't see it in my blind first playthrough, so I searched for the true ending online. Literally ten times better than the garbage ending I got. I facepalmed so hard, once I saw the requirements to achieve it.

That’s it for my mixed feelings. Quite frankly, I mainly had a lot of upsides and hardly any downsides when playing. I didn’t have any crashes on my switch version. No serious or minor bugs either. I did come across the analog stick, rarely taking me out of engagements by accidentally pressing the "runaway option," nonetheless, I was able to restart the battle swiftly without much progress lost. The remaster performs as expected without any notable issues. The last update improved the fps and bug fixes. So I think I can safely say the Radical Dreamers edition is a safe recommendation to start your playthrough versus the old version. Even comes packaged with the never before released outside Japan until now. English visual novel(VN) called Radical Dreamers. A short side-story to CT and precursor to CC took me less than three hours to complete and while labeled as a non-canon. I greatly appreciate the extra backstory, and moments shared between Serge, Kid, and Magil. Though, I didn't like the random encounters during some sections. Seemed too forced to make it a bit of a struggle to fight against. Despite the troublesome encounters, I liked the music and the decisions you make. I also think it's a nice way for Chrono fans who want to experience it before/after playing CC. Since the remaster added a new hidden-post credits scene. Only activating once you finish both games and hit the credits option in the menu. The scene left me in a state of bewilderment and excitement. And as much as I want to delve more into that. It's time to end this review since it's getting too long.

Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition. Is one of the finest JRPGs I’ve had the pleasure of playing. Masato Kato and his team have accomplished the impossible by bringing back a skeptical one who thought they could not top Chrono Trigger. Yet, it does in several ways. The mix of recruiting allies as you progress the narrative is a fascinating take from the Suikoden formula and my journey was full of laughter and seriousness to top it all. Succeeds in balancing an enjoyable gameplay mix of exploring, recruiting, and battling in aesthetically pleasing environments accompanied by a refined soundtrack from Mitsuda. And filled to the barrel full of charm, wit, and a likable cast. Worthwhile sidequests with plenty of optional content to fill your belly. A vibrant visual style makes full use of the color palette. Enriching every dungeon, town, overworld, creature, and the main cast. While the plot can make or break it for some. It holds steady in the sea due to the elements above holding the boat up high. So give it a shot and don’tcha be afraid of starting. A must-play for any JRPG fan or newcomer to the genre.

Score: 9.5/10


For those curious. The fisherman did have some more lines to say which I find fascinating in contrast to what he said initially.

“But, once it becomes angry, it can turn into the most frightening monster you’ve ever seen, engulfing everything…”

“Close your eyes and prick up your ears.”

“Can you hear the cries of countless men swallowed by the sea? The hidden secret the sea whispers?”

“I recommend you learn to sense the mood of the sea. That’s if you don’t want to join the fellows already on the bottom.
- Fisherman at the docks of Arni Village

"It's good, for an NES game."

I see stuff like this a bunch, and to be honest it kinda sucks. I know as someone whose first system was the NES it may be hard to take my opinion seriously on such matters, as often this horrible thing called "nostalgia" clouds our vision of the true quality of games from our childhood. There's however a massive problem with this potential accusation towards me and Castlevania. I didn't grow up with it. My dad never owned it, and none of my friends had it for their consoles. Hell, I don't think I even knew what a "Castlevania" was until I read an issue of GamePRO with Castlevania 64 news in it.

There is no demented ghost voice or evil rabbit on my shoulder to go "oooOOOOOooo, tell them the game is good tho!" to everyone like with Crash Bandicoot 1 or something, even when they list valid and fair criticism as opposed to some hack using completely fake dribble like "Crash's cry of "WOAH" upon death disrupts my Netflix viewing experience" or some shit. That just simply doesn't exist for me here, because I didn't play this until I got emulation going on my PSP. As a matter of fact, may I perhaps offer a hot take? It's a take so hot that if you have central air in your home it'll probably kick on as soon you read it.

Belmont movement fucking rules.

Loose movement is neat, but the feel of me playing as someone who seems to be made of concrete and falls like they're under the effect of ten times normal Earth gravity does nothing but satisfy me as I land from a jump like a ton of bricks. Methodical platforming is my crack, to hell with that fast bullshit, I want to slowly strut my stuff and have to deal with the consequences of my actions if I don't think five seconds ahead.

From beginning to end, from Simon walking up to the front gates in that little intro cutscene and fighting the giant bat that reminds me of Golbat, to the very end when I send Dracula's head straight to Saturn and get rewarded with the shitpost credits brightening my day with "James Banana" and "Green Stranger" it never fails to entertain and I never tire of it. To say I could replay this X amount of times and never have second thoughts on doing so is as rare as the Jackalope for me, there are plenty of games in the same high end of my "enjoyment" spectrum that I can't say that about.

"Spyro on PS1? Sorry my friend, perhaps another time."
"Pokemon randomizer nuzlocke? Not feeling it."
"Shitty fighting games? Maybe next weekend."
"...Castlevania? Sure, I got thirty minutes to kill."

It's actually slightly difficult to resist the temptation of another playthrough upon viewing my list of completely-legal-and-dumped-myself NES games on my everdrive. Is a game that is infinitely replayable and only more enjoyable as you master it not the perfect game? Maybe if it came with cup holders and a winning lottery ticket it could be "perfect", but as it stands Castlevania to me gets as close as it gets. As some people say "good things come in small packages" or something, I guess they still say that.

Legendary.

Sorry for my random ramble, it was just something I was thinking on as I was replaying this for the 700th time as I was doing my laundry. NES games rule.