The game is as perfect as any game can be. Get it, play it, repeat the last step.
But enough with the intro chatter; let's talk about the game.
Review for Chrono Cross can be made in only a few words: The game is as perfect as any game can be. Get it, play it, repeat the last step.
I'll take the longer approach in reviewing it, though, so let's get one thing straight first: I played Chrono Cross long before Chrono Trigger. At the time, I didn't even know or care that CT even existed. And I will review it without much regard to its predecessor.
It is quite safe to say that Chrono Cross is one of the most beautiful games ever made for PlayStation. Graphics are simply beautiful: pre-rendered backgrounds are superb, 3D character models are amazingly detailed, especially for a PS game, and CG animations are breathtaking. Magic effects are outstanding as well, and everything runs smoothly, without ever slowing down. Character portraits are nicely done too and are, in my opinion, much better than that of its prequel. I shudder to even think how Kid or Harle would look with a huge head, tiny face, pointy nose and that wicked smile. Heavens forbid!
The prettiness of Chrono Cross' graphic are only surpassed by its background music. Yasunori Mitsuda is truly a genius, having composed a huge number of amazing scores; some good, some better and some just pure epic! Every song fits its place perfectly, so a calm coastal village has a calm, acoustic melody that goes so well with the rhythm of the waves slowly washing ashore, the song for the world map indeed makes you feel as if you're aboard some ship, standing on the deck and feeling the cool breeze of wind as you sail along, and slow string-only theme that played during the most memorable battle I've ever seen in a videogame makes such amazing atmosphere and depth, that I get shivers down my spine every time I listen to it. Oh yes, there's also a bit of electric guitars in the soundtrack as well. Sound effects are quite nice as well, and the cutting sound of Serge's weapon doing a critical hit still makes me smile just by thinking at it. I'm smiling as I'm typing this.
There's not much to say about gameplay itself, I mean it's an RPG... You basically run around, talk to people and fight. But Chrono Cross does even that superbly. It feels like every person you talk to has their own personality, and they all have something to say, often quite funny, in a traditional Squaresoft way. You don't get offered too much choice in conversations, but usually when you do, the choice matters, so much that there are a few parts in the game that you can play differently, depending on the choices you take, or characters you take with you. Speaking of characters, there is a total of 45 playable characters, most of which you can get with a single playthrough, though to get the other few, you will have to beat the game more than once and make some different choices in the game, which shouldn't be that hard to do, considering that the game has multiple endings and a few parts that you can literally play in more than one way. Each character has its own personality, their own accent, and its own scripts for each situation, so different characters will say different things in certain areas, and will often have a small chat with NPCs if they know each other. There are also some special skills that some characters have, such as transforming into previously defeated monsters, or even evolving and changing shape over time, which all adds to diversity and gives a little something for everyone. Usually with so much characters, equipment can be a problem, but Chrono Cross does it smartly by dividing weapons and armors into certain categories so that all characters who use that type of equipment can use them. And speaking of equipment, you don't buy it in stores, rather you forge it from the items you get while fighting enemies, or disassembling existing equipment. You can also get armors and accessories from some battles. One other great thing is that every time you access the menu in game, you can change equipment for all the characters in your entire party, not just the three you are playing with at that moment, which is truly a great feature and eases things a lot. The same works for elements (magic) as well, which I'll explain more in a bit.
Battle systems are a huge part of any role playing game and Chrono Cross is not an exception. The one used in it is quite unique and I haven't seen anything like it before or since Chrono Cross. That is certainly not to say that it's bad, it's just unique. The basic premise is that you need to first attack your enemy physically, using one of the three attack types: weakest, medium and strongest, each with its own hit percentage. Successfully hitting the enemy builds your element level, which enables you to use elements to cast magic. What are elements, you ask? Well it's something a bit similar to materia from Final Fantasy VII, but unlike materia, each element has only one magic, which you can't level up (higher level magics come as different elements), and you don't put them into weapon and armor slots, rather into some virtual character slots that come with character levels. Each element has its own level and range in which you can put it, some being more restrictive than others, and depending on the slot you put it in, the magic can be stronger or weaker. For example, if you put 3rd level magic into 5th level slot, the magic cast from that element would be stronger. Elements are divided by color, each color representing a natural element, for example: fire is red, water is blue, earth is yellow, grass is green, holy is white and dark is black. There is much more to magic system, such as bonuses and penalties for opposing and same color, respectively, and even power boost when the whole field is painted in the same color, but I'll leave the details to be found by the reader whilst playing the game. The battles also features a few summons, also in the form of high level elements. But elements aren't the only ones with colors; both characters and monsters each have their own innate color, and a player would do well to be weary of it and paying attention as to how to use it best against enemies, and how to protect the characters when enemies attempt to use it against them. The trick about element is that one element can only be used once per battle, but that's not that big of a problem, since between the three characters, you're bound to have enough of them. And don't worry, they will be ready to serve you, refreshed, in the next battle. You can put almost any element on any character, with a few color restrictions, but basically, any character can play any role in a battle. Items are also used like elements, and they come in a group of five when put into element slots, the only difference in using them is that once you use them, they are gone. And there is one other great feature in the battle system that is very easy to get used to: the game offers you a way to heal after every battle, usually for free too. There are also some other kinds of elements that can help you around, such as the ones that turn the entire field into their color, or even elements that allow you to trap and steal enemy elements, some of which can only be obtained this way.
Apart from elements, each character will have one or more (most characters have three, by the end of the game) special skills and/or attacks they can use in battles, such as stealing or doppleganging, or just simple special attacking or healing. These skills are obtained usually through leveling up, though some characters get their third skill from story and some from special items. It is possible to combine skills from two or three characters and perform a few double and even a few triple techs, respectively, using these skills.
One of the things that also stand out from usual role playing games is that players don't get any kind of experience from battles. Instead, characters, or rather the party, level up after boss battles. It may sound strange, but it actually works quite well. You don't have to go around and grind like a fool to keep up - though by the same rule, you cannot be overpowering either; the game is balanced by default. But to keep it more interesting, after you level up, for the next few battles, your stats will improve somewhat, so it is a good practice to take your time and switch characters around so that they gain those bonuses, as they can help a lot in some harder boss battles.
The story is great. Unlike Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross doesn't involve time travel, rather parallel universes, which is literally a step into a different dimension, but the game does mix a lot of futuristic elements with typical fantasy setting, much similar to that in the game's prequel. There is a great balance between storytelling and battles, and you are not overwhelmed with neither, and if at times you don't feel like battling, chances are you won't even have to because you can actually see each monster on the screen and you can try to evade it and pass without fighting. And you can flee even from boss battles, after which you will be able to heal and reassign your elements before trying again. Apart from the main story, there are a fair amount of sidequests as well, especially if you want to get all characters, get all elements, best weapons and so forth. The game connects everything very well, so there isn't anything that you can do that sticks out from the rest.
Okay, now the bad stuff. Okay, now we're done. Okay, I'm kidding, but jokes to the side, I can't really find any real faults with the game. There are a few points that could be improved, but there are none that are really bad. For the sake of fairness, though, I'll mention some of the things that could perhaps be improved.
Firstly, on the global scale, I'm not all too satisfied how the story progressed towards the end of the game. I prefer a more humble and personal stories, the one not involving saving the entire universe. Chrono Cross' story isn't like that, but I believe that it gets a bit out of scale towards the very end, and I must admit that I was somewhat disappointed. Another thing worth mentioning is the amount of characters. 45 playable characters is quite a lot and it begs for validity and necessity of each one, and I admit that I found some of them to be unnecessary. But then again, what other game allowed you to play with a panther man, tiny alien, a glam-rock star, baby dragon, jester, mushroom-head man.... Need I go on? And it would be really nice if they featured more double and triple techs, with this number of characters, they really should have.
It kind of surprised me that a game that featured some of the most amazing scenes, such as having a great rock-ish concert and then saving an entire island from some weird monsters, as well as one of the most epic battles ever (at the end of the Dead Sea... you'll know what I'm talking about), kind of kicked a bit with the story behind the magic. I mean even Final Fantasy VII had a story for materia and it made some sense to be able to put them into weapons and armors, but Chrono Cross makes it a totally gaming thing, not really connected or really explained and made to fit the story.
But like most of its "problems", they are subjective. I suppose that not everyone can like everything, but I haven't found anything about Chrono Cross that I really disliked. It's as perfect a game as any could possibly be and I don't see it any other way than to give this game a score of 10.